Monday, July 30, 2007

The Caruvana Family Circus

Today Sylvia and Jon celebrate their 13th anniversary. I use the term "celebrate" loosely, because with the new baby and all of life's busy-ness, we really just said "Happy Anniversary" to one another. We found a wonderful illustration of how the last few weeks have been in the comics section of this past Sunday's paper:
Trying to get rest with four kids is hard. Sometimes life seems like a circus, but the Lord gives us what we need to press on.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Julia Turns 10 (days old, that is!)

Julia is ten days old today, and in honor of that milestone, I am posting the visitors she has had so far. Wouldn't you know she's had 10 visitors (folks other than our immediate family).
Precious Julia Grace resting peacefully tonight in her bassinet.
Joan Blackwelder, a wonderful friend from church, held Julia the day she was born.
Andrea McCurry, good friend and Pastor's wife visited at age 1 day.
Grandpa Sterling, who visited on Julia's birth day, came to say goodbye at age 2 days...
...with Grandma Sterling, first here on Julia's birth day, and again at age 2 days.
Roz Batchelor, our kind and generous neighbor, came by at age 2 days also.
Lorrie Farmer, Julia's Great Aunt, also at age 2 days.
Becky Couch, the leader at Sylvia's Ladies Bible study, came by with food at age 5 days...
...with Rebecca Molyneux, also from the Bible Study group, at age 5 days.
Deborah Smith, dear friend and fellow homeschool mom, came by with her girls at age 6 days.
Aunt Val, who graciously flew in Saturday night to help when Jon returned to work, held Julia the night she flew in from Texas, at age 6 days.
It has been pretty quiet here (at least on the visitor front, because with 4 kids it's never really quiet) the last few days. Ten days and all is well. Praise God for our newest little blessing!

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Julia Grace Has Arrived!

Julia Grace Caruvana
Born 7/14/07 at 7:14 AM
7 pounds, 8 1/2 ounces
20 3/4 inches long
Jon awoke at 6:41 AM to a cry for help from Sylvia. She had been having contractions all night at 15 to 20 minutes apart. Apparently, now they were pretty intense. Ten minutes later, after standing and walking, the contractions were about 3 minutes apart. A contraction later Sylvia was telling Jon to call the midwife. So we called the midwife at 6:54 AM. Then at 7 AM we called a friend who's helped with deliveries before. While Jon was on the phone with her, Sylvia's water broke. Syndi and Junior get their first peek at their new sister.

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After Sylvia's water broke, Jon worked to get the bed ready. Sylvia was moved to the bed between contractions, and at 7:04 AM Jon put an earbud in his ear (so he'd have both hands free) and called the midwife again. From there, Jon delivered the baby with guidance from the midwife. Julia was born at 7:14 AM.

Syndi calls Grandma to tell her Julia is here.
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Our friend arrived to help at 7:30. A little while earlier, Jon had decided to wait until the midwife arrived to let her cut the cord. The midwife was only 30 minutes away at the time our friend had arrived. Or so we thought... Syndi gets a turn holding Julia.
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At 8 AM, when the midwife was to arrive, we received a phone call from said midwife. Apparently she had driven in the wrong direction, and was now two hours away. At least it was a funny story, and she never would have been there in time either way, so it was alright. Junior gets a turn holding his little sister.
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Turns out the midwife has another pregnant mother named Celia, who also lives one hour away from her, but in the other direction. And it so happens that Celia had called with signs of the baby coming just last night. So our midwife heard the name Caruvana, thought of Sylvia, but - in the grogginess of the early hour - drove to Celia's house. Upon finding Celia pregnant and not in labor, our midwife thought it was a cruel joke. Then it dawned on her that she was supposed to have driven to Sylvia's house. Woo boy! Our midwife finally arrived on the scene at 10 AM.
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When our midwife told us that she was now 2 hours away, Jon realized he needed to cut the cord himself. Some preparations were made, and Julia's cord was cut around 8:15 AM. Julia Grace after being weighed and just before being dressed.
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After the cord was cut, it was a matter of cleanup, letting the kids in to see their new baby sister, taking pictures, making phone calls, and waiting patiently. Julia began nursing excellently moments after birth. The hospital process had always kept the baby away from Sylvia, be it minutes (to do weighing, checks, and whatever other stuff they do) or hours (wash, clean, footprint, "observe" and what have you), so the nursing process was hindered. Not today. Also we'd already made sure Sylvia was doing well and there were no complications. So the big stuff was over.
Proud Papa with Baby Jules.
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Sylvia was resting when Jon took a shower at 9:40 AM. The midwife finally arrived at 10 AM. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Syndi, an obviously elated Jon and a yawning Julia.
Aunt Lorrie was walking by the bedroom at 11:15 AM and noticed us all gathered in our bedroom. Then she caught a glimpse of the baby. What a surprise! She hadn't heard a thing and didn't know Julia had arrived. So she came in to meet our new little girl.
Syndi enjoyed laying next to the sleeping Julia. Junior, on the other hand, was off and playing with toys. Stephen had spent the night at Grandma & Grandpa's Georgia condo, so he wasn't present.
Grandpa and Grandma arrived with Stephen around noon. Stephen, who in the last few weeks surprisingly seems to have grasped that a baby was coming, was enthralled. Just last week, the morning after we had put a bassinet in our room (which he had not seen since he was last in it when he was a few weeks old), Stephen came into our room with Junior. Junior looked puzzled when he saw the bassinet, but Stephen pointed to it and said "that's for baby." (And he repeated it a few times to get his point across to Junior!)
Grandpa and Grandma enjoyed holding baby Julia.
All six of us.
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Jon went to get the boys so we could take this group shot. Stephen came right in, but Junior was nowhere to be found. Jon looked in all the rooms, and called him throughout the house. Finally, someone remembered seeing him put on his raincoat and go out the back door. Yes it had started raining after Julia was born. And the rain had filled Junior's new pool out back, and he had decided to go get in it - raincoat, clothes and all! So we had a little cleanup to do before the family picture was taken.
Julia had found her thumb and was making extremely loud sucking noises only hours after birth. There's a sucker born every minute!
Precious Julia, snuggled in her new purple baby blanket, knit by our friend Anke (matching the blue and green ones she made for Junior and Stephen).

Friday, July 13, 2007

Fourth of July Fireworks

On the evening of July 4th, a while after our morning swim party, we headed to the levee on the Oostanaula River, across the river from the Sara Hightower library. We spread out our blankets and set up our folding chairs, and prepared for Rome's grand show.
Here Syndi spreads out on our famed NY Giants blanket. (I'm still a fan!) This was our third annual trip to the levee for the Rome Fireworks Show. Our first year here, Sylvia and Syndi went to see it, and watched from the parking lot of the Methodist church near the levee. Two years ago we actually all went to the levee and watched with Aunt Chris and Uncle Brent. Last year we went with our neighbors Gary and Roz. This year, Gary, Roz, Aunt Lorrie and Grandma joined us on the levee.
We sat on the sidewalk at the top of the levee on the west side of the river.
This is a shot looking down the levee. You can see the people beginning to fill in the spaces. In the distance just right of center you can see the famed Clock Tower rising above the tree line.
We camped out where the sidewalk split. One path went under the bridge and one went up to the bridge.
The show began around 9:30 PM with a series of brilliant fireworks. I slowed the shutter speed on my Sony H1 digital camera and took some great shots of the fireworks (on my tripod). Here you see some red, some white...
...and some blue. God Bless America! I adjusted the shutter speed throughout the night, seeing what worked best. I generally kept it in the 1 to 3 second range, but tried faster and slower than that for experimental purposes.
I thought the firework spiraling upward through the red blast was pretty cool.
The Rome fireworks had a nice variety of color, shapes and size.
This one kinda looked like it was raining down on Ridge Ferry Park, where the fireworks were sent up from.
The Crown!
The small red blast at top had quite a red halo in this photo.
This shot looked like a traditional American firework.Sometimes we had one firework after another, with one soaring across the previous.
The Cross.
Note the next firework on its way skyward just to the left of the original.
Two Stars.
I really loved the "star within a star" look I caught here.

The Rockets (Red) Glare.
Here you see the major firework with little explosions at its tips, with a second smaller firework below it, and yet a third soaring through them both, on its way to a blast above them.

A Tail of Two Fireworks.
I loved the tails these two left.

The Flower.
This looks just like a weed in my garden last year which blossomed into one of the most beautiful, delicate flowers I've ever seen.

The Three Wise Men.

I had a longer shutter speed for this one. Notice the three separate tails at the bottom merging into one.

Hooray for the Red, White and Blue!
Cool!
Syndi was laying on the Giants blanket with her glow stick necklace (another annual 4th of July tradition). She was highlighted by the glow of the fireworks.
I turned the camera around and caught the glow on Junior and Sylvia (and the crowd) also. Junior had a yellow glow stick necklace and bracelet. You can see the Clock Tower in the distance at center, and the church at the right (above Sylvia). The scene was framed by Aunt Lorrie's crutch.
A beautiful blossoming firework over the bridge. The finale followed shortly and the show was over within 5 minutes. It was another great show. Hats off to the folks in Rome who do this show each year. I am incredibly impressed with the quality show this small town puts on.