And baby makes 4!!

Ethne Louise Mathias is here!! She was born on Wednesday, June 27, at 2:51 p.m.. She was 6 pounds, 8 ounces, and 18-1/2" long. Wendy and Ethne are doing great! They came home Friday afternoon and have settled right in. What a wonderful blessing for Wendy to have a normal delivery (aside from the fact Ethne was 3 weeks early) and hospital stay!Thank you all of you for your prayers! We know God answers them! Denise
Hello all, I'm so sorry for taking so long to get anything about our precious Ethne posted! As I was looking for a picture to post of her I realized I don't really have any of her alone so I'll be taking care of that today! Until then I hope these two will do. That's her daddy's hand. Love you all! ~Wendy

Goodbye Trees. . .

What a busy work weekend! I was invited to spend a day with my cousins & Aunt Dawn preparing a gourmet Italian meal, (My Aunt Dawn is a VERY talented cook & we always feel very honored whenever we get to enjoy her Italian dishes)! However, instead of spending a day in the kitchen with the girls I spent Saturday (& Sunday) outside with my amazingly sweet parents & husband (& Jeremy on Sunday). I'm not complaining because we accomplished the first stage of a HUGE project. About a month ago we had a bid done on what it would cost to cut down 9 trees in our backyard. . . guesses anyone? Try $3100. YIKES! We mentioned what we were wanting to do & what it was gonna cost in front of my 'do it yourself' dad who from that moment on insisted that he was going to help us cut down our trees. Mom & I both were very hesitant about having our men scaling 70 foot high trees & falling them VERY close to our house but dad never quit insisting & just ignored our saying, 'no thanks'. And now that we're done with the hardest part (getting them cutW down) & we're so thankful dad didn't listen to us! He really did an amazing job at falling them at the right spot & efficiently. It was only my parents, Will & me working & even at that one of us had to be inside taking care of Lilyanah except for when she was napping. I was pretty impressed at what a hard working family I have. Will wasn't crazy about his 8 1/2 month pregnant wife being out there working but like mom said, "I come from good stock". Sometime during the day Will got a splinter stuck REALLY deep in his right forearm so once we were done for the night we had to clean up quick & get him into the doctors to see if he could get it out. Both dad & mom tried to do it to no avail & I have the weakest stomach & couldn't even attempt it. So, at 8:30pm Corey & Kelsey came over to the house to stay there with Lilyanah, who was asleep, and Will & I headed out for the hospital. An hour & a half later after 2 numbing shots & the doctor digging at least 1/2" into Will's arm we were back on our way home for some much needed sleep! On Sunday Jeremy was just coming over for a quick visit when he got roped into helping & stayed until after 5pm. He was such a big help (thanks brother!) It amazes me how much we got accomplished. Most of the time Mom & I were loading branches into the truck & taking them to the mill where you can drop off wood for free. Dad & Jeremy got all the logs cut into either firewood pieces or 8' pieces that we'll have to cut next weekend. We still have A LOT more work to do but what a productive weekend! Of course I have to include at least one picture of Lilyanah so here she is playing on the picnic table her Pepa & Mema Tucker gave her for Easter. Some of the other poses she did were hilarious but they were too blurry. I hope you all had a GREAT weekend whether you worked or relaxed. We're really feeling the pressure of our second little girl's arrival & are trying to get as much done as possible before she makes her appearance. Just 16 more days until I go in to be induced! How do you make time slow down!? Love you all! ~ Wendy.

So, So, Long!

