New Jersey Throws Us Another Curveball

You may remember that we were welcomed to New Jersey by Hurricane Irene. That was really something. Our next weather adventure has been dropped in our laps. Snow in October. That's right... snow. We have been displaced from our home by power outage resulting from a crazy snowstorm that blew through Saturday and Sunday morning. We kept hearing crack and thud after crack and thud... trees that still had their leaves that were now cracking under the burden of heavy, wet snow. Our neighborhood seriously looks like the apocalypse was just ushered in!! Gigantic tree branches and power lines down everywhere!! We have had slumber parties the last 2 nights with gracious friends from church who didn't lose power. We returned to our house briefly yesterday afternoon and the thermostat was at 54. Chilly! We're hoping for our power to be restored asap but for now we're living out of our minivan (that was a scary statement) and staying with friends!! Pics to come when we dig our camera out!!

The Announcement Long in Coming... Wren Autumn Desch

She made it!! Wren Autumn made her appearance Sunday morning at 5 AM and what a gift she is. Being 16 days overdue she had plenty of time to pork up to a whopping 9 pounds and 22 inches long! We are grateful beyond what words can say and rejoice with great joy over this newest addition to our family. The boys are completely smitten with their little sister and now we're all just trying to make the adjustment to a new family member. (I have lots more to say but right now Wren and Justice are both asleep and Howie is at preschool, so I have "youshouldbesleepingrightnow" alarms going off in my head over and over!!) Here she is!

Still No Baby

We're still waiting. One week overdue and counting! I'm drinking all of the raspberry leaf tea I can stomach, hoping to schedule an acupuncture appointment, and walking here and there. Thankfully my sense of humor is still mostly intact, although if you could ask Howie and Justice if this were true they might tell you otherwise. This morning Justice was very upset with me that I wouldn't pour him his millionth cup of chocolate milk and it drove me to tears. What that mostly says to me is we need this baby to be born! (And Justice has a bad temper.) We'll keep you posted!

Saturday Morning in NYC

My mom, sister Marnie, brother-in-law Chris, and precious nephew Pax rolled into town Thursday night in anticipation of Baby Girl's arrival (due date yesterday, nothing to report yet), and we're sooo happy to have them here! We're hoping that our baby will appear soon but until then we're just having fun. This morning we hopped on the bus at the end of our street that took us into NYC. We joined the human throng in Times Square and hiked up to Central Park. We had a great time!! The boys would have loved just riding on the bus and coming back home. Howie's favorite part was definitely the bus but he did ask me on the way home if we could live in New York City. So I would say the morning was quite a hit!

Howie rides his scooter through Times Square- it's hard to see how this went very well judging from the crushing movement of humanity, but he managed somehow.

Grandma, Josh, and Justice pose with Mickey and Minnie! How perfect is this for Justice?? He couldn't bear to look away even for a moment.

Unsurprisingly, Justy managed to find a big puddle in a playground in Central Park and completely soak himself... then he headed straight for the sand area. Yuck.

Paxy scales the ropes in Central Park

Paxy and Grandma look at all of the horse carriages in Central Park

What a goofball!!

Photo with Woody!! Howie said to me, "I can't believe Woody is REAL!!"

Frappucino drinking in Times Square... seriously? Are we those parents? We are indeed.

It was a fun morning and we're excited to go back soon!!