Aftermath

It's a little soggy in Galesburg this morning! We had almost 4 inches of rain yesterday and no where for the rain to go. This is our new 'nature made' lake in the back yard...

The water is so bad the neighbors in the bottom picture purchased an industrial pump to try to get the water out of their yard. It ran continuous until 2 this morning.....and now it's running again.

The water is starting to go down. You can see the water mark on the tree from when it was at its highest and this morning you can see the top tip of my new hydrangea bush I planted last week.

Thank you Heather and Kirk for the shop vac (a wedding gift). It has been put to use many times before this, however, this time it's kept us from floating away!

There is a lot of water in the basement and two parts of the wall where the water is literally pouring out in the same fashion as a drinking fountain. Travis was smart and created a drainage system to go from the wall to the floor drain so the water wouldn't just leak all over the basement causing more work for us....him.

So far we've....he's...carried out 160 gallons of water and there's more to come!

We know we aren't alone in this venture, my dad, my mom, our neighbors and friends all have water in their basements too and most worse than us so we are grateful that we have it as 'easy' as we do. Also that our basement is not finished like the rest of the people we know.

It's sure to be a soggy day for everyone, but at least the sun is shining! :)

New Addition

Today we got to see the newest member of the family. However, he or she was not being cooperative. The baby put its hands over it's face for most of the ultrasound making it hard to get a clear shot. Because everything is going so well and normal (thank God!) we will not get another chance to see the newest Stecher until September when it's due.

It was great to get a chance to finally see what's going on inside. Travis was quite taken and this baby already has it's dad wrapped around it's finger! :) Misty had a hard time "seeing" the pictures but after the 4D was turned on things became much clearer! Keep in mind we are only 22 weeks and the baby only weights 1lb. 2 oz.

This is a back shot of the baby. You can see the back, the ribs, the right leg with some meat on it already! The arm and fist are pulled up toward the baby's ear.

This is a front shot and the best shot we could get of the little stinker! You can see the babies right hand is up toward it's ear and the left is covering it's left eye. You can make out the nose and the mouth is slightly open....probably trying to talk already (that's a Vancil trait! :) The cord like thing is NOT a male anatomy part...it's the umbilical cord and it's not near the head it's actually floating above the baby it just looks like it's near the head because of the angle of the shot. You can see the big belly (another Vancil trait) and the chubby thigh (Travis says a Stecher trait.) I think this picture looks like the baby has hair and Travis' hairline and jaw.

Our opinions differ....I still think a boy, Trav still thinks a girl, but I think Travis is beginning to be swayed each time he looks at the photos.

What do you think?