Wordless Wednesday

A full Halloween update to follow, but for now here are some pictures:



I love these pictures I took at Aidan's school - a picture of concentration!

17 bags of leaves on the lawn.... 17 bags of leaves...

I love fall. I really do. I love the cool, crisp air, the fall colours of the trees, and the holidays that come with it (Thanksgiving and Halloween - you can't beat 'em!). What I don't like is raking up the bloody leaves.

In our old place we could do it in an afternoon, and we would fill maybe about 5 - 8 bags of leaves. Not at the new place though! Yep, yesterday we were out raking and we filled (wait for it.....) 17 bags of leaves in ONE bloody afternoon! That doesn't include the 6 bags we put out last week, nor the unknown number of bags we'll put out next week. It was INSANE!!!! The one bright spot of the whole ordeal was that the boys (including Chris) had a blast jumping, diving, and somersaulting into the piles.

This week we're preparing for what else? HALLOWEEN!! They boys have their costumes all set, thanks to Nanna, and they're going to be the cutest wizards on the block. They are absolutely DYING to carve the pumpkins but we were so tired yesterday (thanks to raking all the bloody leaves) we had to push the carving off until today. Should be exciting!

Miss Shannon continues to grow, and grow and grow. She weighed in at a whopping 8lbs 5 oz last week, and measured 22.5 inches. That's our girl!!

As always, I have to include some pictures....

The adventure continues....

We continue to plug along in a sleep-deprived haze. Actually, Shannon has been a dream baby thus far. She only wakes up at night for a feed, and then heads right back to sleep. We're keeping our fingers crossed that this trend continues!

The boys are slowly getting adjusted to the new blob of flesh in the house. Aidan always wants to check on her, and just wants to 'help' whenever we're doing anything we her. Unfortunately, sometimes his idea of 'help' falls more into the 'hinder' category, but it's still cute! Quinn still doesn't know quite what to make of Miss Shannon. In general, I think his nose is a bit out of joint now that he's not the baby in the family any more. We're hoping that this too shall pass in time.....

We've been fortunate to have my Mum stay with us this week to help out. We're being very well fed (thank the gods!!) and she's even busy sewing Halloween costumes for the boys, and drapes for us. That's right, when you visit the Pace-James household you have to work darnit!!

One week down....

So we have officially survived our first week and a half with baby Shannon. She is a real superstar. She sleeps pretty well at night - Chris and I are probably averaging between 4 - 6 hours a night which is an improvement when compared to the boys. She's also gaining weight beautifully, she's already up to 7lbs 9oz - WAHOO!!!

The pain from the epidural has finally subsided. On Sunday I started to feel noticeably better, and today all I have is some lower back pain which is nothing compared to the pain I was feeling last week. I have to say, I can completely sympathize with those who live with chronic pain - it totally sucks. I had a couple of days last week where I was having a major pity party for myself because I just felt so useless, and the pain was just brutal. So, it's nice to finally be up and around, and to be able to take care of and play with the kids.

As a total aside, on the weekend we went to the pumpkin patch and then to Wal-Mart to grab some stuff. It was about 5:00 or 5:30, so we decided to hit the McDonald's in Wal-Mart for dinner. Well, as we're eating, Aidan pipes up: "Quinn, it's a special day - we get to eat dinner at Wal-Mart!!" OYE VEY!!! You know it's bad when the kids think it's a special treat to eat dinner at the McD's in Wal-Mart!!!

Her story....

So now that we're mostly settled at home, it's only fair that I share Shannon's birth story. Don't worry - I'll leave all the gory parts out!! :-)

On Sunday morning I woke up, went down stairs and felt a bit of a gush. I called OB triage, and they said to come in because my water might have broken (this was new for me, as my water never broke on it's own with the boys). Thankfully, Dave and Tush were down for a visit, so Chris and I jumped in the van and off we went.

We got to the hospital around 9:30a.m., and after being monitored for about 3 hours it was determined that my water had not broken, and that I was only dilated about 3cm. Sooo.... Chris and I decided to walk around and grab some lunch because I had a 'feeling' (yep, a feeling) that something was going to happen.

