We just got back, but I’ve made sure to post new pictures of the new princess – Nick and Ashley’s baby girl: Harper Ella Jean Katz. She was born on May 12th and weighed in at 7 lbs. 12 ozs, and 19 inches long. Harper was a planned c-section which helped Ashley deal with the last days of her pregnancy. It’s much easier when you can actually count the days until you no longer have to carry around this baby, but it also helped in that she knew exactly when to prepare. Not that she didn’t know when Hayden was born…it’s just that he was born almost a month early. Everyone held their breathe as the days clicked by and sure enough, this time everything went as planned. And Harper held to the saying that c-section babies are beautiful. She is gorgeous to say the least…and she was definitely worth traveling 2,000 miles to see. So much so that we’ll go back in September. Yeah, I’m sure that Elana thinks we’re going to visit her. But Nick and Ashley think we’re making the trip to see them. Hayden really knows that Grandma and Grandpa are really coming to see him and his baby sister.

For this trip, we took Tim, Elyse, Jackson and Luke. Through shuttle ride to LAX, a 3 hours flight and another 3 hours on the road from St. Louis, not rain, dark of night, or exhausted babies could stop us. Actually, Jackson was an enthusiastic traveler. And since Hayden would barely come to me last Christmas, nothing can replace him running thru the parking lot with his arms up, saying “Grandma” and hugging me. I guess the video conferencing really helped! We enjoyed going outside and “mowing” with two little plastic mowers. We blew bubbles, and played with his water activity table. (Yeah, guess who got soaking wet. Uh no, it wasn’t me. I’m faster than he is.) Then Hayden learned how to say “Unca Luke”. He proceeded to push and pull Luke in the wagon. The park was a big hit and I finally got do what all grandma’s like to do: buy my grandson a treat. I know it’s a small thing, but he was finally old enough to us to take him and let him pick out a little candy. Since we only get to see him twice a year, this was a small thing that was pretty special.

There were many more great moments in between, like Jackson and Hayden meeting up again. Since Hayden only turned two in January, and Jackson will be 1 tomorrow, it meant more this time around than at Christmas. I’m sure we would have had a great last day too, except almost all of us came down with the stomach flu… a really bad bug. It kept us in bed the entire last day. I was supposed to bake cookies with Hayden and “mow” more, but that will have to wait for the next trip. Can’t wait to see newbor Harper when she’s 4 months old!

Trackback this Post | Feed on comments to this Post