And so it begins...

This seems to be the year of trying new things, so it only seems right to enter into the blog-o-sphere. Just over three weeks ago our family doubled in size with the arrival of Evaline and Cora, and we're already realizing the difficulty of regular communication with our loved ones and friends. We can only imagine that this difficulty will increase as the girls continue to grow and demand more time and energy. We thought that this might be a convenient (for us, anyway) way to keep everyone up-to-date and involved...that and it seems to be a fantastic avenue for showing off and bragging about our beautiful babies.

That being said, here are some photos to commemorate the past three and half weeks:

A Child (or two) is Born
November 12, 2008 - After spending a week and a half in the hospital with pre-eclampsia, Merry went into labor - less than 24 hours shy of her scheduled c-section (scheduled for 37 weeks pregnant). Rather than laboring all night and then going into surgery in the morning, the doctor decided to spare us the labor pains and perform the surgery that evening. And so we have...

6:29 pm: Cora Lynn Petersen arrived at a whopping 5 lbs 10 oz and18 inches.

6:30 pm: Evaline (pronounced Ev-uh-lyn) Jo Petersen arrived at 4 lbs 4 oz and 17 inches.

Cora had some trouble acclimating her lungs to the air outside the womb and had to spend about 45 minutes in the NICU right after birth; but soon the girls were reunited. (Cora is on the left, Evaline on the right.)

Four days later we introduced the girls to their new home. When we brought them home Evaline weighed 3 lbs 15 oz, and Cora was 5 lbs 3 oz. (Evaline is on the left, Cora on the right.)

At Home:
The girls are continuing to grow, both are gaining at a higher-than-normal rate. We're considering this good, since they have a bit of catching up to do. At their doctor's appointment on the 5th Evaline was up to 5 lbs 4 oz and Cora (aka: Chunky Monkey) was 6 lbs 13 oz. Here are some of our favorite photos to date:

Evaline:

Cora:

Sleeping Babes: Evaline - left, Cora - right

Evaline conducting her morning stretching routine:



Cora - top, Evaline - bottom

Cora - cute as ever!

Cora - left, Evaline - right