Baby is a........

....nother GIRL! We had the ultrasound today and all looked good except she mentioned something looked a little irregular about my placenta but the baby looks good now, so they'll just add two more ultrasounds to make sure things continue well. Jason saw it first, before the ultrasound technician said anything, and he said "Oh boy!" since he saw it was a girl and he was in for being outnumbered, and the technician said, "Actually, it's a girl!"

I'm 5 months along now and feeling great! 

30+ new photos are shared in our album here.

Father's Day

There has been a flurry of activities since we last posted.  Sorry for the delay.  We've updated a few photos in our family album you can see here.  We spent two weekends in Ellensburg, and one weekend in Edwall. We have been on 4 hikes so far this year, making an effort to our goal of 12.  We helped Jill's Gramps move to a new home one weekend, and another weekend we had to do research for buying a replacement to our faithful Explorer (Edwardo) that just had it's transmission go out.  We have also been busy doing stuff around the house and activities with our church.  Jason has recently transitioned to a slightly different position at Boeing that he is looking forward too.  This weekend we ventured over to visit the new American Car Museum in Tacoma.  That was pretty cool.  Evelyn is growing up so fast and her little personality is starting to come out more and more.   That is all for now, more later you can be sure.

Easter!

We had a fun day today celebrating Christ's resurrection. Brett & Angela came over for a ham dinner and we also had a little egg hunt for Evelyn. We had to convince her to pick up eggs and put them in her basket at first, but once she found out there were little treats inside, that motivated her to keep going. What a silly tradition she must have thought--why do these eggs have food inside them and why are they outside? It was quite fun to watch. She'll probably expect them to be there again the next time we go outside:) Here are more pictures.

Kitty & Laughing Videos

Evelyn is chasing Patches, the resident kitty at the nursing home where Great Grandma Klein is staying. She got quite a kick out of following kitty around!

Evelyn and cousin Haley laughing & playing together in Hawaii.

Evelyn's First Independant Step

Today is Jill's Birthday!  My lovely wife appreciates all the well wishes, cards, calls, and face book messages you all sent.  We are all blessed by your love and friendship.  As promised to a few, I want to share these videos captured yesterday.  Evelyn just decided she was ready to walk all by herself.  None of this holding on to people's hands stuff!

This last week Seattle made national news due to some unusually high amounts of snowfall and followed up with an ice storm.  Some on the radio and at work were calling it Snomaggedon 2012.  I worked from home on Wednesday, but managed to make the commute the last two days of the week without incident.  Jill took this pretty picture to the left on Thursday.  That pretty ice caused a lot of damage.  Lots of trees and bushes were broken by it's weight.  This caused many communities to loose power.  One of our friends we visited today still doesn't have power and no word when it might be restored.

Without further adieu, here are the promised videos:

Note, if your receiving this as an email and the links don't work.  You may need to visit our blog.

Happy New Year!

Well, it has been some time since we last updated.  I suppose that is due to the busyness that surrounds us all in late November and December. We had quite a fun time with both sides of the family, getting to spend Christmas at the farm and New Year's in Ellensburg.  Evelyn turned one and we celebrated three times, with each family and my sister, husband and nieces, so I think she's getting used to us singing happy birthday to her:). She's a very dainty eater and had her first experience with cupcakes and cake but didn't gobble them up--we'll see what happens when she celebrates with Emma in February!

She's still working on walking but has mastered crawling downstairs feet first and is getting faster at it--she likes to throw down toys, watch them roll to the bottom, then crawl back up to get them. We did that several times today:)

Below are some fun videos, and be sure to check out the latest additions to the album HERE.

We Have A Crawler!

Well, Evelyn's officially a crawler as of Saturday--she took off after a dryer sheet and is now freely exploring where she wants (unless mama or dada stops her from going where she shouldn't!). We're going to have to get a gate up for the stairs soon! Another first is a real word: Dada! She was squealing at a picture of him in her room on Monday and I asked "Who is that, Evelyn?" She said "Dada, Dada." It was quite fun. She likes to use her little pointer finger to show us what she's looking at.

This week seems to be a momentous one as she also obeyed us with the 'no touch' comment for the first time--3 times in one day! Now we know she understands that! But she still struggles with it as the next day wasn't so good:) She used a fork today to feed herself, with some help getting the peach bits onto it and was quite proud of herself as she started clapping after each bite, causing her fork to fly which confused her a little.

This picture is when we visited a family pumpkin farm in Enumclaw two weekends ago. She had a fun time helping daddy pick out the perfect pumpkins, petting the animals, blowing some big bubbles, playing with her friend Caleb and watching mommy do the apple sling shot.

Summer is Over?

Not quite. It has actually been the warmest weather of the year so far. We've got the fans going right now to try and cool the house down (right now about 80 degrees). I've uploaded a few photos you can view HERE. Here are a few new videos too:





That last one was pretty recent. It's my new favorite noise she is making!

It's Heeerrree!

We couldn't capture a picture of it, but Evelyn's first tooth broke through yesterday! It arrived after a day of mbaa-mbaa-mbaa-mbaa-mbaa's (we'll post a video). What a trooper--she hasn't been too fussy yet, but there are still many more teeth to come.

Some other new happenings with her over the last month: lots of laughs and giggles, she's a sitter and quite the roller, waving sometimes with one hand (we're not sure if it means 'all finished' like the sign we're teaching her, or 'hello/byebye'), her new sounds are blowing and 'tsss' and her favorite toy of the last month and a half are straps and tags.

When we were down at Black Butte Ranch with Jill's family, Evelyn also had her first experience in a pool. She wasn't so sure about it at first, but by the end she liked it and was splashing herself and others:)

Last weekend we took a short trip on the Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad and had a neat little ride on a steam train to a lake. It was a fun ride, but not as scenic as we'd hoped. This weekend we're headed to the farm for Evelyn's first harvest experience!

 

Here's a good Daddy/Daughter pic I wanted to share:

Evelyn Videos

Here are two videos of Evelyn that we did several weeks ago.  They are already kind of outdated, but they are still entertaining.  I'll try to get some more videos and photos up soon!

Summer! Weeeee!

It's officially the middle of summer, and we had a big adventure a few weeks ago--Evelyn's first long vacation! For the 4th of July, we went over to Edwall to spend time with Jason's folks and family for a week of relaxing by the lake, hanging out at the farm, enjoying the warm weather, finishing off with her first camping trip! We went up to Priest Lake, and had some pretty yummy camping food with Grant & Jess heading it up and bringing most of the equipment, and hiked to a neat river and caught a glimpse of a few mountain goats--what a pretty area. We all had a blast (not to mention some pretty crazy ones on the 4th!) and got some much needed sunshine and dry weather.

She's 6 1/2 months and here are some highlights of her happenings over the last month: she's sleeping mostly on her tummy, enjoys sucking her thumb on occasion, exploring 'O' sounds, smiling & laughing (you never know what will trigger her giggles: hiccups, tickles & plastic bags to name a few:), lots of standing & jumping when held, chewing on straps and pretty much anything, trying new solids here and there (sweet potatoes are her favorite right now), and now can sit by herself for periods of time! Whew, she's one fun little girl!

5 Months Old

Hey guys, guess what? It's my five month birthday! I can hardly believe it, I seem to be growing so fast. I love moving and last month I learned to roll over both sides but haven't figured how to go from my front to back, I like tummy time so much. At the beginning of the month, I let out my first chuckle. Now Mommy and Dadda can make me laugh quite a bit, usually with some sort of tickling.

I like to taste everything I can grab and usually chew on it since my gums have been bothering me practically this whole month. I'm not sure, but I think I may be getting those white things that Mommy and Daddy use to chew stuff that goes in their mouth. I've been watching intently, hoping they'll let me try that soon. It's fascinating.

Some other new things I've been trying is sitting by myself for longer periods of time in the Bumbo, sitting/standing in the walker, and bouncing in the Johnny Jump-Up. It's really fun to get a feel for using my legs. I love watching kids, but pretty much anyone can get me to smile. Maybe next time Mommy posts, I'll show a white "tooth" in my grin?

Almost 4 months!

Whew! It's been too long since we've written--Evelyn is already almost 4 months old! She's changing so much each day and keeps getting more fun. We like to play on the floor sometimes and see how much talking and kicking we can get out of her.

