lauren kara tsai born on july 12, 2008 at 11:54 am.  right on time to make daddy miss his test. her stats:  6 lbs 1 oz, 18 inches long   so far little lauren’s been a great baby who feeds well (phil says she’s the best nurser of the bunch!  though i’m not quite sure how he’d know that), sleeps like a dream (five-hour stretches at night), and is pretty mellow and quiet when she is awake.  so far.  i’m anticipating that she’ll start changing as she gets a bit bigger and is less sleepy all the time. both mikey and allie are in love with their little sister.  they…

and we’re off to the hospital! but, just might stop over at the movies first.  a friend gave us free tickets and who knows when we’ll get to use them if not now??

from my clinic visit today, it turns out that i am 2 cm dilated, 50-60% effaced, and baby’s head is engaged.  so it looks like baby #3 will make an early appearance.  though i was this far along with allie and managed two more weeks before she was born.  phil is hoping against hope that the baby will be born this saturday to get him out of a test he’s not feeling ready for.  i told him i’d do my best!  all this talk about the new baby definitely hasn’t escaped mikey’s attention.  thankfully, he seems mostly excited about the baby, knows it’s a girl, knows what we’re planning to…

just wanted to wish happy seventh anniversary to phil!  unfortunately, phil is on call, so we weren’t able to actually celebrate today.  but he still managed to more than make up for it, first by taking us out to dinner (kids included) to claim jumper last night.  and this morning, long after phil had already left for work, i walked out into the living room to find this little surprise waiting for me: even after all this time, phil still manages thoughtful little surprises.  one of the many reasons why i love that guy.  we’ve sure had our share of ups and downs the past seven years, but there’s no…

time for an update!  it’s been a pretty quiet month around here for us.  with gas prices now above $4.50 a gallon, phil working 72+ hours per week (and being on call about 3 nights a week), and my beginning to have some contractions the last couple weeks (they’ve been occuring more on the nights phil is away.  i think it’s more because i’m stressing myself out thinking how to get someone to come watch the kids in the middle of the night and get myself to the hospital in case i go in to labor when phil isn’t home), we’ve mostly been laying low and hanging out at the…