He's Here!

We're happy to announce the birth of our new baby boy, Ezra Garrett Bates! He was born on May 18, 2011 at 7:58am and made his debut at a healthy 10 lbs, 10 oz and 23 inches long. Senya and Ivan are both so excited about their baby brother and fight for the chance to hold him and kiss him and give him toys.

For once, I'm taking my sweet time getting back into the swing of things (made possible by my awesome husband, a very helpful grandma, and many generous friends), and it has made for a great recovery. Thank you, everyone!

We're looking forward to him being able to play with his "cousin twin" in Canada; Trent's sister, Lurene had her baby about a week prior to Ezra's birth. I love that it works out that way! As someone who didn't have any cousins my age, I'm so glad that all 3 of our kids have a cousin within a couple months of their ages--makes for fun summers!

Here are some pictures:

We'd like to think that Ezra is glad to join our family despite his expression in this picture. Ezra isn't the happiest here, but the other two kids were so cute that we had to include this one!

Senya is a huge helper and is EXCELLENT at calming him down (even when I can't).

Ivan loves holding our little longhorn too, and had gotten a lot of "baby practice" in by playing dolls with Senya. The only thing is that he is easily distracted. There have been a couple times when he would have run off to play forgetting that he had a baby on his lap if I hadn't been there to remind him.