Counting

Anticipating the birth of a baby with kids is so much fun.  

All four of the oldest kids visited the doctor with me, two at a time.  They got to listen to the baby's heartbeat, Theia and Xandra even got to hold the doppler and find the heartbeat, and they of course watched as the doctor measured my growing belly.  Unfortunately, I only remembered to take my camera when Theia and Xandra went.  You can see Xandra holding her Boxcar Children book.  She was much more interested in reading that than pretty much anything else that was going on, but I did manage to get her to look up for a picture.

 

 Once we got settled in at Grandma and Grandpa's house, we worked on a countdown chain.

Some of us took the job more seriously than others 

After the chain was complete, we hung it up.  Each day we tore a link from the chain.  Also included on the chain was everyone's prediction of what day Yoshi would arrive.  For the record, Grandma picked the day.

After our chain was made, we designed a onesie for the kids to bring the baby in the hospital.

We traced each of their hands, they colored them in

and then I wrote, "We Can't Wait to Get Our Hands on You!"

And it was true.  We were ready and waiting and counting.