Bonding Time...

We've had a lot of time to "bond" with Timothy this weekend. We spent time with our friends, the Burkhalters, Saturday afternoon. First order of business... introduce Timothy to the "big kids"... Lilly, Karis, Hannah, Isaac, and Autumn (left to right). He fit right in.
Karis, Daddy, and Timothy hanging out on the couch.

Karis wanted to show Mom-Mom where she will go to Kindergarten this Fall. We went to the school and played on the playground for a while Sunday afternoon. Karis wanted Mom-Mom to help her with everything on the playground.

Sunday night, Timothy saw himself in the mirror for the first time. He seemed intrigued. We just wanted to keep him awake for another hour.

Bath Time...

We gave Timothy his first at-home bath today. He wasn't too excited about it, as you can see.
I remember being really nervous about giving Karis a bath so my mom actually gave it to her thr first time. I can tell I'm more relaxed as a second-time mom. I did it by myself and enjoyed seeing his reaction.

When he did start to fuss, the pacifier did the trick.

All clean and chillin'.

This is one of our favorite memories of the week. We watched "High School Musical" Tuesday night. Karis wanted Timothy right beside her the majority of the time. He really enjoyed the music and stayed awake for the majority of the movie... not watching, but listening.

Baby Newman, Part 2

I'll let Sue write what she wants to about the story of the delivery another time. For now, here are more pics of our family. It's been an incredible few days and we're so blessed to have four under our roof now.

This is my favorite picture in the history of the world. Karis is doing such a great job with Timothy. I couldn't believe she didn't yell at me for taking this picture.

This is my second favorite picture ever.

This is the bassinet that Timothy slept in at the hospital. Karis gave him a white rose that we couldn't leave in there, but he was able to look at her picture whenever he wanted to.

Baby Newman Has Arrived!

In case you haven't heard, our new family member has arrived! Timothy William Newman was born on Friday, June 19th at 6:54 PM. He is BIG! Here, finally, are some pictures for you to see. We tried to get them on sooner, but new babies take up a lot of time!

This first picture shows our nurse, Michelle, helping Timothy's nurse, Katie, with his initial check-up. You can see from the timer that he was 9 minutes, 45 seconds old here.

Here is the amazing team that helped us through the delivery process. From left to right, Carleen the midwife, Deaunn the doula, and Michelle the nurse. It was so great to have the three of them together. They have all worked together a lot and are great friends. It made a huge difference!

Told you he was big! Here's the scale to prove it.

Proud Daddy. What an amazing Father's Day gift! Both of my kids were born the week of Father's Day.

Sue was unbelievable. Everyone is happy and healthy. We're going to bore you with more pics in a few minutes--including the wonderful big sister.

Karis is 5!

Karis turned 5 on Monday. It sounds cliche, but we are amazed that she has grown so fast. The time truly flies. This first picture is at the end of the day. She had enough cake left from earlier in the day that she could share some with all the kids at life group. It also gave us the opportunity to sing to her and watch her blow out the candles.

This is Karis proudly displaying the "High School Musical" cake that she picked out. We didn't plan a birthday party since we didn't know when the baby will be here. So, she got to take her cake to day care. They sang to her twice. The plastic locker on the cake held "HSM" stickers that she shared "with all the kids that listened," as she said.

Close-up of the cake. Sorry for the long shadow. I took the picture in the back of the SUV so that Sue could see the cake before it was cut. We picked it up on the way to day care.

On another note, this is the first time Ben has done a blog entry. I needed to learn how to do it so I can announce the baby in the next few days. How'd I do?

Weekend activities

Since this is our last weekend without a newborn, we took the time to participate in some outside activities. Our church had a picnic Sunday afternoon. This is a picture of Oliver hitting the pinata that would not break!
This is Addison. She loved the fact that I took her picture and she could see it instantly.

Karis enjoyed her ice cream cone. A local ice cream shop donated it for our event. Notice the rainbow face paint on Karis's cheek.

We also took the time to plant some flowers on the deck. Karis picked these out with the help of the nursery staff. The dark pink ones are butterfly attracting.

Karis and Ben tried out our new game... "Redneck Golf" as they call it in the south. We can't wait to challenge some of our family members when they visit in the next two months.

OUR HOUSE IS READY!!!!!

So, we've been working on the house for a long time to get it ready for baby. I thought we'd show the final product. This is the baby's room.
We really like the calming neutral aspect of the room... thinking we can keep it the same color for a long time.

This is the guest bedroom. The room was hard to photograph from a good angle. The quilt on the bed was Ben's grandmothers. I was afraid to display it in the past, but decided it's not doing any good just sitting in a box!

The tv room has become a favorite spot in our house. Our hope is to get a larger flat screen to have down here. It was in the plan until my root canal needed to be done. We could have gotten two tvs for what I paid for that procedure!

This is part of the sunroom. Again, it's hard to get a good angle on this room. I'm just proud of the bookshelf adding some character to it.

Dance Recital

Karis participates in a dance class at school. It's a great opportunity to learn the basics with little to no cost to us. Amanda's Academy of Dance provides a free class once a week during school hours. She then gets to participate in the Dance Academy's recital at the end of the year. These pictures were taken last night as a part of the dress rehearsal. Here's Karis with her friend, Madison.
Karis was all smiles at both the dress rehearsal and at the show. She seemed very comfortable on stage. When we asked her if she was nervous, she said no. Karis reminded us that she had been on a stage before when her daycare in South Carolina did a Christmas show. We realized that her memory is very good, and so is her logic.

I think this one is adorable! The dresses were very pretty and all the kids looked great.

If you know the Newmans, you'd realize this was quite a stretch for us. Neither one of us ever took dance lessons, nor are we into the high maintenance of what dance recitals involve. However, we decided to embrace it because Karis loves dance so much.

I put the bun in her hair and all the make-up on her face. Ben brought her to my office to prep her for rehearsal and then took her to rehearsal while I continued to work. We sat in the front row and watched two hours of dances... hip-hop, ballet, jazz, tap, and Irish.

This is the final song where all the dancers come out on stage. All of the participants were dancing around and having a great time.