Surprise!

Ok.  So.  7 days and 16 hours without power in the house later, I am back!  What a complete and total disaster has befallen us.  The yard is wrecked, the house is a mess.  There is so much laundry to be done, it's not even funny.  And do you have any idea what almost 8-day-old wet laundry smells like?  I'm sure you can imagine.

Anyway, I have one last fall spotlight and giveaway to post this week (apologies to Liz, who has been very kindly and patiently waiting on me!) and the winner from 2 weeks ago will be announced, but that's going to have to wait for one more day because I have some exciting news.  My intention was to post photos of the disaster going on around us from this past week, which I will get to later in the week, but we had a little bit of a surprise in the midst of the chaos:

I'd like to introduce you to Baby By the Book!  Since I've given Gus his own online alias, let's call her Greta.  Greta wasn't due to arrive for almost three more weeks, but after measuring small and a concern that she had stopped growing, I got to make an impromptu trip to the hospital to deliver her this weekend.  She ended up being of average size, but her lungs are slightly underdeveloped, so she is currently in the nearby NICU getting some help breathing.  We're very happy to have her as the newest member of our family.

Did I fail to mention I was pregnant basically since this blog started?  Oops!  Actually, the hubs heard a news story on the radio about a Facebook stalker who ended up killing some woman and taking her baby, so he thought it might be best to just keep it to myself.  Not that any of you are Facebook-stalker-killers, but, you know.

So please pardon me for a bit if I skip a day here or there, or if I post some inane post about nothing.  My brain has had a lot to deal with in the last 8 or 9 days.