Bienvenida Suzy!

We are so happy to present to you our daughter, Suzy Noemi Henriquez Baldwin, born at 11:22am November 27th. She weighed 6 pounds at birth, and is perfect. Thankfully, labor was pretty quick (my water broke around 2:30am on Friday morning and contractions started a couple of hours later) and it was a natural birth. Elvis's sister did an awesome job as my doctor, and Elvis did an awesome job too as my coach. It was so neat to have family members taking care of me...who would do a better job? Elvis got to cut the cord and take her to the nursery...where we had a hard time getting him out of, he is so in love with Suzy! We came home yesterday afternoon, and Suzy got her first earrings put in at the hospital, so she is sporting those! The first night at home was a basically sleepless, but Suzy has been doing great today. I'm doing good too, but I'm a little (lot) sore. We are so thankful that Mom is coming tomorrow to help out (I think these have been looong days waiting to come meet Suzy!) and Elvis's mom has helped so much also. Thanks for all your prayers!! Everything went so smoothly!

Thankful...

With so many life-changing situations going on right now, we have a lot to be thankful for. First of all, we are sooo thankful that Elvis passed his 2 hour oral exam yesterday, the very last pre-requisite to be able to graduate!!! So now we are looking forward to not having to think about college ever again, after all these years, until the graduation, which will hopefully be in January.

And of course we continue to give thanks for his new job which he is still really enjoying and learning a lot, and of course for Suzy!! We went to the doctor yesterday, and the ultrasound showed that Suzy already weighs 7.5 pounds and is all ready, we just have to wait and see when she wants to make her appearance! Hopefully sooner than later, because if she keeps growing like this, they said a natural birth may be difficult. We are praying for a natural birth though. The doctor said she has long legs so she'll probably be tall like her daddy! I have not started dialating yet, so we are all in suspense as to when she will come. Not long though!

We are also very thankful that Mom is coming on Monday!! She will be such a great help, especially since Elvis isn't at home during the day anymore. We've asked Suzy to hold on until she gets here, then she has the green light to come!!

Yesterday I also gave thanks when I came home to a spotless house....even though the fact that David and Lucy left this week has been really hard for us, one blessing that came from that is that now the lady that cleaned their house and watched Lulu will be doing the same for us and will care for Suzy when I go back to work (I'm already dreading that day!). I feel really weird about having someone clean my house and thought I would never want that (even though it is so common in this culture), but after walking into the house yesterday and seeing all that she had done, I thought, Man i can get used to this!! Otherwise, it would be very hard for us to ever get housework done, especially since we only have water pressure to wash clothes in the mornings, when neither one of us are there. Elvis used to take care of all that stuff, but obviously he can't now that he isn't here in the mornings. Also, I feel good that she was praying for a job since David and Lucy were leaving, and now she has one.

We are also thankful for our friends Efra and Tania (the ones who painted Suzy's mural!) who got married this past weekend. It was a lovely wedding and we are happy to have married friends! Here are some pics from the wedding:

a little this and that...

We are counting down the days til Suzy gets here!! She will be 37 weeks old, technically full-term, this Sunday, which means she could be here before we know it. We got the curtains and the rocking chair in her room now, so I wanted to give you an updated picture of that side of the room (the mural is on the right wall that you can't see) Last week, my school graciously gave me a shower for Suzy. Here are some pics from that and some of her cool new duds:

This weekend we took another road trip with David, Lucy, and Lulu up to a Lagoon (what's the difference between a lagoon and a lake anyway?) on top of a mountain (well it's actually in the crater of what used to be a volcano) which was a lot of fun, but boy it made me nervous being that far away from the city being so pregnant, especially going up the bumpy mountain! We weren't planning on spending the night, but we ended up staying for free at some cabins that a friend's family owns. Here are some pics from the lagoon:

In other news, we put up our first Salvadorean Christmas tree this week! We don't have pictures of the finished product yet because, well, we don't have a finished product yet (we haven't finished putting up the lights or the 3 ornaments we own yet) so that will have to come later. But we figured we might as well go ahead and put it up just in case we don't have time later! In this first picture, you can also see in the background our "new" antique piano we got from some friends leaving the country, which has been converted into a desk. I think it's safe to say it's one of the only upright antique pianos in the whole country!

Elvis is loving his job so far. It has some great benefits that we were not expecting, and he's learning a lot and putting to practice what he learned in school. The company headquarters is actually in Myrtle Beach, so hopefully we can do some "work trips" up that way soon (with the whole family!!)

Good news!!

So....guess who has a new job starting on Monday?? ELVIS!! We were so excited today to get a phone call with a job offer after several interviews this past week and a half. It's an american company called "AVX" and they make electronic chips and other technology stuff. His position is "bilingual process engineer", which basically means that when there are problems with the process of making the parts, he is in charge of coming up with creative solutions. People here in El Salvador have a saying that children are born with a loaf of bread under their arm (kind of a funny mental image if you take it literally), but the point of the saying is that children bring blessings with them, and God always provides. So true! we have been praying for this job for a looooong time and i don't think it is a coincidence that he will be starting this job exactly one week after finishing his graduation course at school and right before we have extra expenses.

In general, this is huge transition time for us, which brings about lots of conflicting emotions. Like I need external reasons to be on an emotional rollercoaster! In just these few weeks, Elvis has completely finished school and is awaiting graduation, he will start a new job, our pastors and close friends David and Lucy will be leaving to move to the States for good (which means a lot more responsibility at church for Elvis), another family we are close to are leaving the same day to move to Argentina, other close friends are getting married, we are still grieving the damage that happened here in the country this weekend, and to top it off, we are going to be parents in 2-5 weeks!!!!!! Plus, we are excited because Mom will be here in 3 weeks, and we are getting in the Christmas spirit as well. Elvis downloaded my all-time favorite christmas albums for me -the Amy Grant Christmas CD for me (brings back memories of decorating the Christmas tree every year and of me and Tyler singing "Emmanuel" in our college dormroom!) and the Charlie Brown Christmas CD.

And to help us get ready for David and Lucy's departure, we went up to the mountains with them this weekend to spend the night and hang out with them and little Lulu. They are expecting their second daughter, Nissa, a month after Suzy, and we are sad we will have to wait to meet her. Anyways, we had a great time up in our favorite little mountain town, enjoying good food and coffee and our cute cabin with a real fireplace! This is not something you see everyday in El Salvador, and even if you did, you could very rarely actually use it! We were excited that it was chilly enough to have a real fire. Here are some pictures from our fun weekend:

This is a picture Elvis took on the way up to Jose Luis's house the other day:

prayers for el salvador please

Hey everybody, El Salvador had a rough night last night due to some torrential rains that caused lots of rivers to flood and lots of landslides all over the country. The last I heard, the death count is up to 124, and there are many people missing. Last night we got a phone call from our good friend Pastor Jose Luis (who I just posted pictures recently of their new house dedication service we had a few weeks ago) crying because the side of the mountain had been washed away, right into the side of their new house, causing lots of damage. Elvis and some others went to be with them today and check out the damage. The house seems to be fixable even though the structure was bent, but it is uninhabitable right now. Thankfully, Jose Luis and Sylvia and their 7 kids, who were all inside the house, heard the wall being pushed in by the tons of mud, and were able to escape out a side door and so everyone is OK, just emotionally crushed. Please pray for their family, as well as all of El Salvador, which just seems so fragile right now. Here are some pictures of Jose Luis's house:This is a picture from today's newpaper of some of the damage in other parts of the country: