Here he is folks! As is the custom with all of our children, Viggo was born on a relative's birthday. So...Happy Birthday, Elin!!

Viggo was born 12:21 this morning, weighed 7 pounds, 10 ounces, and was 20 inches long.

Labor started around 8 o'clock last night, so all in all, a four and a half hour labor is pretty outstanding. More to come when I have the energy to relive it all!

This week has been somewhat exhausting. We started it off with Emmaline's birthday on Sunday, Ian got sick Monday night, Emmaline was sick Wednesday night, and I was ill all day Thursday. Thankfully, the bug we got seems to be the type that worked its way out of our systems pretty quickly. However, I have been doing a lot of laundry and keeping late hours at night. After finally feeling better from yesterday, I pretty much decided to laze about the house today. I have gotten a few things done today like one load of laundry and a load of dishes put into the dishwasher. Not much to claim, but at least it is something.

On another note, I have accomplished a few other things this week, including a loverly apron for Emmaline!

I had recently purchased some aprons at Ross; once Emmaline saw me wearing one, she had to have one on too. Needless to say, my aprons were filthy within their first day of use. So, I decided to make some for her.

I used a McCall's Pattern for this apron. Very cute set of aprons.

I've decided to only make the two on the side. I have one more to make with different fabrics in the same style as the one I've finished, and I got a pretty green fabric for the one above it. We'll see how they turn out!

I've also been attempting to bake gluten-free products for my family. Since my kiddos seem particularly sensitive to gluten and certain starches, I have to be mindful of how much of those particular items they consume during the day. So far I've made an attempt at Irish Soda Bread

which tasted more like corn bread than soda bread, still have to tweak this one, and some biscuits

which I think turned out pretty well, all things considered. Paired with the sausage gravy I made, I could barely tell a difference. I'm sure it will take me a while to get used to the slightly different taste and consistency of the different flours I am using, but I hope the effort will be well worth it.

Here are some photos from Emmaline's birthday. We stayed pretty low-key this year. The kids ate cupcakes for breakfast, followed by an omelet made by master-chef Daddy. We let Emmaline open up some of her presents before going to church. However, we held back the toys for later, figuring that giving her those presents before church then refusing to let her play with them til later would just be torture to her. So, Emmaline got to open the boxes of her birthday outfits instead. She took her time opening them and wasn't super thrilled about the contents, but that's the way it goes with children. After church we met up with my parents who came up for the day, we had lunch then got Emmaline's Three-Year-Old pictures taken.


After that excitement we headed to a paint-your-own pottery place. David helped Emmaline pick out a bowl for painting, I pulled the colors she chose, then helped her with the finishing touches after she was done painting. Her bowl won't be glazed and fired until this coming Monday. It will be really neat to see how it turns out! Towards the end of the painting session both kids started melting down, so my Father and David took Ian home while Mom and I finished up with Emmaline. Home we headed afterward for a lovely dinner and more present opening. Emmaline got a few Hot Wheels tracks from her Daddy along with some cars, and I got her a baby doll she can play with. So far she has played a lot with both gifts, so David and I are pleased that we didn't waste our money. It was a really nice day, though Emmaline still doesn't quite understand that she had her birthday that day, and she is officially three years old. I'm sure it will sink in gradually; growing older is hard work!