Baby is HERE!!! And other randomness....

Hello internet world!  After what seems like a life time, I'm finally posting again! (the break may have been longer had it not been for my kiddos asking 'when are you going to do a new blog post?' a time or ten in the last couple months =)

Be forewarned, this blog will jump around like a kid in a school bus on a bumpy road!! Lots of randomness =)


Here was our trip to the zoo in August with my dad, brother, his wife and my sweet niece...

In the aquarium....

First day of school! holding some of their favorite things =) Horse-girl made a Toothless dragon from 'How to Train your Dragon' out of rainbow looms, Baby Girl is holding a baby doll (seriously, THEE cutest baby doll I've seen), Bug Girl is holding a mini-figure (she's lego CRAZY, that one), Photographer girl isn't holding anything as I think I was using HER camera to take this picture, and of course Train Boy is holding his trains =)

Horse Girl and Bug Girl 'crocheting' on their Rainbow looms!

37 weeks pregnant!

40 weeks pregnant! (baby was born about14 hours after this picture was taken!)

The shrew we caught in our basement...*shudder*

Bug girl's new buddy. She named him Leopold Sebastian

And our biggest news.....

ELAINA QUINN was born Oct 4, 2014  6:17am 6#13oz, 19" long. She was our tiniest baby yet (all the rest of my kiddos were over 7#3oz)

 BIRTH STORY:  (skip if you want, it's a bit long)
So, prior to Elaina, my longest pregnancy was 39 weeks 6 days. So when FORTY weeks came and she wasn't here, I was getting a little antsy!
I was 'checked' at my 36 week check up and was a fingertip dilated. Tested Group b strep positive after that (never had it with my other pregnancies) so I declined any internal checks after that until my 40 week appointment.
At my 40 week appointment, Oct. 3, Friday 12:30pm, I had her check me and I was 2-3cm, 50% dilated, and 0 station. I went home and around dinner (5:30pm-ish) I was starting to feel a bit crampy, 'off' and grumpy. Around 7 I was having what I thought were Braxton Hicks but they started to get more painful and were anywhere from 10-20 min apart. Around 9, I decided to try to get some sleep but woke up every 7-12 minutes with a contraction. At midnight I decided to get up and really start timing them. They were 4-7 min apart. Around 2:30 am they were getting much more painful so I decided to call my mom and have her come up so hubs and I could go to the hospital.
We got to the hospital around 3:15 I think. I was 5-6 cm dilated and in a good deal of pain so I opted to get the epidural. Since I had Group B strep, they had to get the penicillin going and then a bag of fluid before I could have the epi so I didnt end up getting it until around 4:15am.
It was a bit more painful than I remember with the other ones (I had epidurals with baby #1, #2, and#5). But it started to work RIGHT away and I didnt feel the next contraction. My legs after a few minutes felt like TREE TRUNKS!! I was afraid it was working a little TOO well =)
Another new thing for me, after having the epidural for maybe an hour, I got REALLY nauseous all of a sudden and my face felt funny, so my nurse lowered the head of my bed and ran my fluid faster and after 5-10 minutes, it passed, so odd! (She said it has to do with my blood pressure dropping due to the epidural).
My OB came around 5:45am to check me and I was 10cm and +1 station. I asked if my water  had broke and she said it must have but I dont know when or how it happened as there was no sign that it had!
Anyway, I pushed thru 4 contractions and our sweet baby was born!
My recovery was awesome. I'm so thankful for that. And she's been a great nurser. Just need to work on getting her to sleep better at night =)

Her she is at one day old when we brought her home....

 And here are some fun comparison shots!

1 day old....

4 weeks old

8 weeks old!

She's chunkin' up right nice! =)

Enjoying some outside time a couple weeks after she came home. The weather was great!

Her one and only time in a carrier. She HATED it! I think she lasted 2 minutes. Maybe.(It was a NuRoo, perhaps I should try something else? She does love to be held but HATES to be constricted) 

We LOOOOVE having this stroller in the house to push her around in and keep her in the same room as us (when someone isn't  holding her and she's not her in precious swing-good grief she LOVES napping in her swing)  =)

Thanksgiving! No clue what Train Boy is doing =)

And one last picture because we just can't get enough of her squishy cuteness =)

Getting closer!

We are still a little over 2 weeks out from our first 'official' day of school, but we went to a local teacher supply store and got these awesome caddys!

They were on sale for $3.99 each and each child got one. Then we came home and filled them up with supplies (glue, crayons, markers, colored pencils, scissors, pencil sharpener, pencils, a pen and we'll get some tape to go in there this weekend too). Now when we're getting ready to do school, each child can grab their caddy and have everything they need all in one spot!  I got this idea from another homeschool momma/friend of mine.  Thanks, Heather!

Where have I been?!

Wow, I cant believe I've not posted since Christmas!! We've been quite busy these last *counting on fingers* 7/8 months...

BUT

this is our BIGGEST news!!

 

Yep. We're expecting a new little bambino. Due date is beginning of October, but we're HOPING she'll be here in September (another girl!!)

We've not decided on a name yet, but after Destroy Boy saw her on the ultrasound video and said 'She looks kind of like a squirrel' (with all the affection he could muster), we've taken to calling her Squirrel =)  But that shall NOT be her given birth name, so no worries there =)


This is how we announced our pregnancy on Facebook =)

>Roughly 15 weeks along. Photographer girl took this<

A few highlights (a VERY few. I could probably post 100 pictures here!)

Zoo trip

Skirt Party to benefit the MamasenCatacamas. (We love these skirts!!)

Homeschool co-op activity to a horse ranch

Feeding some gulls at a local pond (gulls in Nebraska! Who knew?!)

Visiting a local nature reserve

Enjoying some AWESOME weather (we've had a pretty mild summer which is unusual for Nebraska, and we're loving it!!)

Photographer Girl took this picture of some Mammatus Clouds (had to look that one up!) back in April before one of our big storms (we are BIG storm fans here. As in fans of BIG storms =) Photographer Girl would like to be a storm chaser when she grows up!)

Participated in a walk to benefit one of our sweet homeschool friends who has Cystic Fibrosis

This girl saved up her money to get a fishing pole and got to go fishing with her Daddy! She's a natural and she loves it so much!

That's all for  now, but HOPEFULLY (though its doubtful), I'll be better at keeping things updated here!