She's cooing more and squeals with delight when Dadda lifts her over his head like an airplane. He likes to experiment with her and try new things, like sit in the Bumbo to see how long she can hold her head up by herself. She's getting better, but still not ready to sit in it by herself for awhile. Her 4 month checkup will be next week where we'll see how much she weighs, she feels so heavy! We're getting a workout when we hold her:) At her last checkup, 2 months, she was off the charts for height and in the 80th percentile for weight, but we think that's because she's so long. She's been wearing her new diapers for awhile now, the reusable ones, and seems to like them. She's had fun meeting more family and playing with her cousins Haley and Emma in Issaquah now and then. She's well-traveled having visited 3 states, meeting new friends and going to two weddings and is quite the trooper!

She's a happy little girl and we can't get enough of her!

5 Weeks!

Has it already been 5 weeks since we brought little Evelyn home?! Wow, it seems like just yesterday I was dreading what labor might be like. But she's already over a month old and probably over 9 lbs by now though fairly long & lean. She's flirting with giving more smiles (the majority of them are when she's sleepy right now), sleeping a bit longer in the night, developing more rolls and has grown out of the newborn outfits.

There's still a ways to go before re-entering the world of cloth diapers though, as today was the maiden voyage of one unlucky tester. We found out the hard way that her thighs probably need to be a bit chunkier before we try them out again. Two big squirts (of poo) and it escaped out the leg and was soaking through her newly washed outfit.

Last week she was so thrilled at meeting her new cousin, Emma after she was born 4 weeks after her! Alison and Dustin welcomed their second cute daughter and we were surprised to see how much Evelyn had grown already--she dwarfed Emma! It probably won't be long before she passes Evelyn up though as Haley packed on the pounds healthily by the first month mark:)

She's excited to see what's in store in the next month and meet all her family & friends she hasn't had the chance to see yet!

1st Week Home

Well, our first week home has passed. We have survived, much to the help of Jan, Jill's mother staying with us! We spent 4 out of the 5 week days this last week at the doctors office or hospital. The final day being Friday, the day Jill got her follow up appointment from the transfusion. I am pleased to report that her blood pressure is now much closer to normal. I don't recall the exact number but it was 130 something over 80 something. She continues to heal and her strength is coming back to her. Thank you all for your prayers, they certainly were an encouragement in a time of uncertainty.

Baby Evelyn continues her cycle of sleeping, eating, pooping [repeat]. Her umbilical cord just fell off yesterday without any drama. It has been fun to catch some glimpses of her smile. She seems to do it involuntarily just as she is drifting off into baby dreams. I would also like take a moment at this time to proclaim: I am a swaddling expert. I think I could swaddle about anything. Changing diapers is another story. I haven't perfected the art of holding the wildly flailing feet and wiping at the same time. Jill usually needs to help me. Also I have made an observation, I'm afraid she slept through the EWU championship win 2 nights ago, and the Seahawks surprise win yesterday. So, I'm sure if she is the sports fan her mothers side of the family would like her to be. Time will tell. It is all good though, we both feel blessed to have what seems to be (to us novices) a pretty easy baby.

Happy New Year!

Jill and I would like to introduce to you the new member in our family. Little Evelyn Josephine Bishop was born early in the morning of December 30th at 2:45 AM. She was born 7lbs 7oz, and 20in long. She has a beautiful pair of peepers that love to explore her surroundings, a healthy appetite and set of lungs, and a full head of light brown hair. Here is a little more background to her story of how she came into this world.

We went to the doctor's office (10:30 AM, Tuesday, 12/28) for what we thought was going to be a routine visit. All proceeded as normal until the midwife (Kirstin) took Jill's blood pressure. It was abnormally high, so she took it a second time with a similar result. Kirstin was concerned and sent us to triage at the birth center in the hospital. They did a blood and a urine test, as well as a few more blood pressure checks. After the results came back early in the afternoon, they sent us home and told Jill she would need to remain on bed rest until the next appointment. Well, shortly after we got home we got a call back from the office and they asked us to come back in. After further discussion with some doctors, apparently they wanted us back in to be monitored over night.

