Helping Hands


Our family and friends are awesome. Sister Paige was here last week and my mom is here this week helping out. Their stays overlapped last weekend and it was a good thing - we moved! Yes - just another thing to add to the chaos. We just moved down the street but now we are in a townhouse with a small yard and no upstairs neighbor. Other bonuses: we are now 1/2 block from the metro, Eric is 8 minutes (walking door to desk) from work, and we are 4 doors down from the McArthurs. We had a lot of help from friends to get over here and now we are trying to get out of boxes.

In a Name











Giving a child a name is such a huge responsibility! We've been asked where the name Cadence came from. Early in pregnancy I was going through a baby name book and reading under a list of "names associated with music". Eric was riding his bike along with the Tour de France on the trainer in the front room and I mentioned the name as a biking and musical term. We both said something like "I like that" but at the time it didn't send off any whistles. Somehow though we kept coming back to it and in the end it just seemed right. We have so many pictures of Cadie already. I'll try not to post too many. :)

INTRODUCING...

Cadence Abigail Toman
born Friday Nov 16 3:12am
8 lbs. 9 oz. 21 in long
LOTS of long blond hair



Cadie is so amazing. We are very sleep deprived right now but really enjoying our strong-willed baby girl.

Short Birth Story (email me if you want more details): We went into the hospital on Thursday (11 days overdue) for a scheduled induction. My Dr. knew that I wanted a natural child birth and suggested that we try breaking my water and starting pitocin to jumpstart my body and then going off the pit if my body took over. 4 hours into labor and I was able to go off the pitocin. We had a few scares, Cadie's heart rate dropped with contractions and her head was turned the wrong way but Dr. Coats was awesome and suggested alternatives for labor that helped. 14 hours of contractions and 2.5 hours of pushing later, Cadie joined us! We also had an amazing support crew - our doula asked if she could bring along a second doula who was in training. This second doula had a background in massage therapy! so that was fine with me. Our nurse Danielle stayed with us through the end - past her scheduled hours. We were really blessed with all the of support and a beautiful baby girl.

We just got home from the hospital today and look forward to a holiday week counting our blessings and getting to know Cadence. Thanks for all of your support and love.

8 days over


We are doing lots of walking! Saturday we walked around Chinatown and went into the Smithsonian American Portraits Gallery. Here is Eric with big Abe. Happy Veterns day - only thing on the agenda is more walking!

4 days over

I'm still a watermelon. Any suggestions for helping things along?

November 4th

Came and left and nothing exciting happened...

Happy Halloween


We helped out with a church kid carnival on Saturday. Thanks to Cindy (cowgirl) for the pumpkin face -making me even more conspicuous than usual. I don't think I'll be posting any more picture of me for a while. Kai looks great as superman though!

Running Fool


We cheered on our friends Matt and Christina as they ran the Marine Corps Marathon yesterday. They are total studs! Watching the mass of people of every age and body type really inspired me. So here is my official announcement: Next year I am going to complete a marathon. Now that I've let everyone know there is no backing out. So feel free to ask/bug me about my training.