Our new little sweetie!

We can't believe he's finally here....and two and a half weeks early too!

Grant Cole Pennington arrived on September 18th, 2009 at 1:02pm.

He is our tiniest baby yet, weighing in at 6lbs, 11oz. and 19 1/2 in. long. God was so gracious to allow him to come early. I had been having problems for 2 weeks with high blood pressure and severe migraines. I was pretty frustrated knowing that I still had several weeks to go(longer in my estimation because I ALWAYS go overdue). My midwives decided that my high blood pressure problems were serious enough to schedule twice a week non-stress tests in addition to my weekly appointments which was just incredibly overwhelming to me since I would have to make the drive to Omaha so frequently and find babysitters for the kids. I started praying for an early delivery. God is SO good! The night before my first non-stress test I started having pretty hard contractions around 1am. This just about put me in tears because before leading up to Elle's birth I had false labor that lasted for almost a week before she finally arrived. Exhausting, to say the least! I figured this was more of the same and that I had several weeks of it to follow. The contractions were about 10 minutes apart all night long....close enough together and painful enough that I couldn't sleep at all. When Aaron woke up around 7:00, I told him that he might need to take a sick day because I was feeling so badly and didn't know if I could drive myself to my appointment. He happily said he would be glad to stay home and decided to run a couple of errands before my appointment. He got about 2 blocks away when I realized that the contractions were getting closer together. I gave him a call and we decided to go in a little early for my appointment just to make sure everything was alright. We dropped the kids off at my mom and dad's and headed to the Midwives office. I just KNEW that there was no way the baby could be coming this early so I decided against bringing anything along....my hospital bag wasn't packed yet anyway. When we got there my midwife asked if I wanted her to check to see if I was dilated and I thought, sure, why not. I was totally shocked when she told me that I was dilated to 7cm and that baby would be making an appearance in a couple of hours. Sure enough, after a couple more hours of labor, baby arrived! Aaron caught him and was the first to tell me that it was a BOY! It was an awesome birth experience and Aaron was wonderful and supportive, taking care of any tiny thing I needed and encouraging me when I was so tired. Best husband EVER! We had a short list of boys names and spent a little time with our sweetie before naming him Grant Cole. Grant means "Great" and Cole is after my "little" brother Cole, who is our best friend and a godly example to our children.

We are blessed in every way and so thankful for to our loving God

for this truly amazing gift of a child! I am overwhelmed at his love for us!

Thank you so much to all of our friends and family who were praying for us! We appreciate it more than you know!