Later that evening (Tuesday) they diagnosed Jill with pre-eclampsia. The only cure for this condition is to deliver the baby, so they started giving her some medication to try and induce labor, first a cervix ripener. This didn't seem to have much of an effect that evening and Wednesday morning, when the therapy resumed. Later that morning, they tried the medication Pitocin. As we were nearing evening, there didn't seem to be much change due to the induction, so they were talking about inserting a manual cervix expander over night, but suggested that she take a shower and get ready for bed. She did, and while drying off, her water naturally broke at about 8:15pm (Wednesday).

At around 9:00 PM contractions started. By 10:30 PM Jill was clearly having to "work through" each contraction. Around 12:00 the blood pressure wasn't looking so good, and they made her lay down on her side through the rest of the labor process. At 1:15 AM, Thursday morning, she had dilated to 5-6 cm. It was near this time Kirsten (the midwife) talked with Jill about lowering her blood pressure with either magnesium (which is used to prevent seizures in high blood pressure cases) or an epidural. After consulting with the doctor on call she recommended the magnesium. I'm pretty sure they also took into consideration Jill's desire to have a natural and/or pain medication free birth.

When checked again at 2:20 AM, she was 10 cm and Kirsten suggested Jill should push. About 5 contractions and one final push later, at 2:42 AM, Evelyn was born! Wow, on a personal note, I've never seen anything like that before in my life. I don't honestly don't know how she did it. Amazing, I'm very proud of her. I still don't understand the physics of what happened... I'll try not to think about it too much.

So, anyway... The down side to magnesium was that it gave her flu like symptoms, and probably helped cause some blood loss problems. It can hamper the uterus from contracting after delivery, which would normally stop the blood flow. Jill, lost a lot of blood over the next day and blood tests were showing that her hemoglobin count was down significantly. They offered her the options of a slow recovery with iron supplements and LOTS of rest or a blood transfusion. She chose the former.

Yesterday on 1/1/11 we had the pleasure of leaving the hospital and returning to our home with our little bundled baby. We had some visitors at the hospital, but we are trying to keep that to a minimum to ensure momma gets lots of rest in her anemic condition. Jill's mom is staying with us for a few weeks this next month and I'll have 2 weeks to take off too.

Phew what a ride! We are getting the shock treatment of adapting to a newborn baby's sleep/feed/poop cycle and doing well so far.

Baby is doing great. She seems to be pretty mild-mannered so far. She doesn't like tooting and loves to look around the room when she is awake (which is rare). I'm looking forward to more play time in the future, right now it seems to be a lot of sleeping (more during the day, less at night). Sorry for the long length. Oh, and you can see some photos we'll keep posting to this album HERE if you would like.

We'll try to find time to keep you updated in the future!

Next Chapter

Well, our time here in Australia has come to a close. It is hard to believe that four and a half months has already passed. It is hard to describe, but our time spent here seems to have been both short and long (if such a paradox is possible). The sunset photo on the left was taken from our apartment and is looking down the boardwalk we walked uncountable times.

Our time here has been filled with fantastic memories and we both feel very fortunate to have been afforded such an opportunity. We will miss the new friends we have made, our little home in the Docklands, the weekend outings, and the distinct Aussie culture. My experience at work is equally valued. I feel like I made an impact and my assistance was appreciated. I learned a lot from my time spent there as well.

We also look forward to returning to our home and are very appreciative for the Trceziak family for being able to house sit for us. Most of all we are excited to see all of you again! With little baby on the way and the holidays rapidly approaching, we have quite a few things to do before her arrival into this world.

Well, off to the airport! God bless, and we'll see you soon.

Mountain Top

Last week Jason's parents joined us in Australia and Saturday we attempted to check out Craig's Hut first-hand (The Man from Snowy River), which is a few hours from Melbourne. We made it up to the mountain, but were disappointed to find the dirt road to the hut was closed from a mudslide. We made the most of our day though and took a short hike/walk to the top of Mt. Buller, Victoria's most popular "ski field" where we had beautiful views of the valley below and the high country of where they shot some of the movies. We also watched several old & new cars that were in a rally speed by (which closed the road we needed to get back down on).

The next day we went to visit the native animals of Australia at Healesville Sanctuary, drove through the pretty hill country of the Dandenong mountains and stopped to feed these parrots including some other varieties and larger cockatoos.

