Ocean work

The shelves at home have been a bit neglected by me since William was born I think I've switched them over twice :(  But we had some ocean work out for a while. I collected a bunch of coloring sheets from the Twisty Noodle with ocean animals, and found other inspiration that I collected on my Ocean board on Pinterest. This is what the shelves looked like.

Make a jellyfish, fish pattern work, shell stamp, play doh with lobster cutter, ocean stickers with # cards, ocean puzzles

And some ocean-y books.

Another tray that was out but rotated in was a water dropper work that Emma loved!  Basically it's some blue water, an old medicine dropper, two suction cup bath things, and a cloth to wipe up the spills.  A HUGE hit!

Waiting her turn :)

The fish pattern work was a mild hit with Emma, not so much with Ada.  That's okay though.

Ada mostly did the puzzles which I have no pictures of.  But here's one with William and a half completed puzzle in the background.

We made some little sailboats out of some corks, toothpicks, and foam sheets.  We floated them around and decided they were the perfect size for our fairy figures.  Win, win!

Counting 3 corks

It floats!

Adding fairies

 And all the while, there was William being awesome.

Fairy Play

It's been a struggle to keep up with this blog I must admit.  I wanted to share a few pics from the fairy garden from the summer.  Most of these photos are from August.  The girls have turned a little corner of the lawn into a fairy garden with glass gems and silk flowers from the dollar store and a little zen garden set I found at Savers- win!

The girls loved it but I could never have expected how much.  Almost every day Ada is out there raking, shoveling, arranging stones and creating little stories for the fairies.  One day she decided there needed to be a sign, so she whipped this little beauty up with some Sharpies.

I'm sure I saw the idea to make a little house someplace, but neglected to pin, sorry.  We used a container from the recycling, shells from Florida, and mulch, bark, and rocks from the yard.  Ada calls it the tornado room for the fairies.

The garden changes daily and is currently decorated with chalk covered rocks :)

Ada found a newly emerged cicada which was very exciting.

One Pinterest activity we did was a cool texture painting activity from "Growing a Jeweled Rose"

Amazing grandmothers & William's first weeks

When we moved to Minnesota we moved away from our families/ support system.  Since being here I have become much better at asking for help and seeking out support in other forms.  I have grown to love it here and am proud to be living in this state for many reasons.  The hard part is when there is a crisis or a major life event when you really just want your family nearby.  We had been talking to our moms throughout the pregnancy (even before actually) about them coming out to stay and help us with the transition.  Luckily they were both able to come out and help- it would have been impossible to imagine without them.

Tony's mom, Deb was planning to arrive the day before my scheduled Cesarian to stay with the girls for a week while we were in the hospital then my mom would arrive a week later and stay for 2 more weeks.  Luckily Deb was able to change her flight and come in sooner when William decided to show up.  That first week was rough and my hospital stay shorter than with the girls.  Tony was home for a few days after we got home but it was amazingly helpful to have Deb at the house too.  My mom came in time for Tony to go back to work and I would have been a disaster without her.  It's humbling to be in your thirties and a "grown up" in many ways but still need your mom- and be dependent and needy.  I'm so lucky to have a mom who comes to my aid and loves me even when I get super grouchy.

William with Gramma Deb

I somehow didn't get any shots of him actually in the shirt and now he's outgrown it, but the girls decorated a shirt for the baby (didn't know if it would be a boy or girl) to wear home from the hospital.  Here's Emma showing it off before we packed it in my hospital bag.

The bonus of having a baby in the summer that I hadn't realized before was being able to just go outside without 10 minutes of bundling.  What a treat! 

First family of five walk around the block.

Hanging out in the backyard.

Since Tony took time off he got to spend time with all of us including some quality time with the girls- here's a little snippet of Tball time in the backyard.

Since there were other adults around, I was able to just hang with my little guy and rest.  He is a very calm baby so far and loves to just snuggle any chance he gets.

Time with his sisters.

Making pizza with Gramma Deb

Sidenote: This awesome blanket was made by Gramma Bon for Tony when he was a baby :)

Meeting Poppa for lunch

Time with Nana and Grampa

Fair with Nana and Grampa

Baaaaaaa 

Who loves ice cream?

All in all a great start.  That said, it's been a lot.  I've been pushing to try to make things as "normal" as possible for the girls to help them transition, but it's hard to find the right balance.  We are getting there but it takes time.  School starts for the girls and I next week and we will see what that brings.

William is here!