Well, no sooner had we started walking when the contractions kicked in. I started getting a contraction about every two minutes. We grabbed some lunch (Quiznos to be exact) and then walked back to the hospital. They checked me again, and I was still only 3 cm. Sooo... off we went for another walk (by this time it was about 2:30 or so).

I have to say, it was about 30 degrees outside, and humid. A PERFECT day to be walking around trying to induce labour!! Well, we walked around the hospital (something that would normally take about 15mins), and it took us over an hour because I was doubled over with contractions every two minutes. So back we went, they checked me and I was 4-5 cm.

Now things moved pretty fast. I was sent to the labour and delivery room, and at about 5:00 they tried to administer the epidural. Try number one was unsuccessful, try number two resulted in them tapping some spinal fluid and creating a hole. Try number three was a success, but by this time they were paranoid so they over doped me and I had ZERO feeling below the chest. It was a very strange and disconcerting experience.

The nurse checked me and started to laugh because Shannon was right there and ready to go - I had no clue because I couldn't feel anything. So, a couple of pushes later and our gorgeous girl was born, kicking, screaming, and continuing the James kids tradition - pooping right away!!

Unfortunately for me, the botched epidural means that I have headaches, and an extremely stiff and painful neck and back. They tried to do a blood patch the next day (taking blood from my arm and injecting it into the site of the epidural to try to clot the hole), but it didn't take. So, we're going to try to wait it out, and hopefully it will heal on it's own within 5 - 10 days. For now, copious amounts of Advil and Tylenol are this girl's best friend!

Shannon is doing great at home, and is feeding like a champ. We're going to the Dr. today so we'll see how much weight she's been able to put back on. Hopefully she'll carry on Aidan's tradition of porking up like the Pillsbury dough boy!

That's it for now - of course, I have to share another picture of our beautiful girl!!

She's Here!!!

Chris, Aidan, Quinn and I are delighted to introduce you to the final instalment in our family:

Shannon Calleja James!!!

Shannon entered the world 5 days early, on Sunday, October 7th at 6:55 p.m. She weighed 6lbs 14.6oz, and measured 18.5inches in length. She has beautiful light brown hair and blue eyes like her brothers. The whole family is quite taken with our little girl, and Aidan is already busy building contraptions to keep the baby entertained. Quinn meanwhile just keeps bringing her blankets!!

Here are some pictures, and more will follow!

Halloween preps, Hockey, and Hoping...

Halloween
Aidan has been DYING to set-up all our Halloween decorations ever since we visited the Halloween section at Wal-Mart a few weeks ago. Now we don't have a ton of things, but the child is obsessed with getting everything ready. Sooo.... I told him he'd have to wait until Oct. 1 before we set-up anything. Well, thanks to Nanna's calendar, first thing he says when he woke up on Monday was: Can we carve our pumpkin now Mummy?

Well, that afternoon we pulled everything out and set it up. He and Quinn were beyond excited about seeing the witch 'smashed' into the door, the scarecrow and skeleton up, etc. In fact, every time we leave the house now they have to go and check on all the decorations!

Hockey
In other news, Aidan starts instructional hockey on Sunday. We headed out on the weekend to buy all of his equipment. Can I just say how absolutely ridiculous it is that hockey equipment for a 4.5 year old costs so much?? Chris and I were totally blown away by how much we had to get (jock, neck guard, mouth guard, etc) and how much everything costs. The good news is that when I tried the equipment on Aidan yesterday he loved it. He was prancing around the basement in his pads and doing a little pose-down show for me. Hopefully he'll love it as much when he gets on the ice on Sunday!


Hoping
We are now officially 9 days away from d-day. The waiting game continues until our little girl decides to make her grand entrance....

Pictures and more pictures

I don't really have much to say today, so the blog will consist mainly of pictures:

Picture #1: Quinn fast asleep in the big boy bed:


Picture #2: The boys enjoying their first movie night on the big 'screen' in the newly-finished basement:


Picture #3: Quinn monkey-ing around in his beanie cap and undies. He was just hysterical - tearing around the house yelling at the top of his lungs in this get-up!