Baby Pella is Here!

God has blessed us with a beautiful baby GIRL!

(I knew it the whole time, crazy hormones!)

Pella Kersten Johnson

She was born on Wednesday, November 23rd at 10:55pm (actually 10:57 we found out by watching the video - but the paperwork is already filled out so, oh well, minor details.)

She weighs 6 lbs. 6 oz. and is 19 inches long with a 13 inch head.

Her name means "rock" (of course). It's the Greek variant of Peter or Petra. Kersten is Peter's maternal grandmother's maiden name. And an added bonus - she was born on Grandma and Grandpa's 45 wedding anniversary!

On a drive home from Costco I had 2 contractions. Then we waited for hours for something to happen. We watched a movie, I sat on the ball. Nothing. I was beginning to think I was wrong and maybe they were just really strong braxton hicks. My shoulders hurt so I got in the tub. I had another really strong contraction. I told Peter I think it's going to happen soon. He called our midwife and he and Nonnie got the cameras ready. Ten minutes and one huge contraction later...

So, welcome to the world Baby Pella! We all love you so much already! And you gave us all something to be so extremely thankful to God for!

We didn't have a hat for her so Dada made her one out his sock. (It was a clean sock, a nice fuzzy wool one - I love it!) She's wearing it for the kissing picture.

A couple of hours later we introduced Pella to her brothers and sisters. They all took turns holding her and kissing her and trying to call her Pella instead of Baby Wormie. Then we all laid hands on her and Dada prayed a blessing for her life, that we would raise her the way God wants us to and that she would glorify God with her life.
Sweet little pie looking at the camera. An eyes open shot already!

We had asked Chris and Tonya to host Thanksgiving dinner because our due date was the day before and we didn't know what would happen. And good thing we did! They had a beautiful Thanksgiving spread and almost the whole Johnson, Johnson, Tague clan was there! Dinner was delicious! Everyone was able to meet Baby Pella before she even turned a day old!

Our newest little baby girl, we love you so much!

Baby Wormie's Belly Picture

Froggy Belly - 2003

(Eben)

Baby Egg Belly - 2005

(Kivi)

Thumbkin Belly - 2006

(Jasper)

Baby Bean Belly - 2008

(Opal)

Baby Oly Belly - 2010

(Berg)

On Nov. 9th my sister, Shmee, came down and took the 9 month belly picture that I have to have for every kid. So now we're all set! I actually can't believe how well the kids did at this. They are all smiling and looking up and four of them have their hands on the belly! If you've ever tried to get a picture of five kids at the same time you'll know - that's amazing. And it only took a couple of minutes!! Thank you Shmee!

Baby Wormie Belly - 2011

(????)

I'm so proud of these little guys! They are such awesome kids. Whenever I need a break or to lie down or just not have anyone jump on me at the moment - they are so quick to have me lie down, give me back rubs, make me sweet cards and love me. I know they learned that from their Dada and not me. I'm horrible at compassion and empathy.

They already love this baby and she's not even here. (Have I mentioned I really think this baby is going to be a girl. We have no clue, but that's my opinion. Sorry Wormie if you're a boy.) They are always talking to, rubbing, and kissing my belly. This baby is going to be very loved!

An Incredible Harvest Carnival!

Eben got the idea last October to have us all go as The Incredibles in the year 2011. (Actually, he wanted to do it for last year's costumes, but we knew I'd need more than a week to get all the costumes together. So we told him we'd do it the next year.) True to our word we, Dada included, donned the tight, tight red shirt with the sewed on paper logo and some lovely red tights with black underwear! Eben's hair was definitely the trickiest part of the costumes as we didn't know how his hair was going to stick straight up 6 inches. But we found some punk rock gel called Gorilla Snot - and it worked. He had to be in an upside-down position until it dried.

Everyone turned out looking pretty Incredible! We've never had our picture taken by more strangers! Everyone stopped us to get us to pose and some people were even trying to secretly snap a shot on their phone. Peter in tights will be on the internet for all to see I'm sure. (Well, now it definitely is.) He's really happy about that.

Our Incredible Cast:

Dada - Mr. Incredible

Mama - ElastiGirl

Kivi - Violet

Jasper - Dash

Berg - Jack Jack

Eben - Syndrome

Opal - Edna Mode

We headed to the gym at Lake City's Harvest Carnival first this year and made it to ten booths before the kids were done playing games and ready to eat.

Grandpa and Grandma met up with us and watched the kids play games and have fun getting their pics taken by strangers.

Then we ate the free little dinner of corn dogs and soda. It was also Incredible that Berg left his mask on the entire time we were there! He even ate his dinner with it on.

The kids played the cupcake walk game and Opal was so excited to win her own cupcake. She was so darn cute in those glasses!

Me and my Mr. Incredible - I love him so much. He would do just about anything to make his family happy. Tights and underwear in public = the greatest Dada and Hubby ever!

Back at home the kids "got busy" trading and dividing up their candy between each other. A favorite part of the 31st!

After the trading, Berg decided to show off his hidden skills and walk! He took about 4-5 steps between Peter and I over and over. It was a treat! His little trick - he hasn't done it since.

Pumpkins!

We didn't get our pumpkins until the 23rd and since we didn't make it to the free fire fighter pumpkin give away we decided to go to the great pumpkin lot - Walmart!! Hey, you can't beat a $2.98 pumpkin.

A friend from church gave us a great idea for my kids to paint my belly to look like a pumpkin so we could take a picture of...

All our little pumpkins!

