Happy New Year!!!!

Hello all,


This update should have happened about two weeks ago, but we have just been busier than normal, as we are learning to take care of Ayden and still have normal life continue on...laundry, meals, sleep, work, etc. :) Ayden is doing well and growing like a weed. I took him to a lactation consultant when he was six weeks old, just to see how much milk he was receiving at each feeding, and in the first six weeks of his life he gained 3 pounds!!!! He is a great eater and he is gaining weight really well, which makes us happy and feel good about how we are scheduling his feedings. Ayden is now in his seventh week of life and it is crazy to think that in nine days he will already be two months old!! Time really does fly!!! We will take him for his two month Doc appt. on Jan. 21st right before we head home to California for a visit!!











We were blessed to have my mom (grandma Hantz) here for Christmas!! She enjoyed Ayden a bunch and found it hard to depart when the time arrived. While she was here we spent a lot of time in the house, which was kind of a bummer, but with a newborn who feeds seven times a day what can you do. We did get out to a few places though that we really wanted her to see while she was here. We drove about three hours to a city called Ashville to spend some time at the Grove Park Inn. This is a hotel, a very ritzy hotel, that has a gingerbread house contest that is really really cool to see. And the hotel is decked out in Christmas decorations too which is just really fun!!! You can see in our pictures that the houses were really well done and the people that made them spanned from children to adult, which I think is neat!! We also took her to meet the family that I have worked for before Ayden was born. She was blessed to meet the two girls, Elizabeth and Sarah, that I nannied for over a year and their mom Betsy and dad Cape. We took her to eat at some good restaurants here that we only have seen here in NC, such as Cracker Barrel and McAlister's Deli. She loved holding Ayden and taking part in things like baths and changing his diaper, oh the things you enjoy again when your kids are all grown. :) For Christmas we hung around and none of us got out of our pj's the entire day... we cooked and ate yummy food and just enjoyed time together and with the Lord! We enjoyed our time with her and we look forward to seeing her again as the Lord wills.


A quick update on Ayden... in the last two weeks he has really been cooing more and more and after I feed him and lay him on his changing table he and I will talk and Min and I just smile as we watch him find out that he has a voice! He has also had two nights of where he slept seven hours between feedings, Amen!!!!! I don't count on this as routine yet but we are getting closer to him sleeping longer and longer at night time. During the day Ayden still fights sleep and we are working on getting his naps in place during the day. :) Ayden can lift his head by himself, you will see in some of the pictures, Min calls him his Super Her-o. We love watching his little personality develop, he is giggling more and smiling a whole lot, we are still not sure if his smiles are gas or him really smiling :) We are truly enjoying every moment, even the fussy times, and just feel incredibly blessed to have him as our son!!

We hope that you enjoy the pictures and videos we post, we sure enjoy taking them of him. Well enjoy and may you be blessed in the New Year!! We look forward to seeing many of you when we visit home in 20 days!!!

Let us introduce you to Ayden James Ho!!!!!!!

Well... I was planning to post about two weeks another picture of my belly at 37 weeks, and well my plans were changed as our son arrived a week or so earlier than expected!! We are more than blessed to announce Ayden's arrival on November 19, 2008 at 7:49pm, that is East coast time. :) We have had a wonderful ten days so far getting to know Ayden and love him to pieces as we figure out what it means to care for e newborn. Min has been INCREDIBLE, and I don't mean that lightly. While we were in the hospital I didn't change one diaper, he has been amazing as a husband and a dad from the time that he knew I was beginning labor. Okay so I guess the story of his arrival is at hand... FYI there will be things shared that are personal so get ready :)

I think, for being a rookie at labor and delivery, that I began the process of labor on Sunday night, November 15th. That night I began to lose my mucus plug. I won't share too many details it was just very apparent to me that things were different and I felt different than before. Can't really say how, but I felt like man maybe he could come any day now. I told myself though that it couldn't be and that I didn't want to psyche myself out and it all be false labor. So Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I worked as usual and did normal daily things like grocery shop, etc. Wednesday morning I felt very different, like crampy and achy, but not bad, so I went to work for the day. As I drove I just prayed and asked the Lord to get me through that day by His strength! I took the girls to the library, doing the normal daily things that I would usually do with Elizabeth and Sarah, the girls that I nanny for. As the day rolled along I began to have cramps, like period cramps, around 1pm. It struck me as funny but again I was like okay this could be false labor, and really I thought I don't know what labor feels like. Well I drove home at 2:30 and the cramps were stronger and five to six minutes between them. I called Melissa and asked her what a contraction felt like... and she told me to call the hospital. LOL!!! I did call the OB nurse at the hospital and she told me that I was probably in early labor. So I checked my email, and did things around the house, having cramps all throughout and laboring and breathing through them in the most comfortable ways I could find. Min got home at 4:45pm and I greeted him at our garage door saying that we probably were going to have a baby in the next 24 hours. He jumped into the shower and began packing things we would need. I told him that I needed to do laundry, so I threw a load in and then I wanted to take a bath before we actually made our way to the hospital. I guess I was just not wanting to rush to the hospital and them tell us that I was 2cm dilated and then we had a long night ahead of us walking the halls of labor and delivery. So I ran a bath and got in, this was the most comfortable way for me to go through contractions. While I was in the bath my water broke and this was the last straw per se that told us we should head to the hospital. Also Min said while I was in the bath that he felt my contractions were closer than five minutes apart. I agreed and in the next 20 minutes or so we made our way out the house and headed to the hospital.

We live about ten minutes from the hospital and as I had contractions during that drive, I counted then every two minutes as I tried to concentrate through them. As we arrived at the hospital we parked the car and headed to the second floor labor and delivery. Min checked me in because right away the nurses scooped me into a room and had me change and lay down to monitor Ayden and my contractions. The checked me and said I was 6 to 7 cm dilated. Min came and was again right by my side through every contraction, allowing my to grip his hand and sweatshirt as I went in and out of contractions. I told the nurses at this time that I felt the urge to push and they checked me again and I was already at a 10 in dilation. They told me that I was ready to push but we had to wait for the doctor to get there. Dr. Fishburne was the doctor that delivered Ayden and he was on call that evening. He got there within minutes of me reaching full dilation and he checked my charts and began to allow me to push as my contractions came. He was a good doctor and told me to use all of my energy to push and not yell. I was letting all my steam out with yelling. LOL!! I was embarrassed after the fact, but during you really can't get through without making any noise. But with what he said I had something to focus on and Min was a great coach to me as I would push Min would remind me not to yell but push with everything in me. Within five contractions, which accounted for about thirty minutes of pushing, Ayden James Ho had arrived!!!! They placed him on my chest as Min cut the cord and we admired the miracle that God has blessed us with and trusted to us!! Shortly after they cleaned him all up and weighed him, measured his length and head. He was 6 pounds 9 ounces and 20 inches long!!!

We spent the next almost two full days in the hospital with many visitors who came to meet Ayden and celebrate with us; we were blessed by time spent with friends and family during those days! Min and I hardly slept the entire time; we found ourselves overjoyed and just in awe of what God does when He creates life!!

We have been home for 12 days now; Ayden is two weeks old today!! We have taken him to the pediatrician once and came away very encouraged about his progress in gaining an ounce since leaving the hospital and just his overall health was great!!

We hope this finds each of you doing well and we can't wait to introduce you to our son, whether that be here in NC or when we arrive home to California in February!! Thanks you for your prayers for Ayden's labor and delivery, they were all answered in great ways, and I personally praise the Lord for His presence and strength throughout!! We hope you enjoy these photos of Ayden!! They are just a few of the many that we have taken throughout the past two weeks!!! Love,

Min, Kimmy and Ayden :)

Fall Leaves, Fall Friends, Fall Festivals, and Fall Pumpkins!!!!

