baby news

Sean & Melanie are overjoyed to announce the arrival of:

Samuel Lewis Blair

Born Oct 19 at 5:36pm at home, weighing in at 7lbs.

Mommy and Baby are relaxing at home and are doing great after a relatively short labor.

Samuel was very alert right away and is very curious about everything going on around him. I believe he finds his many doting siblings the most interesting!

Thank you to all our family who helped with the other kids and with the house while we were occupied with his arrival!

Many Blessings,

Sean and Melanie

I'm an Auntie!!!

Welcome to the world little Lukas William!! You are adorable and we are so happy you are here.

Love, Auntie Melanie

My little midwives

Some people's kids play doctor... mine play midwife.
Good thing too, because if my labor is as short as it was when THEY were born, I might need the help :-)

Hide and Seek with toddlers

I love watching the twins play hide and seek together. It's their new favorite game.

They recently turned 3, and are just so cute right now. While their language skills are a little behind, they certainly make up for it in exuberance.

Here's how it goes: P will hide somewhere (usually while JP is watching LOL), and then JP will say "me 1, 4 5" (meaning I'm going to count now). He then runs away to a different room and counts to 10:

"1, 4, 5,6, 8,9, 10! ME COME!!"

P giggles in anticipation in the other room, while JP runs to where he's hiding and yells triumphantly,

"Found ya!!".

Then they trade places and repeat the whole process 5 or 6 more times, usually using the exact same hiding spot. This can keep them occupied for a good 30 min or so, and they've been doing it a few times each day for the last week since their big brother taught them how to play.

I'll try to get a video of it next time they do it, because it's just so cute. Problem is, they are both usually missing at least one important item of clothing, so I'm not sure they'd appreciate me posting it on the internet :-)

Small Successes

Well, I guess it's time to try this out again.

8 1/2 months pregnant, tired and restless... I am sure I can still accomplish things during the week! I spend too much energy being hard on myself for not being perfect all the time. I am learning to live in the moment and do the best I can with what I am given.

So what are three things I've done this week? It's so tempting to list all the things I HAVEN'T done, because they follow me around like a noisy marching band, but I will ignore those.

1. I finally organized my linen closet with my trusty label maker. It's so fun to open the door and see freshly folded neat piles of sheets, blankets and towels.

2. We are almost done week 7 of school already!! Two more weeks and we will be done our first quarter. I am feeling so organized and am thankful for all the work I did over the summer to get me here.

3. I cleaned up my room, got all of our home birth stuff organized and in one place, and brought up the baby cradle, carseat and other essentials we will need this month. (AHHH! it's already october!!)

Fishing!

One of the advantages of homeschooling... you can take off on a nice fall morning and go fishing with your grandpa.
The kids had all sorts of fun, and apparently they are pretty good at casting their lines into the water, and pulling out fish!! Z caught 7 and E caught 3!!

They also enjoyed the grandfather's perrogative of taking them to McDonalds for breakfast AND lunch on the same day LOL. I'm sure they will remember this day for a long time.

Fall Family Walk

We went walking in a lovely park by the river yesterday. The kids had a marvellous time running through the big trees and rows of thick bushes. There were some wonderful old trees just perfect for climbing (and picture taking), and they had fun making crayon rubbings of the bark and collecting leaves.

Later on, we spent a fair amount of time throwing rocks into the river, and then headed off to the slurpee store for the before-promised treat.

All in all, a nice fall afternoon.