I can't believe it's already been a month since I last blogged! So much has happened.
Lilyanah's 15 month appointment where we found out she is 31" long & weighs a couple of ounces over 21 lbs. The doctor also heard a heart murmur that she had heard at her 12 month appointment but was hoping would have been gone by 15 months. So, they had us get an ekg & xray & everything looked great but they still had us make an appointment with a cardiologist to cover all of our bases. The appointment is tomorrow morning at OHSU. We're praying for good news!
Our second Mother's Day when my husband gave me a gift certificate for the full spa treatment whenever I want. The first picture was taken on Mother's Day. The day after Mother's Day a dear friend gave me my first haircut since having it shaved back on March 9th, 2006. It was much needed!
The weekend of the 18th we headed down to the beach (Depot Bay) it was stormy but we had such a nice time. We walked down to the pool where Lilyanah was just going to put her feet in the warm water so none of us were dressed for a swim, but Lilyanah wanted to get all the way in so her sweet daddy fully clothed took her into the pool. I wish I had a picture to show but we videotaped it so unfortunately you can't see it! We played lots of games & enjoyed the view.

Softball season started last Thursday. I guess the guys were playing on of the hardest teams in the league & they dominated beating them 15 to 5 or something like that. Will looks forward to softball season all year long! Last week he was trying to get me out in our yard to toss the ball or pitch to him! You can see from the picture of me & Lilyanah (taken May 27th) that my tummy is rapidly growing!
Memorial day we had a group of friends over for visiting, a bbq & some volleyball. We were so excited that the sun decided to make an appearance, we weren't sure if it was gonna make it or not! I was 33 weeks yesterday & had a doctor's appointment today. Ethne is in place, ready to make her appearance whenever the time comes. I have one more appointment on the 8th & then at 8:30 am on the 20th they're going to do an amniocentesis to make sure her little lungs are developed & we'll go in again at midnight to be induced. Can you believe how quickly time is passing by!?

I hope you all enjoy your last day of May! The last picture of Lilyanah is with the toy her grandpa got for her on these hot days! It was too cold to put it up outside so he set it up in the living room for her to play with. . . she loves it! Who knows what she'll think of it when there's actually water to play in! ~How are you guys doing with this crazy summer heat!? Love you all!

Guess Who's Walking!

Thank you so much for your prayers on behalf of Will's uncles. This past Wednesday morning we lost Jackie. Will flew into Ft. Worth, TX on Friday night so he could be at Jackie's funeral on Saturday. Please continue to pray for the family as they're dealing with the loss. Howie is not doing well at all, he's been in the hospital for at least the last week and sadly it is only a matter of time before we lose him also.

At Will's request Lilyanah & I spent the weekend at my parents house, so I'm including some pictures we took this weekend. Our sweet friends in Iowa, the Killians gave this little rain coat outfit to Lilyanah when she was born & every chance I get I love to dress her in it. I just thought it would be criminal not to include some pictures of her strolling around in it. The other picture is Lilyanah discovering daisies for the first time. (I'm not including when I made us daisy chain's to wear on our bald heads last April.)Lilyanah gets such a kick out of dad pushing her on her little 'car'. I wish you could hear her gleeful giggling! I was just reminded that I have not yet told you all that she is walking! All out, walking! A week & a half ago she just started letting go of whatever she was holding onto & walking to something else. It's just progressed from there. Maybe I'll figure out how to post videos & get one of her walking on here. (Don't hold your breath!) I was recently reminded that I still have not posted pictures of our house. . .I had to include a picture of some visiting friends from Nebraska, Jeff & Margaret Garrison. For a brief time they lived a couple of houses away from us & I got to play with their daughters (Mary & Leann) all the time. Mary was just 2 weeks older than me so it was mostly us that played. Oh, the many wonderful childhood memories!Sorry, but I just had to include one more picture of Lilyanah in her raincoat! Such a serious face! Aren't the little boots & hat adorable! I'm so glad I'll get to dress baby #2 in them too! I hope you all have had a blessed Monday! So, question. . . . What is something you've always wanted to do but never been disciplined enough to do it? Love you all!
Wendy.

