a blessed birth day

Our little one (Tobias "Toby" Nathaniel) entered the light of day via a water birth at 9:20 this morning. He was 6 days early, 7 lbs, 6 oz. and 21" long.

I didn't get any sleep last night, so I'm pretty zonked, but I'm finding it so hard to pry my eyes away from his perfectly precious little face (a little bruised because his decent was SO fast-- 6cm to born in 12 min.). The big kids got to meet him this afternoon, and everyone was quickly taken by him. Even Opal. We are so very, very blessed.

More later. For now, here are a few phone pics.

{pretty, happy, funny, real} August edition

{pretty} I know, I know... enough with this scene already! But it's just so pretty, I can't get over it. God's canvas.


{happy}
The parking lot at our homeschoolers kick-off picnic this evening. There was another row just like this one beside it :^) We celebrated a lovely Mass with our homeschool group this evening, followed by the annual back-to-school picnic at a park across the street. It was a wonderful time of catching up with friends and meeting many new families. And there were sooooo many families. We're excited to start a new school year of Enrichment Activities with many of them next week (some of them have even offered to take the big kids for me on the Fridays when I'm not feeling up for venturing out). We are incredibly blessed to be a part of such a faith-filled community.


{funny}
We're usually dry in this category, so this time, you get a twofer. This is actually a frequent occurrence. Mike almost caught her on camera dancing in these mitts the other day. Goof. I saw a couple of fat raccoons rummaging around in the back yard the other day and told the kids, who promptly ran to the windows. But they ran to the living room windows instead of the kitchen window, where I was looking. And that was all as well because the raccoons had since scampered back into the woods, and there was quite a gaggle of wild Jimmies to the west (I don't know why my family sometimes calls turkeys "Jimmie birds." Weird.). They kept coming closer and clucking loudly in response to our own silly clucks. Our kitty was also intrigued. See her in the last photo? Once we'd had our fill of peering at them from the window, the kids ran out (though not Iris because she was TERRIFIED) and yelled, "Come back in November!" I may have prompted them ;^P


{real} Signs of a new baby springing up around the house... I can't believe this is real. Our little people are gearing up for their baby brother, quality-checking his stuff ($15 baby papasan!), test-mothering their babies... (I think they've got it down.)

Are we ready? I think so. There are some things we'd LIKE to accomplish this weekend that would be a lot more possible without laboring or a newborn, but we're grown-up enough to know that God's plan doesn't always take ours into account. And we haven't been disappointed by that in the past. My prayer the past week or so has been the message received in the Divine Mercy to St. Faustina - "Jesus, I trust in you." It's amazing how comforting those five words can be.

Thank you, Sun Art

Man, did we ever need a diversion today. It seems like the kids just couldn't stop themselves from all talking at once, continuously showing me everything, spilling everything, asking me favors, bickering, and driving me up the walls. On top of it, Opal has had a fever since last night and was especially clingy all morning (when she wasn't in front of the telly), and I've been feeling nauseated. So putting her down to run to the bathroom (all false alarms) meant a sad baby crying and calling for me pitifully. We did manage to do everything I'd planned for school while Opal (and sometimes Iris) absorbed episode after episode of Little Bear and Daniel Tiger. Worse things have happened.

Fortunately, I had a post-lunch plan, only somewhat related to Mike's chat suggestion of locking them all outside. While rummaging in cabinets without purpose last night, I came across Sun Art Paper that I ordered on sale some time ago when, I believe, we still had only three little heads to keep track of. I remembered enjoying this activity as a child. At least it would get them outside. I explained to them how it worked and showed them some examples on the computer, and they set off to pick flowers and find objects for their art. If you have boys, you may know how hard it is to sway them from always choosing things like Legos when it comes to found object exercises (we at least discovered they turn out best dismantled). They each did two, and we have enough paper left over for them to each do another two on another crazy day. I even made two of my own. They all turned out pretty rad. Abigail volunteered to chase Opal when it wasn't her turn, and the others pretty much just sat and squinted as the paper slowly change from dark to light blue. It was riveting. And it was a project that required such minimal thought or action from my nearly 39 week pregnant self. I give it an A plus plus plus.

Jack & Abigail's week at Grandma & Grandpa's

If he'd been standing in the woods, you wouldn't have been able to see him. (Thanks to Grandma Sharon for the pictures and recap of the kids' stay)

Jack and Abigail had the immense pleasure of spending a week at their grandparents' in Holmen (three hours northwest from here) the week before last. They had many tales when they returned of all of the fun they had - even the mundane, which Grandma has a knack for turning into thrilling activities for the kids (like watering plants and weeding to helping her time her daily eye-drop routine).

Jack's favorite thing that they did: "Driving up to Grandad's Bluff!" (The largest bluff in the La Crosse area, approximately 590 feet above the surrounding land), well-known for its scenic overlook of La Crosse) "And the children's museum and everything else we did on our outing that day." Which included driving over the two huge blue bridges in La Crosse (one goes to Minnesota and the other comes back to WI) and enjoying lunch and root beer floats at Rudy's Drive In (a 50's diner where the carhops serve you while wearing roller skates). Abigail's favorite thing was, "A story Grandma told about going up the big hill and it was snowing and there were moose, and Willie and Dad were just sitting there playing video games and they didn't bother that they had short sleeves on... and the children's museum."

They also had a play date at Grandma and Grandpa's neighbors' house (the ones with the twirly slide in their basement!), where Jack and the eight-year-old girl discovered a common interest in Minecraft. After playing indoors, they spent some time petting and feeding their animals - a big horse and goats and chickens. On Friday night, they took in a fireworks display at Kornfest, an annual local summer festival in Holmen, and went to the Kornfest parade the next day (candy and loot!). They also watched some movies and of course, played lots of games like Cootie and Mexican Train.

We're so grateful to Grandma and Grandpa for taking on our oldest two for the week and providing such fun, memorable experiences for them.