Welcome Baby Elizabeth

The past 3 days have been so chaotic in the Allen household. We were down to the wire preparing the house to make room for the baby. The contractor put the finishing touches on the addition on Monday morning. That just left us with the rearranging. We had to move Jason's (some 4K) books down 2 flights of stairs, bookcases and other furniture. The girls moved to Jason's old office and received the guest bed from the basement. The boys received the girl's bunk beds and the girl's old room became Elizabeth's nursery with Alden's crib. Whew! Not to mention Karen painted 3 rooms to get everything decorated and put together. We started the move on Monday with lots of help from friends on Tuesday. It was truly amazing all the progress that was accomplished. Karen woke up Wednesday morning after 3 hours of sleep and started frantically getting all the rooms finished and cleaned. When all was finished about 8:00 pm and she rested the contractions came harder and more frequent. The Lord graciously answered her prayer in that everything would be settled in the house for when the baby came. She went to bed around 11:00 pm and woke up at 2:00 am with sure confidence that this was the real deal. It was complete providence of God that a young lady from church who had come to help on Wednesday was spending the night. Jason and Karen arrived at the hospital shortly and Karen was already dilated 9 cm. Elizabeth was born OP (or sunny side up) into the world at 4:25 am weighing 6.1 lbs. She is so tiny but precious. She definitely gave her parents a lot of work preparing for her arrival with the remodeling and purchasing a larger vehicle (to hold 5 car seats). However, there is no doubt she will make a great caboose to the family.