November update

We've had a lot of fun and excitement in the past few weeks...

Elaina turned 3 years old on November 10. She celebrated with a "princess party" the weekend before her birthday with our friends from church.

On her actual birthday, she had a great time with Mommy, Daddy, Julia, and Grammy at the museum in Raleigh. She is really into dinosaurs right now, but she wasn't so sure about the giant dinosaurs at the museum. They were a lot more intimidating than the imaginary pink dinosaur that is often accused of hanging out in our entryway and playing with her shoes.

She received an easel as a birthday present, and she has enjoyed learning how to draw people. I think the arms and legs sticking straight out of the face are hilarious.

We've also enjoyed getting to see more of Miss Julia's personality in the past few weeks. She is a very smiley baby, and we can't get enough of her grins.

Last week, we celebrated Thanksgiving with Matt's parents. This was Grandpa Rust's first opportunity to meet Julia. Elaina did a good job sharing her grandparents with her little sister.

Julia didn't get to enjoy all of the delicious food on her first Thanksgiving, but we couldn't resist a picture with the turkey!

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

J- 4 weeks old!

Wow! Julia is already 4 weeks old. In the past four weeks, we have had some nights of 4-6 hours of continuous sleep, some nights of waking every hour to feed/comfort baby (or Elaina), battled an outbreak of thrush (very painful for breastfeeding mommy), witnessed Julia's first smile and coos, prepared for Halloween, and held on for dear life! Overall, we're doing well and enjoying life with our two girls. A few photos of the last few weeks:

We've also updated the October photo album with more photos.

julia's First Bath at Home

Julia's Movie Debut

Here are some video clips I took on Sunday (before Julia's birth), Monday (when Elaina met Julia), and Tuesday (day we brought Julia home).

Julia's First Days at Home

On Tuesday afternoon, we brought Julia home from the hospital.

Elaina was at home with Grammy and Papaw waiting on us to get there. She was thrilled to see us.

We gave Julia the tour of the house; she seemed to like her room.

Elaina's new favorite hobby is holding her baby sister. She does well holding still and supporting Julia's head. I'm hoping I can have Elaina changing diapers by the end of the month. Until then, I'll settle for having her hand me wipes when I'm changing Julia's diapers.

Julia had her first bath at home on Wednesday evening. She cried a little bit but loved having her hair washed under the faucet.

Grammy and Papaw have had fun playing with their two youngest grandchildren.

For all of you waiting anxiously from a distance, we added more photos from the last few days to our photo gallery.

Introducing Julia Jordan Rust

Victoria and I are thrilled to announce that our daughter has arrived. Julia Jordan Rust was born last night, October 2, 2011, at 11:05pm. She weighed in at 6lb 13oz and is 19.75in long (just a little smaller than her big sister was at birth). Everyone is doing well.

Baby Sister. Elaina took to her little sister very quickly. I think 'Julia' is becoming her new favorite word. Elaina loves getting to hold Julia and give her kisses. She also likes poking Julia gently with her finger, as if asking, "is it real?"

The Name. We followed the same naming convention as with Elaina: pick a first name that we like and is fairly well-known and easily spelled (my dad's spelling skills notwithstanding); pick a second name that is a meaningful family name. Elaina's middle name 'Elizabeth' is also her aunt Andrea's middle name (along with many other women on my side). Plus, it's a biblical name which makes it extra meaningful for us.

'Julia' is a name we agreed was established and elegant. 'Jordan' is the middle name of Julia's Uncle James Jordan Wade and also happens to be biblical. Plus, we knew Julia would be born near the time of Uncle Jordan's wedding.

The Pictures (The reason you're here). The pictures from the last few days are viewable here.

October Baby

Victoria and I are in the hospital this morning for her scheduled induction. Baby Girl has decided to be born in October, which means Mommy and Daddy are scrambling to find a replacement name for "September Rust." Actually, the name has been the only reliable aspect of the last stretch of this pregnancy.

Two weeks ago tomorrow, Victoria had strong enough contractions to warrant a little frenzy in the Rust household. We hurriedly repacked our bags (which had just been unpacked from our trip to Jordan's & Carmen's wedding). Elaina was following us around asking, "Where we going?" She knew something was up.

We thought something was up.

We didn't sleep well that week and neither did my parents who were on call to make the drive down here as soon as labor began. When Victoria went for her check-up on Thursday that week, the Doctor said she "would be shocked" if the baby weren't born within the next week.

Thinking we were days (or hours) away from our little one's arrival we gave my parents the go-ahead to drive down last weekend. We thought this would make the most of their five days off (weekend to weekend) and surely the baby would arrive before they needed to head back.

We lost that gamble.

Elaina has been on cloud nine all week with all the attention from Grandma and Grandpa. Meanwhile, Victoria and I have been able to relax, knowing we had babysitters already in the house all set for us to leave Elaina for the hospital. In fact, we were so relaxed, the contractions have remained at bay, even though we made multiple trips to the mall (remember how helpful Macy's was last time?)

At Victoria's appointment on Thursday, the Doctor was "shocked" to see Victoria was still no further along in the pregnancy. 2cm dilated and 70% effaced.

Sadly, my dad had to drive back today to be at work tomorrow morning. My mom took another day off and will fly out tomorrow evening. Jim and Sally arrived last night about 5pm. So now, we just need one more person to arrive (hint, hint, baby).

