Shiloh Leda Herron

Shiloh (meaning 'His Gift') Leda (after Daniel's Grandma) Herron was born July (of course all Herron children must be born in July) 7, 2011 at 7:01 am.  She was 7 lbs. 9 oz. and 20 in. long.

She is absolutely beautiful! She's been nursing well and sleeping well. Both of which I am so thankful for.

I couldn't help but add the two photos of Lily at the end. She makes me laugh. She's into putting and taking off her shoes and socks.  She tries to put on any piece of clothing she sees lying around - Shiloh's pants, Judes underwear, Papa's shoes... And I just love these shots of her with her stylish sunglasses and necklace.

finally - the pregnant belly

many of you have been asking for pictures of the belly.  sorry they are so long in coming. here ya go...

after stitches and 4th of july

The rest of our 4th was nice and non-eventful. Lily had lots of smiles and all the cousins waved flags and spun sparklers.

stitches

Our 4th of july started out with a bang yesterday at grammy and grandpa's place. Jude, Lily, and myself had just arrived and were probably there not 15 minutes, when Lily tripped walking across the carpet and hit the bridge of her nose (scrapped her eye and the outside of her eye) on my parents' brick fireplace step. Poor thing - she immediatedly started crying and bleeding all over. We took her to the emergency room (where I had hoped to be except for a totally different reason :) ) and they eventually gave her three stitches. She was a trooper - didn't even cry when they cleaned all of her wounds. Here's an iphone shot of her before she received her stitches.

Camping

In June, we went camping with Grammy and Grandpa and my sister and her family. Lily and I got the privilege of sleeping in my parent's pop-up camper and Jude and Papa slept in the two man tent. The funniest story of the weekend was Saturday night. We were all sitting around the campfire. The kids had snarfed down a bunch of marshmallows and Grammy was making cherry pies (in the campfire pie maker). She gave Jude a half cherry pie and he held it for a little while until it cooled. The next thing I knew, Papa said, 'Hey Jude, where's your cherry pie?'. Jude looked perplexed and said, 'I don't know'. We all looked around and I thought, 'hmm, who knows what he did with it'. 5 or 10 minutes pass as we chat around the fire some more. Then Jude hops up from his chair to get a little closer to the fire. And low and behold, there was his cherry pie, plastered to his little bum! He sat on it and had no idea. I laughed so hard it hurt (literally caused contractions).

37 Weeks...

I am now 37 weeks and feeling very pregnant. I'll have to try and post a picture of me sometime soon so you can see the belly. But for now...check out these pics. We had our last ultrasound a week ago (36 weeks). They took a few 3D pictures for us. They are quite amazing. I had to take a picture of the picture - so they loose a little in translation...but it is so cool to see her features.

jenna says...

The latest Jude story…

Jude made us smile on Sunday evening as we were eating dinner.  We were talking about our day and trying to get Jude to tell us how Sunday School went with Asher, etc.  Jude kept saying, ‘Jenna says, “one, one”’ (and he would emphatically hold up his right index finger to indicate ‘one’ and then move it up and down as he said the second ‘one’).  I thought, ‘hmm, that’s interesting, there must have been something Auntie Jenna was teaching the kids in large group that meant something about one’.  Maybe she watned one child to speak at a time?  But Jude kept on saying it in a serious tone, ‘Jenna says, one, one’.

And then it hit Daniel and I - maybe she was teaching them a verse?  And then….a big… ‘OOOOhhhhhhh’ [light bulb – think Dispicable Me]. ‘Jenna says’… ‘Jennasays’ … ‘Jennasis’ … ‘Genesis 1:1’!!!!  And then we knew what he was talking about.  We said, ‘Did you learn Genesis 1:1 in Sunday School?’ Jude gives a really big silent nod. I say, ‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and the…’. And Jude finishes the statement by saying ‘Earth’ and holds up his arms in a big circle over his head.  So funny.  I still don’t know if he thinks it’s ‘Jenna says’ or ‘Genesis’ – but it sounds the same coming from a 3 year old.

