Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to everyone (a few days late). Josiah had a busy past few days including traveling to Grandma and Grandpa Call's house and meeting mom's cousin Lori. Then traveling to Cedar Vale for the big Call Christmas meeting all of mom's aunts and uncles and many cousins. Josiah was a wonderfully traveler and slept through many long car rides.

More pictures to come of all our traveling and meeting family.

A week of many firsts

It was a week of many firsts for our precious little Josiah. On Monday, we ventured out in the cold weather to surprise Uncle Caleb as he arrived back in the states after living in Indonesia for the past two years. Uncle Caleb was pretty excited and proud of his first nephew! We had a great dinner at Famous Dave's. Josiah did great until we were done eating, and then he decided it was his turn!

Our first bath:

We gave Josiah his first bath on Sunday night. It was quite the process and Josiah screamed during most of it. The best part as combing his hair - he has a natural mohawk.

On Wednesday, we are our first outing, just Mom and Josiah. We had a doctor's appointment - Josiah is doing well was almost back up to his birth weight. After the doctor's we went to mom's office to show off. Every one thought he was great! Mom was even able to run by the store. A very successful outing for our first one. We made it home just in time to eat again!

On Friday, we went to our first Christmas Party. Josiah was dressed in a cute little Christmas outfit, but managed to pee all over it right before we left (the first of many last minute wardrobe changes). We had a good time seeing friends and introducing our new little fellow. He was great - just sleeping through it all!

Tomorrow, we are hoping to make it to church for our first time as a family of 3. They weather is suppose to be bitterly cold so we will see how the night goes and what the temps are like in the morning.

More pictures to come tomorrow of proud grandparents and great-grandparents.

We're home!

Just a quick update to let you know we are home and everyone is doing well. We got home around 2:30 this afternoon. Jeff and I just laughed at the state our house was in! Here are a couple of pictures.
All dressed up and ready to go home!


Proud (and tired) mommy - I am not as drugged as I look!


Happy and proud daddy!


Zane meeting sizing up his competition!


More to come later... I am off to feed him and daddy is in bed getting rest.

Welcome to the World... Josiah Scott Pankewich

I know we have either talked to or emailed/facebooked with most of you, so you know some of the details by now. Josiah Scott Pankewich was brought into the World at 9:55 PM on Tuesday, December 9, 2008. He weighs 7lbs 8oz, and is 19 inches long. He is just perfect. We keep thinking to ourselves..."Is it just because he is our kiddo that he seems so perfect, or does he really look that good, and behave so well???" It is truly amazing. Here's the story the best I can tell it.

Heidi went to the doctor on Tuesday morning for a check-up. Heidi has been pretty swollen for the past couple of weeks, and only getting bigger... Dr. Brunner was a bit worried about preeclampsia, so she told Heidi to go home and rest for the remainder of the day. Her blood pressure was a bit high and some of the other tests came back as warning signs that we needed to keep a close eye on her. Josiah was fine, but we were on alert for sure. Like is typical for her, Heidi went back to work for a short time to talk to her boss and co-worker so that she could let them be ready to take the things that Heidi was working on and run with them... Due to the snow, I went home a bit early from work. I had to run a couple of errands when I got there, so I went back into town. Heidi called me and told me that the nurse wanted her to get a blood pressure monitor so that we could keep an eye on her. Heidi was also so excited that she got to begin a 24 hour urine test starting Wednesday morning.

I got home from my running around and Heidi was on the phone with her boss, going over a few more work things. She hung up the phone at about 5:45 and she was going to get something to eat. We didn't get so far though... Right about 6:00 her water broke. We laid her down in the bed and I called in. They told us to come right in to the hospital, and her contractions started in about 10 minutes. They were about 5 minutes apart from the very beginning. I frantically packed my bag of clothes and gathered the last-minute things that I needed while trying to stay calm and time her contractions... it was a bit crazy. We got into the car and headed right to the hospital. Luckily the highway is right by the house and it wasn't too slick. They did a good job of clearing the highways of the snow and ice, so I was able to driveat about 50-55 mph.

