Christmas Pics Part 3

Christmas pajamas and robes were also a popular gift for Christmas morning. In all, "it was the best Christmas ever" according to Tatum and Greta quickly agrees! We hope that you have enjoyed seeing a glimpse of our little Christmas. We hope and pray that your Christmas was full of friends, family and lots of love.






Here's Christy holding her favorite gift of the year! Glen Beck's An Inconvenient Book is something that she specifically asked for and I was happy to grant her this little wish. For those that may not know, Glen is a radio talk show host and wrote this book to provide real solutions to the world's biggest problems. So far, Christy thinks that it has been really funny!



Here's little Anthony in on of his favorite gifts - A swing from Grandpa and Grandma Robertson. He's used this swing quite a bit the last two days.

Again, Merry Christmas to you and yours! Have a Happy New Year!

Christmas Pics Part 2

One of the best pictures from yesterday... Greta with her American Girl doll. Driving home from Christy's parents on Christmas Eve, Greta mentioned how she probably wouldn't get an American Girl for Christmas from Santa because they cost way too much money. She hoped she would get one, but she really didn't think that she would. Santa came through for the girl and she was thrilled as you can see!




Here is Greta again with her doll out of the box. The doll has been named Elizabeth for now - We'll see if that name sticks or if it's going to change...







Our good friends Ben & Robin Blair had these lovely paintings of the girl's names created on the beaches of California. The girls love this long-distance gift and are very proud of their paintings, showing them off to everyone who comes by the house...





Another favorite gift of the girls - the long-awaited Moon Sand. They advertised this stuff like crazy on Saturday morning cartoons so our girls have been begging for Moon Sand for about 18 months now. Moon Sand is basically sandy Play Dough that won't dry out.




Here Greta explains to me all the wonderful features of my alarm clock. You can hook up an MP3 player to it, listen to the radio and it even comes with nature sounds that you can listen to. Greta picked this alarm clock out for me and was very proud of it.

Christmas Pics

Anthony in his stocking that he was given by the nurses at St. John's Hospital at his birth. One of our nurses painted his name on the stocking.







Anthony, Tatum and Greta in front of our Christmas tree in their Christmas outfits. Tonight, we go to Christy's parents to celebrate Christmas. Tomorrow, we have Christmas at our house and go to my parent's house in the afternoon to celebrate one more time! The girls are excited that Christmas is here as you can tell.




Another picture of Anthony, Tatum and Greta. We hope you can see his little Christmas outfit. He looked so cute in it on Sunday at church. Christy loves getting to dress her little man up!





A full shot of the stocking for you. We would have loved to have been able to hang it up, but we weren't quite ready to take that risk with a 3 week old!

Bath Time

Just some bath shots for you from this week!


He's coming to terms with the fact that he has to take a bath on a fairly regular basis. He's even enjoying it once he gets in the warm water. Hope everyone is doing fine and ready for Christmas. We'll get some Christmas pictures uploaded before Christmas on Tuesday!

Power On Again

Well, the power is back on in the Geiser household. We were actually only out of our house for one night this time! Apparently, when I call the electric company…they get right on it! Or, it could be that nearly everybody else in town now has electricity too and they had a bit more time!

Christy and I spent last night finishing up Christmas shopping and wrapping gifts. Tatum and Greta spent the night with Grandpa and Grandma Robertson – so we wrapped as many gifts as we could until around 2 in the morning. I think we got so wrapped up in the gift wrapping that we lost track of time! I would guess that 90% of our gifts are now purchased and wrapped which is a personal family record!

I will be off work most of next week to be with the family and so we should have a good chance to update the blog with Christmas photos and stories. I might even be able to talk Christy into posting to the blog. We are thankful for our new little addition to the family and think that he will help make Christmas even a little more sweet this year.

Power Out Again!

Just a note to let you know that our power is out again. A limb that fell during the ice storm apparently did more damage to our power line than we knew about. Our lights had been getting brighter and dimmer off and on the last week. If we turned on our microwave, the lights in the kitchen would get really bright while the lights in the living room would grow dim.

I called the power company to let them know that there was a limb on our power line. When I told them about the strobing effect of the lights, they requested that we turn the main breaker off to our house. The limb had broken the "neutral" line of the power line and therefore we have nothing to really regulate the amount of power coming into our house. This could lead to light bulbs burning out to (more expensively) appliances breaking to even an outside chance of a house fire. We knew something was wrong with our electricity, but we figured that it was simply because a limb was resting on the line! An electrician, I am not.

