another birthday

Introducing Karsten Paul Negard! A BOY!! And another birthday to add to our end of September celebrations.

Born on Saturday, September 28, 2013 at 12:51pm

7 pounds, 15 ounces, 20 1/4 inches

The name Karsten is the Germanic or Dutch form of the name Christian, meaning "follower of Christ". It fits in nicely with our Scandinavian set of names, and we just plain like the name.

His middle name was given in honor of my father, Paul, who will surely be a favorite playmate of Karsten's just as he is of our daughters. Paul means "humble".

We pray little Karsten will always be a humble follower of Christ.

He is welcomed with great love and affection, and a little apprehension, by his two older sisters.

Little Karsten was born after around 2-2.5 hours of labor, which felt like a decade to me. I had this unrealistic expectation that birthing a third child would be much easier than the first two. Hmmmm. As soon as I can get my act together as a mother of three, I will share more details.

For now, suffice it to say that all of our prayers were answered in that mom and baby are both healthy and baby wasn't born in the car. He arrived only one day past my due date - HUGE GIGANTIC relief for me. I really didn't think I could carry two weeks late again this time around. And Christian was especially pleased that I decided to bring him into the world at a convenient time instead of the middle of the night.

I can't believe we have a little BOY in the house!!!! Our lives are about to change...