We are overjoyed! God has blessed us so tremendously! Our son Jordan was born at 8:13 AM on 8/13. Crystal and Jordan are doing great. Leila and Grandpa Choo (Crystal's dad) were standing just outside the room and heard his first cry. (One very interesting sidenote: Our good friends Ralph and Becky Luff had their baby girl, Emma Jolee, born at the exact same time at a different hospital about 5 miles away.)

It was a LONG weekend. Crystal began having contractions Friday night. We finally went to the hospital Saturday evening and spent Saturday night there only to be sent home Sunday morning. Finally, at about 4:30 AM Monday morning, Crystal knew it was time. Our Family Practice Physician, Dr. Lonnie Smucker was awesome and did a great job of coaching Crystal and delivering Jordan. I, of course, was right there and cut the umbilical cord as I did with Leila, Justin and Rachel.

Jordan had a great first day. He seems pretty content to finally be out of the womb. He sleeps a lot, but when awake is very alert. His most comfortable position is on his back. He loves to be held that way and just looks at us. It seems that he recognizes our voices and is very happy to see us.

Breast feeding for the first time went very well. He fed for almost an hour. He didn't eat much for the rest of the day but we're told that is normal. He slept almost all the way through the night which was great for Mom and Dad who were both very tired.

Well, today was supposed to be Jordan's due date. We are very happy he decided to come a day early! Dr. Smucker came at 7:30 A.M. to do the circumcision. Jordan did pretty well with it. They distracted him with some sugar water. He decided to pee on the doctor anyhow. However, after the local anasthesia started to wear off, he was not a happy camper. We finally got to experience his first real hard cry. We both comforted him and after a short time he calmed down and fed for another hour or so before taking a nice long nap to recover from the trauma.

Crystal and Jordan both received a clean bill of health and we got to go home this morning. It was great to take Jordan home! We had a couple friends stop by to see him and it was hard to resist taking him all over to show him off.

As the day wore on, I think the heat was getting to him a bit. It was his first time out of the air conditioned hospital. He's really starting to get the hang of feeding and he now knows that all he has to do to get picked up is cry and if that doesn't work, cry harder. He seemed to have a good first night at home and we were able to get a few hours of much needed sleep.

Jordan had his first Dr. Appointment this morning and he is doing great. He has been much more alert today after being so sleepy the last couple days. We are working on establishing some sort of routine for feedings, etc. Crystal and I are still on cloud nine and have to remind ourselves that we shouldn't hold him all the time as he will get too used to it. We have agreed that it is OK to spoil him for the first week at least!

Today was an interesting day. We started off by taking Jordan to church for the first time. Of course he attracted a lot of attention. Then after church, I had an appointment with a client to sell some funeral insurance. There is a restaruant that used to be called Waddles. It sits just south of the Oregon/Washington border. I've met clients there many times who live in Washington but are buying an Oregon policy to use an Oregon funeral home.

Well...Waddles closed last year and it is now Hooters. So this nice family brought their two teenage kids and the wife's father to meet me there. Crystal and Jordan came along with me. Of course, Jordan attracted a lot of attention there as well. Unfortunately for him, he slept most of the time we were there!

Jordan got to meet his brother Justin and sister Rachel today for the first time. They had spent most of the summer in Idaho with their mom. Justin and Rachel were very excited to meet their new brother. Jordan is doing fine, though we need to get his bilirubin levels checked again. He is showing signs of Jaundice. It's common for breast fed babies and is most likely because he isn't pooping as much as necessary to filter out the bilirubin in his blood. He is eating very well and has definitely learned where his food comes from...he now just needs to learn that Mommy is the only one who can give it to him.

Tomorrow morning Jordan will be four weeks old. Gosh, it seems like longer than that. Maybe because he's such a constant part of our life we can hardly remember life without him.

He is doing great and is developing quite the personality...and is probably a little spoiled. He is getting noticably bigger. Today we laid him on our bathroom scale and he was 9 pounds. He eats every 2-3 hours.