So, we are now staying with my parents. Anthony James doesn't know which house is his at this point considering he been at a hospital (3 days), Christy's parents' house (2 days) and now my parents' house (1 day and counting!). With no word on when they will fix the line, we'll just hang out with my parents until we're all fixed up. Pray that it's soon so that we can start to get our life back to normal! If you need to get a hold of us, call us on our cell phone 417-793-9533 or send us an email. Thanks!

Gingerbread House!

Tatum and Greta with their Gingerbread house tonight! We spent the evening putting the house together. Sam's Club had this great kit with all the pieces baked for you and all the candy needed for the house. No, it may not be as authentic as the house we made last year with the Coleman's (which was a bit, no, A LOT less square), but the girls still had a great time doing it with us!


The girls were in charge of the artistic design of the house. We took care of the icing, but they put all the candy on the house and helped us put it together. I was pleased with the results and they were proud as you can see from the picture above...



A shot of the front of the house, complete with a snowman designed by Tatum. Greta put the lights on the fascia and designed the door and the sidewalk.

They want to eat it, but we're trying to hold them off!

WinterWonderland

Here's a picture of a formerly beautiful tree in our backyard. The ice would have done more damage but some of the limbs rested on our roof! I don't think our roof sustained any damage but the tree seemed to have benefited from a little helping hand from our house. I don't think there would be a tree left if it were not for our house saving part of it. The tree trimmers come tomorrow to clean up the larger, higher limbs that I was too chicken to get myself!

Just a shot of Anthony hanging out at Grandma Robertson's during the ice storm. Our power was out from Sunday morning to Tuesday night. The Robertson's had a generator to keep them warm so we camped out in their living room on Monday and Tuesday. We stayed at our house on Sunday night, but I quickly realized that our fireplace...1) doesn't really heat much of anything up and 2) requires a fresh log about every 1 to 2 hours to heat anything up at all! Not a good place for 1 week old or a nursing mother!

Anthony James is a bit of a snuggle bug already and really enjoys being held. Ok...we might be softening a bit with baby #3 as he gets held a bunch! If we as parents aren't holding him, he has two big sisters fighting for the chance to hold him. If they're done holding him, usually there's a Grandma or Grandpa around ready for their turn. In all, he's spoiled already.



Even though he may be spoiled, he still is doing great sleeping at night. He's still on his 3 hours schedule during the day, but at night, he'll go up to 5 hours without waking! Christy doesn't seem to mind him going a little longer at night so that she can catch up on her sleep too!


And...then, there's Greta. Actually, this is a shot that was taken by big sister Tatum sometime during this week. We let Tatum take some pictures of some clay animals that they made and apparently she decided to do a portrait of Greta in the process. We feel she really captured the spirit and essence of Greta in this shot. We very proud of the fine photographic work of Tatum and the wonderful modeling of Greta in this shot!

Ice Storm Knocks the Geiser Family Blog Offline!!!

We're back! A major ice storm knocked out our power and temporarily put a stop to the near incessant postings to the Geiser Family blog. We'll share some pics of our trees that were nearly destroyed and let you know how things are going. Everyone's safe, warm and healthy. More later...

Saturday Evening Post

Well, I can't say that we've been the best of parents today. It's been a day that the girls spent way too much time watching movies and playing by themselves. We just got them to bed and now we trying to settle down for the evening too. We did get them out a bit as Greta had dance practice and we went to the library, but overall, besides feeding them, the girls took care of themselves today.

I think the aftershocks are now hitting us a bit and that I was probably still on cloud nine the other day as I was posting about how easy it all has been so far. A night with a newborn and no nurses wake you up to the reality that the responsibility for yet another human soul weighs heavy on the tired body and mind. Anthony James slept fine for a newborn but we did have a few crying spells that kept us up for some precious sleep time. This afternoon, I got my first daddy/son nap with him to make up for the lost sleep and we both slept great.

I love my girls to pieces as they are nothing but sweetness...well, sweetness and noise! They do enjoy talking, squealing, spinning, dancing, jumping, singing, stomping, falling down and various other noise producing activities. They have taken to being big sisters and are often competing as to who gets to hold baby brother. Once the competition as to who will hold him first is done, then they are forced to remind everyone of who gets to hold him and in what order until the holding is complete. I think I've learned my lesson and will get the holding out of the way as soon as possible to avoid the necessity of establishing the order of the holding.

As I said, I love my girls...but thoughts of a boy fill up my mind. Thoughts about hunting (which I don't do, but will learn in order to teach him), fishing (which I do poorly, but will improve to teach him!), playing sports (which I love, but don't do as much as I used to), and general boy stuff fill my head as I picture Anthony growing in my mind. Thoughts of Abraham and Isaac - how hard the command to sacrifice the son of promise! Thoughts of David and Solomon - how would you like to have the wisest man in the history of mankind as a son! Thoughts of all the fathers and sons that you look at and know that nothing could tear the two apart. I want so bad to be the dad that molds a man to be proud of. I want so bad to help Anthony avoid the pitfalls that I have had to overcome.