We got to the hospital shortly after 7:00 and they brought us right to the room. Heidi progressed pretty quickly and it was pretty obvious that this was going to be a quick labor. Without going into too many details, she went from 2 cm and 75% effaced to 5 cm and 90% effaced in about 40 minutes. By then, she was having difficulty controlling her breathing. The nurses were great at getting her under control when I couldn't. She was also ready to get the epidural by now. They ordered the epidural, and by the time that she got it, she was probably 7cm, so pretty much past the danger zone of receiving it too early. Our Doctor was called and she made the trek to the hospital after she had just finished her bath and hopped into bed. (poor Dr. Brunner had travelled home which 2.5 hours due to the weather and traffic. Fortunately it only took about 30 minutes for her to get back.) When she got here, Heidi was very alert and relaxed and ready to deliver. She was at 9-10 cm, so the doctor got all robed up and they made the final preparations for Heidi. The doc came over and got Heidi to start pushing... From then it went so fast, and Heidi did very well... She only had to push through four contractions, for about 8 minutes, and beautiful Josiah popped out very healthy and crying like he should at 9:55... What an amazing moment when Dr. Brunner got him out and turned him so that Heidi could see him. I got to cut the cord and they took him to the warmer and cleaned him up. Heidi had a little bit of tearing so the doc had to stitch her up, and by the time she was ready, they brought him over and put him right on her chest. within 10 minutes, she was able to start feeding him a little bit. We got about an hour to ourselves with him, with only a few visits to check both Heidi and Josiah. What a blessing to be able to have this precious time with just the three of us.

We are so grateful for all that has gone on, and how well everything went. We are also grateful for all of your prayers for us. We feel so loved and so fortunate that God has blessed us with such a wonderful, precious baby boy.

I attached a few pics that Heidi's friend Emily got on her camera this morning when she visited. Unfortunately we forgot to bring the cable to download from our camera to the computer, there will be plenty of more pics that we will be able to post when we get home... which if all goes well will be sometime Thursday around lunch. Thank you for your love and prayers for us.

Showered by family and friends

Last weekend we were showered by family and friends. My sister-in-law, Steph, hosted the shower at their house. We had a Radio Flyer (red and black) theme! It was awesome. Also, my niece and nephew helped Nana make some yummy dirt "wormy" cake!

Our niece Emerald is really excited to meet our little guy! I think this is a precious picture - even though it was somewhat posed.


Grandma Call, Me, and Nana Pankewich! For Grandma, our little guy will be the first grandchild with a second one to come in about six months. For Nana, he will be the fourth grandchild with the third one added just 3 months ago, and a fifth being added in a couple months! We are excited to see our little guy grow up with cousins on both sides of the family so close to him in age.

The post would not be complete with out a picture of the "Callgirls!" We missed Tamra the fifth Callgirl and can't wait for her to move back! Soon all the callgirls will be back in Kansas.

We had such a great day celebrating with family and friends. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of Steph and I, or of my good friends from college that came. They are all on someone else's camera. We felt very blessed by the generousity of so many people that care about us.


Update on the pregnancy: We will be at 37 weeks on Tuesday - hard to believe. We are packing the hospital bag so it is ready. I did all of his laundry this weekend and trying to put it all away. We have our cloth diapers ordered and they should be here in a few days. So I think we are ready. Overall, I am starting to wear down - getting more tired and sore each day. I am pretty proud of myself, I have actually taken it easy the past few days. Taking naps and not getting everything done that is on my list - which is an accomplishment in itself for me. We were able to travel to my parents for Thanksgiving - a brief but good trip.

Jeff is currently "nesting" by redoing our bathtub/shower surround. It needed to be done soon - it was pretty bad. As with any other home improvement project it never goes quite as planned. We currently have some very beautiful cement backer board up. Hopefully in a few days some nice new tile. In the meantime we are taking sponge baths and traveling to Skip and Stephs for showers.

