Birch Twins... plus one!

As most of you reading this already know, our newest Bouncing Baby Birch arrived on Wednesday May 7th, 2008 at 9:23 pm. Sarah Jane weighed 7 pounds 13 ounces and was 19 1/2 inches long.

We arrived at the hospital Tuesday morning at 9am and things progressed very slowly until about 6pm Wednesday night when little Sarah decided it was time to get moving... Tracey went from 4 cm dilated at 6pm to 9 cm at 7:30, started pushing around 8:20, and Sarah was born just an hour later. We got to hold her right away, and she was nursing like a champ just a few minutes later.

We spent that night and the next in the hospital and came home on Friday morning. Thank goodness for Kristina, the twins' nanny, who was willing to stay here with them the whole time so that Russ could stay at the hospital! The 10 days since we got home have been a blur, trying to rest, recover, and get used to this new little tiny baby in the house with us now.

Lots of photos, of course, on the Sarah Jane album page (new ones just tonight, too). We will keep up this blog too (in our spare time :-), with the adventures of all three kiddos... and their parents, trying to keep up with three little ones in diapers!

Jimmy and Katie are 11 months old today, with that big first birthday just around the corner. We realized just how big they're getting when we got home from the hospital after being away from them for a few days and holding this new little tiny babe. Hard to believe that less than a year ago they were half the size that Sarah is!

Katie has started taking steps on her own, at first it was just one at a time, but now she is managing two, three, even four steps before plopping down on her bottom. She is also walking away from things now as well as towards them, and when she sits down after a few steps it's more and more deliberate and less like a fall.

Jimmy is still working on the standing and walking (he does have a few extra pounds to balance on those legs), but he is making great progress in using his hands. He has figured out the buttons to push on the toys that make noise, and he presses them expertly using just one finger or his thumb. They both continue to eat everything we can think of to feed them, and Katie is getting unhappy being fed -- she wants to do it herself! Trying to come up with finger foods that they can eat without making too much of a mess will be an ongoing challenge.