Christmas Eve Day.

Well... I suppose there's plenty to offer for Christmas Eve Day (feel free to skip this part and scroll up to the photos!)

See, I had the day off. That was nice, but little did I know...

Our original plans were to go the doctor (as a family), then get a lot of groceries, then go home and relax a bit, then go to church with Mark and Kristi for the Christmas Eve service, then spend the rest of Christmas Eve with them at their house. Our family tradition was always to open gifts Christmas Eve, but this year things were changed a bit, and we had plans for a family Christmas (and the gifts) on Friday, the 26th. So that was the plan.

Instead, Jodi's water broke at about 5:00 AM.

Being the understanding husband and generally compassionate guy that I am, I of course insisted we go to the hospital right away, and immediately gathered Jodi's things for her and started packing.

That, or I may have said, "Honey, that's crazy, just go back to bed. I mean, seriously, you're not having that kid today."

Whichever one of those paints me in a better light, go with it.

At any rate, once we figured some things out and spoke with the doctor on call, we got ready, got C-man up (and tried to explain things to him!), then left. I was hungry, and I remembered that a woman friend of mine told the story of when her husband stopped at McDonald's on the way to the hospital when she was in labor (it's a lot of 'hurry up and wait', anyway, he explained to me later), so I thought a precedent had been set and stopped for breakfast. I mean, drive through, of course. Duh.

So, we checked in and things were as they seemed: Jodi was having the baby that day. I brought Connor up to Mark's, made dozens of phone calls, then went back to the hospital. We sat around until noon, then they came for Jodi, and gave me my OR gowns. I went in around 12:10, and our sweet little Evie was brought into the world at 12:13. It was something, and went quickly. We were out by 12:26.

We sat in recovery for three hours, unfortunately. Evie was three weeks early, and they take special precautions. Then we went to Jodi's room, and saw some family later in the day.

It was quite a day, and a change from any other way I've spent Christmas Eve in the past (ahem).

We were blessed that day, and the hand of the Lord was evident in all that happened. We of course loved and appreciated the significance of her birthday.