April Showers Bring May Flowers

Yesterday afternoon Laura, Troy & the girls walked over to Mom & Dad's house for a visit. The sun was out & it was such a beautiful day!!!! Let's rewind though, we went to early service & were back home by 10:30am so Will went out back & mowed the yard. If only Lilyanah's hair would grow as quickly as our grass! He finished just in time for us to head to Abby's Pizza where we met up with our family as well as Dwayne,Mindy, & (6 month old)Peyton Seeber who were in town for the weekend. Unfortunately our camera battery was dead so I got absolutely zero pictures! They, as well as Corey, Kelsey & Dwayne's older sister (& my dear friend) Randie, came over to our house for a short visit. It brought back memories of living in Oklahoma City. For about 6 months Dwayne & Mindy, Will, & Corey & I all lived in the same apartment complex. Dwayne & Mindy were there first, followed by Corey & me & last to join was Will. Typically the guys I dated lived at least a half hour away & more typically at least 100 miles away. But when Will & I were dating he lived about 100 feet away. It made dating pretty convenient. He would leave sweet notes on my car for me to find before work & we would meet in the evening to go visit in one of the many wooden swings placed around the property. I got a little off subject. . .
Dad has their TV hooked up to download video from the video camera. Something we desperately need to do since we started videoing before Lilyanah was born & now she's a day away from being 15 months old! So, we headed over to Mom & Dad's to work on getting some video downloaded. Technical complications did not allow for us to get any of that done, but such is life. It was a bonus that the Kronewitter family decided to come over & we had a nice day!
I have neglected to write very much about what is going on with Will's side of our family. He has two uncles both of which are suffering from serious health problems. His uncle Howie (52), who lives in Ft. Worth has been battling with oral cancer for over a year. (The picture above is of Will's uncle Jackie (far left), Melanie (Howie's wife), Michelle (Will's sister) & our little Lilyanah.) The picture to the left is Lilyanah playing with Howie's hat on Thanksgiving.) It's been a really tough road, but Howie is a tough guy with a lot to live for. Doctors are currently using an experimental drug on him as he's done all of the radiation treatments that he can do & chemotherapy has been only somewhat effective. Please keep him in your prayers! Will's other uncle, Jackie, (58), has recently been hospitalized with heart problems. He's in desperate need of a heart transplant. I think they've released him from the hospital, but I'm not sure.
All of this is really hard on both Lynn (Will's mommy) & Grandad (their daddy). We just lost Meme not all that long ago and I cannot begin to imagine how hard it is, no matter how old your kids or your brothers are, to watch your family physically hurting so much. So, please keep the whole family in your prayers. Thank you so much! I hope you all have had a blessed day, we love you all! ~ Wendy.

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures!

This is our sweet little Lilyanah on her second Easter. She had a pretty good time though she wasn't feeling well towards the end of the day. We 'churched' as my cousin Katie always says in her blog. . . and then went to enjoy an amazing lunch at Gigi & Papa's. Our Gigi always takes such good care of us & feeds us SO well. (Thank you Gigi from all of us for always loving on us so well!)

Mom & Dad took advantage of Gigi & Papa's beautiful backyard patio. . . I love that they never have to worry about anyone building up a whole bunch of houses in their backyard because it's a steep canyon! After lunch & naps the kiddos played around the living room. It was so much fun watching them play around together. It was a rainy day so the egg hunt happened indoors. George, Violet & Nolan all got the gist of it but Hazel of course isn't crawling yet & Lilyanah found a couple of eggs that she put in her basket but had more fun taking them in & out of her basket than hunting for more.

Our cousin Jack was a kid magnet. Hazel & Violet snuggled up in his lap & Nolan kept trying to crawl up but never could quite seem to make it! As you can see there wasn't a bunch of room either! Jack definitely takes after his dad (Gano). Gano was like the pied piper for kids all growing up. So is my brother Corey. There's something about those guys that little kids just think they hung the moon & are so excited whenever they come around.

Lilyanah is holding one of the eggs. . . Papa was surrounded by great-grandkids & I think really enjoyed it. We just celebrated Papa's 76th birthday on the 3rd of this month. We look forward to many more birthday celebrations!

