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Thought I'd post a couple just to prove what no one will remember later - like all this hair on the back of her head (no one can remember for sure if Lexi had any, but the general consensus is no, and Mason definitely did). And although I didn't get a picture of it, she has the beginning of a NASTY cowlick on the right side of her forehead - she will probably fight that all her life!



And here is a BIG foot hooked to a really skinny leg - and yes, her little toes are on sideways. For those who don't know this juicy little tidbit, Christa's girls are at least the fourth consecutive generation of women to have this lovely trait. Interestingly (and lucky for him), Mason's feet don't look anything like ours.



Here's Brenda holding her at the hospital yesterday. Brenda and I wore out Lexi and Mason this morning hitting all the clearance racks all over town for newborn summer stuff (Lexi was born in January - darn I had to go shopping). We took them to the McDonald's play place for a treat, and the second time up the tube I heard Lexi say, "What's a matter Mason? Are you scared of the poop?" WHAT????????? I told them to come on down the slide for a snack (don't worry we washed first) and told the manager, who came in and interrogated Lexi about where and what and how much ... she gave him all the graphic details, but I won't repeat them here (you're welcome). [EDIT: Neither Lexi nor Mason pooped in the slide! Greg pointed out that it could be read that way! No, Lexi just discovered and announced (thankfully) some OTHER kid's poop that was left behind for us.] Needless to say we left and went to the mall to play instead where all the toys are totally visible. That might be the end of "invisible" play places for me.



This is actually the first moment the "big kids" saw her yesterday - it was so incredibly sweet to see.



They are all home safe and sound and settling in this evening. Actually we have Mason here, as Lexi obviously needs some Mommy and Daddy time. Not surprisingly she has some "adjusting" to do and it is coming out in some not-so-charming ways. My heart goes out to her, I'm just praying it will be a quick process for her. She adores Callie, and loves to help Mommy with her, it's just the other 23 hours that are a problem!

From an overflowing heart ...

This Psalm pretty much sums up the miracle and wonder of the new life we behold in Callie, and the way God cares for each of us as we go along our way. I think of Christa and J over the past two days especially in verses 5-6 and 9-10, and of Callie in verses 13-16. What an awesome God we serve.

From Psalm 139:

1 O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.

2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.

3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.

4 Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.

5 You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.

7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, [a] you are there.

9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,

10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"

12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!

And the sibs:

Lexi was amazingly sweet and involved and helpful, exclaiming over her tiny fingers, petting her, covering her up, trying to give her the pacifier, and so on. I love this picture of Christa encircling both her girls as she hands Callie to Lexi for the first time.



And Mason was, well, Mason. A little violent, ripping her socks off and slamming her hat on, but definitely interested! For a minute. Then he wasn't. What fun it's going to be watching them all grow together!

Callie Anne Kuchta

It's a girl!!!!! What a surprise - it was very cool not to know until the end, and most folks thought it was a boy so that made it even more fun. She was born at 9:02 p.m. last night, Wednesday August 22nd, and was 7 lbs 14 oz and 20 inches long. Black hair and HUGE feet are the first noticeable features ... except that she looks just like Lexi did! Can't wait to see her today to see if the resemblance is as strong as we think it is - little ball chin, cupid lips, precious. This beautiful picture was taken about 30 minutes after she was born.

It was a very long day - they broke her water and started the pitocin about 9 a.m., Christa was well on her way to monster contractions and asked for her epidural about 2:00. They stopped the pitocin to give her the epidural, and the machine malfunctioned so she was off the pitocin for two hours, during which time her contractions stopped completely. Then they had to start her over at the smallest dose so she basically lost the whole morning.

At about 6:00 p.m. she was so frustrated and discouraged - she was still only 3 cm and very posterior, which makes the dilation slow and had to change dramatically for things to progress. She was beginning to fear a c-section - once her water was broken she had to have the baby within 24 hours one way or another. We gathered round the bed and prayed for God to intervene, and He answered immediately! He contractions picked up and became strong and regular, the next check (a few minutes later) found her at almost 4 cm and ANTERIOR!! Thank you God! It was so amazing to have an immediate and clear response to our prayers.

Things got exciting after that - at 7:40 she was 5 cm, then she went from 5 cm to 8 cm to 10 cm in an hour. At 8:45 the nurse came in to "chat" - I felt so uncomfortable (in my "Mom spirit"), I couldn't sit still even though Christa said she didn't feel like she needed to push (I kept asking, annoyed her I'm sure.) Finally I asked her if she would let the nurse check her just to make me feel better! :) She said yes, told me she really loved me to let this happen, and yikes, the baby was RIGHT THERE! We left the room as the preparations began in earnest and she had to hold back the pushes until the doctor got there to catch the baby. She pushed four times and HELLO CALLIE!!