This week has been a busy one with packing up our shipment to be picked up today and preparing to fly home next Thursday. Yesterday we had a fun last visit with the doctor and checked out baby again with an ultrasound before coming home--SHE's doing well (yes, they verified again that we're having a little girl:) and is in the 80th percentile already, yikes! This means she's about 4lbs right now and if she continues to grow at this pace, we could have an upper 8 pounder on our hands to deliver in two months! Let's hope she comes a week early:)

Just 2 weeks to go!

Hard to believe it, but we are now preparing to head back home. Mom and baby are doing well, just had another checkup with the doctor and all is normal. Next week is another ultrasound appointment, so that should be fun. Baby is really moving around. It is amazing when I watch Jill's belly with all the protrusions, lumps, and bumps that appear and disappear. It's been fun to try and speculate what's going on in there.

It was great to have Grant and Jessica come visit last week. They had a chance to see the sites around Melbourne as well as taking two drives in the greater area. The 28th was Grant's Birthday, and the 29th was Jessica's--so it was fun to celebrate with them.

Last weekend, we went to "Derby Day" as a part of the Melbourne Cup racing event. This is one of the yearly big events here in Melbourne. They have been having horse races for the last several days. Saturday was the day we attended. It was fun to see everyone dressed in their finest. The ladies wore lots of hats or headpieces, and the men were all in suits and ties. The races were great too. The down side was that it rained very heavily, and we had to find some more seats and fight with the weather the rest of the day. We saw one chap make a slip-and-slide out of a tarp in the vacant general admission area. All these races culminate to the race for the Melbourne cup that we watched on TV Tuesday. My favorite, Americain, won! Too bad I don't know anything about betting (or punting as they call it here).

Mom and Dad are flying in tomorrow. We're excited to show them around. I've posted several new photos at the end of the album in the photo section-linked HERE.

Warmer days of early Spring

During Mom & Dad's stay, while Jason was at work during the week, we checked out a variety of parks and older buildings of the city, and took a tour of Rod Laver Arena, where tennis' Australian Open is played. On Friday we went to see Mary Poppins at the theater and really enjoyed the production. On the weekend we visited the Werribee Mansion--here's a pic of the grand estate at Werribee Park. It was built by two Scottish brothers in the mid 1800s and was the largest home of its kind in Victoria at the time. It looks more English probably because they built it for the wife of the younger brother who was from England. They employed around 400 staff at one time, and it is now owned by the Victoria Parks Dept. and was free to walk through--beautiful!

The next day we golfed at the Anglesea Golf Course where there were quite a few kangaroos just hanging out along each hole. You can see they were pretty tame and didn't seem to mind us being too close to them by this pic of Jason swinging away just a few yards from one. We golfed with a coworker of Jason's and my parents. As my belly's getting too big, I just finished out Mom's holes by doing her chipping and putting.

We bid them farewell early last week, and had a warm week after they left. Desi and Steve and Jason's other coworkers threw me a baby shower on Wednesday which was very nice. Baby got lots of cute pink clothes and other thoughtful items. Friday was a scorcher and record-breaker in Melbourne, topping off at 84 degrees. I went to the beach with Desi and Megan and her kids but got quite burned on my legs as I failed to put on suntan lotion early enough. I guess this part of the world has the highest rate of skin cancer due to the hole in the ozone and their lack of sunscreen use. Lesson learned! That night, Jason met me down at St. Kilda beach where we had dinner, saw a movie, then went back to the beach an hour after sunset to check out the mini penguins coming back in from their daily swim. They were very cute, but hard to capture on camera as you can't use flash photography and they moved around quite a bit.

Last of the highlights, but certainly not the least: Jason went surfing on Sunday! His coworkers and son took him out and taught him in the cold waters of a beach in Torquay. That's right, it's a beach just down the way from Bells Beach, where the world surfing championships are held every April! Not to worry though, the waves were much smaller compared to those (I was worrying at first when he said where we were going). He had a great time and I recorded the feat from the sunny beach (though I wish I could have been out there--after baby comes maybe!). He did awesome and seemed to be a quick learner! They wore full wet-suits and for the most part stayed warm except for the feet which went numb after about a half-hour into it. Jason had a blast, but I think I would enjoy it more in the warm waters of, say, Hawaii :).

Well, that's all for now--Grant & Jessica fly in this morning, and we'll tell you about the adventures with them soon!