Well, we have had a very busy month in the month of October!! We have made our way to the mountains north of Charlotte and were able to see the beauty of God changing seasons literally right before our eyes!! It was a great day trip or us to just take time and see the beauty. The pictures are at the bottom of this blog entry... I uploaded them backwards. :) We decided as we drove that next year we would really like to head a little more north and spend some time in Virginia, where we have heard the leaves and colors are just unreal!!! But we were blessed to see the trees here and the amazing clouds too as you will see below!!

We were truly blessed to have our good friend Christiane FOX come and stay with us for almost a week!! She is heading to Sudan to be a Missionary there, hopefully sooner than later. You can check out her blog and her heart by clicking on the link to her webpage here on our site. She is truly a blessing to my life. God has crossed our paths originally at Briercrest Bible College about eight years ago and we have met up here and there along our journeys since then. She was able to fly here and share with our church, as well as the kids we work with weekly at AWANA. God had given her a heart for the people of Africa and He has opened the doors through a ministry called SIM to get her over there to use her nursing skills to bless people in the Name and love of Jesus Christ!! You will see pictures of her and I below at our annual Fall Festival at Mount Harmony! She was a blessing to have with us for a short while and I know that the people who spoke with her and met her were blessed as well!! We look forward to seeing how the Lord is going to use her in Doro, Sudan. If you know her, or even if you don't, please pray for her safety and that God will get her there finance wise when He wills!!

Below too you will see pictures of kids all dressed up who attended our Fall Festival at church this year! We dressed Ayden up as a little pumpkin the best that we could... people thought he was a cute pumpkin, and we did too!!!! We had a great time with all the kids that attended, the pictures that I posted are of some of the girls we have in our AWANA class, they were just too cute for words!! All the kids had their faces painted and well it was tempting to me to go get my face painted too!! I caved in and at the end of the night I got it painted!! It was one of those things that I just had to do...reliving childhood. :)

Lastly, the pictures right below here are of Min and I carving our pumpkins this year!! We did them a few days before Halloween and they actually made it this year without rotting... that happened t us last year. :) Min carved the Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus pumpkin, and I did Jesus praying and the little pumpkin for Ayden with a funny face. We had fun, we did not do them free hand, haha. We are not that talented, but even when they are traced it is still tricky to carve out the small details!! Min is way better than me, he always does a great job on them!!!

Well we hope this finds you doing well!!! We have less than 30 days until Ayden is due to arrive!! We are excited and are feeling more and more ready to meet our son! Can't believe that we are already into November, time is doing it's normal job of going too fast right before our eyes!

We are looking forward to a restful month ahead... we will see how that turns out :) One week from today I go to the doctor for a physical exam and that in when they will tell me more details about where we are standing labor and delivery wise... and hopefully they will have a better guesstimate of how big Ayden will be when he arrives!! We will see, we just pray for a safe labor and delivery and a healthy baby boy!!!! Thanks for your thoughts and prayers and we look forward to hearing for you all and soon introducing our son to you!!!! Love from us to you!!!

Here is our carving process and the end result of our fun pumpkins!!!! We had a lot of fun doing them!!!

Here I am after the Fall Festival on Oct. 25th. I am 34 weeks here and still growing like crazy!!!

Christiane and I here at the Fall Festival!!

Danny Williams (He was a groomsman in our wedding) his neice Allison painted my face very pretty!!! It was a lot of fun!! The sign you see is Trunk of Treat... the kids trunk or treating and this is how they got candy that night!!! I think it is such a great idea!!!

These were the games we ran for a few hours that night, it was really fun!!!!

When we were at a lookout on the Blue Ridge Parkway, we randomly bumped into Danny Williams, Mom and Dad!! They are like are family here and it was just such a surprise to meet them randomly so far away from where we usually see them!!! Haha. It was a great picture opportunity!!