Christmas Tree Lane

Last Tuesday Josh, Abi and I walked down Christmas Tree Lane with Jon, Jolie and Ethan. It was a nice night and wasn't as cold as we expected but very wet from the drizzly fog. I think the highlight of the night may have been the guys spotting a car in the parking lot at Fig Garden Village, it was a De Lorean (the car from Back to the Future). The guys had to stop and take a few pictures as seen above.

Thanksgiving at Shaver Lake

This year my parents decided to rent a huge, beautiful cabin at Shaver Lake. Now when most people hear "cabin" you may assume a rustic log cabin with the only source of heat being a wood stove, this was not the case where we stayed. This cabin was 3 stories, 6 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms a beautiful kitchen and many other amenities. So here are a few pictures of us "roughing it" in the mountains.

The Many Faces of Abi in November

Ben's Trip to Fresno

Our friend Ben made a last minute trip to Fresno because his Grandfather passed away. He wanted to meet Abi and Ethan so we got together this morning. I thought it would be funny to compare the picture we took this summer of Ben with us before the babies were born and then a picture with Abi and Ethan. The funny thing is that Ben happens to be wearing the same shirt in both pictures (did you plan that Ben?).

Josh's Birthday Trip

For Josh's 28th Birthday we took a long weekend to Pismo. We had the trailer all to ourselves and had a relaxing time.

Saturday afternoon we drove to Santa Maria to see Josh's cousin Paul and his wife Alison and Josh's Aunt and Uncle. They hadn't met Abi yet so we spent a few hours hanging out and enjoying a yummy dinner.

We think Abi really enjoyed her first trip to the beach. There will be many more trips to Pismo but there is nothing like the first time a baby can put their feet in the sand.

Halloween

Just a Few More Cute Pictures

Two weeks ago we were at my parents house for a family dinner. My grandparents (my mom's Dad and Step-mom) hadn't met Abi yet so we took the opportunity to take a few pictures of the generations that were there that night. I hope everyone is around long enough for Abi to appreciate the fact that she has 4 living great-grandparents, 4 grandparents and aunts, uncles and cousins. never has our family seemed so big when you think of all that we are so fortunate to have around us.

The Many Faces of Abi (and more to come).

i tried using the picasa collage tool and it works great for a large number of pictures. this way i don't have to spend all day uploading pictures to our blog. especially when we have SOOOOO many pictures that we want to share with everyone.

Ethan & Abi

I think Abi is showing Ethan who's boss!

Pumpkin Pictures

These pictures were quite tricky to take, first, wait until Abi was awake and happy then keep her from tipping over.

Mikow Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Antique photographs - Dynasty

I don't think it is gas. . . .

They are trying to re-boot her. . . .

For once the guys are not talking about computers.

Welcome Home

I think my Dad is in love!

Chloe liked "petting" Abi and was very excited to hold her.

The 3 girls (Cara 5, Abi 2 days, Chloe 4)

Just a Few Cute Pictures

Abi sleeps just like Daddy

"Do I look cool or what?"

"I've got my eye on you"

Abi is home!

If you didn't already know, or haven't seen the pictures, here is Abigail Lauren Mikow. She was born at 3:43am on Friday 9/19/2008. She was 9lbs 3oz. and 21 inches long.

Both Abi and Steph are doing well. We came home from the hospital around 4pm yesterday (9/21/208) and have now made it through our first night with little sleep.

Here are pictures for your viewing enjoyment! More info and pictures to come!

Timing

This week has been quite a rollercoaster of emotions. I never expected this week to be this hard on us.

We had an appointment on Tuesday for a Non-Stress Test at Clovis Community as a follow-up from last week's NST. Abi wasn't as active as they liked (not in a bad way) but they almost wanted to keep us at the hospital. There was no room at the hospital at the time so the doctor prescribed a lot of walking and for us to go to our already scheduled appointment that afternoon.

After the appointment we decided to follow through with our next NST on Wednesday morning. This was quite disappointing to say the least.

