She's Here!

Colette Hanna Custer
3.66kg (8lbs 1 oz)
52 cm long

Meeting our precious little girl for the first time.

She looks eerily similar to Kaelan in this picture. Go look at our blog posting back in Dec. 2008 and see for yourself.

Daddy with Colette while Mommy is recovering from surgery.

Kaelan Finally Meets Colette

Kaelan peering in to see what this "baby sister" thing is actually all about.

A gentle little kiss

A picture of our expanded family and Kaelan doing his "cheeeeeese" face

First Visitors

Camille, Gillian and Violet were our first visitors at the hospital.

Jonabelle meeting Colette for the first time. She has been a BIG help to us shuttling Kaelan back and forth and watching after him while mommy and daddy are in the hospital.

Isabella Turns 2!

She is the 5th in the baby group to turn 2!
She had her birthday party at JWT kids club and the kids loved it!

They participated in multiple obstacle courses.

Krazy K was always up to something


They sang a lot of songs and even did the limbo

Mammy would be proud!

We spent Sunday after nap out on the East Coast Park. The purpose, as is the purpose for everything these days, was to take a nice long walk to get things moving with baby sister. As you know that did not work! We have been taking 1-1.5 hour walks everyday for about 3 weeks now and still nothing. Kaelan rode his bike and he loves it! It is so much fun to take him out on that thing because he gets a lot of attention. It is pretty odd to see a 2 year old riding a bike so well and a pedal less bike at that. People stop and stare and take pictures...so funny!

After our walk Kaelan was quick to spot this small, 6 rides or so, carnival type park. He was a little cautious at first but he even went on the helicopter all by himself in the end. He loved every minute of this place and was so sad to leave. Mammy got him started on Carnival rides when she was here in August and he has been talking about it ever since.

Yes, that is a Christmas tree.
I never said it was the nicest place in the world but it was still pretty magic for Kman!

Sprinkle (shower for baby number 2!)

The baby group girls gave me a sweet "Sprinkle" for this sweet little girl that needs to come out of my tummy ASAP! We went to a new Greek restaurant (now one of Travis and I's favorites!) that Stephanie found. It was so special and these girls mean so much to me. I can't tell you how thankful I am to have gone through so much with you all. I just wish you were all pregnant with Neetu and I this time around. Thanks so much girls!

Steph, Neetu, Jeanne

Vanessa, Me and Lara
2 of the 8 have moved back to the US and we miss having them around.
Sorry the pics are so bad. I forgot my camera and had to use my phone.

The gifts!

Today is currently my due date, Feb 13th, according to the doctor. According to me, I have it set on the 18th but I was so hoping he was right. He is a great doctor though and will let me go as long as I like. He never makes any suggestions because he knows my wishes and, to tell you the truth, I think he is happiest if his patients do things as close to natural as possible. Since I am going for a VBAC (Vaginal birth after c-section) I can't be induced so the only way I can have this baby on demand is to have another c-section which is the last thing I want. So please pray that I can go into labor soon! We aren't even sure my body is built for having a baby since Kaelan couldn't get into position, after 44 hours, to enter the birth canal and the bigger the baby gets the harder it is going to be! I'm not sure I could handle a baby Jayne Phillips coming in at almost 10 lbs on the 8th. Congrats to Chad and Bridgette and their beautiful family. I can't wait to meet her.

Can you see her?

This is our ultrasound picture from mid January and it turned out so great! It's only of her face, which is towards the top, and it is as if she is lying on a pillow on her left cheek. Can you see her? Looks just like her daddy! Ha ha! No telling at this stage but it appears to me she has his nose...
It is currently February 7th in Singapore, Kelly's birthday and the day I was shooting for to have this baby girl! I'm guessing it's not going to happen today, considering the length of my last labor. I just hope she comes before Olivia and Aaron's (Kelly's husband and daughter) birthdays at the end of the month! I'm so ready to meet her and feel like my life is at a stand still until she comes. Besides the impatience, I'm doing really well and she seems to be content in my tummy even though I have been eating spicy curry, pineapple, walking everyday, etc. All things I have heard from Asians and Westerner's to get labor started! Let me know if you have any other suggestions!

In Loving Memory of Grandpa Garber

4 generations
It has been a hard few days for our family as Grandpa Garber passed away today after 92 years.
It is almost impossible to sum up someone so special, loved and loving. I have only known Grandpa for about 10+ years but in that time he adopted me as one of his own grandchildren and I'm so thankful for the opportunity I had to be wrapped in his influence, wisdom and love. He was the most honorable, God-fearing man I have ever known.
Every night I end my prayer over Kaelan and baby sister with:
"Lord let my children live a long, healthy life, passionately serving and loving You like Grandpa Garber."
He will be greatly missed but we are all so thankful the Lord put us in his family and know that he could not be happier where he is now. I can only imagine the perfect joy he is experiencing now.
We love you Grandpa.