Crystal is writing a journal which will go back to when we first decided to have a child. It will be posted on this website in the near future.

Jordan made his first big trip out of town to visit Aunt Denise, Uncle Andy and cousins Brookelyn and Julia in Idaho, along with seeing Grandma Rosemary and Grandpa Mike again.

Jordan had a great time meeting everyone. He also did great on the long drive, sleeping most of the way.

See the photo album for more pictures from this trip.

As we come upon Jordan's first Christmas, we are reminded of how thankful we are for our whole family. Leila just recently graduated from CNA school, and Justin (16) and Rachel (12) are developing more and more into awesome young people. As a father, I am very, very thankful that all three of my older children know and love the Lord and I'm sure Jordan and his future sibling will as well.

Our life has been very crazy the last few months. At the beginning of October, we decided to move to Meridian, Idaho to be closer to my mom and sister Denise and family. While it really was great to see them more often, I was having a hard time being away from Leila who stayed in Portland. The rest of the family also really missed our life in Portland, our church and the kids' schools and friends. We talked about it and came to a unanimous family decision to move back to Portland. So, after two months we moved back to Portland at the end of November. Justin and Rachel are back in their previous schools and we are all very happy to be back in our church. Fortunately Mom, Mike and Denise and Andy and Brookelyn and Julia were all very understanding. It was a big decision, but one that we put a lot of careful thoughts and prayers into.

Jordan is growing and developing more and more every day. He is so alert and aware of his surroundings. He definitely recognizes his mom and dad and laughs and smiles a lot. And yes, he also fusses a lot and is starting to have teething pains. The doctor told us last week that we are free to introduce rice cereal and baby formula whenever we want. To this point, he has had nothing but breast milk. As you can see from his pictures, he is very well fed, but he is probably ready for some more substantial food.

We are very much looking forward to 2008. As we have already announced, we would like to have another child within the next year to give Jordan a sibling close to his age to grow up with. We'll keep you posted as the Lord blesses us.

We had Jordan's 6 month Dr. appointment yesterday. Although he and the rest of us have been going through the "crud" sickness the last couple weeks, Jordan is doing great.

He continues to smile and laugh a lot. He is also now able to roll over from both back to belly and belly to back, though it is easier for him to go belly to back. He doesn't really crawl yet, but while on his belly he will rotate himself 360 degrees. He is able to pretty much sit up on his own, but will lose his balance when he moves too much.

His alertness and focus is amazing. He is great at reaching for and grabbing anything within reach. Yes, it all goes in his mouth. He likes to hold my cell phone and we are teaching him that he can hold it but not eat it. He is learning. He especially likes it in the dark when it is all lit up.

While he is still breastfeeding, he is also now on stage 2 baby food. He loves all vegetables and fruits we have given him, but he does not like the meat such as turkey, veal or beef. We try to sneak bites of it between bites of vegetables, but he is not fooled. He has decided to skip the bottle phase altogether. He doesn't even really like sippy cups. We just give him drinks out of a regular cup and he loves it.

No teeth yet, but he does have teething pains occasionally. He sleeps through the night about half of the time. He likes to be by himself in a totally dark room. He also likes to be outside in the cool weather looking at the world.

Jordan has his first teeth. We noticed this morning that his lateral incisors have poked through. They are the ones next to his two front teeth. Some of the others look like they will be coming in soon as well. He's very patient while we stick our fingers in his mouth to feel, though he doesn't know why we're doing it.

Jordan turned 9 months old on the 13th of May. It's amazing how much he is growing and developing. He is completely done with 'baby food.' He knows the difference and wants to eat 'big people' food....usually whatever we are eating. Furthermore, he does not want to be fed. He wants to feed himself! Amazingly, when he is hungry he is very good at it...barely makes a mess. He's even learning to use a spork. It's funny watching him chase a pea all over his tray trying to get it on the spork. We do still give him formula in a bottle to make sure he is getting most of the nutrients he is missing from not breastfeeding.

He has become very good at standing up while holding on to something. He also runs all over the house in his walker. He loves to be outside and is usually very good when we go places.