*Disclaimer: I started writing this when William was about a week old and am only finishing now.  I hope this is no indication of the speed I'll be posting in the future, but please bear with me.*

First family picture

Our family grew by one last month and the first little boy joined the mix.  William is now the youngest member of family and exceedingly cute.  I'm going to tell the story of his birth (with tidbits of the girl's birth stories thrown in) and want to warn you that if you don't like this sort of thing, tune out and just scan through the pictures, otherwise here comes a long post.

For those of you who don't know, Ada was born via Cesarian Section.  We were planning an all natural, hypnobirth but when she was 10 days past her due date the doctors and I decided induction was the best way to go.  Tony and I went in but instead of a day of labor followed by the birth of our first child were greeted by many nurses and doctors about 10 minutes after I was hooked up to the monitor.  She was not doing well.  This had been an overnight development as I had been on that very monitor the night before and all was well.  The decision to do a spinal and a C Section was made quickly.  About an hour later Ada was born.  It was stressful and unplanned but ultimately we all were healthy so that's the important thing.

Emma was a highly different event.  Her birth was planned, scheduled, controlled and our 5 days in the hospital after she was born felt like a vacation.  Truly.  Of course there was still recovery from surgery and adapting to life with two kids instead of one, but the birth was much more relaxed than Ada's or William's.

When I first found out I was pregnant with number three I expected I would be scheduling another Cesarian but my OB suggested trying a TOLAC (trial of labor after Cesarian) and I was excited to give it a shot and avoid another abdominal surgery.  So, we scheduled a section for my due date and hoped I would go into labor before that day.  As luck would have it I went into labor on the Wednesday morning before my due date (the following Monday).  The whole day was mild but regular contractions (early labor) and I frantically did laundry, got the house together, and tried to psych myself up.  When they got to about 6 minutes apart I called the triage nurse and she suggested I come in.  Our super awesome neighbors took the girls for the night and they got to have a sleepover with their friends next door.  Tony's mom changed her flight for the next day to take care of the girls.  Luckily Tony was able to get out of work and drive me to the hospital.  They kept me on the monitor for a few hours but since things weren't progressing sent me home to be more comfortable and gave me instructions for when to come back.  It was wonderful to have the night with Tony and be at home, but with strong contractions that woke me about every 10 minutes I didn't get much sleep.

Around 5 the next morning I woke Tony and said we needed to go back to the hospital.  I took a shower and drank some coffee and we went to the hospital.  Things seemed to slow down a bit so we walked around for about an hour then when the contractions got pretty intense we went in and I was admitted.  After a bit I decided to go ahead with an epidural.  Modern medicine is a wonderful thing.  The added benefit for me is that when you have an epidural in, there is a small cord left hanging out that they can add medicine to as needed and in case of a Cesarian being needed they can simply put the medicine in rather than putting in a spinal which can take time.  Things still weren't progressing very fast so we all decided breaking my water was the next logical step, then they could monitor the baby and my contractions more closely as well.  This sent the baby into a major deceleration (when the heart rate goes down too far) and Tony and I started having flashbacks to Ada's birth and the panic we felt before she was born.  We gave my body/ the baby some more time to see if labor moved along but still my cervix did not cooperate.  We started talking about pitosin (a drug that induces uterine contractions in order to open the cervix) and while I was hesitant I agreed to try it after another hour but if the baby had any more decelerations I wanted to have a Cesarian and make sure the baby was healthy.  Fifteen minutes later he had another deceleration and they started prepping me for surgery.

It was right at shift change so the next doctors on came in to perform the surgery while anesthesia started to up my dose to numb me.  While it was a good idea in theory it didn't work.  I could still feel everything so after they gave me all they could give me, they told me I needed to be put under general anesthesia to get the baby out right away.  I was sobbing in the OR while Tony was waiting in the hall unaware, expecting to come in and talk to me until the baby was delivered.  The nurses were wonderful at keeping me calm-ish until I went under.

Poppa and William

The next thing I remember was trying to wake up as they told me we had a son.  I had been adamant about wanting to breastfeed as soon as possible after birth and the nurse had William latched on right away!  I remember being confused about why my throat hurt (breathing tube), and struggling to wake up and get a grip of what was happening.  It was clear from the start that this little guy was a champion nurser.  I was relieved (and continue to be trilled) with his ability and our ability to feed him especially after so many struggles with the girls.

Pictures of his sisters always with him

Ultimately the labor start to finish was about 30 hours and I am even though it wasn't "successful" in the way I was hoping, I am glad I gave it a go and am super duper glad I was in a medical facility that took such good care of me and the baby and made me feel comfortable enough to try.  The final result is all that matters in these cases and we are both on the other side... safe and healthy.  Thank you modern medicine!

Card from Ada and Emma- Love it!