Abram's First Week and Visitors

We're happy to all be home and getting settled.  Abram is adjusting to his energetic sister and had his first bath.  We've spent time outside and taken a family walk.  We also enjoyed having all of Mary's family visit last night.  Here are a few pics.  Be sure to check out the photo albums for more.

Welcome Baby Abram!!

On Monday, May 9 at 7:51 am we welcomed Abram Judah Voogt into our family.  We are in love with this beautiful, healthy baby boy.  He weighs 8 lbs. 3 oz. and is 21.5 inches long.  Everything went smoothly with the delivery.  Abram has passed all of his tests, and Mary is recovering well.  Rebecca is so excited to have a baby brother.  She rubs his hair and kisses him every time she visits.  She has also been enjoying lots of time with her grandparents.  We're looking forward to having the whole family home tomorrow.  What a blessing to add this little boy to our family.  We thank God for his goodness.

Check out the photo albums for some birth pictures.  We'll add more soon.

Happy Mother's Day...And It's Baby Day!

We had a relaxing Mother's Day yesterday.  We all stayed home and spent lots of time together.  We went on a couple walks and enjoyed the sunshine.  I got some chocolates from Rebecca (seems to be her favorite gift to give lately...because she knows Mommy and Daddy will share with her :) and some kitchen towels and a splatter guard from Justin.  My parents came in the afternoon.  We enjoyed having dinner with them and visiting for a while.  A wonderful way to spend our last day as a family of 3.  I am a very blessed Mommy.

Today is the day for Baby #2!!!  We leave for the hospital in about an hour.  Only a few hours until baby arrives.  We are so excited and feel so blessed.  We trust that God will watch over this baby, the delivery and Rebecca while she's home with Grandpa and Grandma.  We can't wait for her to meet her new brother or sister!

Here are a few last belly shots and Mother's Day pics.

 39 weeks, 1 day

 Finally get to try the soccer net outside!

 "Mommy you're the goalie."

Giving Grandma her presents.

Just For Comparison...

Pregnant with Rebecca at 38 weeks:

Pregnant with Baby #2 at 38 weeks, 1 day:

Defnitely more belly this time.  The big difference...Rebecca was breach the whole time.  This baby...definitely NOT :P  It is head down and very low.

And a few stats.  No major differences.

Rebecca:
28 weeks: heartbeat 158, measuring 29cm
32 weeks: heartbeat 152, measuring 32 1/2cm
34 weeks: heartbeat 152, measuring 34 1/2cm
36 weeks: heartbeat 152
37 weeks: heartbeat 140
38 weeks: heartbeat 154

Baby #2:
28 weeks: heartbeat 147
30 weeks: heartbeat 152, measuring 30cm
32 weeks: heartbeat 150, measuring 32cm
34 weeks: heartbeat 136, measuring 32cm (odd measurements with different doctor)
36 weeks: heartbeat 156-158, measuring 36cm
37 weeks: heartbeat 143, measuring 37cm
38 weeks: heartbeat 135-140, measuring 38 1/2cm

Rebecca's 3 Year Check Up/Updates

It's official.  Our "baby" girl is 3!  So hard to believe.  She is growing by leaps and bounds lately it seems.

Today was her 3 year check up.  She passed with flying colors as usual.  The doctor said she is developmentally very advanced as always.  After Rebecca asked about and talked to the doctor about his instruments he asked her if she had her PhD program all set up yet :)  It's obvious that a year can make a big difference.  Rebecca used to start crying the moment we stepped into the room.  Today she was happy and chatting with everyone.  She even told the doctor, "I was so excited to come see you!"  Everything checked out well.  And Rebecca even counted to 30 for the doctor (up to this point I was wondering if he thought she could even talk because of how shy/scared she was when we would go).  Today she asked and answered all kinds of questions.

Rebecca has definitely grown a LOT in the last year.  Over the winter she went from a size 2T to a size 4T.  And her feet went from size 7 to size 9!  Today her measurements confirmed how much she's growing.  She weighs 34 lbs. and is 37 1/4" tall (she was 27 lbs. and 33 1/2" tall at 2).  She is still right around 50th% for height and between 50th and 75th% for weight.  She hovers right around 50% for both...pretty average.  According to how doctors predict height, she should grow to be about 5'7".  But we'll see.  Maybe she has some strong Voogt or Van Heukelum genes in her that will give her some height.

We're finding that she might really have some strong Van Heukelum genes as it's becoming more and more likely that she is left handed (only relatives that are left handed are Mary's aunt, uncle and great grandpa).  We know she for sure has Van Heukelum feet (just like mommy :).

Overall it was a great check up.  Rebecca is growing well and developing well.  She's one smart little girl.  We'll go back in a year for her 4 year check up.