Here's a picture of the 'Isenberg girls'just laughing over brownie ice-cream sundaes. I think George was trying to beg some ice cream from his grandma. And if you look closely you can see little Nolan in the bottom right hand corner. So cute!
We ended our day with a family devotional. Little George even led a few songs (playing church is one of his favorite things). I hope you all had a great weekend and also got to spend some quality time with your family. We love you all! ~

5 years!

March 25th was a very special day for Will & me. We met on Sunday the 25th of March 2002. After meeting at church we went to Dwayne & Mindy Seeber's house to watch the Oregon Ducks play against KU in the Elite 8. So, this Sunday March 25th the Ducks were playing again in the Elite 8. Sadly they lost this year just like 5 years ago, but what a coicidence! So I decided to share some pictures from Violet's birthday party. She's opening presents on a sweet little table Papa & Gigi got her & in the background you can see Papa, my aunt Mona (Violet's grandma) & Rick (Violet's grandpa).

The picture of Lilyanah is from the beginning of the month. Still no more new teeth & very very very little new hair! Yesterday she crawled up on the bed, saw my water bottle, knocked it to the ground, looked up at me & very loudly said "uh-oh". She says that consistently. She still isn't saying Mommy or Daddy. You can say "fishy" & she'll smack her lips together, or say cow & "moo" & she'll make a hard to distinguish moo sound back. But I'll say Mommy after she's been repeating me & she just laughs. She's taken as many as 3 consecutive steps but as soon as she gets close to whoever she's walking to she just throws herself forward. I'm glad she's not in any hurry to grow up. . . I'm sure that won't last as long as we want it to.

There's a picture of Hazel (Violet's little sister) sitting on her aunt Becky's lap. Isn't she a little doll!? Hazel is a little over 5 months younger than Lilyanah. I love the picture in the background on the right of Violet loving on Hazel!

The last picture is of me, yikes! I was nearly 5 1/2 months pregnant when that was taken. I thought I should be fair & show my growing belly. I know you can't really tell but I had straightened my hair in case any of you were curious. It's still naturally curly. . . it takes a little bit of work to get the straight effect. And now you'll have to excuse me, I have a very tired little girl laying her sweet little head on my lap, rubbing her eyes. Love you all! ~ Wendy.

AMAZING technology!

Everybody meet little baby Mathias #2. The image is a little bumpy, she isn't but it's hard for them to get just the outer layer of skin. .. So one of the benefits to being in the hospital so early with Lilyanah was the incredible picture that we got of her with their 3D ultrasound. With this little girl we are having ultrasounds VERY often, every 3 to 4 weeks. I have to say while it's no fun being a high-risk pregnancy I love that we get to see our little one so often! And, at this last appointment they did the above 3D ultrasound of her (just because I asked), isn't that so nice of them! The doctor said everything is going great & that she weighs about 1 lbs 3 oz. I asked about what she was thinking delivery-wise, because the last time we met she made it sound like I was going to go close to full-term. She said that had I not been able to do the MRI's that they were probably only going to let me go until 32-34 weeks. (Different from the 34 to 36 weeks she'd previously told me. But since they are able to do the MRI's they probably won't induce until I'm 36 to 37 weeks along. So still an early baby but hopefully not so early that she'll have to spend time in the NICU (Neonatal intensive care unit) like her big sister.

Last weekend we bought our first lawn mower! Isn't that so exciting! We actually have a very substantial yard in comparison to most properties these days. I think it took a couple of hours to clean up fallen twigs & such along with mowing the whole thing. I can't wait until we can build a fence all around our property so we can let the boys (our 2 pugs) run around while we're working outside. After losing our first pug, our sweet little Amos, so tragically Will has been very protective of these boys & tries very hard to avoid dangerous situations. Like, having them outside while he's mowing the lawn. When he was a boy his dad was mowing their lawn, and even though Will wasn't even close to the mower it went over a rock and slung it across the yard and hit Will. So he made sure we weren't very close when he mowed.

We're having a . . . . .