Today we had the NST and Abi is doing just fine. Praise God that she is doing fine and we have no worries at this point. There are no concerns today so they weren't as worried about getting us into the hospital today. On top of that there was no room and there was already one lady waiting to be induced. We were really really hoping to be kept at the hospital and not allowed to go home.

The end result is that our originally scheduled time to be induced has been moved up from Friday at 6AM to Thursday at 6PM. While this is only 12 hours sooner than originally planned, it is still better than nothing.

Now we wait and hope that there is room at the hospital tomorrow. We plan to arrive early in hopes that we'll be able to get it. Our prayer at this point is that the labor will start between now and when we go to the hospital so that they will let us stay.

I can't tell you how hard this week has been on me mentally. I'm ready for Abi to be here. It's been hard with the back and forth to the hospital and nothing coming out of it (and trying to work in between the different appointments). Steph is doing much better but is just as ready for Abi to be here. We pray that she will be with us soon so that we can move on. When we were told last week that we were scheduled to be induced this upcoming Friday I didn't think anything of it. Now, continually getting closer, it has been much tougher than I ever expected. It's more than just an appointment to have a routine procedure done. There are many more variables that can cause the situation to change many times each day.

We appreciate the prayers of everyone as we go through the next 48 hours. Hopefully by then we'll have pictures to post of Abi for everyone to see.

The Day that Came and Went

Well, here we are at the end of 9/13/2008 (the due date for Abi to arrive) with no Abi in our arms. Both Steph and I are quite ready (she is more than I for obvious reasons) for her to join us. The wagers for who would guess the due date have come and gone with no one winning and many are disappointed that Abi didn't bring them the victory.

Based on our Non-Stress Test that was done at the hospital yesterday, Abi is quite comfortable where she's at (much to mommy's frustration). Abi is not worried at all and doesn't seem to be concerned about the journey she will be going through soon. Little does she know that she cannot stay there forever.

In hopes of persuading Abi to make a move, I gave her a stern talking to today. I let her know that if she could see herself that she isn't really that comfortable and that there is much better food out here. I told her to do her excercises and start making her way out but she didn't listen. According to Steph's mom we're getting exactly what she had asked for many years ago; a child as stubborn as Steph was.

Our doctor came up with the plan this week. If Abi doesn't show up by Tuesday we've got another NST scheduled in the morning and a check-up that afternoon. Depending on how both of those go, if Abi is still being stubborn and is content where she is, Steph will be induced on Friday at 6AM. We're praying that it doesn't get to be that long but if it does we at least know that we'll have Abi in our arms sometime on Friday (hopefully not Saturday).

Stay tuned for the updates as we go through this leg of this journey. Below is a picture of Steph at 40 weeks 0 days.

My Wife

My wife is the most wonderful woman that I know. I'm so proud of her for how strong she has been during our (primarily hers) pregnancy. She has been lucky enough to not have any major complications to this point (38 weeks) and the movement from her belly has been quite entertaining.

No matter what we've had to do, Steph has been up for the challenge. She's worked with me on remodeling the two front bedrooms in our house, all while trying to ignore the clutter that exploded into the rest of the house. I love her for how willing she has been for all of the projects we've wanted to get done prior to Abi joining is. She even helped out with our Miter saw while working on the flooring and baseboards. If it wasn't for her work (and her Mom's help) the bead-board in Abi's room would not have been done.

We've now entered a new phase of our lives & marriage as Steph is no longer working. Her last day with Warner Co. Jewelers was last Friday. At this point we're transitioning into a single income family and it is going to be quite the challenge. Of course, I expect the house to be spotless now that she'll be home (OK, that's clearly a joke). Our house will be transformed into more of home and I expect that Steph is now going to come into her own as a mother. We're prepared for the coming phase of adding our first child and look forward to what God has for us.

God definitely has a lot planned for us in the near future. We're prepared (as much as we can be) for the challenges, struggles and joy that we're going to experience as we walk with God and raise our children. Steph encourages me in many different ways to strive to be the Godly father/husband/role model that our family needs.

