Welcome to the world!

Welcome to the world, little Abraham (you'll have to trust me that he's a cutie - the photo doesn't want to load, so I removed it)! And congratulations to our friends Fr. Matthew and Rachel. I was so honored to be included in the support party Rachel put together for her birth. She called me at about 2:30 in the morning on Tuesday and I was at the hospital by 3. Rachel did an AWESOME job handling the contractions and laboring and little Abe was born at 5:30 am. Birth is an amazing and miraculous event. In many religious traditions, giving birth is even recognized as a time in our life when we come closest to God - the mother (and father) participate with God in the creation of a new life. I am so happy I could be there to see it and support Rachel in having the natural birth she wanted. It was fun to get to play with my camera to photograph him, too. We wish Fr. Matthew, Rachel and their two wonderful boys MANY YEARS!

It took me a couple of days to rest up from that event, but I've still had a pretty busy week. Yesterday I volunteered in Emmelia's kindergarten classroom and had a blast helping the teacher and making art projects with the kids. It was nice to learn names and get to know some of the kids she's going to be in school with for at least the next 6 years.

We're heading out soon to visit Emmelia's Godparents. We are all really excited to see each other again - it's been too long since we've been able to just have a visit without a major life event going on at the same time. It's going to be the longest drive we've ever taken with the kids, but hopefully they'll sleep through much of it.

Here's a LO I did today, even though I'm still recovering from the loss of my "stash" of scrapping goodies. Credits for Wildflowers are here.
Last night while we were doing laundry in our AWESOME new washing machine, we watched the movie Ostrov again. It is a really wonderful movie about a Russian holy man ("staretz"). It's a Russian film, but has English sub-titles. I highly recommend it!

Well, best be off to pick Emmelia up from her first soccer practice and start packing! Have a wonderful weekend!