Welcome, LadyBear!

It's taken us three weeks to get this blog up. [Chalk that up to taking care of two little ones now!]

LadyBear made her arrival much more quickly, joining Bethany, me (Jeff) and LittleBear three weeks ago today, on Sept. 7. Here's how that day went:

• 1:30 a.m. Bethany woke up with contractions.
• 2:30 a.m. Bethany woke me up and said I might want to get up and start getting ready.
• 3:45 a.m. We left to drop LittleBear off with some friends (thanks again, Maynards!) and head to the hospital.
• 4:15 a.m. We got checked in at the hospital.
• 4:52 a.m. LadyBear entered the world!

My mom got to Waco about 10 a.m.; Bethany's parents arrived from Miami about 2:30 p.m. After my mom came to the hospital and saw us, she and I headed to pick up LittleBear and some lunch and bring both back to the hospital, so Big Brother met his Little Sister (he still calls her that more often than "Olivia") about noon the day she was born.

By noon the next day, we were home, dismissed from the hospital with no problems. (Thank you, Lord!) So now we've been home for almost three weeks, very well taken care of for most of that time by our parents (thank you, parents!). (Thanks also to all of you who have provided meals over the past couple weeks!)

LittleBear clearly loves his little sister; he is very gentle around her, speaks very lovingly of her,  often brings her toys or her blanket, and just tries to be as helpful as possible. He's also already very protective, which has been interesting to see. He's a great big brother!

LadyBear has done great since we got home. She eats well, and she sleeps as well as can be expected from a three-week-old. We are very blessed!

(A dear friend of Bethany's, Heather Sullivan, came and spent many hours taking photos of LadyBear and our family; those are her shots in this post. Click here to see more.)