Here's a peek at a sweet little Mexican dish...

Sorry I've been gone for a while. We finally had our sweet little baby on September 24th...at 2:30ish in the morning...in the car...in the parking lot of our favorite Mexican restaurant...



Remember how we couldn't come up with a name? Well, she has a name now that was inspired by the events of the evening.



Meet our newest addition, Sopapilla.

We call her Sophia Renee for short or just Sophie. Except for Evelyn, who apparently hears the name pronounced "Soapy Feet" and when she can't remember Soapy Feet, Evelyn is content to just simply call her "Fish."

Sophie was only a few hours old in this picture and naturally all of my other pictures of her are still on my camera and my camera is with Jeff who is finally back out at the land today working on the house. So, this will have to do for now.

What's that? Am I kidding about the car, restaurant, middle of the night thing? Nope. And no, our favorite restaurant isn't a bar we'd been drinking at till 2am. Have you ever heard of those people who have their babies at home without a doctor or midwife? Well, that's us. The ultimate do-it-yourselfers. I've been called crazy many times because of it, but being prepared to have babies on our own has paid off. I have them super fast! I tell people if I don't have them at home, I'd just wind up having them in the car on the way to a hospital and now the proof is in the pudding! I have a lot of "false labor" for a few weeks before they're born and never know for sure if I'm actually in labor until about 45 minutes or less before they're born. About the third contraction into my "real labor" I began having a problem that has the potential to be very serious and so we loaded the kids up into the car to go to the hospital but we only made it 10-15 minutes down the road before Jeff asked, "Should I pull over and catch the baby now?" and I mumbled between groans, "If you want to." Don't ask me why I phrased it like that. So he pulled into the nearest parking lot, ran around to my side of the car, opened my door, reached down, caught the baby and passed her to me. Easy as pie. We then turned the car around and headed back home after a brief visit with a police officer on the side of the road who, I'm sure, pulled us over only to congratulate us on the birth of our child. He said we were going a little fast through an intersection earlier (we ran an orange light...I saw it but Jeff didn't.) The officer then pulled over on the side of the road near the parking lot to watch what-in-the-world we were doing. He was very friendly and didn't bat an eye when Jeff told him we were on our way to the hospital to have a baby but wound up having it in the car so we're going home now. That all makes perfect since, right? That's what all of us unassisted car birthers do.

It sounds pretty smooth but there was actually a lot of pressure on Jeff and he managed to stay calm on the outside through the whole thing. Me? I was in labor...need I say more? He called 911 first to see if he could give the local police a heads up (please don't pull us over right now.) Then he called the hospital to tell them we're on our way with a problem. Then he called our friend Chad and asked to speak with his wife. Only a true friend answers the phone in the middle of the night and lets you speak with his wife. She, Danielle, is a doctor and delivers babies too. About two sentences into the conversation Jeff hollered in her ear "Here comes the baby! Oh! It's a girl!" It was kind of like, "Hey, we thought since we're havin' a baby and you deliver babies, we thought maybe you might like to, you know, maybe be a part of this and listen to the birth over the phone. This makes us all best friends forever now, right?" We can come across a little retarded sometimes. Seriously though, THANK YOU!!! You were so nice to take our call and it was a great comfort to know there was a doctor on the phone.

Our greatest praise goes to God who is extremely gracious to us and has blessed us once again with one of the most precious gifts ever. His greatness and favor brings me to my knees in humility. To God be the glory!