I guess I can't say much more than I really love my wife and know that she is going to be the best mother around (we know that there are other good mothers, but my wife will be the best, no matter what comes up).

Steph - I LOVE YOU!!!

Our latest project

Well, it's been a while since I've posted to our blog and this time I can say that I haven't done anything (that I think) to embarrass myself this time.

Once we got Abi's room done (she's still not here yet), I moved on to my next major project. Before we left for our vacation to Oregon we purchased a 75 gallon fish tank and stand. It was quite a decision to make as our prior tank was only 40 gallons and was doing pretty well (whenever we cleaned it).

After quite a bit of work and only having to buy a few things (including a sump and pump to filter the water) we've got our new aquarium up and running. All of our existing fish have made the move well so far. We only found one of them in the overflow area of the tank and put them back in the main tank once we found them.

What has been grabbing the most of our attention this weekend was the additions to the tank. We purchased two freshwater Crayfish for the tank. They're each about 3-4" from claw to tail when extended and they're a lot of fun to watch. They've found their own caves in the tank and have proceeded to dig them out so they can be the only ones in them. The younger one (shorter claws) seems to be more energetic (borderline ADHD) and has spent countless time running around the tank doing laps. The older one (longer & more colorful claws) seems to like to stay secluded and only come out to eat.

They don't seem to be bothering the other fish at all and are fun to watch.

Here are some pictures of our new tank and those who call it home. Our plan is to eventually switch out to cichlids but we're not quite ready for that yet.

Let us know what you think!

We missed something

I just realized that we never posted pictures of our vacation to Oregon in July. So to catch up here are a few of our adventure. my husband the touristthis is the view from the office building where Alli works, Downtown Portland would look much better except for the smoke from the California wild firesjust a cute picture of Josh and I at Camp 18 on the way to the Oregon Coastat camp 18 there are these amazing cinnamon rolls that are the size of dinner plates. Ben ate the whole thing and wanted to share in the "pregnant belly" picture This is Cannon Beach on the Oregon coast, this beach was used in the opening scenes of the Goonies movie, this is where we started our Goonies tour.Second stop on the tour was the jail house from the movieThis is the beautiful view of Astoria, the bridge in the picture goes to Washington. which we took advantage of and took a detour to another state for a few minutes. Last stop on the Goonies tour, this is Mikey's House

no tour would be complete without Ben doing the truffle shuffle

here we are in WashingtonThe six of us all enjoying amazing Cajun mac & cheese, super yummy!California's northern coast

Really Big trees in the Avenue of the Giants

Our adventure lead us to Pismo for the 4th of July then back to Fresno. It was a great, but long, trip and we enjoyed our traveling companions Jon and Jolie. We'll have to do it again when the babies are a little older!

The Three of Us

Yes it has been a while. . . .

There has been a lot going on since we got back from vacation, mostly re-modeling our two spare bedrooms, and we are happy to report that Abi's room is all done, just a few little finishing touches and the guest room is ready for the furniture to be moved in. Before getting the rooms done i had two baby showers which helped stock the nursery and until the rooms were done our living room looked like babies r us. we couldn't sit on the couch or walk through the room. following are a few pictures of my shower.

first: my cake, Josh's sister makes amazing, delicious, beautiful cakes and the picture shows how amazing.

this picture is of 4 of the 5 pregnant girls at my shower. from left to right: Jenn (Due Sept 10, Girl), Jolie (Due any time now, Boy), Me (Due Sept 13, Girl), Kristin (Due Dec 25, Boy)

This is my niece Cara and she was very proud to give Abigail and I a very special gift. the "stuffed animal" she is holding is her "lamie" that she has had since she was born. and she gave us a new "lamie" to Abi to enjoy. there definitely is a huge difference between a 5 1/2 year old "lamie" and the new one.Last but not least here is a picture of how our living room looked before moving all the baby stuff into Abi's room. also a few pictures of her room which she will hopefully enjoy as she grows up, we sure had fun designing it but definitely glad her room is finally done!