Martha is 10 days old today!!!! its hard to believe how the time flies when you’re having fun 
And we ARE having fun. Life with two is harder than we expected but such a joy. Eric and I will have moments where we’re both holding a crying daughter, both changing a diaper, or both snuggling one of these cuties and we’ll just look at each other and laugh. I can’t believe the Lord has brought us here, to this place in life, but I am so thankful he has! Here are a few pictures from this last week. I will try to post more later.
Martha getting ready to leave the hospital, in the same going-home outfit that Noa wore (sniff sniff). 
One afternoon Martha was just smiling away while my mom was talking to her. She is so much more alert than I expected her to be, and just takes in the world around her. Even though we haven’t seen anymore, and Eric and I can’t seem to get them outta her, these were definitely real smiles, not gassy or poopy smiles. It was hard to catch them on camera, but here is a little grin:
Noa having a little “nas” (snack) after a bath. She loves to brush and put things in her hair right away, even before getting dressed.
Here’s a sweet photo of Martha with my mom on the day she was born. My mom has been an amazing blessing – cooking, cleaning, and caring for all of us so well in this adjustment time. I am most thankful, though, for her companionship and the wisdom she passes on. She is so good to remind me how quickly these sweet days of new babyhood go by and to just let me enjoy them. She’s always encouraging me to just sit and hold my baby and not worry about the house and/or other activities. Noa loves her time with “Baba” but my mom will also take Martha so I can have some special play time with just Noa. I am so blessed to be close to her in this time and to get to learn from her. I also love the chance to just talk about any and everything while she’s busy around my house and I sit with the girls. What a blessing from God! I told her I never want to have a baby far away from her 
Today, March 8th, at 1:31 pm, we welcomed our second daughter, Martha Evangeline Noll, into the world.
We praise God for His goodness to our family! We also want to thank those of you who have been praying for us.
Martha weighed in at 8 lbs and 14 oz and was 21in long. Sara-Beth was admitted last night and induced this morning. After 6.5 hours of labor she was able to deliver naturally and at the end, very quickly. It was an exciting time at the birth clinic in Chiba, Japan. Sara-Beth did a great job and our second daughter is precious and beautiful (she looks a lot like Noa and we keep accidentally calling her that
Her name, Martha Evangeline, is in honor of our sisters, whose relationships we treasure so much. We cannot imagine many greater gifts to our girls than having a sister. Our prayer is that they will be the best of friends and companions their whole lives through.
Martha is Aramaic meaning “Godly Sorrow”. Our prayer for her is that she will come to know very early in her life that she is a sinner in need of the saving grace of Jesus Christ. We pray that she would indeed have an understanding and sorrow over her sin but know the greater joy of sins forgiven and “cast as far as the east is from the west.”
Evangeline means “bearer of good news.” How we pray that the Gospel would touch her in such a deep way that she will not be able to help but share it with those around her. Even now, as she is born in a place where very few know of the love of God, we pray that the work of Christ in our family would overflow to those who care for us and interact with us here.
ok ok, I know its getting old, that I keep posting with no news yet of Martha’s arrival. We leave in a few hours go to the clinic and will hopefully have news for you by tomorrow. I just wanted to share these sweet pictures of me and the Noa-girl.
I wonder what she’ll do when the “Bebe” transforms from Mama’s big round belly to a little person who eats, and cries, and shares everything with her.
I think she’ll be the sweetest, most loving big sister ever 
Also, I was typing up some stuff about Noa for whoever will be taking care of her… just to ease my own mind mostly, knowing that they can understand her and be prepared for her little antics. For those of you who want to know more details about what she does and says, here’s the too-much information I wanted to give to her caretakers:
~“eesh” means she wants to brush her teeth, and she’ll ask about 5 times a day.
~“bass” means she wants to take a bath and, again, she’ll ask several times. She usually needs at least one a day.
~If she yells during a meal to get everyone’s attention, she’s probably asking everyone to pray again. She’s been really into praying and will probably do this numerous times during one meal. We don’t discourage it.
~I’m trying to help her learn to give me things that she would rather not eat, instead of throwing them on the floor. Any encouragement you can give her for eating her food and for choosing to not throw it would be very helpful.
~She really likes her babies to sleep with her and for everyone to be “shhhhhhhhh” when they are sleeping… it also helps her to go “shhhhhhh” before she sleeps ?
