Our 2 wounded soldiers!!!

OK, so we can't really use the birth of our 4th child as an excuse for lack of blogging any longer!!

It has been quite the eventful week........

Yesterday morning began with Brad having an accident on his bike. At least now he is convinced of the need for a helmet. He is sporting a very scary looking black eye and is wearing his sunglasses as much as possible. The attendant at the gas station made him come inside to have his credit card authorised as he clearly didn't look trustworthy!!!!

Yesterday evening Tate and Quin were playing on a saddle stand (you put a western horse saddle on this to practise exercises!) The saddle slipped off and Tate fell awkwardly breaking his elbow!! A few hours at the ER later he was wearing a temporary cast. Not exactly what we had in mind. The cast is so big and cumbersome he needs help getting up and down!! We go back to the hospital in the next 2 days to see what needs to happen next.

Thought we needed to record the moment for posterity!!

The down side is that the Californian side of the family flew in today and Brad's Mom has scheduled a family photo for everyone this weekend!!!! Ezzie is on the verge of losing her first baby tooth too and it looks likely it will not be in her mouth by 11am on Saturday morning!!!! We are wondering how else we can sabotage the photo opportunity!!

The little dove has landed!!

Welcome to Jemimah Grace!

Here she is with our Dr - don't know which face is more frightening?! He is great fun with a hilarious sense of humour.

Jemimah Grace Byrd (Jems) meaning little Dove arrived at 6:54am on March 1st. It was a longer labour for us but still fairly short by normal standards. Abi was so thankful that our OB was willing to induce her with no questions asked.

The hospital was like a 5 star hotel in comparison to the one where we delivered Ezzie and Tate in England. It was a great experience and a wonderful place to have a baby.

Quin, Ezzie and Tate are thrilled with her and as soon as they wake up they are lining up to hold her and feed her. Some days we feel like we haven't had our hands on her at all!!

Very proud big sister who could hardly wait to get her hands on the baby she has been praying for every night for 9 months!!

Proud older brother who runs in from the schoolbus to see where his sister is and whether he can hold her as soon as possible.

Long may this love last!! So far so good, although close proximity is needed as Tate will just toss her aside without warning when he has held her long enough!! He is thrilled to see her eyes open.

We are safely in Illinois!!

We are now safely in Illinois, having flown in a day earlier than planned to beat a major blizzard which ended up snowing us in completely which the children of course thought was great fun!!

There is much to thank God for:

• For our safe arrival in the US
• For our relaxing vacation in Williamsburg
• For the wonderful time we had visiting with friends in DC, VA and NJ
• For the ability to change our flights and fly to Illinois a day early at no extra cost to arrive ahead of the blizzard
• For Quin's quick and excited transition to school. He is now taking the school bus and is loving every aspect of school life. The school is amazingly resourced and he is making good friends already - even if he can't remember any of their names!!
• For Ezzie's start to pre-school. She has settled quickly and is enjoying her afternoon program 3 times a week, and homeschool in the mornings with Abi. It takes alot less time when it is just her so Abi, Ezzie and Tate are enjoying getting to do some fun things like visiting the library, meeting friends, going to the mall etc.
• For the 2 visits so far to the hospital. Our OB is a fun Dr and we are thrilled to be able to have signed on with him. He is very understanding of our situation which has been a relief.
• For the provision of our "Scooby Van"!!! The van we are driving. We will post some photos for you to get the full picture!! It has begun to smell a little of burning so pray that we will be able to get to the bottom of the problem if there is one.
• We now have an oven so we can cook!!! Yeah. Praise God for that!!

Upcoming events and prayer requests:

• We have another appointment with our OB tomorrow. Abi's blood pressure has been up and down since we arrived. Pray for a good visit and that he would have wisdom to know what the best course of action is.
• Pray for the impending birth!! (Whenever that ends up being)
• For Quin, Ezzie and Tate - that they would adapt quickly and well to their new sibling. They have had alot of change in the last month so pray that they would have the ability to adapt to this too.
• We have had some teething problems getting our apartment ready so pray that everything would be finished before the baby arrives. We had a set back tonight where someone was working in the apartment and hit a water pipe so we now have no water. Pray that we would be able to get this fixed quickly and that it would all be ready before Abi delivers.

We are very much enjoying our time back here in the US. We would love to hear from you - do keep in touch. We will let you know as soon as the baby arrives and will try to keep posting now we are here and more settled.

Wedding Dress in a week????

We are all set pretty much to head off to the US tomorrow. I can't believe the time is finally here!! It seems quite unbelievable. I was feeling in control of things here enough to venture to a city the other side of the region with Primrose yesterday to check out wedding dresses and see if we could get one ordered for her.

We arrived in the shop not quite knowing what to expect, and there were some amazing dresses We looked through a sucession of catalogues and tried to explain (in vain initially) that we were looking for something on the simpler style. Here brides are decked out in alot of sequins, lace, sparkly bits all over their dresses. It was hard to explain that she really didn't want that - the girl looked at us as if we were slightly mad really!! We looked at fabric samples, beads, all kinds of things. An hour and a half later she was measured up, ideas had been communicated (correctly we hope!!) and she returns next Monday for a fitting as her dress will be all made up - just the hemming etc to add. The dress is then going to be ready a few days after that. We couldn't believe it - forget a 6 month waiting period - just over a week will do the job here!!!! It is a fraction of the cost too so if you are in line for a wedding dress pop over for a couple of weeks and you are good to go!!!!

Oven NOT ready Christmas Turkey

After searching high and low, in three different countries, an oven ready turkey was not to be had. On the Saturday before Christmas, it became painfully obvious that if we wanted a bird on our table for the traditional Christmas Day feast we were going to have to go live. Abi trundled off to the market and poked, prodded, weighed and examined the array of live turkeys on offer from the local villagers. What an unfortunate surprise when she returned with a bird in hand. Then it was my turn to continue the process of preparing the object of our eventual main dish. With an audience of Mummy, our friend S, and 2 of the 3 children it was off with its head. Let me tell you, chopping a turkey’s head off is not as easy as it looks. The thing doesn’t just lay there; it resists to the end, a very short end mind you, but resist it does. S was holding it's flailing wings while the axe was swinging!! We would have paid good money for a "Butterball" at that point. Our daughter was in tears after the deed was done. When I asked Abi why Ezzie was crying the reason was not the cruelty of the act, but that she had missed the act of chopping itself!!! (What kind of children are we raising we wonder???)
Following the killing then there was the plucking, soaking, injecting and the cooking. All of which was also less than conventional. In the end, we had a fairly tasty bird on our table, albeit smaller than we are used to and alot more boney!!

If you ever find yourself in a similar position to this then do get in touch and we will share our tips with you, which according to those who gave them to us is the difference between the turkey being edible or not!!!