Emily on day 3

Here's a picture of Emily today, day three of her life outside of mommy. She is doing great. She had a routine check-up yesterday and the pediatrician said she appears to be in perfect health. Mini is also recovering well, much improved from 2 days ago. Lily is also enjoying her baby sister very much. She is helping us take care of Emily, "reading" to her, counting Emily's fingers and toes, etc. It's very sweet. Thank you all for your prayers, congratulatory emails, and love. We are grateful for you all.

Announcing Emily Faith Palmer

With great joy we announce the birth of our second daughter, Emily Faith Palmer.

Mini and I both love the name Emily. (It’s quite the popular name these days, so we’re obviously not the only ones!) We also like the way Lily and Emily go together. We chose Faith for our daughter’s middle name as it is the virtue and divine gift that we pray will mark our daughter’s life. We pray that she may follow the example set out for us all by the people of God described in Hebrews chapter 11.

Emily Faith was born at 1:09 am today, July 28, 2008 (seven days past her due date). She is doing great so far – sleeping and eating well. Mini lost more blood than usual and she is weaker and more weary than she was with Lily’s birth – but she is not in danger. She just needs some time to get her energy back.

Mini started having contractions at 5:30 am yesterday, July 27. The contractions were steady all morning, but slowed down in the afternoon and early evening. Then they came on very strong from about 8:40 pm, until Emily was born four and a half hours later. Mini did great and I was so proud of her.

Emily was 7 pounds and 12 ounces at birth, and 21.5 inches long. She looks quite a lot like her big sister Lily. We look forward to you meeting her in person. If you do come by to see Emily in the coming weeks, may I encourage you to also show some extra love and attention to Lily as well, and not just to the newest center of attention!

Lily is enjoying getting to know her baby sister. Please pray for us all in the weariness and adjustments of the coming weeks. We’ll do our best to post more pictures of both of our girls on our blog in the days ahead.

Baby overtime again

Lily's baby sister was due yesterday (July 21), but she is still inside of mommy. Lily was born two days past her due date. We'll see if the same goes for her sister. That would mean being born tomorrow...

Of course we'll get the news out asap when the baby is born!

Sailor girl

Here's Lily (25 months) in a cute sailor outfit that was passed on to us by a dear friend in Sacramento...

Lily Grace is Two Years Old!

Lily Grace turned two years old yesterday. Happy birthday Lily! We shot this video last week of her "reading" her "Little Girl's Bible." (She does this with quite a few of her books now -- she has heard us read the page to her enough times that she has it memorized word for word.) Here's the page she's "reading" in the video...

Lily plays in the snow

Our family went to church camp at Big Bear over Memorial Day weekend, and it snowed on us (in late May!). Lily got to play in the snow for the first time...

She owns the road

Here's Lily cruising on her new tricycle, a gift from her grandparents... She's 22 months old in these pictures.