Victoria's now hooked up to pitocin and watching TV. She's feeling relaxed and hoping for a smooth delivery on this first day of week 41. This should be the day we've been waiting for! We look forward to introducing you to

______________ ______________ Rust in the very near future...

Jordan and Carmen Wade

Jordan and Carmen had a beautiful wedding in Orlando on Friday. With only 1 week left until my due date, we were THRILLED to make the trip from NC to FL and back without any special appearances from our little bundle of joy. Our only hiccup was a flat tire on the side of I-95 about half-way through the trip down there.
Elaina and her cousins had a FANTASTIC time serving as flower girls.
Towards the end of the evening, Elaina commented to her Grammy, "I was dancing so much."
She really was a trooper to the very end when she crawled up on Matt's lap and quickly fell asleep.
Congratulations, Carmen and Jordan! We love you!

More pictures of the big day

Some have been asking...

...what in the world have you been up to, and why haven't you updated your blog? Well... hopefully I can fill you in a bit on what we've been up to, but we really don't have a good excuse for not updating the blog. So, here you go!

In the middle of May, Matt graduated from law school... woohoo!

He then started studying for the bar exam (with a little help from Elaina).

P.S. He PASSED!!

While Matt was studying, Elaina and I took a trip to the beach with my parents.

Oh yeah... baby #2 is growing! I'm currently 36 weeks, and I don't care when she decides to come as long as it's after Jordan's wedding in two weeks!

Last but not least, we just finished a 4-week painting/tiling project in our kitchen. Good grief-- this was MUCH more time consuming than we ever imagined.

That's all for now!

Another girl!

That's right, folks. I was WRONG. I was convinced that baby #2 was a boy. This lasted right up to the point when the ultrasound tech started to get a little frustrated with my asking, "Are you sure it's a girl?" Don't get me wrong-- I am thrilled to have another girl. I just really thought it was a boy. I am officially hanging up my "gender guessing" hat. I'll leave it up to the professionals (aka ultrasound technology) from now on.

Anyways, baby #2 is most definitely a GIRL, and she is expected to arrive on/around September 25. We have a name, but we'll keep it top secret until the little one arrives. (Sorry, Krista.)

Happy Easter!

I'm sad to admit that Easter didn't get a lot of attention around here this year. Matt was right in the middle of writing a final paper and studying for a final, and the stress level in our house was HIGH. (We're still waiting to hear if he's qualified for graduation on May 13, but he is pretty confident that his tests turned out ok-- whew!)

We snuck in a quick egg coloring session on Friday evening. Elaina's favorite part was dipping her fingers in the coloring and licking them. Eww.

We ended up with some pretty eggs and not as many casualties as we had last year. Elaina was convinced that the eggs were balls last year, and quite a few eggs ended up cracked when she threw them. This year, she just wanted to smash them together for fun. Believe it or not, we were able to control this a little better than last year's throwing.

We had a nice Easter service at church then ran home for a quick meal before Matt headed back to studying. Next year, we will have NO studying and TWO girls on Easter. We're looking forward to it! (If you look closely in the photo below, you can see a little (18 week) baby "bump". I'll post some more belly shots as the bump grows. )

Look out, September!

Here comes Rust baby #2!

Christmas

We had an enjoyable Christmas here in NC, and with our families in Indiana. Elaina really got into the decorations this year. She enjoyed saying "Good morning, Christmas" when she came down the stairs in the morning and looking for the (sh)Elf. Her favorite part of the Christmas decorations, though, was the pretty new books that came out especially those with Carols ("Chestnuts roasting on an open fire..." and "Deck the Halls" were the favorites).



Some interesting developments came when her knowledge of the religious aspects of the season bled over into the decorative aspects. For example, when we first pulled out a Santa ornament she pointed and said, "Jesus." This made perfect sense, because Jesus did have a beard in the Easter decorations and books, but now--confusingly--Jesus was a baby surrounded by farm animals.

The other crossover was when Elaina said her first prayer. For some time now, she has been clasping her hands and closing her eyes when we pray before meals, chiming in with an "Amen" at the end. Then, one evening while Victoria and I were preparing dinner we heard Elaina sitting at the island in the kitchen mumbling. We looked over and saw her praying with eyes shut and hands together: "mumble, mumble, mumble, Reindeer. Mumble, mumble, mumble, mumble. Reindeer." Her first prayer, for the reindeer.

Victoria got a nice treat the last weekend before Christmas: she met up with some Butler friends (Amanda and Talia) in New York. She had a great time catching up and seeing the sights in NYC. Elaina and I had a rough time without Mommy, but we were glad she was getting a fun vacation after all the single-parenting she's had to do while I've been in classes three nights a week.



Then, we did the unthinkable. We packed our RAV4 to the gills and drove the entire way to Southern Indiana, with a two year old... and we only stopped twice! We saw my family first where we got to meet my niece Laila Grace Silva. She was sleepy and peaceful the whole time we were there. Elaina had fun watching her and holding her and she loved playing with cousin "Coby" (formerly "Doby"--actual name: Jacoby).



My parents seemed to really enjoy having all their grandkids there at once, so I tried to capture their joy in my favorite art medium: snow.

We enjoyed getting to play in the snow, but we actually would have had more snow in North Carolina (Raleigh-Durham had its first White Christmas on record with 6-7 inches!)

Here's the best thing we found under the Christmas tree:

Next up, we headed to Victoria's folks' where Elaina found more cousins to play and be silly with. Grammy Sally got the girls "Pillow Pets" and Elaina and Addison had try them out right away.

All three girls also had to make sure to feed the reindeer out front. They might have eaten more than they fed to the reindeer.

We spent New Year's with Victoria's family as well (following through on our resolution from last year to never again stay in a hotel over New Year's Eve). We started back on New Year's day, arrived on the second and I was back at work on the third. Victoria went back to work (and Elaina to daycare) on the fourth, and I'll start my last semester of law school this coming Monday.

Elaina had a rough first few days back at daycare and she's been struggling with going to sleep at nights. A little detox is to be expected, though, after spending so much time away from home with so many exciting cousins and loving grandparents, aunts, and uncles.