Lovely day. Can't wait to see her again today and to see Lexi and Mason with her. Lexi will be so happy to have a baby sister, although she is so set on calling her "Magenta" that she cried Tuesday when Christa told her that wasn't the name Mommy and Daddy had picked out. (If it was a boy she was going to name him "Popper." Where DOES she get this stuff?)

More pictures soon, I promise!!

Drum roll please ....

As promised, Christa in all her splendor, patiently waiting, glowing with pregnancy ... ok I'll stop now. We just came home from IHOP, which is where we have our traditional pre-baby breakfast, usually on the morning she goes to the hospital. But she's going in tonight, so we had to move it up a bit - we certainly weren't going to miss it! Last minute preparations are well underway, to say the least. :)

Here are a few cute ones I took yesterday afternoon:

200th post!

Just noticed that as I was logging in - do I get a free toaster or something?

Last night Lexi came over for a bit, so that Mommy and Daddy could have some one-on-one time with Mason before the baby comes. One of the things we did was watch part of this Scooby Doo movie - I just loved Scooby Doo cartoons when I was a kid! - and at one point she exclaimed, "Whoa! That was really skeepy!" Huh? I asked her what she meant ... "Kinda like scary AND creepy, Nini!" Of course, I should have known.

Here she is with her Great-great Uncle Donny (Linda's brother) and GG Aunt Janice in Omaha last weekend. She and I met Linda for a family reunion there, and she was so good. She stole the hearts of all the old men, and most of the rest of us as well. Uncle Donny and Uncle Dick tried to flip a coin to see who got to take her home. :) WRONG!

On the way home I asked her what her favorite part of the weekend was (we went to the zoo and did lots of fun things) and she thought for a minute, then said "My favorite part of our trip was sleeping with YOU Nini!!" We truly could have shared a twin bed both nights, but guess what ... it was my favorite part too, Lexi!

What's the fine for blog neglect??

I confess, I've been a TERRIBLE blogger this summer!! No excuse, so I'll just take the plea bargain I guess.

It is so stinkin' hot here. Well over 90, into the 100's, with heat indexes out of control ... makes me lethargic and cranky. I'm ready for a cold front, for sure!!

I've been training with J.R. 2-3 days a week for a month now - can't tell by the scale, in fact I put it away because it was seriously ticking me off - but I have tons more energy, my back feels incredibly better, and I've noticed a number of ways my strength has improved. Last night I was rubbing a knot out of Greg's neck, something I've always been quite wimpy about apparently, and he exclaimed, "Go girl! Where have you been all my life!" So I much be gaining strength somewhere. My fingers weren't necessarily where I was hoping to notice it first but I'll take what I can get. :) Seriously, he is doing an amazing job and even though it's really hard I look forward to going every time. He's got the perfect personality and skill set for this and I am so happy to get to watch him get his feet under him so quickly as I sweat sweat sweat!

Christa is still pregnant. That might sound like a "no duh", but we've had an interesting week! She had contractions for 36 hours straight Wednesday and Thursday, 5 minutes apart for more than 24 hours. Despite walking for hours, cleaning two houses, doing dozens of wall squats (and oh yeah, a pedicure in there somewhere too) with Brenda and I, she is definitely still pregnant. The contractions stopped sometime during last night, and now we are back to normal life and waiting for next Wednesday, when she will be induced as scheduled all along. Leave it to Christa to make things exciting, right?

I'm sure I've taken dozens of pictures of the kids in the last couple of months ... I promise to dig through them and post some soon! And of course pictures of the new baby just as soon as I can!!

Post from Alex

My nine year old nephew Alex is visiting today and tomorrow, and he took the pictures and wrote the blog entry that follows - in other words, he has my permission to take over my blog today!!

From Alex:

A SIZE TOO BIG

This hapened when me,Lexi and Mason were at the house. I took my shoe's off downstairs and next thing you know there's Mason with my shoe's on! That same day Lexi got in trouble but it took 20 minutes to do her 3 minute timeout! When her daddy came he asked her "what did you do today?" and she said "I worked really,really hard on listening......but I didn't."




THE JAGUAR FLIP

A couple of weeks ago we were at the play place at the Mall. Lexi suddenly jumped off the top of one of the play structures, a waterfall, and landed on her hands and knees. She immediately screamed, and it was not your ordinary scream, something seemed really wrong. She ran over to her mom and climbed up on (what's left of) her lap, and cried and cried. As she was sobbing, she said, "I ... was ... just ... trying ... to ... do ... a .... jaguar flip!!"

We took her to the urgent care, and the doctor asked her what happened. She said, matter of factly, "I jumped off the pwetend waterfall and tried to do a jaguar fwip!!" The good news was that it wasn't broken, just sprained. A few days later Aunt Angie asked her "What is a jaguar flip anyway?" Her answer -- "I don't KNOW!"