Homecoming!

(*For those who get these blogs via email, a video was posted and you will have to visit http://www.floresblog.com/ to view it*)

Monday was a pretty tiring day mainly because all the adrenaline had subsided and not to mention sporadic power naps throughout the day. We were so thankful for all the wonderful visitors we had. It was also a great blessing for the many prayers we had too. Beth rested most of the day, while I spent time with the girls at Grandma's. Alaina and her troop (American Heritage Girls) sang two songs for a Memorial Day ceremony. She did very well. After lunch and naps, we decided to go get mommy some flowers and Clarissa a new outfit. Mommy loved the surprise! We also decided to let Ariana to hold her baby sister, she did very well and now wants to hold her all the time. It is now a reward for after naps (at least for today). Today was Homecoming Day and Alaina woke me up excited and kept asking me when we were going to go get Mommy and Clarissa...they are just over excited about it all. Below is a video of them dressing their new baby sister...it would have been longer but I ran out of space on the card...oh well! I took off a week from work to do my best to help around and to help the girls get use to new rules and new joys. It has been good so far. To enjoy the video, hit the play button!

God Bless, The Flores Family

Sisters meet Clarissa Joy!

Happy Memorial Day! What a day of excitement yesterday was! The most excitement was introducing the girls to their new baby sister. Alaina of course is very happy, and has had many opportunities to hold her, and is doing a great job doing so. Ariana, not really sure she gets that this little "baby doll" will be coming home and has taken her spot of being the "baby". Only time will tell on how she will deal with this...we'll help her along! She is very curious and is trying to climb on everthing here in the hospital to try to get a peek at her sister, just gotta keep an eye on her...Clarissa gets a thumbs up from the girls! The most exciting part of meeting Clarissa was being able to help with the baby's first bath. We had many visitors, many were church family, very close friends, & very excited grandparents.

Beth has decided to take advantage of another night of 24 hour assistance from the nurses, and the opportunity to be with just Clarissa, so looks like we will be taking Clarissa home tomorrow. We will take some sort of family picture tomorrow before we leave...until then God Bless You All

Welcome Clarissa Joy! (2 wks early!)

Our beautiful 3rd girl has been welcomed into our family at 3:39 a.m PST today! She weighed exactly what Ariana (our 2nd) did. 7 lbs. 12 ozs. Her length is 20" long. Like the first two girls, it went very quickly. We had several signs that the birth was impending, but research was saying anytime from a few hours to two weeks, but Beth and I just knew the day was here! I decided to go to bed around midnight and then at 1:30am Beth hollared out that her water broke, I got up quick, trying to figure out what to do next, called Cathy Blackwell to come watch our girls, grabbed our bags and headed to Providence which is only a couple of miles away. We arrived at the hospital at 2 am, and they checked Beth and she was 5cm dilated and almost 100% effaced. We informed everyone at the hospital that this happens quickly and fortunatly the guy who gives the epidural was just finishing up with another person who had just had her baby. We lucked out and got the epidural in time. We think she is so beautiful and are very excited to have Alaina and Ariana meet their new baby sister. We are excited for you all to meet her too if you are close by. We are in Birthing Suite 258 at Newberg Providence Medical Center. It is recommended that we hav no visitors between the hours of 2pm - 4pm. Of course the hospital is very secure, so remember to cooperate and mention you are visiting "Elizabeth Flores". Thanks for your prayers & support.

God Bless,

The Flores Family

Shall we allow her to keep pushing mommy's button?

This morning Ariana and I were trying to decide on a movie to watch. I put "A Snoodle's Tale" on, and Ariana says, "I like this movie, but I would prefer 'Pirate Adventure'." I turned to Alaina(sitting next to me) and asked her what she heard her sister say. She had heard exactly the same thing. I'm not exactly used to my two-and-a-half year old using such complex sentences. About an hour later as we're getting dressed for church, Ariana comes up to me and asks, "Mommy can I push your buttons?" She asked me three times before I figured out that she wanted to push the button on my watch to see the face of the watch light up green (a mother's day present). Raising children always has some suprises!

37 Weeks = Full Term

Any day now the Flores clan will be welcoming the 5th member of our family! As we have said with the arrival of Ariana, it was hard to imagine what she was going to be like, look like, etc., and again we wonder what is awaiting us. Clarissa is due on the 8th of June, and that weekend is turning out to be a very busy weekend. Alaina has a dance recital on the 7th and an awards ceremony on the 9th for American Heritage Girls. I personally think that she will want to come much earlier than the 8th. Alaina was 4 days late, Ari was 7 days late (according to my records; 14 days with Beth)...anyway. Not really sure who actually reads our blogs, so if you do...When do you think she'll be born? According to textbooks 37 weeks is the time when baby is considered fully developed, the main thing that happens in the last 3 weeks is putting on a half of ounce a day. We've been preparing as much as we can and we plan to do special things with the girls before that day arrives. Also if you haven't done so yet, if you want to be notified by email when we update our blog, then please subscribed on the right. Once you sign up you have to go to your email and verify your address (some may have to look in their junk/spam folder). When the baby arrives, our blog will be the top of our list to post pictures and details of our new baby, so subscribe now!