Tuffy has had more newborn pictures taken than any of the kids. So the idea that you take less pictures of the younger kids is not true. Here he is with Dada the day after he was born, hanging out and being cute.
Grandma and Grandpa and aunts and uncles and cousins came to meet the new little man!
Dodie helped me try to take a fall picture on the 23rd of Tuff in a drawer with pumpkins next to the fireplace, but he didn't cooperate very well.
Opal cashed in her Special Helper Rockets to go out to ice cream with Mama and Dada and Tuffy and bought him a new outfit. She also bought Kivi a teapot and plate. What a sweet sister!
More cutie pics of our new man on the 24th:
Here's the first one we got of all the brothers and sisters together:
Dada introduced Tuff to all the kids outside of the tub after he cut the cord.
Then the kids all waited patiently on our bed while they took turns holding their new little brother.
They all LOVE him!
Our midwives Dawn and Sarah checked Tuff and got all of his vitals, weight and head size and checked his man parts. He was all good.
Kivi was so careful and ecstatic that she got to put on his first outfit.
The girls were able to have a fascinating hands on science lesson about the placenta too! Thanks, Dawn. Wow - come to think of it this was quite the homeschooling day!
While they had their lesson, he latched on for the first time like a champ.
Tuff's very first "Kissing Picture"!
Kivi got all the baby boy clothes washed and laid out (all over the living room floor).
Later in the day Tuff had his first visitors, the Schocks. Kivi and Grace gave Tuff his first present, an owl family, that they sewed themselves!
Look at how much he's changed in just 12 hours! He almost looks like he's smiling! So alert and happy.
Even though they missed the birth as they were driving up from CA, Poppie and Nonnie did get to be there to say, "Happy Birthday" to baby Tuff later on in the evening.
Oh Tuff, we already all love you so much! You are such a blessing and we thank God for giving you to us.
Here's the birth story of Baby Bear, our seventh little Johnson.
On Nov. 20th I lost my mucus plug and went to the bathroom about 19 times so I knew it was going to happen soon, but no contractions had happened yet. When Peter got home from work I told him and the kids, "I think we're going to have a baby tonight!" Peter was lying on the living room floor and shot up all of a sudden, "Right now?" I laughed and said not yet, but told him what was going on and that I thought tonight would be the night, although I had really wanted to wait until December to have the baby because we didn't have a Dec. birthday yet. Oh well. That didn't happen.
We tucked the kids in and went to bed, still no contractions. I slept on and off because I had lots of Braxton Hicks contractions, but no real ones. Around 5am I had a contraction and told Peter it was time to wake up the big kids and call the midwives. I started the bath and got my suit on. Eben and Kivi were so excited to get to be a part of the birth. Kivi video taped and Eben took lots of great pictures. Peter also hung a camera from above.
The birth was amazing. God is so good! Fast, easy, calm, lots of pressure, but not painful and joyful. It was basically one huge contraction that started right after Kivi started filming. Peter told Kivi to go unlock the door for when the midwife came and all of a sudden I felt a big contraction and the head started to move down. I said no, she needs to film now. The contraction didn't stop until he was out.
Here's the birth video, it has no showing parts, it's a very fast and G rated birth:
Here are the great pictures that Eben took, I love how he just kept taking picture and got the whole birth. They are really clear too. All of these pictures happened in less than a minute.
He came out and cried right away and then stopped. He opened his eyes and looked around. He was so cute and alert, and a BOY! Tuff was born around 5:30am. He weighed 7lbs. 6oz. and was 19 1/2 inches long.
So here we are, our little birth crew, and the new little Baby Bear, Tuff Jobe Johnson.
About 20 minutes after he was born, Opal and Pella, whose room is right next to the bathroom woke up and came to meet him and feel the still attached umbilical cord.
And then our midwife came! Sarah had gotten a little lost, but we all knew she wouldn't make it anyway. We have very fast little Johnson babies. We had to wait for our other midwife, Dawn, to come with the cord clamps and scissors, so I stayed attached to the little man in the tub for 27 minutes! (I just looked at the time stamp on the photos and realized that.)
Each one of our babies has had a belly photoshoot with the big brothers and sisters and Baby Bear was no exception. The hard part was fitting in all those siblings! This was an all day adventure. We set up a white sheet and Dada snapped and made silly faces and we bribed with candy treat and finally, we seemed to have a good one. Hooray! Belly photoshoot done. Now Baby Bear can go up on the belly wall!
For kicks I had all the kids kiss Baby Bear and this was a way easier task than sitting still and smiling and I love the picture.
We have another pregnancy tradition of taking a picture every month of the growing belly. This time we were a little late getting the early month pictures, but from then on, we managed to get the rest on time. The ninth month picture was actually taken the night before Baby Bear was born! (I had lost my mucus plug that day, so I was pretty sure it was going to happen soon.)
This is the biggest I have ever gotten with a pregnancy. From month six on many people asked if we were sure we weren't having twins! I'm pretty sure it was all those cupcakes.
According to iPhoto (which is how we remember anything a week after it happens), we either didn't do much leading up to our new family addition, or we just failed to take pictures. A very pregnant Abby agreed to be with me in our church musical, which had a four show run two weeks after the baby came, but more on that later. We rehearsed through November.
On Abby's birthday, the kids got up at 0500 and decorated the house for her for a little breakfast surprise party.
This photo of Berg and Pella is here just to remind me in years to come of how they are. They can be seen spontaneously doing this five times a day around our house. While I know this will likely not always be the case, hearing them tell each other that they are best friends on a regular basis is just too dang cute to handle.
About two weeks before baby, we made a mid-week run out to NW Trek. We've found it an excellent place to both see animals and to utilize the wide, smooth, sloped blacktop walkways to Heely. Hat's off to my little Opal who mastered her Heely's on this trip.
As always, Abby found a way to dress all eight of us in the same theme, all while keeping the kids both excited about it and convinced that it was their idea. This year, we went with Despicable Me 2, featuring both good and evil minions.
Abby assures me that she in no way picked this costume theme due to my natural resemblance to Gru. Sadly, my kids are more honest. One woman at the carnival asked me how I got my legs so skinny for the costume. I assured her they were au nauturel.
Hats off to my wife for taking black duck tape, felt and Goodwill clothes and turning us into this! It was a fun night.
Every few years, Abby allows me on here for some catch up blogging. So sit back and enjoy a smattering of photos and captions that in no way compare to my lovely wife's discerning and carefully chosen posts, but which will, more or less, catch you up with the Johnson's.