That is all for now. We will try to post a little more regularly... and soon we will have tons of pictures of our new little one to post. We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

"My Last Post" by Zane

Hi, my name is Zane. You may have heard about me, but you probably won't hear about me or see pictures of me for a while... They keep moving stuff around in my house, moving my kennel and my orange chair around to different places. I know something is going on but I'm not sure what.

Take a good look at these pictures as they may be my last ones on this blog... ever!
Daddy thinks its funny to dress me up in his sweatshirts... I don't feel the same way!


I like to rest my head on Mommy's lap, but her lap seems to be getting smaller and smaller these days. Not sure why, but probably has something to do with all the stuff they keep moving around. They keep pointing to Mommy's belly and asking me where Josiah is? I keep looking, but I still can't see him.

- Zane

72 days until Christmas...

Just a quick update to let you all know we have reached the 30 week mark and can't believe our little guy could be here in approximately 10 weeks. I would upload some pictures, but my computer is currently disabled as we have finally cleared out the old office/new nursery and have not got everything set up in the new office/storage room yet. More to come soon!

29 Weeks...

Wow it is hard to believe we are starting our 29th week today. Jeff and I are getting excited, as well as overwhelmed at times when we think about all that we would like to get done before our little guy comes into the world. Not much new news on the baby front. I passed by diabetes test which is great and am starting my every other week appointments now. I am still feeling really good except that I get winded a little bit easier and have to go to the bathroom about every hour or so.

On the home front, we have the former storage room / new office painted. We are cleaning the carpets and hoping to get the office stuff moved this weekend. Then we can begin to set up the nursery! I can't wait!

On the family front, this past weekend we had a great time at my parents house spending time with grandpa, parents, two of my brothers and their wives. It was a good relaxing weekend for Jeff and I.

Not much else to blog on today. Sorry no pictures. I need to have Jeff take another one of my ever expanding belly!

Parenting Practice

This past weekend Jeff and I got the chance to practice our parenting ability. Jeff's brother Skip and his wife Steph were kind enough to take a vacation without the kids so we could get some practice in before our little guy comes along. We were in charge of 3 1/2 year old, Emerald and 1 1/2 year old Calvin for the whole weekend.

Jeff had to work on Saturday so I decided to take the 2 kids to the Louisburg Cider Mill Ciderfest, by myself. It was quite the adventure, but the kids did great. Here are a few pictures.

They wouldn't cooperate for the "normal" sitting among the pumpkins picture, so I settled for this one and it actually turned out pretty cute. Emerald refused to turn around and so Calvin just copied her.

I finally caught Emerald when she wasn't expecting it!

Calvin did a great job posing for the camera when sister wasn't telling him not to!

The highlight of the festival for Emerald was that she got to ride a pony. She loves horses and was only a little bit nervous at first, but enjoyed the ride!

Calvin got to play in the inflatable game! He didn't jump much but still had a good time.

I only got a few looks of "oh you've got your hands full!" All in all it was a fun time. I was pretty wiped out by the time we got home. Overall, the weekend went well. Jeff and I love our niece and nephew a whole lot, but we also realized that there is a reason design God human life to develop as it does. We are thankful that our little guy will start out small, immobile, and not talking! We got in some great practice and are getting more excited to meet our little guy in a few months!

3rd Trimester - Here we come!

We can both hardly believe that we started the 3rd trimester this past week. On Tuesday we will be at week 26 of 40 (that means only 14 weeks and 2 days until Christmas - in case you were counting). Wow how the time has flown by. We did some serious consignment sale shopping this week - 2 nights in a row. Got a lot of great deals and our little boy will have some warm clothes. He already has his first church outfit!

We had another doctors appointment this last week and everything is good. I measured 26 weeks even though I was only at 25, oh well we have come to think he is going to be a big guy - we will just have to see.

As I am starting to show more and our due date gets closer we get asked a lot about the nursery. Well, its painted, and has been for over a year now, but it is still a very messy office! We are hoping in the next few weeks to get our back "storage" room organized, painted, and ready to move the office too. Then the fun begins - setting up the nursery. We already have so much stuff for it scattered throughout the house - wherever there is a little nook or cranny to stick something.