He squeaks in the other room, sounding very much like a starving cat as his mother tries to feed him. He really only cries when dirtying his diapers and when he struggles while eating. Otherwise, he sleeps and occasionally looks around the room like he's checking the place out. Well, forgive my post if it makes no sense or isn't very interesting. I'm tired but still have these thoughts running through my head. Being a father is being a father, I know. But, I know that being a father to son will challenge and delight me in a whole new way. With daughters, you must attempt to be gentle and strong so that they can learn what it means to be ladies. With sons, it seems like I'll be able to be a little rougher and even more strong so that he will know what it means to be a man. Basically, I'll be able to act like a boy again with my boy and play the way only boys know how. I'm looking forward to it and yes, I realize he's only 3 days old...

Home at Last!

We made it home around lunch time to find that our house had been decorated a bit by Christy's parents to welcome Anthony home. Christy's mom also blessed us by doing some of the laundry that we had left behind when we ran to the hospital on Wednesday morning. Thanks Denise!

So, we're settling in. The girls are watching an American Girl movie and I made some potato soup to eat tonight. The fire is roaring and the Christmas tree is lit. We excited to be home and Christy and I both feel that we are already adjusting to baby number 3 better than the first two. I know that it's only just begun, but the initial shock has worn off and Anthony already seems like he's always been here.

He's a generally happy baby so far and really only fusses for diaper changes and when he's hungry. He gets passed around like a rag doll so he's likely to get pretty spoiled, pretty fast. We'll have to set him down in the bassinet from time to time to make sure he can start sleeping alone every once in a while. But for now, we're just enjoying him!

Feel free to stop by and introduce yourself to him. We'll be around most of the time except for Sunday. Thanks to everybody for your kind words and prayers. And, to Robin, sorry for adding to your obsessiveness. Yes, I'm sure that the blog will slow down once busy season starts, but hopefully, Christy will pick up the slack and continue to communicate! Love you all!

HEADING HOME!!!

I'm still the proud papa. He seems unimpressed...










Here's Anthony in his "going home" outfit. We were worried prior to the birth that it would be too large for him. We were worried after the birth that it wouldn't fit him! Luckily for us, it fits perfect! We have a lovely 31 degree day to take him home. We'll keep him bundled up!





Just another shot of AJ. Thanks for keeping track of us and for praying for us! I'm sure that I'll continue to post cute pics over the weekend!

New Pics

Dr. Chesney with Anthony James today. We love Dr. Chesney and he has done such a great job with all 3 of our children's births. We think that Anthony must have remembered his face as the first face he saw after the birth since he's crying so hard!









Just a shot of Anthony James in his little pajama outfit. He's filling out the newborn clothes already. We'll need to be upgrading him to 0-3 months with a week or two.









Finally, a picture of Christy and Anthony for you to see. Christy is doing great and feeling very good. She's barely taking any pain medication as she is feeling so good. We thank God for His kindness to us in helping Christy heal so well.






On Christy's bed is a quilt that was made for Anthony James primarily by big sister Tatum (7 years old). She machine stitched all the squares and was able to sew them together. We are very proud of her and the quilt will go really well with the rest of the nursery. Christy and I weren't allowed to see the quilt until Anthony's birth. Special thanks to Grandma Geiser for helping Tatum complete this awesome gift for Anthony!



As Greta is only 4, quilting was a little too difficult for her. However, this little frame was painted and decorated by her for her little brother. She loves her little brother already and is ready for him to be home so that she can hold him all the time. Again, thanks to Grandma Geiser for helping Greta complete her gift for Anthony.

Open Eyes Finally!

We've been waiting for open eyes from Little Anthony for the last 20 hours or so with no luck. He had too much gunk in his eyes after they treated them directly after birth. Finally, as Grandma Robertson was burping him, Anthony decided to wake up. Thought you might enjoy seeing his open eyes almost as much as we do!

Christy still continues to heal up and do well. Anthony continues to pass all tests with flying colors. And, I got a little sleep on the tiny cot they gave me last night so I'm even doing pretty good. Thanks again for checking in on us! We'll continue to post pics for a few more days as he grows and gets a little less purple!

Final Thoughts from Anthony James' First Day!

One last picture for you of my Dad and Anthony James!

I sit here as Little Anthony cries as he tries to eat for the second time of his life. He's finding it a little harder to do than he did this afternoon. After a little burp, we'll see how he does.