Buena Vista 12 Hr Adventure Race

Daniel and his two buddies, Keith and Jacque, competed in a 12 hr adventure race this last Saturday in Buena Vista, CO. The course was a combination of mountain biking, kayaking, running, orienteering (plotting points on a map and finding them with a compass), and a ropes course. It took them about 9 hours to complete (they ended up in about the middle of the pack of contestants) and they did an awesome job!  Christine (Keith’s wife) and I are so proud of them. Here’s a picture of them as they loaded up to take off for the race in Denver. 

There’s also some pictures of the guys in the race here: http://riipix.com/AXSBV_index.html.  Look for Daniel in a blue sleeved shirt in a single red kayak using a paddle with blue paddle ends.  He’s in the ropes pictur es also (near the end of the set).

 

32 weeks

I had my 32 week ultrasound this last Friday. Again – all good news.  Baby is growing well, is active, and blood flow and amniotic fluid look good.  So…doc says we should come back one more time in another 4 weeks for one last ultrasound and then we are good to go… It’s excellent news. My platelets are still low – but they remain steady and there are no other signs of HELLP Syndrome.  I’ve hoped all along that I could possibly make it through this pregnancy without any complications, but I think I’m now starting to really believe that I could have a normal birth and average size baby.  It’s such a wonderful thought.

easter

Lily was pretty cute at Easter this year. We celebrated by getting up early for pancakes and service at the church. Both kids were able to hunt eggs twice. The first time at the church on Saturday (some cute pictures still to come of both Jude and Lily with a large Easter rabbit; I am still astounded neither one was scared) and the second at Grammy Sue and Grandpa John’s house on Sunday. I love that Lily will actually wear silly things like rabbit ears. Jude still doesn’t want to have anything to do with dressing up.

spring...

Kids are doing well. Lily is a master walker these days. She’s a little traveler – always roaming from one room to another, picking up toys and dropping toys endlessly as she goes. She causes me much grief as I have clean up after her so much (I try to avoid bending down at all costs these days – ugh)! She’s also making leaps and bounds of progress on her speech. Lately some of her favorite words are ‘mama’, ‘up’, ‘hi’, ‘roar’, ‘open’, ‘papa’, and the infamous ‘no’.  She is eating a decent amount and continues her lily growth curve of gaining weight. I think she’s currently somewhere between 15 and 16 pounds – still a little bit!

 

Jude is thriving in preschool. He’s made a huge amount of progress adjusting to preschool over the year. In the beginning he had a super hard time letting go of papa at the door, looking forward to preschool and interacting with the other children. But now, he looks forward to preschool, he’s having more and more fun with the other children, still hesitates a tiny bit with papa at the door, and has learned so much about his zoo-phonic letters and basic writing techniques. It’s so fun to see him grow.

 

Daniel’s business is thriving this month. He’s keeping very busy between work and training for three races this year. The first, is two weeks away in mid-May. It’s an adventure race (chalk full of mountain biking, running, navigating with a compass, and kayaking). The other two are more ‘hard-core’ mountain bike races: the Leadville 50 and the 24-hours of Leadville.

 

New baby and mys elf are well also… I am currently in week 30 (it’s so good to be in the 30’s now). All continues to go well. I have ultrasounds monthly (next one in two weeks) and I continue to see my mid-wife every two weeks. They check urine, blood, and growth of baby – and so far no signs of HELLP.  I am feeling much bigger these days and keeping after the kiddos is definitely getting more difficult.  Poor Jude, he loves to play chase around the house and I just can’t manage that anymore without having ‘braxton hicks’ contractions. Nevertheless, I am so thankful to be this far along.

 

 

28 weeks

I am 28 weeks pregnant. It feels really strange to be this far. Daniel and I went to have another ultrasound on Friday. It went really well. They estimate this baby girl is about 2 lbs 10 oz so far (that's a whole pound more than Lily was when she was born at 28 weeks) - so very good news that this baby is growing well. All the other things they checked looked good also - blood flow, amniotic fluid, all the measurements, etc. We praise God for the progress so far. Hopefully, we can make it 10 more weeks!

january...days with snow and days without...

Here are a few January moments captured in photo:

Jude and Lily had fun at the park one morning (I couldn’t get Lily to look at the camera or smile for the life of me).

Jude has a new found appreciation for shoveling and throwing snowballs at Papa.