She's here!

After roughly 5 1/2 hours of labor (we're not so sure this time because for a while I was in denial), Aimee Katherine Collier made her appearance on 27 December 2008 at 3:26pm. She was born at the Nativiti Birth Center in The Woodlands. Especially considering she was born 2 1/2 weeks early, she is a good size baby: 7lbs 5oz and 19 3/4" long. The last child we had that was this early was Kyrie and she's 11 now! No pictures with Alex yet because he's been away at youth leader training camp since Boxing Day. We were able to get a message to him though and we know he's very anxious to be home and meet his newest baby sister. We've been wondering why labor triggered so early. It's been speculated that I was on my feet quite a bit Christmas day when we had some of my extended family over and on the 26th, Tartan and I went looking and test driving Ford Expeditions. Personally I think it's because Tartan got me a beautiful birthstone necklace with a stone for each of the children- including Aimee. Now he'll have to take it back and have a December stone put in instead!
We had only just decided on the name Aimee a few days beforehand. Kyrie suggested Aimee, and Tartan came up with the alternate spelling. We were going to have Elizabeth as the middle name, but Tartan lobbied for Katherine while I was in labor and our midwife added her vote (her name is Katherine, too).
We are very thankful that she is here safe and sound and that I'm recovering very well. Praise God!

Trusting in Him and His timing in all things!
>Naomi for the Colliers

We had snow

On Wednesday, it actually snowed here in Houston. Not a lot, but the kids were excited and went out and played for a while. They made mini snowballs by piling it up off the bumpers of my truck. I didn't get any pictures unfortunately because by the time I got off the phone telling Tartan about it- the snow had dwindled and then it got dark.

It's been officially announced so now I can make it public- Tartan has been promoted to a new position at work, effective 1 January. The downside is that he'll have to drive farther to get there and home again, which makes him very nervous about the upcoming baby delivery. He's trying to figure out if he can work from home that week leading up to the due date. If not, we'll find someone who can be with me during those times he can't be here. He'll be the manager of Planning and Stewardship for business side applications. Previously he's only been in the upstream side. If you're not involved with the oil industry, just know that it means it'll be experience broadening. We can look back at his career so far and see how God has placed him where he needs to be- even those times where it may not have looked like it. :)

I'm sitting here trying to think of what else I can say. The kids got the tree up and decorated- they did it all this year, including bringing it down from the attic and setting it up, Tartan got the lights up outside, and I put the stockings along the fireplace mantle. Next week is our last week of school until January. We may or may not have a week or two of school in January before baby arrives. We still haven't decided on the name and this is definitely the longest we've gone without one. I'm sure we'll decide before she appears.

We wish you all a merry Christmas; may it be filled with His peace, love and joy!
>Naomi for the Colliers

PS Tartan, Alex and I are on Facebook now.

November update

I can't believe I don't have any posts for November and it's already the 23rd. My excuse is that I'm tired. I barely have enough energy for the everyday things and some of those things go by the wayside sometimes, too.

We had a party for Abigail on her birthday: the 31st of October. It was a dress-up, Halloween themed party (no surprise)- though nothing scary.


Our weekends have been a little busy this month. We've had a campout the last 3 weekends, though last week, it was just the guys who went. First up was our church's first family campout which we had at Wolf Creek campground. It was organized by my dh (dear hubby). The big activity was fishing and I think all the kids who went fishing caught at least one. It was catch and release. They were mostly perch, but at least one bass was caught and one catfish. One of our experienced fishermen showed the catfish to all the kids and explained how to carefully remove one from the hook.

Last weekend was Webelos Woods where area Scout troops set up activities for all the Webelos dens in the area and advertised themselves so the Webelos can decide what troop they want to join when they leave Cub scouts. Alex was with his troop and as senior patrol leader he spent quite a bit of time making sure his patrols were ready for the Webelos scouts.

This past weekend was the Cub scout family campout at Cubworld at Camp Strake. We were able to take the camper, otherwise I think I would have stayed home. :) We didn't stay Saturday night: I think we were all a little camped out.

This week is a short school week since Thursday is Thanksgiving. We'll be staying home all weekend!

I have a little less than 2 months left before baby 6 makes her appearance. Believe me, I can hardly wait. :)

Giving thanks to God for everything!
>Naomi for the Colliers

A fun week

This past Tuesday we had the opportunity to have a mini Banchory reunion. Two families from Scotland and two families who previously lived there but now live in the Houston area all came over and had dinner and a great time visiting with each other. We had fifteen kids in the house plus the adults and it all went smoothly! It did make us a little homesick for Scotland.



Wednesday was our family small group. In comparison, the child count seemed small, though actually not really. We currently have three families besides our own coming and hopefully another will be joining us as well.

On Saturday we (finally) had a birthday party for Aidan. We had a good turnout to his Greek mythology themed party. The obvious highlight was the trip across the river Styx (our pond) with Charon (Alex in costume). Each of the boys was a hero in armor (life vest) and after paying the ferryman with a penny, each had to bring back water from the fountain of life (ok, not Greek mythology, but they didn't care) to be able to return to the land of the living. They all got wet and some got soaked- hence it was a hit. The weather was perfect; couldn't have asked for better.
Today was the Cub scout pack meeting. It was a halloween carnival with games, candy and the kids dressed up. Aidan decided not to dress up and was the only one in uniform- so he rather stood out.

For all the Colliers,
Naomi

Hook 'em!

I was really tired today, but I couldn't sleep during the Longhorn\Sooner game. It was an incredible game; both teams played very well, but the Horns came out on top! 45-35

We're thrilled; Oklahoma are big rivals and they were ranked #1. We're currently ranked #5, so we'll move up at least one.

(Background: American college football. The Longhorns are our university's team; they wear burnt orange, hence the banner color for our blog)

Go Horns!

>Naomi

Well, we've had power now for a little over a week and last Thursday we got word that we didn't have to boil our water anymore to be sure it was safe to drink. Our extended deck with pergola is now complete (except for 2 of the fans that Tartan is going to put in himself) and we're very pleased with it.


It's really pretty at night, but I haven't tried to take a picture of that yet.

Life is pretty much back on schedule now. We're still waiting for AT&T to finish installing TV and internet. There were some issues with signal degradation and we're not sure whether they've been able to fully address that or not. Hopefully we'll find out soon and the answer will be "yes".

Sometime in the near future I'm going to have to take my Sequoia into the shop for what will hopefully be only cosmetic work. I was taking the kids to AWANA two Sundays ago and a teenager who wasn't paying as much attention as he should have changed lanes not realising I was already there. No one hurt, his car had been stopped before he started to change lanes, and I was traveling fairly slowly. We're thankful that he did the right thing and described the incident truthfully to his insurance company.

We are looking forward to seeing some more friends from Scotland! I hope they have as an enjoyable time as the Richardsons so even more of our friends will come to visit.

According to the little ticker attached to all my outgoing e-mail, I now have 100 days to go before baby girl 6's due date. That's how long we have to figure out a name. I hope it's long enough. :)

Trusting in Jesus,
Naomi for the Colliers

We have POWER

Hallelujah! Thank you, Lord!

What else is there to say? (well, thanks to the Centerpoint workers for all their hard work to get electricity restored!)

>Naomi