We also are excited that cousin number 3 on Jeff's side was born this past week. Jeff's sister Laura and her husband Shane welcomed little Simon into the world late Sunday night. By the time March rolls around we will have a total of 5 cousins on Jeff's side. We are so excited for our little guy to have two cousins only a few months apart in age!

That's all for now. Sorry no pictures this time. We will try to get some up of the nursery transition process!

Week 23 (a little late)

I am a little late in making this post as we are almost at week 25 now. But I thought I would put these pictures up anyway (I am in blogging mode right now.)

This is not me, but Jeff at week 23. I think he has put a few sympathy pounds.

This is me at week 23. I feel like I am getting bigger fast. At my 21 week appointment my doctor said I had put on some weight! We have another appointment tomorrow (week 25). I am interested to see how much our little guy has grown over the past four weeks.

Gateway Anniversary - Day 2

On Sunday morning we headed down to take in the sites of the grand Gateway Arch. Jeff took some neat pictures as we were walking up to it. It is pretty amazing to see it in person and stand right by it.

Of course we had to go up in the arch. This the "umpa-lumpa" door as we referred to it. The door was about 4 feet high by 2 feet high - a lot smaller than either of us had anticipated. When it opened, you were expected to get inside this rounded space ship looking vehicle that had 5 seats. Luckily, only one other couple, from Michigan, got in so we only had 4 adults (I being the smallest) on the 4 minute ride up. Its amazing what you can find out about people when you have 4 minutes in a small confined space.
Jeff is sitting in the little "space ship" that took us to the top (note: he is not relieving himself as it may appear.)



Once you step out of the "umpa-lumpa" door we walked up a short flight of stairs to the top!...and what a view there was from the top. Jeff once again demonstrated his photography abilities. This is a look to the West from the top of the arch.


St. Louis Cardinls stadium from the arch.


After the arch, we ate our picnic lunch in the park area around the arch. Guess what we ate... pb&j again, apples, and cookies. We did stop on our way out to Purina Farms for some famous Ted Dreww's frozen custard. We ended our time in St. Louis with a trip to Purina Farms where we saw a dog show and talked to the dog trainer who has the same type of dog as our Zane - he gave us some tips on brands of toys for him.

On our way back to KC we stopped in Columbia for some pizza at Shakespeares.

We had a great trip even though it was short.

PS. For those who have heard our honeymoon story - just wanted to let you know that I booked our hotel rooms online and everything turned out ok this time! No weird surprises!

Gateway Anniversary

Jeff and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary a couple of weeks ago. To celebrate and take the "babymoon" that everyone suggest you take before the little on comes along, we headed to St. Louis Labor Day weekend. Neither of us had been there, except for driving through. Here are some pictures of what we did. We had a great time and enjoyed spending time with just the two of us away from work and all the odd jobs around the house.

Saturday we started off with breakfast in our hotel room... no we did not get room service, I just am becoming more and more like my mother or maybe finally realizing why we didn't get to eat every meal out. I bought groceries before we left and packed food for our breakfasts and lunches while we were away. Can't go on vacation with a cooler!

After breakfast we headed to Forest Park - home of the World's Fair back in the day. It is a 1500+ acre park. We did some paddle boating on the lake and streams around the park. Here are some pictures from our jaunt on the lake. We paddled by the fountains and up on the hill is the art museum.






We ate lunch at the park of course, our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, chips, apples, and cookies. Then we headed over to the St. Louis Zoo - also in Forest park. The best part was it was free. After see some of the animals we headed to our hotel for a nap before our big evening out....



Our big splurge of the weekend trip was a riverboat dinner cruise. We rode on the Becky Thatcher Riverboat, had a great meal and listened to live band (piano and banjo) play riverboat music. We saw an amazing sunset over the Mississippi River and some great views of the arch in the evening.



The sunset we saw over the Mississippi while we were eating dinner!

Jeff was really impressed with the big chains. They were used to anchor the different tourist establishments along the river to shore. They were pretty big as you can tell from the size of Jeff's foot next to the chain links.