As always Rebecca is a very busy girl at home.  She has such an imagination and is always busy with some doll or stuffed animal, making them do stuff/act things out.  We have many princess balls, trips to the park, days at school and trips to the store here.

One of Rebecca's recent changes/accomplishments is sleeping/napping in her new room, in her big girl bed.  The transition took a couple weeks, but now she is sleeping great!  She loves her room and bed.  Right now she's a fairly sound sleeper.  Hopefully that will continue even with a crying baby nearby :)

Rebecca is getting very good at counting.  So far she can go up to 30.  She could do more, but by the time she gets to 30 she's usually sick of counting :P  She has also started counting on her fingers, doing her best to put one up at a time :)  Not sure how she learned that.  She just started doing it one day on her own.  She is also getting better at actually counting objects.  She is also doing very well with her letters.  She has known all of her uppercase and lowercase letters and their sounds for a while.  She knows how to spell a few words and recognizes them if she sees them written.  She recently learned how to spell Voogt :)  Rebecca is still a bit too long.

 

Rebecca has also really started getting into coloring and writing.  Before she could only focus on coloring for about 30 seconds.  Now she will sit and color for a while.  And she is very good about coloring specific objects and trying to stay in the lines.  It's quite impressive to look at the pages she is coloring now (very intentional, coloring individual things) versus what they looked like just a couple months ago (one color scribbled over the whole page).  Rebecca continues to try to write her letters.  Some are easier than others.  But she's definitely getting more into it.  She is also very good at tracing a path/line.  She has a lot more control with her writing now than she did not that long ago.  And as I mentioned, most of her coloring/writing is done with her left hand.  She switches to the right hand once in a while for a few seconds.  But then switches back.  The doctor said that if she is doing both right now that is good developmentally.  She is using both sides of her brain and already becoming a good multi-tasker :)

We are winding down with our actvities.  Monday will be our last day of gymnastics.  Rebecca has done well, but we're ready to be done.  We only have a few weeks of Kindermusik left.  And one more MOPS meeting.  We're looking forward to having lots of free time this summer.

Aside from that we're having fun playing with all of Rebecca's toys (especially her new birthday toys!).  She's helping Daddy play his drum.  And she just got a sleeping bag that she seems to love.  It will be her new spot to sleep when we travel now.

It's hard to believe Rebecca is 3.  She will always be our baby.  But she really is such a big girl now.  And anxious to be a big sister in a couple weeks.  We're all looking forward to it!

Happy 3rd Birthday Rebecca!!

Today our precious girl turns 3.  It's hard to belive.  It has been such a joy to watch her grow and learn every day.  And we look forward to many more years of fun to come.

Last Thursday we had a mini celebration as a family.  Then yesterday we had a princess party with our relatives.  It was Rebecca's special day before a new baby takes over :P  We started with munchies and mingling.  Then we opened gifts.  Everyone was so generous as always...almost too generous.  Not sure where to put everything.  Thankfully a lot of it was outdoor stuff.  Can't wait to have warm weather so we can get outside and use it!  After gifts we had a yummy dinner, followed by princess cake and ice cream.  Then lots of running, giggling and playing from the kids.  Of course Rebecca and Carson had to end the night with their usual dance party :)

Rebecca had so much fun playing with all of her cousins and seeing all of her grandparents.  She's looking forward to spending a few more minutes with Grandpa and Grandma Voogt this morning before they head home.

Rebecca is growing and learning so much right now.  She has her 3 year check up on Friday.  We'll udpate more then.

We also celebrated Justin's graduation yesterday.  On April 30 he will graduate from Grand Valley State University with his MBA.  He has worked very hard for the last 6 years and we couldn't be more proud of him.

Last but not least we are in the home stretch of preparing for baby #2 (22 days to go!!).  We had an ultrasound last week to make sure everything is still on track.  We are very thankful that the baby looks healthy.  It is measuring right where it should be (about 36 weeks, around 6 lbs.).  We could see it practicing breathing.  And we saw lots of hair :)  Will it be another full head of dark hair like Rebecca or blondie this time?  We'll see.  Overall the stats, growth, etc. seem to be almost identical to Rebecca's.  Maybe Rebecca will have a mini-me sibling :)  For now we're on track for the c-section May 9.  Looking forward to meeting our 2nd miracle baby.

Rebecca's New Room

Rebecca slept in her new room for the first time last night.  So far she's doing great!  She's been excited about it for qutie some time.  So she was a little giddy at bedtime last night.  But she was also very tired after skipping nap for 2 days and playing outside a lot.  So it didn't take long for her to crash :)  Here's how it started (back in 2009!!) and how turned out.

Now it's time to finish the nursery! :)