Lydia will be 5

We threw Lydia's birthday party today instead of on her birthday because as you all know she shares it with a bunch of other celebrations.  I decided to throw her a fancy Nancy party because if she reads books she mostly likes to read them. I had been thinking about her birthday for about a month because of Clay's due date being between her birthday and Seth's.  I decided to make it Bonjour Butterfly and Beauty Spa together in one party.  So we painted nails, painted faces, made tiara's and most of all just had fun being together. I am thankful for all of the mommies that jumped in and helped out.  My amazing mother in law helped me shop and decorate and we both feel exhausted but we had so much fun. Lydia shared her birthday party with her friend Isabel because today was actually her birthday. Lydia you are one amazing little girl.  You are so loving and compassionate.  I am looking forward to seeing how you will grow and change this new year and I am thankful for the love you have for your family. Most of all I am praying that this is the year you come to know Christ as your Saviour.  I pray this for you every day. Love you little munchkin.

Seth is 3

I have been blogging a lot lately, but I couldn't help but share about our little buddy who turned 3 yesterday.  He is one spirited little boy.  His favorite things right now of course starts with his sister, although sometimes I think he hates her.  His second favorite thing is cars and then legos.  He is such a love bug.  Daddy is his favorite person and looks forward with eagerness for him to come home from work.  Seth, daddy and mommy are so grateful you are in our lives and we look forward to a new year with you.

Clay David Leineweber

This makes for my birth story Part 2. July 22nd I celebrated my 30th birthday. My goal was to make it past my birthday before I gave birth to our sweet little man. I was super excited at church that day because I knew that labor was near. Up until this day I had been struggling with high blood pressure.  They had asked me to monitor it and to keep a close eye on the bottom number because that was the one that kept being really high. They had also up until this point basically put me on bed rest because i was already dilating very rapidly and then i stayed 4 centimeters dilated for 4 weeks. I also had contractions pretty frequently for the past 4 weeks so by Monday morning, July 23, I was 37 weeks and pretty much ready to have this baby.

I went to my appointment and my blood pressure was still pretty high but not high enough for them to do anything. So I came home deciding that it was good for me to keep the baby in as long as I could.  Within a couple of hours I started to experience some intense contractions that were about 5 to 6 minutes apart and thought “what in the world did the doctor do to me?” But oh well and here I was contracting and trying to breathe through them. I wanted to stay home as long as possible because I didn’t want them to send me home. I waited until Joel came home and made dinner through my contractions. We said that if they did’t go away within the hour we would go to the hospital.

I wanted to go out to with my friend Candace that night so I was determined to wait it out. She was taking me out for my first ever experience at Orange Leaf. By the time she came the contractions had pretty much gone away. I thought well at least I didn’t go to the hospital. I spent all night wondering if they would start up again, barely sleeping due to being so uncomfortable.

Sure enough about 4 am they started back up again only this time they were a little closer together. I asked Joel if he would run some errands with me so that I could walk to see if these contractions were here to stay? We went grocery shopping and had run some stuff to the OB and then came home. The contractions never got stronger or closer together so off to work Joel went. I was pretty tired out by this time after being up all night and then having contractions through the morning always wondering whether I should go or not.

My contractions started up again around 2 and I called the doctors and they told me to come in. I was 4/5 centimeters dilated and I was well on my way to having this baby. After being admitted and getting my epidural I stalled out. I got stuck at 6 centimeters and even went backwards a couple of times despite my ongoing contractions. Around 2 the started Pitocin and I was finally ready to have my water broken. Soon after that I pushed 6 times and the baby was out.

Clay David was born July 25th at 9:32 am and weighed in at 6 pounds, 3.5 ounces with perfect feet. I had never seen such a more amazing miracle of perfect feet than I did that day. I am so grateful for all of my kiddos and I am thankful that Clay is another blessing added to our family.