I just realized I haven't told you whether we're having a little boy or a little girl. . . .

Oops! So, let the suspense be over. . . In less than 5 months we'll have another little girl. We've chosen a name. It's actually an ancient Celtic name but chances are you haven't heard it unless you've seen Four Feathers with Heath Ledger & Kate Hudson. . . . We're actually going between:

Juliet Evalina

(Evalina is a family name)
or
Ethne Louise

(Louise is a family name)

Ethne is pronounced like 'Beth' without the 'b' & then 'knee, so 'eth-knee'. I was looking the name up on the Internet & it actually said that Ethne has never ever been on any countries top 1000 names lists. How hilarious is that!

Onto a different subject, I spoke with my oncologist today & he said that the MRI I had last Friday came back clear! YIPPEE! He didn't know if I would have to do another one before the baby is born, hopefully not. I have to say I much prefer the MRI over the CT scan. They do a painful shot into the muscle in your arm but there's no IV shooting radioactive material into your body so that's good. I don't know how long they're going to let me carry this little lady. At first I'm sure you remember my doctor said they wouldn't let me go beyond 36 weeks (I'm 22 weeks as of last Tuesday.) but I think they may let me go to 38 weeks since they've been able to do an MRI & didn't find any cancer. But, who knows!? (Only God!)

Our next appointment is next Wednesday (the 21st). I don't like that I'm a high-risk pregnancy but I do love getting to see our little girl every 3 weeks! She's moving a lot more too so I get to feel her little kicks & shifts, I love that.
I included some pictures of Lilyanah while we were down in Indio visiting Papa & Gigi. We all got SO sick (that is mom, me & Lilyanah). . . but our little girl never let's not feeling well get her down. We all laughed at how much her little outfit from cousin Carrie looks like an old-fashioned swimming suit! In this picture she was almost 13 months old & the outfit is for 3-6 months. Granted the first time she wore it, it went down to her sweet little ankles! Alright, enough for now, love you all! And if you will please, pray for an 'unknown' for us. I'll write an entry about it later, but it's so important to us that it's all covered in prayer.
Thank you, thank you! ~ Wendy.

Birthday Pictures (From Jan. 17th)

Here's our little princess on her first birthday! We were blessed to have my Aunt Mona & Uncle Rick as well as Laura, Troy & their girls, my parents & my brothers (Corey with his wife) over for dinner & some birthday cake. Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of the group, just the main event. So, I thought I should show how the night progressed. In the first picture she's actually clean! It was so cute because about 10 minutes before this picture was taken Laura's little girl, Violet (almost 2 years old) was trying to feed Lilyanah the rest of her dinner. We fed her in the living room & her food was still on the coffee table so Violet just picked up the spoon, Lilyanah pulled herself up so she was standing against the table & Violet was feeding her. It was the CUTEST thing! We got it on video but unfortunately did not get a picture so I can't show it to you on this blog. This next picture is obviously after we let her let loose into her cupcake! We did angel food cupcakes with whip cream frosting & banana on top. We tried to do low sugar ingredients but Lilyanah didn't go to sleep until 11pm she was on such a sugar high. It was actually really funny cause' she was SO silly! Plus it was my sweet husband who stayed up with her for the last hour!
Speak of Will, here's a picture of him giving Lilyanah a bath in the kitchen sink after dessert was over. It was much needed! I think Will got almost as wet as Lilyanah! Last, but not least. . . the Sunday after her birthday we had more family over for Sunday lunch to celebrate again! She's sitting in the high chair her Papa, Gigi, Gano, Dawn, Jack, Rick & Mona all got her as a birthday gift! It's a great high chair (thanks again all!)
She has a fluffy hat on my dear friend Lecia made for her so her little princess tiara would stay on her sweet head without hurting it! It's not the greatest picture I have of her from the day but she wasn't a big fan of wearing her hat so I had to take what I could get! Anyway, I have now fulfilled my promise of posting some birthday pics. I hope you all have a fantastic weekend! Love, Wendy.