A few days after Molly came home, Grandma and Uncle Josh drove to Iowa to help us and to meet Molly. Their help was so appreciated, and allowed me to do things I otherwise wouldn't have had time for...like REST, and take pictures. Molly is 10 days old here.

 

 I love how a newborn's legs still curl up tightly to her chest for a few weeks after birth, reminding us how recently she joined us on earth. 

 Meanwhile, outside, Grandma was taking some fun pictures of the kids in front of the field behind our house. 

 Oh my goodness, Peter, melt my heart with that choke hold.

 We celebrated Lulu's birthday a day early with a delicious late summer dinner, made by Grandma, on the back porch and ice cream cake. She wasn't feeling well on her actual birthday so I'm glad we partied early. 

 Lucy is at such a magical age when everything is fun and every gift is seen as perfect. I love her enthusiasm for life. 

 Every day while my Mom was here, the weather was perfect, and she and Lucy would go on walks to the park after getting the older kids off to school. Fun bonding time for them and great resting time for me.

Picking A Name for Molly Joy

One thing that was hard about leaving the hospital that early was choosing a name in 24 hours! We had lots of names that we liked this time. In the end we had mostly narrowed them down to Amelia, Annie, Adelaide and Molly for the first name, with Joy and Caroline for the middle names. Eventually we got it down to Molly and Adelaide but I just couldn't decide. I felt so much pressure and by that time Kevin had gone to pick up Jillian and Peter so all of our children were bouncing around that relatively small hospital room. Kevin originally didn't like Adelaide because he was picturing a weird spelling (or something like that?) and wasn't passionate about the nicknames we'd come up with for it, but after looking it up and reading more about it, decided he like it. So when he left to take the kids down to the playground so I could decide, yes, they have playgrounds at this hospital, multiple!, he left thinking it would be Adelaide when he came back but instead I told him "I think she's a Molly Joy." So she's named after two of our wonderful friends who we love and hope she'll grow up to be just like them! No pressure, Molly:) At that point, it was after 9 at night and everyone was ready to leave so we headed home! I have to mention that everyone was so patient and sweet to our kids who were sometimes bouncing off the walls during their visits.

 Waiting and waiting for Mom to decide

 This picture represents how different having our fourth was from having our first baby. We hadn't gotten any photos of just Kevin, me and the baby so right before we left, one of the kids snapped this one. It makes me laugh because Molly barely made it in.

 Her head was so teeny we couldn't even find a headband that didn't drown her.

 This picture also makes me laugh. One of the kids took it, actually it was in a series of several. With these gray pants I sure look like I have a saggy elephant bum, and this was the view one of my children had of me. So funny. 

Give me an "M"...