Miss Joy

Miss Joy at Two and Three Weeks

September 14, 2019 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We are loving having a baby in the house again! This little girl is a very happy baby, and sleeps and eats very well. At three weeks, she was already 13 ounces over her birthweight, so she apparently gets enough!

Here are my three beautiful girls, when we came home from church on the first Sunday that Miss Joy went to church. She was nearly two weeks old. The second photo was taken a little later, when she woke up.

Mr. Intellectual got help with his school from his baby sister.

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Two weeks old. She was intently listening to her daddy singing, and studying his face.

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Studying Mr. Intellectual…

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…and Little Miss…

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…and Simon.

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Three weeks old. She does very well at holding her head up already, and is very alert—when she’s awake! She often spends a couple of hours awake in the morning, and three-four hours awake just before bedtime, with occasional cat naps; otherwise, she sleeps for several hours at a time, day and night. She’s very happy; nothing seems to bother her much except when she decides she needs to eat right now and gets put off for several minutes! She smiles a lot now, although we haven’t managed to capture that in a photo yet.

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August 2019 Photos

September 8, 2019 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Simon turned 18 near the beginning of the month. We had visitors over to help celebrate, and Esther baked pavlova.

Indian wrestling in our living room! Simon and Mr. Intellectual are pretty evenly matched.

Little Miss wanted to show me her new hairstyle one day! The sticks were her hands.

One morning I noticed this helicopter spreading lime just across the river from our town. There is a company just up the hill from us that has several helicopters, and we frequently see them fly over with the fertilizer spreader dangling underneath.

More heavy equipment going past our house!

Here are several pictures from Miss Joy’s second week.

I love seeing that little head snuggling up to big brother. This is a happy baby, very much a joy to all of us!

She Has Arrived!

August 24, 2019 by NZ Filbruns 4 Comments

We were not anticipating meeting our new baby until at least now, but she arrived four days ago already. We are feeling incredibly blessed to have another daughter! After all the loss and trauma our family has experienced over the past three years, we are rejoicing to have new life in our home.

Maria Joy, who will henceforth be known on this blog as Miss Joy, arrived early Tuesday morning after a relatively easy labor. She weighed 7 pounds, 1.5 ounces, and was 19 inches long, our second-smallest baby. She is very happy so far, waking up every few hours to have a feed, look around for awhile at the fascinating world of light and listen to the sounds around her, have another feed and go back to sleep. She occasionally gets laid down in the bassinet—but most of the time people clamor to hold her! The three teenage boys, especially, argue good-naturedly about who gets to hold the baby!

Here is our precious newborn, just a few hours old.

Do you think they were excited?

Mr. Diligence

Mr. Sweetie

Little Miss finally had the prayer answered which she prayed at least a year and a half ago, for a sister.

The morning after she was born, we compared her feet to Mr. Intellectual’s big toe!

I got to hold two daughters at once!

Mr. Intellectual

Photo-bombers! This is Mr. Diligence and Simon. (Simon, by the way, thinks he is entitled to hold the baby any time he’s at home! He feels like he misses out on a lot because he has to work.)

Poor Simon had to do schoolwork last night and let his daddy hold the baby!

This is what is happening right now. Mr. Sweetie asked if he could hold the sleeping baby, and promptly fell asleep with her!