Recently

Last Saturday we finally moved into our new house! For the past three months we have been totally transforming it. Andrew painted just about every room and did so many other projects. I'm so grateful for my hardworking husband! We've also had countless other jobs done- a new roof, new chimney liner, new kitchen counter tops, new carpet, etc. It has been a lot of work, especially with a newborn, but we are so happy with it. We are glad to be in it and done with (most of) the projects! I'll post some pictures soon.

Here are some recent pictures of the kids in the new house. It's hard to believe that Ben is already 2 months old. He's still not sleeping well at night but he is a lot less fussy during the day, which we are thankful for. He's even smiling and cooing! Check out his handsome blue eyes and Katie's crazy curly hair!

Ben's 1 Month Pictures

Have a mentioned recently how lucky I am to have a best friend who is an extremely talented photographer? Thanks again to Kristin Moore for these great shots of our family. Here, Ben is 4 weeks old and Katie is 19 1/2 months.

Introducing...

Benjamin Anders Witmer! Benjamin entered this world on Tuesday, May 24, weighing in at 7 lbs, 6oz. and 19 inches long. I went into labor around 2:30am that day and after about 15 hours of back labor and an hour and a half of pushing he arrived at 5:50pm. Overall, it was an easier labor than Katie, but easy is a relative term! We are thankful for the great care we received and of course for our healthy, beautiful baby boy.

So far he has been a pretty high maintenance baby. He often cries throughout the day, even when he's not hungry or wet. It can be stressful for all of us, including Katie; nobody wants to hear someone in distress! But there's not much we can do for him. We're hoping this fussy stage passes quickly. He is just starting to sleep a little better at night...he's still up every 3 hours to nurse but he's starting to go right back to sleep. Praise God for that! Katie loves him dearly and will often hug and kiss him without being prompted by us. She's been a great help to me by sitting patiently while I nurse or change his diaper. She is still a 19-month old, complete with screaming and tantrums, but all in all I'd say she's adjusted very well to her new brother. We all can't wait until he's big enough to play with her!

Here are some pictures from his first month of life. Thank you so much to everyone who has called, visited, brought meals, prayed for us, etc. It's been a tough month but your support has made it much more bearable! I'll try to post again when I can but life with 2 under 20 months is quite busy. Thanks for sticking with us!

Update

Please forgive me, friends, for my slow posting these days. It is quite a busy time for us. Here are a few things that have been going on.

-We bought a house! We closed this past Monday and are so excited to be homeowners! It is a 5 minute walk to Andrew's office in one direction and a 5 minute walk to a great park in the other. We are so grateful for it and can't wait to get in there and start making it our own!

- I am just about 8 months pregnant. We are so excited to meet our little boy, who we decided to name Benjamin. It will be so fun to see how he's similar to and different from Katie. We know she will be a wonderful sister. I have been feeling really well but the uncomfortableness and tiredness has started to set in, hence the lack of blog posts :)

-Andrew's first year at JMU has been great. He's done a wonderful job and I'm so proud of him. He has been working so hard and we are glad that he will be "off" (he will be working mostly from home on his book) until the end of August! I, too, have started a job. I work 5-10 hours/week as the Marketing Coordinator for the Green Valley Book Fair. I am so fortunate to be able to work from home, doing something I enjoy, for a company I love. My boss is super flexible so I plan any meetings around the times when Andrew can work from home so Katie never has to be out of our care. The job has been an answer to prayer and a huge blessing for us.

-Katie is now 17 1/2 months old! She is really growing up and is definitely developing her own independent personality. To be honest, she's become much more of a handful just in the past few days. She knows what she wants but still doesn't have all the words to express it. We also think that she senses that something is about to change; we talk about her brother and the baby all the time. We know that it's natural for little ones to start testing their boundaries but it can be challenging at times. Overall though, she's a delight and brings us so much joy.

I am going to take a break from the blog until Baby Benjamin makes his appearance. We'll leave you with a great video I got of Katie today. You can sense her sweet, playful spirit. She's saying a bunch of words...it's just hard to keep up with her to catch them! Thanks for reading and be sure to check back at the end of May/early June!

Friends

We are so lucky to have many other friends in the same stage of life as us. Katie loves seeing her friends and I love seeing their moms! Last week we went to story-time with my friend Sarah and her little girl Ava. All during the story Ava had her arm around Katie! It was so cute! Then on Friday we watched two sweet girls, Maya and June, who are just about Katie's age, and who have moms who are pregnant and due right around the time I am!

Two Recent Pics

Here are two of our favorite recent pictures of Katie taken by two wonderfully talented people. The first was taken by Malcolm Hughes, a painter and a dear friend. You can see some of his work here. The second was taken just this weekend by one of my best friends, Kristin Moore. She just started a photography business in Charlottesville and is so good! Here is her website. We are blessed to know such gifted people...and, of course, to have such a cute toddler :)

Spring Break, Part 2

Since it was also Penn State's Spring Break, my sister, Leanne, came to spend a few days with us after we returned from Charleston. It was so wonderful to have her here! It was rainy and cold for most of the time so we had to find fun things to do inside. We had a lot of quality time with Katie...she even helped us bake a gluten free cake! I am now about 7 months pregnant so it was so nice to have Leanne around to help out. Thanks again, Leanne, for driving to see us. We love you!