Our newest animal has arrived!

On December 16, 2007 at 6:09 p.m. we welcomed Carmen Rose into our family. She weighed 7 lbs. 5 oz. and was 20 1/4" long.


Everything about the labor & delivery was ideal & wonderful. I'd say our best birthing experience yet. All together it was about 6 hours long, but only 2 of it was hard & intense. 10 minutes of pushing & out she came. Andrew was the only other child present. Which is the exact oppisite of what we expected, but it worked well and made it more memorable. You can hear on the video moments afterwards as he's exclaiming "BABY! BABY! YEEEAAAH!"


My mom was able to be there for the delivery as well. A big family tradition as she has now been present for all 12 of her grandchildren's births.


All of the kids have done wonderfully in adjusting to her arrival. We have a lot of other pictures of each sibling with the baby. Too many to post (you know how camera happy Carmen can be). Here is the big group picture with mom & all her kids.


The big family picture:



And of course, 2 very happy parents:

Choosing her name was not an easy task. It's been a tradition that each of our children has been named after someone specific, either a family member or close friend. We went round and round about who specifically to name her after. (We just love so many of you!) It was Jim who had the light bulb moment and said "well if we really must name her after someone.....who better to honor than YOU, her mother." I had never really thought of that aspect, but it suddenly did make sense. Not to mention that she does tend to favor all of my physical qualities, as well. So that is how we came up with her name. Yes, we do intend to call her just that....Carmen. We've got a few years before it gets tricky as to which Carmen one might be referring to in conversation. For now it's pretty obvious and if not just then call her little Carmen or Carmen jr. Time will tell if she is in fact a little mini me. Until then we just continue to relish in the simple first days of her life.