The Day of Miracles and Welcome Frederick!

September 8th was the day Frederick Francisco finally decided to join us. I wanted to thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers as we experienced many miracles from our Heavenly Father over the last few days, including a beautiful healthy baby boy! He was born at 3:22pm and was 20 inches long and 8 pounds. He was also 13 days past his due date. The things we noticed most were that he has very long toes and fingers, and quite a bit of hair as well.

Miracle 1: I was scheduled to be induced at 7am on Thursday morning. I went into labor at midnight on the night before. (PS: there was also a lesson in not procrastinating doing anything before a scheduled induction -- like showering!)

Miracle 2: During the labor there came a time when the doctor tried to give me a bit of Pitocin to speed things along, which the baby didn't like at all. Which means that if I had been induced it would most certainly have ended up in a c-section. But luckily my body was able to handle everything naturally.

Miracle 3: My parents arrived at 11pm. I went into labor at midnight, and we were off to the hospital at 1:30am. This meant that my mom got to be there for the whole thing and that my dad was able to help us in watching Andreas, who was able to stay sound asleep in bed.

Miracle 4: After pushing for over 3 1/2 hours, there was some doubts around whether the baby was too big to be born naturally. They were readying the surgery room for a c-section, when finally the baby was able to be born. It was a close call though! I was not looking forward to recovering from a c-section AND the pains from an almost VBAC!

Miracle 5: Fred came out healthy and well and without any major problems. We went through a trying period with making sure he was getting the food he needed, but we have worked through it and he is eating and sleeping well.

Here he is freshly out of the oven.
And with his proud papa who watched the whole thing (and only nearly fainted a few times) as well as cut the cord!

And the horrible aftermath picture with the Mama:First day of life:


My mom made a beautiful quilt for Fred that even matched his coming home outfit. We got home from the hospital on Saturday Sept 10th around 3pm, and I was very grateful to be home.


Here is Grandma with Andreas:
And Fred with his Mom:

I think I will entitle this picture "Yin and Yang":
The Brothers:
A BIG thanks to Mom and Dad for helping out during our time of need!
Andreas is adjusting to sharing the attention, but he also loves to kiss his new little brother and help pat him after he eats.

Our joyful family of 4! We feel so blessed to have Fred and can't wait to show him off to everyone!

Just Waiting...

While we await this new little one, I thought I would post a few pics from the last month since I have been a bit remiss with my postings.

Here are a few from when we went with Sam, Tiffany, and Zoe to Galveston for July 4th. Everyone had a blast, but the kids most of all I think.
His Dad took him to swim in the gulf. He loved the water, and Saul got to get some swimming in as well.

We had to get suspenders for his Sunday outfits since we found he was the resident plumber of the nursery class.
Here is Andreas at the Houston Zoo. They have a petting zoo area that he loves. Turns out the goats love him too since we had one that was licking his head/hair. Gross.
He loves to carry around his "Puppa". Reminds me of my childhood.

Here he is going for a walk. He loves to be outside, especially so he can point out the airplanes and neighborhood dogs and cats.
This was the remnants of my 31st Birthday cake. A chocolate whip cream cake of course that I ate monstrous amounts of. It was just like heaven.

We have been dusting off the infant stuff for the new baby. Andreas enjoyed an afternoon reminiscing in his old car seat. Hopefully he won't mind that someone else is about to take up residence.

Go Texas in May 2011

Saul's parents are always so nice to us. They sent us this hat that fits Andreas perfectly and is one of his favorites to wear outside. They sent him the shirt too, which is very cute. Our little guy looked so cute, I couldn't resist posting these pictures. It is so Texan, I am sure that cowboy boots are probably not too far in the future...




Occasionally Saul will email me pictures while I am at work. This was a recent one that I told him looked like Daddy dress up day -- a Kid's Home Depot apron with a tie. Nice.

Easter 2011

The Easter Bunny came for the first time to the Andaverde house this year. Saul had never really been into the concept, but we went whole hog this year and our house was definitely well taken care of.



Here is the egg hunt. All of the eggs were found and Andreas loved it. We need to work on his hunting skills though, since most of the time it took a lot of arm waving, whistling, and pointing for him to get some fairly obviously hidden eggs.

I am not sure exactly what happened to his pants in all of these pictures. I chalk it up to the excitement of the day.

Baby #2 and Weekend Fun

This weekend was fantastic -- very warm weather, general conference, and spending time with family. Is there anything better?!?

We found out our baby is 88% likely to be a boy. The ultrasound technician said the cord kept getting in the way so she couldn't be 100% sure, but we are excited! Andreas will (sometimes) enjoy having a playmate and this definitely cuts down on what we need to buy to get ready!

Here are a couple of shots of Andreas through the week. He is crawling up and down the stairs very well. Not quite tall enough to walk up/down them normally yet.


We have been spending time outside enjoying the good weather. Andreas has a Toy Story chair that he loves. Mostly he tries to eat the plants (why is it the only time he will eat anything green is outside?) and I watch/supervise Saul doing all of the work.
We were watering some of the plants this weekend, and Andreas could just not resist. Here he is getting in the way.

And loving being sprayed in the face...

Hoping for more....
Finally getting more....

Then thinking maybe this isn't so fun anymore...
We also got to have dinner with Sam, Tiffany, and Zoe on Sunday. Today we swapped babysitting for doctor appointments. They are playing pretty good together (at least on Zoe's side, Andreas needs some work).
And to be fair, on the picture above I kept making weird sounds trying to get the kids' attention, and I think Zoe was not amused. The fact I couldn't get a good shot of her is more a testament to that than that she wasn't having fun.