Day at Prater

This afternoon we took the family to Prater Park to ride a couple rides.  This was our last day with my mom & dad visiting and we thought it might be fun way to spend the afternoon.  

Worthy has been waiting to ride the "Dizzy Mouse" for awhile now.
Dan wore his  faithful wristbands to get him through.

Mom was a trooper on this water ride... no one got wet thankfully.

On the miniature train ride Calvin was a snuggle-bug with Dan

William with his special "G"

By the end of the day, everyone was thoroughly exhausted, especially our Drama-Loving William!

One Week Old

William adores Baby Christian and loves any chance to hold him

Our 4 guys... almost all smiles

Seven Rivers Visit

Last night a group from our previous church family was here in Vienna on a trip.  Dan, I and Baby Christian went and met them for dinner.  There are just not enough words to communicate how delightful it was to see them.  In many ways it felt like we had a visit from 23 members of our family.  We felt deeply encouraged, loved on and cared for.  I think we'll be riding the wave of encouragement from their visit for quite awhile.  We're so thankful to have been (and continue to be) part of that body.

(I wish I had pictures to document it.  I brought my camera and was just so caught up in the joy of the reunion that I forgot to take pics.  Hoping I can pull some off FB from them soon :).

Home & Adjusting

We're home.

And starting to adjust to life with 4 boys. It's tiring, but delightful.

Christian sleeps all the time despite the noise and chaos around him.  His brothers seem to like him - especially William.  Calvin hasn't shown any jealousy issues and particularly likes to bring him his pacifier and his train blanket.  

We love holding him every chance we get. 

Love these long fingers - and yes, he does have thumbs :)

 It's hard to get shots with his eyes open - it rarely seems to happen :) 

It's hard to believe he'll be a week old soon.  

It's already hard to imagine life without him.

Christian - Day Two

Baby Christian

Christian Aaron Beilman

Psalm 139: 13-16

For you created my inmost being; 

you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 

I praise you because I am 

fearfully and wonderfully made; 

your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 

My frame was not hidden from you 

 when I was made in the secret place. 

When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, 

your eyes saw my unformed body. 

All the days ordained for me were written in your book 

before one of them came to be.

It’s official - we have another son, 

Christian Aaron Beilman. 

This past week, after meeting with my doctor and midwife, they recommended inducing the delivery on Friday. My due date was April 22, so a couple days early wasn’t too big a deal. They knew my parents would be here and thought it would be helpful to take full advantage of that, especially since both the baby and I were ready.

So, on Friday morning, after one last Pregnancy shot, Brad drove us to the hospital. Our midwife met us there, gave me a tablet that would stimulate contractions, monitored the baby’s heartbeat and kind of hung out of an hour or so. Here the Midwife does all the work and the doctors really just supervise/oversee.

We headed down to the delivery room to check the heartbeat and then she went ahead and broke my water. After that – things went quick… too quick really. My midwife went out to change into her scrubs and I felt the need to push – with just Dan and I in the room. Dan left to go find her or someone – then I was really alarmed. Thankfully, people started appearing. Shortly after that my doctor also arrived with her 7 year old son because she hadn’t had time to drop him off at the sitters like she anticipated… he was not in the room, btw. My doctor didn’t have time to change into her scrubs until after the delivery – lol.

So, after 35 minutes of intense, agonizing, painful contractions, we welcomed our beloved, adored, precious Christian Aaron into the world. Definitely worth it.

Funny things ran through my mind during those 35 minutes… I wanted to cut off all my hair. If I had scissors nearby it would have been gone. My midwife and doctor are wonderful, but they kept saying, “Just let the baby tell you when to push”, etc. I realized in that moment that I wanted a drill sergeant instead. I wanted to follow orders, because I definitely did not feel like I knew what I was doing – even after 4 kids. And my last memorable thought was the beauty of pain killers and how I wish I had some. I had an Epidural with the first two kids, but not the last two. Modern Medicine is lovely.

Born at 1:23pm

Weight: 4070g (9lbs)

Height: 52cm (20in)

Head size: 39cm (15in...ouch)

The name... Christian is an homage to the character "Christian" in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. And "Aaron" is my older brothers middle name, Christopher Aaron.  Praying that our Christian Aaron will be as inspirational to others as his namesakes have been to Dan & me.

So thankful for him!

I mentioned it was intense, right? :)

That evening Dan and my parents brought the boys by to meet their new brother.  They seemed to like him but I think they might have been more excited to see their mommy.

Four Boys

Worthy adoring his littlest brother

William was definitely smitten

Love this!

 Proud G & Grampy

We're so thankful and in love with this new little guy.  Looking forward to the joy (and craziness) he'll bring to our family!  

Worthy's Violin Recital

This past year, Worthy has been working on his violin chops.  His teacher, Miss Julie, goes to our church and is an amazing woman and a fantastic violin instructor.  She thought it would be a good idea for him to work towards doing a small recital.  She put the program together of the songs he's been working on and wrote the narration to accompany it.  We had a small group of friends join us along with my parents who arrived that afternoon.

Here's a video of one of the songs (accompanied by Dan on piano)...

Abby & Levi helped out by doing some narration.

Julie & Worthy playing a duet

Mom & Dad Arrive

My Mom & Dad arrived safe and sound and bearing gifts aplenty.  It really was a bit like Christmas - opening up their suitcases and just pulling things out!  For the most part, they brought things that we have a hard time getting here: Kids Books (in English), cake mixes, Kraft mac-n-cheese, brown sugar, chocolate chips and frosting.  (btw - I can make cakes from scratch, but sometimes it's just nice to have a boxed mix!).  

Yes, you can get Legos here, but it's more fun when Grampy brings them :)

 As thrilled as we were to open all this stuff - we were more delighted to see G & Grampy!

This makes me smile!

Saturday in Perchtoldsdorf

Our friends, the Haberls, invited us out on Saturday to Distl Heuriger in Perchtoldsdorf, just south of Vienna. After some wine and local food (I got the blood sausage and sauerkraut... yummmmm...) Elske took Calvin and very-pregnant Jen back home while Christian and Benjamin took me and Worthy and William on a hike through town and woods and heath back to their home in Rodaun.
The castle ruins in Perchtoldsdorf date back to over 700 years. Here's Worthy, William, and Benjamin posing on the Black Plague memorial in the center of town. Behind them to the left is the old church and to the right is the defensive tower that was built in 1521. It successfully housed and defended the town's inhabitants during the first Siege of Vienna in 1529.

They weren't so fortunate in 1683 when they had to wave the white flag of surrender ("die weisse Fahne zum zeichen der Kapitulation"). The Ottomans then murdered many and enslaved the rest.

Inside the church

From there we hiked through the Vienna Woods and then through the Perchtoldsdorf Heath.

There was lots of Baerlauch about, which happened to be what Elske's soup was made of earlier that day. It grows only a couple of weeks out of the year in early Spring and smells like garlic.

A deer blind

We walked by several vineyards.

Hot chocolate waiting for us back at the Haberl home. 

Someone's got a crush :)