Siblings

More Pics of Ezra

Gabe wanted to try Ezra's bed.

It's a boy!!!

Ezra Joel Sarine

Date: 5/22/10

Time: 4:11pm

Length: 20 3/4 inches

Weight: 7 lbs 9oz

It's Baby Time!

Well, It's baby day! I'm going to try to keep running tabs on what's going on with the birth, so check back often!

5/22 - 8:30am - Rebecca got home from work. Said she'd had a few contractions, but not too strong or long-lasting. Decided to go to bed and see if they subside.

10:15am - heard Rebecca moving around a couple of times over the last hour. Checked on her and she said she was still having contractions about 20 minutes apart, strong enough for her to need to get up and walk around. I decided to pack my stuff and get the kids dressed.

10:30am - Rebecca came down and said she was getting in the shower. Told me to call my parents to come get the kids.

11:00am - Finally got everything and the kids in the van. Meeting my parents at the hospital to exchange vehicles. Contractions have been about 5-10 minutes apart.

11:30am - Checked in at the hospital. Rebecca disappeared to the bathroom about 10 minutes ago. Starting to wonder...

11:45am - asked the lady at the desk what was going on and she said they decided to process her in while she was back there. Would have been nice to tell me...

11:50am - Nurse brought me back to her. Rebecca's on a monitor. She's 4-5cm and 80%. Contractions still 5-10 minutes apart.

12:00pm - moved us to a birthing room.

12:10pm - Tanya (our midwife) is here. She said we can break her water to speed things up, but we think we should just progress naturally.

 

12:30pm - Back on the monitor for an assessment. Everything's great.

12:55pm - Things are still good. Contractions are 4-5 minutes apart. Rebecca said she starting to feel a little nauseated. Our prior experiences tell us that she's probably starting into transitional labor.

1:00pm - Assessment is great. Baby E is moving around still, so the nurse is happy. Gonna go take a walk around.

1:30pm - Took a walk around the floor. Had a few contractions. Doing another assessment now. Things are still looking great.

1:45pm - Tanya checked her. 6-7cm, 100%. Head's moving down. Things are definitely progressing. Rebecca's trying to stay relaxed and doing a very good job of it. :) I, on the other hand, am getting anxious. :)

2:00pm - Assessment is still great. Rebecca's still prettyrelaxed. Having some back pain and the baby's definitely lower. We've been doing some stretching and positioning to keep her relaxed and relieve the pain somewhat. Trying to keep her hydrated as well. She's going to try to nap a bit.

2:30pm - Assessment again. I think we're definitely in transition. Rebecca's not sure. She says, "I can still think." :) Contractions are definitely closer together and more intense. She looks flushed and says she feels really nauseous.

3:00pm - Everything's still great. Moving along. Bigger contractions coming now. Took a short walk and came back for the 3:00 assessment. Baby's doing fine.

3:25pm - Tanya checked again. 9cm! She says the baby's facing sideways and seems to be rotating around to the right position, so she thinks it'll all be over in an hour or so. On another topic, it's been raining all day, but seems to have stopped now. This baby might be our first born during the day and when it wasn't raining. Gabe was born during a hurricane and Olivia was during a torrential downpour. :)

3:30pm - It might be time. Tanya's back in and Rebecca's feeling like there's pressure and a need to push.

3:45pm - Oh yeah. It's on like Donkey Kong.

4:00pm - Pushing

Strawberry Picking

We went strawberry picking this evening. The took us out to the fields by tractor ride. Then the kids had a great time picking strawberries and eating some. After that we fed a few goats. Olivia did well with this and Gabe thought it was funny when they licked his hand. To end the adventure we enjoyed some icecream with strawberries of course! :)

Garden

According to my friend, Donnie, who is the son of a farmer and was a farmer himself for 20 years or so, May 1st is the day to get everything planted. So I took Olivia and Gabe out last Saturday and planted a few things.

Olivia was so excited to get to use her gardening gloves and tools.

Gabe was pretty gung-ho about it, too.

Olivia helped plant peas, red and yellow onions, zucchini, tomatoes, jalapeño peppers and basil. Gabe, however, ate every seed I handed to him. Oh well...

All-in-all, it was lots of fun and Olivia's so excited that we already have sprouts of everything coming up after only 5 days! She wants to go out every chance she gets to look at the garden.

To follow up the fun of planting a garden, Olivia and Mom put together a lapbook. For this lapbook most things came from www.homeschoolshare.com and www.lapbooklessons.com. We read the story Muncha, Muncha, Muncha and as well as a couple of other garden related books from the library. We are in the process of reading Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit Giant Storybook.

We aren't quite done with this one yet. Olivia will be drawing her pea seed and its progress inside the seed growth minibook.

36 weeks!

Happy 5th Birthday Olivia

Oh my! I can't believe Olivia is 5. She was very excited about this birthday and kept reminding us each day as it drew closer "so we wouldn't forget". :) Don't worry, we didn't. The weekend started with a delivery of balloons from her Aunt DD and Uncle Rudy. She also received more balloons on the morning of her birthday from us. Olivia loves balloons! She got to take a friend to the local bounce place on Saturday morning. She got some sort of stomach bug after lunch that day but still had a good time. We stopped by a store dedicated to Hello Kitty at a mall nearby. By Sunday morning, her actual birthday, she seemed to have recovered pretty well, although her stamina isn't quite back even this afternoon.

Here is our Birthday Princess on her special morning. Be sure and check out our Princess lapbook in the previous post. We had a special breakfast of her choice, cinnamon rolls and yogurt drinks. Grandma and Grandpa drove up for the day. Our church family sang Happy Birthday to her and she enjoyed a pink cupcake (also per her request). Then she chose for us to go to Red Robin for lunch. There we met up with Nana, Pop-pop, and Uncle Greg.

And here is Hello Kitty. After lunch we went to Build a Bear to make her. Seems they are retiring this particular Hello Kitty and this was the last one on the shelf. Mommy and Daddy got very nervous there for a minute. :/ The story is that she wanted this kitty back at Christmas time but they had pulled her off the shelf for several weeks then. Thank you God for having one still waiting there for her. Then we came back to the house with Grandma and Grandpa to open a few more presents. Whew, what a day! Its been fun!

Princess Lapbook

Our Princess turns 5 today! She has an amazing personality; so obedient, kind, and loving. She enjoys laughter and smiles a ton. We have spent some time talking about how precious and loved she is by those of us who know her as well as her God, the King. And being her daughter makes her a princess. She will be loved by Him no matter what. We then spent a lot of time talking about what a princess does, how she acts and why. As the daughter of the King, she represents him to others around her. She is display the fruits of the Spirit, the characteristics of Love, to keep God's Word in her heart, and to display the character qualities that he admires. We also talked a very little bit about modesty.

Trying So Hard to Figure It Out

Promised Easter Pictures

Easter Lapbook

Here is Olivia's Easter Lapbook. We had a great couple of weeks leading up to easter reading the events of that time out of the bible and then learning about it more with our other books. We also did some special activities at home, like daily activities to get us excited about Easter and nightly devotions, a Palm Sunday parade, Passover meal/celebration, and then a family picnic/worship service on Easter morning. We did paint easter eggs this year and the kids got to go to an Easter egg hunt where Olivia passed up tons of eggs around her looking for a pink egg. :) We also got to enjoy seeing some extended family over the Easter weekend, including her cousin. I will post some of those pictures next time. We had a very blessed Easter!