Baby sister is coming soon!

I have spent the last week getting ready for our sweet baby girl by organizing clothes (thanks Mandalyn and Kelly for giving us so many to organize!), rearranging bedrooms and closets, packing my hospital bag, etc.. Does it sound like nesting to you? I'm feeling ready and I can't wait until the day arrives.
I can't complain about this pregnancy. If I didn't have Kaelan to chase around I think I could say this pregnancy has been easier than the first but it is hard to say due to the 35+ pounder I love to lug everywhere. Things have been really similar to the first so I can hardly believe carrying a girl or boy makes any difference, at least it hasn't for me. I was sick in the first trimester with both and then in the second trimester things were so good with this little girl I would often forget that I was pregnant. She has been so much quieter in my stomache it makes it easy to forget she is in there! When the 3rd trimester came around I started to feel the weight in my lower back and that eventually got bad enough on some days it almost felt like a pinched nerve. I even had one night I was in bed and had to get up for soemthing and couldn't get out of bed. After I woke the next morning I was fine but having this pain did seem to effect my sleep too. I didn't have any of this with Kaelan but fortunately January hit and it ALL went away. I feel great and am sleeping really well now. Thank goodness since she is only a month away and we are expecting many sleepless nights and tired days soon to come. I was 8 days overdue with Kaelan but if you could please join me in prayer on this I would love to meet this little girl earlier! If you remember from my first pregnancy, I really do love single digit birthdays and 7 days early would be the 7th! Either way I know I won't be able to give this one back! She has already become such a huge part of my life and worked her way so sweetly into my heart.
Kaelan is starting to understand that she is coming and always asks me to feel baby sister move. Since she is not a big mover it is hard to do all the time but he does get to feel her occasionally, especially when she has the hiccups. Whenever we see a baby girl Travis and I are quick to point out to Kaelan that this is what his baby sister is going to be like when she comes to his home. He might also be excited for her to come because he knows that after she moves in Mammy and Papa will be coming to visit shortly after!

Christmas Eve Dinner

Best picture of the evening!
She and her older sister wore matching dresses.

We had Christmas Eve dinner at our house before the service at Church.
15 adults and 10 kids.

We sat at the bottom table with the Unruh's and Sheri, Gillian's sister (pictured below).

Kids table
7 big kids and 3 babies

Sheri has been in town since the end of October and left on Christmas day.
She was a great addition to our lives for 2 months and we are going to miss her!

Christmas morning

We are slowly figuring out our family Christmas traditions and feel we better have them nailed down by next year when Kaelan will really understand. He was excited for days before Christmas because of all the presents under the tree. We had to keep our eye on him because he would sneak over and try to open his big gift! He couldn't understand why we had to wait. We finally convinced him that when the Advent Calendar was finished and the Advent Candle was burned down we would open presents. That helped a little.

Opening stockings

Opening his gifts.
Since Travis had to be in the US the 3rd week of December, I put him to good use hauling all of our Christmas goodies back to the Singapore. Lots of people sent gifts for Kaelan back, and his baby sister, so I wrapped them all up and put them under the tree even if they were meant to be bday presents. He had lots to open and he loved it!

We got him a train set

He played with it all morning.
Thanks everybody for all the wonderful gifts.
Although Christmas is very commercial here in Singapore we are fortunate to have a good church and great friends to remind us that Jesus' birth and life on this earth are why we are celebrating and are so blessed.

Christmas Dinner

We joined some of Travis' coworkers for dinner on Christmas day. The hosts have two children ages 11 and 9 that Kaelan adored. I think he felt like he had Nathanael and Eli back for the day. There were also 3 other kids there too ages 2-3. He really enjoyed himself on Christmas and is starting to think he will be getting presents everywhere he goes!

The kids table

My little elf!

Santa Clause made it to dinner!
The kids ate first and then Santa came. They all got loads of toys from him and the hope was they would play with their toys while the adults ate. It worked pretty well! Kaelan got 2 Caterpillar tractors (one remote control) a water bottle and a soccer uniform.

Travis and I got gifts too!

This was the first time Kaelan got a present and he wasn't too sure about Santa but after he saw everyone else get on his lap he managed to fight the fear and climb up on his lap the next time around.
I was very surprised!

We had 2 American familes, one Scottish family and one British family. Tony, the Scot, brought back these Celtic soccer uniforms for the boys. Don't they look great? Kaelan loves that he has soccer clothes now.