Welcome Grace Debra Woodland!

I don't know that I will get to many updates about the first three and a half months of 2013...my goal is to at least do a picture post the chronicles some of what we've been up to. But, basically, our lives for this first quarter of the year will be remembered by 1) Brandon's ongoing job search process, 2) me being pregnant and counting the days until I wasn't pregnant anymore, 3) Alyse talking and running and growing up more and more, 4) weathering another Chicago winter. Pictures will be more exciting than anymore words could be (although don't expect pictures of #2 since I pretty much avoided the camera!). One week ago today, Gracie joined our family. Brandon is going to relay the "labor story" below (partly because he blogged about it when Alyse was born and partly because I want to know more of his perspective of how it all went down!). She is a beautiful, sweet natured, tiny (compared to Alyse!) newborn who we already feel blessed to have as part of our family. I had many anxieties about having another baby-- not about having another child, really, but going through the baby phase again since it was pretty tricky with Alyse-- and about labor, and about how Alyse would react, and about how unavailable I would be physically and a bit emotionally as our family has a lot going on/coming up (with Brandon getting a job, graduating, moving, etc). Not that all of those stresses have disappeared, but spending this week falling in love with our new daughter, reveling with Brandon in the miracle of this new life we helped create, seeing Alyse whisper "I love you, Grace" when she didn't know we could hear her, and having my mom here to encourage, support, and just dig in and do, has alleviated much of the anxiety and brought a great sense of faith and peace into my heart. I'm sure more reality will come tumbling down when my mom leaves, Alyse has her ups and downs in coping with not being the center of our world now, and Brandon continues to be busy finishing up business school and most importantly finding that right job for him and for our family. Luckily, we live in the midst of an amazing community of young families who completely empathize with us and have offered to watch Alyse, bring meals, and come visit with me while I'm recuping and kind of stuck inside more than I'd like. And, hopefully, I'll remember the peace of this week when the goings get rough :)