Overall, the delivery went great and Christy was awesome. Anthony James was coming out and fast once the water was broken around 12:45. Christy was ready to push at 1:00 and probably pushed for about 10 minutes to get him out. Christy knew right away that the boy was bigger than either of our girls by the pain that she was feeling. Tatum weighed 7 lbs, 9 oz and Greta weighed 7 lbs, 8 oz, so AJ weighed in at almost 2 pounds heavier than the girls. 3 strong, hard pushes by Christy and we had ourselves a boy.

The rest of Anthony Junior's day was filled with being held, getting poked and seeing friends and family. Thanks to everyone that stopped by! We appreciate the time you took to say hello and see the little guy. St. John's has been great and they even allowed us to move to a little bit larger and quieter room to spend the rest of our time here. It looks like we'll be heading home on Friday sometime.

And, yes. I am thrilled to be a dad to a little boy. It will be nice to have a little man that's looking to me for direction and who will pattern himself after me. I take that responsibility very seriously and pray for God's help as he becomes a man. I pray that he is a better man than me in every way and I'll do my best to help him along the way.

Anthony James Geiser's middle name is in honor of my father, Harold James Geiser. Christy immediately wanted to name our son after me when we found out we were having a boy - but I have been a little hesitant to do it. We went back and forth for the last few months but finally decided to name him after me and my dad. I hope to be as good of a father to Little Anthony as my dad was to me. My dad is one of the most dependable men I have ever met and one of the most honorable. I am proud to name my son after him.

The rest of our night will hopefully consist of a lot of sleep. Christy has been awake since 2 am after going to bed at 11:30 last night. (I've been up since 2:30, but I didn't do much today except hang around - Christy's been pushing out a baby!) Christy is almost done feeding Tony, and we'll get some rest. Thanks again for your prayers - Christy really feels like she couldn't have done it without you praying for her. Thanks also for caring enough about us to read all my crazy sleep-deprived thoughts. Leave us your comments so that we know that you were here! Feel free to email the news to anyone that knows and cares about us. Thanks again!

P.S. All the nicknames for Anthony were because of Robin's comment earlier today about what we are going to call him. As for now, you can call the little guy "Anthony". We'll see how confusing it gets later on!

More Pics

Can't you see the resemblence to the Proud Papa?

Christy says it's a face only a mama could love -

I'm not sure if she's talking about the baby or me!

Continue to pray for good health for Christy and Anthony James!

Thanks for all your prayers!

First Picture of Anthony James!

More pics to come!

Announcing...

Anthony James Geiser
Born 1:20 p.m.
22 inches long
9 pounds and 4 ounces
14 inch head!

Both Christy and lil' Anthony are doing well. We arrived at the hospital around 9 with contractions ranging from 4 to 7 minutes apart. Christy made three pushes to get him out. No pain medication, no epidural and one big baby! Pics coming soon!

FYI, we're at St. John's in Joplin!

Heading to the Hospital

3 minute contractions...3 am...what can you say? The kid's got good timing...

We're heading to the hospital as the contractions are closer and coming at Christy harder...

Please pray that the delivery is as easy, safe and quick as possible for Christy and the baby...

Hopefully, more news will be coming later today...

Well, it's later but we're still at home. We gave it a little more time and decided to wait a bit more. It's 7:30 and we'll be heading to the hospital in next hour or so. Continue to pray!

Girl's Room Pics

As part of our commitment to be a full-service blog to you, our readers, we are posting some pictures of Christy's artwork from the girl's room. We had a request to see pictures of the girls room from Virginia and this post is in response to that request.

I mentioned in an earlier post about the nursery that Christy learned her lesson from the girls room. These pictures illustrate what I mean. When I spent 6 months in Kansas City for my job in 2005, Christy filled her nights with painting the girls a special room that they would be thrilled with.

Every wall of their room is a mural of the Secret Garden. There's a brick wall around the room covered with ivy, a door in the wall complete with a real key, a lake of shining waters and various creatures filling the Garden. I have no idea how may hours are represented in this room, but it took her the whole 6 months to complete it. Nothing was stenciled. It is all painted by free hand. There are a couple of wallpaper bird houses and butterflys, but the rest of the room is simply Christy's creativity. Everyone that enters the room is amazed by what she has done...

Click on the pictures for a closer look!

Luckily, she didn't take that long on the nursery this time. God did give me a wonderfully creative wife and for that I am thankful. I told Christy before I married her that I knew, that by marrying her, I would never have a boring life. 8 years of marriage later, I was right and life with her shows no sign of slowing down! A boy should guarantee that it won't!

FYI, no baby today. We'll continue to keep you posted.