A whirl wind of sorts or the birth of Zoey Lynn

We have spent the last month and a half waiting for the phone to ring. I have gone to bed with my cell, Jeff's cell and our home phone all at my ear. Saturday I thought for sure it had finally happened!

False alarm.

It was my good friend Jenny announcing the anticipated arrival of seven adorable puppies. The momma dog was really struggling so it was with much fear....and later relief that I received that series of late night, early morning texts.

Back to the (human) baby. We have had her name spray painted (well basically) across our calendar in eager anticipation. We have made loose plans and then canceled them because she had not yet come. Such as a day trip to the Natural Bridges Monarch Preserve. Every year I put this day trip on the calendar. Every year I erase it. We waited till 11:30 the night before to cancel the trip.

Butterfly fail.

No baby, no leaving town.(imagine how we felt flying off to Maine)

Sunday was a day of crossing T's and dotting I's in preparation for Monday morning. We were making sure everyone was on the same page for the second semester of our school year. We had hair cuts, double checked all the teachers manuals, filed paperwork, updated calendars and day planners etc. I was exhausted and had a killer headache. Jeff offered to go buy dinner while the boys and I finished up our tasks. While he was waiting for our take out order he got THE phone call. So gnarly haired (no it didn't help that we just had our hair cut), funky PJ's and all we hurriedly got ourselves to the hospital where we began the game of  "hurry up and wait" We arrived at 6:30 in the evening. We got home at around 3:30 in the morning. Poor Crystal, what a delivery!

No. We did not start school yesterday. That much was in our control. However the normal "Manic Monday" of it all was enough all on it's own. Not to mention the activities the boys are in did start back up, including  Billy (Permit) Vincent stacking up the driving hours and starting his second semester of college. What a game that is, especially when you are drunk on sleepy!

Back to the baby. Our niece, my brothers daughter Zoey Lynn Steproe has made her debut. Lynn is the middle name of our sister who passed away several years back. Nice touch. Zoey has beautiful little lips and the sweetest rosy cheeks. She has dark hair, like me! She looks a bit like her Mom. Really though she looks a whole lot like her name sake. She has Rebekah Lynn's long beautiful pianist's fingers and her long, slender feet. I'm not quite sure what it is about her facial features, but the moment I saw Zoey, I saw Rebekah.


Emotions were flying. Family was bonding over the birth of our newest member. Trips down memory lane were taking place. For instance my oldest baby was born in this very hospital. He was even born in the same room as his little cousin. We now have a picture of him at sixteen years old holding little Zoey. We can place that next to the pictures of him as a fresh little miracle in the very same room. Isn't that cool!

Welcome Zoey Lynn, we are so in love with you. Thank you Eric and especially Crystal for all your hard work in getting her here. Congratulations Nathan you are already an awesome big brother!