~We’ve been having one song while being held out of bed and one song after she lies down in bed before naps and bed time. She likes having her hair played with while she lies there. If she wakes in the night, I try to just rub her back and sing to her while she falls back asleep or at least settles down, instead of getting her out. I also wind her music box before I leave the room
~ “yoosh” means drink… I think it’s a derivative of “juice”
~Her two Japanese musical books are her absolute favorite right now, and she loves it when you sing along.
~ “boop” means she would like a diaper change, though it doesn’t always mean she has a poopy diaper.
~She is very good about saying please “peas” and thank you “de-dooo” with the signs, but it’s always good to remind her if she doesn’t.
~ She really enjoys running errands for you, like putting things away, cleaning up, or throwing things in the trash for you. Please watch what she throws in the trash, as she sometimes gets carried away with what she wants to put in there.
~ “ox” means socks and she loves putting these on and off, and will ask for help.
~ “oooj” means shoes and she really wants to have these on – it also means she wants to go outside. If she can’t put them on to go out, I try to find some slippers or a pretty head piece for her to wear instead.
~ She loves doing everything she does for her babies, like changing their diapers, giving them baths, singing night-night songs to them, and feeding them. This is great and she loves it when you play along; Just watch out because we don’t let her throw away the baby’s “dirty diapers”.
~When she’s whining to be held, she needs to say “up please” though she often forgets and needs a reminder of, “what do you say?”
~She’s really into climbing on things. So far, we let her climb up onto things as long as she sits. When she stands on a stool, or sofa, or chair, she needs to be taken down. She will also try to climb INTO things, like drawers or cupboards. Again, its fine as long as its safe and ok with you. If you tell her “No” please be consistent with that and help distract her with other things to play.
~ “Nas” means snack and she will ask for this several times a day, even at meal times. She is allowed to have one SMALL snack mid-morning and one when she gets up from her afternoon nap (around 4/4:30). If she doesn’t get the second one, low blood sugar usually makes her pretty grumpy til dinner.
~ “ummy” (sounds a lot like “mommy”) means its good, or at least she wants you to tell her its good.
(sigh), I am just gonna miss her so much these next two days!
happy, sleepy, girl
make a funny face!
being shy
listening to a secret
ok, I promise I won’t post again for a while. You should be hearing from Eric soon with some news.
Continue reading about Last time you hear from me, I promise :)
I’ve been on a bit of an emotional roller coaster these last 2 days. Of course, thinking of leaving Noa to be admitted to the hospital has been making me teary for months, but when she started showing signs of being sick on Tuesday night, I started getting quite worried. By yesterday morning, she had a fever of 104.5 (I know, so high!) and I was thinking there is no way I will leave her tomorrow, for a check-up or to be admitted, I just can’t! We took her to the doctor in the afternoon and her fever had already gone down a little, but was still high. He tested her for the flu and, thank God, she doesn’t have that. Talking to him did wonders for my worry, as he was very confident that giving her acetaminophen regularly (he gave it to us in suppostiory form to give her… I’ve stuck with my children’s tylenol…) would keep the fever in check and she would be better in no time. He was sure that God would protect her (that is really cool to hear a doctor in Japan say… you don’t hear that enough anywhere in the professional world). Sure enough, even an hour later, the fever was down even more to being barely non-existent and Noa went several hours today without it at all. When I left her this morning to go to the clinic to be checked, I was still feeling anxious about leaving her tonight but I was encouraged by her smile and her being mostly back to her normal self.
At my appointment, my doctor was very encouraged that my Bishop’s score had gone from 0-1 to 4 and that I no longer have an “unfavorable cervix”. In fact he said that with that, combined with the fact that the clinic has two c-sections patients coming in this evening, he would wait to admit til tomorrow afternoon! What a blessing! I am so glad to have these next 24 hours to be with my little girl and watch her get better. Her fever is back a little bit, but its weak and I’m anticipating it being gone very soon. Please pray with me for her complete healing and restoration. Also, please pray that the Lord would give me peace about going in tomorrow. When I think about it, it sounds like torture to have to leave her at a time like this. BUT I’m also so incredibly thankful to God for working out the details these last 24 hours of her getting so much better and me not having to be admitted today. Also, I was quite encouraged by my doctor’s assessment because I had hoped that my body would do at least a little progressing before they hook me up to my dear old L&D buddy, pitocin Praise God with us and please keep praying!
Continue reading about God is SO GOOD, taking care of the little details:
