Getting Settled In

Today J.D. is one week old, and it has been such a wonderful week! Sorry I am just now getting some more pictures online. Life with two kids is twice as busy! Thank you to everyone who sent flowers, calls, visits, and prayers our way while we were in the hospital. We ended up staying one extra day, mainly for me to heal a little more from the extra hernia repair I had. That extra surgery has made my recovery a little harder than last time, but the pain medicines are my new best friend!

J.D. is such a wonderful, sweet baby. He is just as calm and mild-mannered as Anna Lee is energetic, wiggly, and talkative. It is amazing to see how different the two of them are...and how different he already is from how Anna Lee was as a baby. He has his nights and days confused right now, but we are working on that...sleepily :0)

Anna Lee loves J.D. I fully expected her to act a little jealous when we got home, but she has been the exact opposite. He loves on him, wants to kiss him and hold him, and loves to spend time next to him. It has been very sweet to have them together.

So here are a few (well actually a lot) of my favorite pictures over our time in the hospital and a few from when we got home. Enjoy!

Family Love: grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins....J.D. has a lot of people that already love him so much. We are so thankful for our wonderful families.

I love this picture. This is when Jim's grandmother first got to hold J.D. Her husband is Jim's Granddaddy, who J.D was named after.

There are probably too many pictures of the next scene posted here, but I literally couldn't pick my favorite. Anna Lee came up to the hospital several different times to visit, but this particular time was the first time she showed such an interest in and love for him.

Here she is doing "This Little Piggy" to his feet.

After she did that, J.D. reached up and touched her on the nose. She thought it was so great. I absolutely love the shot that was caught here.

These next two pictures are probably my favorites ever.

Posing all dressed up...

J.D. was the most fussy he has been so far when we were getting him ready to go home. It took us forever to get out of the hospital because he was so upset and hungry. But he sure did look handsome!

Anna Lee greeted us at the door when we got home. She opened the door and said,

"Come in, J.D.!"

When we brought Anna Lee home from the hospital when she was born, we took her on a "tour" of her new home. Anna Lee got to take J.D. on the "tour" on Monday when we got home with him. She was so excited to show him her room, his room, his bed, etc.

Anna Lee had made pictures with my mom that morning for J.D. and had hung them on his bedroom door. They of course had a lot of princess stickers. She was very proud of them.

Our sweet baby boy.

J.D. is here!

J.D. is here!

This is Kasey (Kelly's sister) writing for the Litton family tonight. It has been a great day! J.D. is such a precious baby boy! He was born at 8:44 am, weighing in at 8 lbs. and 13 ounces and 21 inches long. Both J.D. and Kelly are healthy and happy. There is so much to be thankful for. It was hard to not put every single picture on the blog, but I narrowed it down to a few.

Before....

Kelly was a pro in the delivery room...

And so was Jim!

The Litton family when they only had one child...

And now they have two!
You cant see it in this picture, but J.D. has dark hair. He has a sweet face with chubby cheeks, and he seemed so content all day.

This is Kelly's favorite picture.

Proud daddy!

When Anna Lee arrived at the hospital, she was excited to meet her little brother. She wanted to give him kisses, and she wanted to hold him all by herself. :)

While I don't know that Anna Lee quite understands what having a little brother means, she had a special care for him. She was excited to see him, happy, a little bashful, and so sweet. She and J.D. exchanged presents- and while most of her attention in the hospital room went to the princess shoes he gave her, she was enthralled with him. Here she is showing him the present she brought him.

This is my favorite picture of the day...look at all of their hands holding J.D. together. What a special family - wonderful parents, sweet big sister, and a precious new baby.

Congratulations to the Litton family!

We are so excited to have J.D. here!

Almost there...

Thursday morning at 8:30 am, our little boy is scheduled to arrive. It is hard to believe it is already time for him to be here! In so many ways, I am so ready! In so many other ways, I am nervous and could wait a little longer. I am more excited than I can even put into words to get to meet him. And I can't wait for Anna Lee to meet her baby brother too! I REALLY don't like taking pictures of myself when I am pregnant, but I thought I should have a couple here at the end. Keep us in your prayers over the next few days.

Bad Hair Day

Everyone has bad hair days. I'm glad Anna Lee finally has enough hair to have one!

In Just One Week...

In just one week...life will be different and we will be a family of four. Crazy! I haven't felt the best the past couple of weeks, and especially the past couple of days. I slipped in our living room on Monday and pulled a muscle really hard. Per the doctor's orders, I have been walking with crutches all week....and VERY slowly. Quite the image, isn't it?? My mom has been awesome and has been here the past couple of days to help me take care of Anna Lee. She is the best! Gotta love having a mom who will drop everything to come and take care of you! Anna Lee has had a ball, too!

Because of my laziness and being ready to be done, I haven't done much cooking lately (I think I have mentioned this previously). You know it is bad when you ask your daughter what she wants for dinner and she starts listing restaurants instead of foods. "Lubys, or Chick-fil-A, or Bubba's..." Someday hopefully she will know that food is actually cooked in a kitchen!

We (probably me more than anyone) have been counting down the days with Anna Lee until J.D. gets here, and she seems to really have no clue how life is about to change. For months, we have been talking about how Baby J.D. will be coming, etc. She talks about him very fondly and is well aware that he will be her little brother. Two nights ago, Anna Lee changed her response, though. It is now consistently as follows: We ask, "Who is coming in just 7 days?!?" Anna Lee's response: "Baby Jesus." Although they sound kind of similar (and we would love for Jesus to come back), I will not be having Him next week. And I doubt very seriously that after a few weeks, Anna Lee will think J.D. is as great as Jesus.

On the same note, Anna Lee has been making several Biblical character errors lately that have really gotten me tickled. Here are a couple of my favorites:

Anna Lee was getting a "talking to" the other night because she was not talking very nicely to us. I had her set up on her bed and was telling her that her tone of voice did not make me very happy. I said, "Anna Lee the way you were talking to Mommy was very rude." Anna Lee looked at me with a very puzzled look and said, "And Boaz?" I couldn't keep a straight face. Apparently now, Anna Lee relates talking ugly to Mommy with the story of Ruth and Boaz from the Bible. I don't think she quite understood.

We were watching American Idol the other night. Anna Lee is quite the fan, and can name most of the people on the show. When Adam, who has proven to be a very good performer, sang "Born to be Wild," Anna Lee asked what his name was. Here is a link to Adam's performance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MdOpYtkoPI just to give you an idea of what she was watching. When I told Anna Lee that his name was Adam, she looked at me and then looked at the TV with a very confused look on her face and said, "Where's Eve?" Oh my. I got so tickled. Adam Lambert singing "Born to Be Wild" is definitely not the picture I have of the Garden of Eden.

That is all I have for now. Just thought I would share some funnies. Our time with Anna Lee alone is going to be over soon, but we are so excited about what is to come! Just 7 more days!!!

A Happy Easter

We had such a nice Easter yesterday. We hope you all did too! After going to church, we settled in for a nice afternoon of needed relaxation and family time. (Jim said it was kind of the "calm before the storm" next week.)

Anna Lee got to open her Easter bunny presents after her nap, since she woke up too late to do it in the morning. Before she went down for her nap, we told her that the Easter bunny was going to come while she was asleep and bring her presents. She looked very concerned and said, "I don't want to see him and I don't want to talk to him." No problem.

This year, I decided it really wasn't worth the hassle of dying eggs. Maybe we should have done it, but I felt like I would have had a huge mess on my hands...with very little reward. Instead, I found a Princess egg decorating kit. It was a hit. Anna Lee and I spent a good amount of time on Saturday night putting princess stickers and crowns all over eggs. Who needs to dye eggs when you have Sleeping Beauty and Belle???

After the Easter egg hunt was canceled at our church yesterday because of weather, we had our own in the backyard. Anna Lee was just as happy. She worked so hard to find all of the eggs Jim had hidden around the yard. She really didn't understand what to do last year, so it was fun to see her enjoy this yesterday.

We hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend!

He's an Old Man Now!

Jim officially turned 30 on Saturday. He was funny about the whole thing. He has been dreading turning 30 for a while now, since he said he apparently feels like an "old man", so we decided to make his birthday fun! We started the day off by going to get donuts with Anna Lee. I guess it was more a treat for Anna Lee than Jim. While we were at the donut shop, Great American Cookie Company called me to check about the cookie cake I had ordered. Jim got a suspicious look in his eye and started questioning me after I came back from taking the call outside. I just pulled the pregnancy card. "Jim, seriously? I am two weeks away from having a baby! I barely make dinner anymore (which is true). Do you really think I would throw a party for you today?" That did it. He was convinced there was nothing going on. (I guess it says something about how much I make dinner...) That morning, Anna Lee and I gave Jim his presents.Jim got some "boring" stuff as well as a framed handprint picture from Anna Lee with pictures of the two of them in it. But my favorite gift by far was the picture frame I made for J.D.'s room. I found this picture of Jim's Granddaddy in his bedside table and secretly had a copy made. I thought this scripture, Psalm 100:5 "For the Lord is good and his love endures forever. His faithfulness continues through all generations." was perfect. We will obviously put a picture of little J.D. (in just a few weeks!) in the open space. The frame is already hanging in J.D.'s room. It made me even more excited to name him J.D. He is being named after a wonderful man.
So...our friends Michael and Abbe were the best! After a lot of plotting, Michael called Jim at 11:30 and told him that he was at work and his car wouldn't start. Abbe was at home with a sick baby (which was actually true---that helped sell the story), so she couldn't come and pick him up. He asked if Jim would run and pick him up and take him home. Michael was so great for driving all the way to work on a Saturday...just for Jim to come and take him back home! Jim totally bought the story. He told me everything that was going on and high-tailed it out. As soon as he left, our house became the party zone. My parents, Jim's parents, and my sister Kasey had all picked up the food that morning and were waiting around the corner. We had about 30 people show up in a matter of minutes. It was great! Here is a picture of some of us waiting in the kitchen.

When Jim got home, he sat in his car waiting for Anna Lee and me to come out to take him to lunch. He actually honked and waited. He had no idea. But after a little coaxing to come in, he was completely surprised. It was so much fun!

Anna Lee didn't quite know what to think about everyone yelling "Surprise!" at her daddy.

A chocolatey "Cheese!"

So after a lot of food, friends, and fun, Jim had a much more eventful birthday than he had planned, and we got to go out on a nice date that evening (one of the last for a while!) because of babysitters who were in town.

Jim, I am thankful for you more than words can express. You are such an amazing husband and father. I am thankful that we are growing "old" together, and I look forward to what the next 30 years have in store! I hope you had a fun 30th birthday!