Finally on the 30th we got around to actually carving the pumpkins. This ended up to be a great plan. They stayed fresh and didn't rot like last year. And we were able to cook them up for pumpkin butter, pumpkin soup, pie, and pumpkin crisp! They are fun to look at, but they are even better to eat!

This year, Eben and Kivi carved theirs all by themselves! Bergie helped me carve his pumpkin by poking the pieces out and then eating them.

He and Opal had so much fun just putting the cut out pieces in the pumpkin and taking them back out over and over again.

We also celebrated my birthday this night, Dada and the kids had bought me an ice cream cake from Coldstone's the day before, my actual birthday. But I didn't get home from the Women of Faith Conference, my real gift, until the kids were in bed so we ate it then.

After ice cream, the kids got in jammies and we took spooky pumpkin pictures and gave out pumpkin design awards.

Jasper - the happiest

Opal - the cutest

Kivi - the scariest

Berg - the coolest

Eben - the most frightening

Eben Turns Eight!

For Eben's 8th birthday this year we gave him the choice of either having a party or going to Great Wolf Lodge with our family. He chose going to the hotel. So after Dada sneakily, without Mama's permission, and illegally gave him 5 new games for a game boy that his friend Adam gave him we headed out.

After dropping off Opal and Berg at different friend's houses, we drove down and made it to the anticipated destination. The kids were so excited that our room had a kid's cabin they were going to sleep in!

There wasn't actually much time spent in the room however. First we went to the water park. All of us. We got some crazy looks from people, probably because Peter with his broken foot in a boot and me with my humungous 8 month prego belly were unlikely sights to see going down the water slides. We had a blast! Jasper was a little scared of the huge dumping water bucket and mainly wanted to stay in the wave pool, and Kivi couldn't go on all the water slides. But Eben was able to do everything and loved it.

After the water park we started the extremely long, but very fun process of … Magi Quest! Thanks to our friends, we were able to borrow 3 magic wands and got 3 quests for the price of one because the cute wizardy guys in the shop messed up, but didn't care enough to fix it. I mainly went around with Wonderful Wizard, Magic Maddie, and Monkey Dan (their wizard names) since walking wasn't one of Dada's strong physical abilities at the time.

We took a break from the Quest for a Easy Mac and Cheese dinner in our room followed by more Magi Quest and then cupcakes for dessert for the birthday boy! (Awesome cupcake story: We went to Walmart to pick up food for our little trip, knowing the food at GWL would be expensive, and I found a dozen cupcakes for $.88!! I told the bakery girls and they were so shocked they ran around like crazy trying to get all of the messed up priced pastries before they all got in trouble. I asked if I could still have one priced at $.88 and one of the ladies (probably the one that mismarked them) grabbed them out of my hand and said no way, but the lady in charge gave them back and said thanks for pointing it out!!

All of us, on the bed eating cupcakes and celebrating our crazy boy!

The next day we went back to the water park. This time Dada sat in the steamy hotness and read his book while we all swam around.

Eben really loved the water slides, except the time I fell out of the inner tube on the Tornado. It scared him to death that I was launched out and floundering around in the water. He was screaming, "Mama don't die! Mama don't die!" I didn't even get hurt, neither did Baby Wormie, but it was scary. I climbed back on the tube before we exited the slide. And then Eben told the lifegaurd, "Mama fell off the tube!" Now there probably will be signs not allowing pregnant women to ride the water slides.

We spent the rest of the day finishing up Magi Quest, even though we had already checked out of our room. Peter mainly hung out in the lobby while we went all over the hotel trying to wave our magic wands at everything we needed for our clues. This was a very high activity hotel to stay at for 2 disabled parents. After the kids tried to fight the dragon,(Kivi succeeded in killing it) Peter and I switched and he took Eben and Kivi to the water park again while Jasper and I hung out in the lobby knitting and playing on the ipad. Meanwhile, we were subjected to the most horrible puppet show type thing ever. The basic moral of the show is that it's totally fine to get lost in the woods, the wolves are there to guide you and the eternal mother earth will always be there for you. And it's filled with just as bad songs that get stuck in your head. We were able to have quite a few good laughs about it though and thankfully the kids noticed the flawed advice right away.

Eben, Happy 8th Birthday - clap, clap, stomp, stomp, HHHhhhaaaaooooooo! (It's a GWL thing.) We've had such a great time watching you grow and learn and love others. You have a lot of responsibilities in our home and you do them without complaining, with a happy heart and with confidence. We can't wait to see what a wonderful man of God you will soon be and see how He uses your wonderful creative qualities to serve others and be glorified. We are so blessed that He gave us a son like you! We love you, Eben!

Apples. Kisses. Devotions.

We harvested our apples from our little one year old tree. We were not expecting to get any because we had just planted it the fall before.

Our cute little Honeycrisp tree gave us three basketfuls of apples! And the best part is the kids love them! They are now Dada's favorite too.

The cute littles loving and reading to each other.

I just wanted to remember the sweet times we spend together in the mornings doing our devotions. Since I didn't write about it before, I've already forgotten when we started doing them. We started out with little devotional books geared toward kids years ago. When Dada joined our morning devotion time he started reading a chapter or two of the New Testament every day. Now we are on I Corinthians! We used to call these times Cereal Devotions because the kids would munch on dry cereal sitting in little nests they made out of blankets all over the floor while we read the Bible. In the last couple of months, the kids stopped bringing cereal and just snuggled on the couch. Eben and Kivi and Dada take turns reading and then in descending age order a different person prays for our prayer requests from the prayer journal each day. It's a great time of quiet (usually… it's louder now that Bergie comes to devotions), rest, and listening to God's Word with the Lord and our children before we start our day.