Sleep Deprived But Lovin' Life!

Such a cute bird themed baby outfit my friend got for the baby. Now it just needs to warm up so she can wear it. At 3 weeks old she is already 12 lbs and wearing 3-6 month clothes.

We worked on our Spring theme continuing with baby animals.

Duck working on 3 part baby animal cards

Animal theme puzzle

We watched the Movie Holes on Netflix, it was a really good movie I can see why Falcon enjoyed the book so much here is the trailer.

Geography- Finland

     

Duck working on the flag

Finland is the country of the month for our homeschool group we watched:: A World Schlessinger media production on Finland as well as the Folktale : The Raspberry Worm. You can read the Folktale here but we watched a video on it.

Robin is working on an A-z book about Finland.

In My sleep deprived life:

Papabird went out of town on Wednesday so I am a single mom with 4 kids and a newborn.  At least he is only 6 hours away by car this time. in 3 weeks he will be on the other side of the world in Santiago for a week.Things were a bit challenging. baby was extra cranky most nights, we are working through some reflux and belly issues with her.  Robin was having sleep walking and night terror episodes. I have noticed she has them more often when Papabird is out of town. Owl was wandering the house at night just because he didn't want to sleep and wanted a drink of water. Every time these events happened I just got baby to sleep only to have her woke up by the other kids. ( we co-sleep.) So far this week I am extra sleep deprived so I am proud of what we got done.

I gained 33 lbs during my pregnancy and I am down 23 I have 10lbs more to go to get to my pre-pregnancy weight and 10 more that I gained just before being pregnant. So I want to lose a total of 20lbs. I have never had much luck losing weight while nursing but hoping that is not the case this time around. I am chomping at the bit to get my butt back up and moving to get back into shape. So I started whole 30 this week as well. I pretty much eat that way anyhow now that I cannot have dairy because I am nursing.

 For those who do not know the rules of whole 30 Pretty simple, all fresh and nothing processed.

What I have been watching on Netflix during my all night parenting episodes.

Did I mention that I love life? I do every second of it. Life is busy. Life is Challenging but life is good!

Little Miss Canary, where she spends most of her day

Welcome Spring!

Spring is a favorite season of mine. I love all the newness of it. Trees and flowers budding, baby animals being born, animals coming out of hibernation. It just seems to me a perfect time to start new projects and begin things new.

With  our new baby here school work may be a little light for a bit until we get into a routine,

Paint chip projects making a mess of the table.

Little bunnies Owl and Robin made.

Duck did not want to make a bunny he wanted to make Minecraft Golems. So here is what he made, not quite a spring theme craft but at least he wanted to get crafty.

My not so great attempt at an egg banner. Owl helped me decorate them. My eggs keep flipping over, I am going to have to string it again and try and fix it.

Robin made her own  banner for her door to her room. Hers turned out better than mine.

We only have 1.5 chapters left of Little House in the Big Woods. The last chapter they made a pumpkin soup type dish.

So I made  paleo pumpkin custard. If you cut shapes into it while it's hot when it cools it will pull apart to create cool designs. My attempt at a Little House theme.

The older kids worked on math lessons and writing an essay for a contest the library is doing.

Duck worked on some worksheets through a spring pack from the Teachers pay teachers website.

5 little birds are now in my nest....(homebirth story)

This was my first homebirth.

My contractions started last month, seriously!  I would get contractions  that would get regular and painful but then stop after 3 hours. It was frustrating, exhausting and painful. I didn't want to have a baby as early as 35 weeks but once I hit 37 weeks and was full term it would really frustrate me when it would happen. I would think labor was actually starting but then as soon as they got painful and regular they would stop.

My due date came and passed, something I have never experienced with my other 4 children the days drug on.....

 My contractions would start everyday only to stop after a few hours. I was emotionally, a mess thinking everyday was going to be the day only for the sun to come up the next morning and baby was still in my belly. Luckily I was feeling pretty good no major complaints other than the typical pregnancy stuff.

On Saturday morning I had a "bloody show" a sure sign  labor is coming (according to google 1-3 days.) Thought for sure Saturday was going to be the day contractions continued on an off all day. I finally went to bed at 9 pm.

At 4 am Sunday morning I woke up to contractions I could not sleep through.  They were bad enough I needed to stop and breathe through them. I called my midwife at 7:30am and she wasn't sure it was labor either because of my sporadic contractions.  They were bouncing between 3-20 minutes apart. She said she would stop by in a few hours with some herbal tinctures to possible get contractions more regular.

So I ate some breakfast: Yogurt, OJ and a Lara bar.

She arrived at 10am and after some discussion  she decided to check me and sweep my membranes before we started with some herbal  tinctures. I was already at 5cm so she decided to stay and get her medical stuff from the car as well as call her 2 assistants.

Within 15 minutes of  her checking me  I started getting contractions 1-3 minutes apart that were pretty intense. I  sat alone in my room bouncing and rocking on my birth ball all the while watching  a weird but true animal show on  Animal Planet ( it was just what was on and I was in too much pain to care) I remember thinking in my head how funny it was that I was watching a wild animal show while I was feeling quite animalistic at that moment.

11pm came around and I new my kids were getting hungry so I cut up some apples for them. Papabird ordered pizza for everyone  and the midwives were making tea for themselves ( now I feel rude, I forgot to offer them a drink.)

11:30  despite the fact that baby was positioned well I started getting back pain that did not go away during contractions. I thought the shower would help relax me I labored in the shower on all fours for about an hour. I started bleeding and was a little worried at first but I was assured everything was okay and that it was just my cervix dilating.

12:30 back to my room and back on the ball  my contractions slowed down a bit to 3-6 minutes apart which made me wonder if labor would just fizzle out again. I tried to stay focused and went back to rocking and bouncing on the ball.

Meanwhile  Papabird  was  keeping the kids entertained with video games. They would all pop in and say hi to me from time to time but the midwives would come in after a few minutes and have them leave me be. I didn't mind the kids around but I was afraid they would get upset if they saw me in too much pain.

1 pm I started to feel like a wanted to squat while pushing and just knew that soon my water would break. I moved over to the side of my bed where I had laid out water proof pads and squatted there through contractions while resting my head on my bed. One of the midwife assistants came in and stayed with me. rubbing my back through contractions and giving me counter  pressure. I was at the point now where I don't want to do this anymore the contractions were looooooong and intense. The other assistant came in and my midwife as well. They must have known that I was close.

Not sure exactly what time the next events happened but my water broke, I looked down and it was stained with merconium I asked  my midwife if this was okay as I was a bit panicked by it. They assured me it was fine (I was still scared.) With my other babies the head came down with the my water breaking but this was not the case. About 5 contractions went by before I could feel the head moving down. I turned around toward my closet mirrors, I wanted to watch the birth and pull my own child out of me. I was pretty silent through the whole labor processes but as the head came down I got a bit loud,  moaning, yelling, whimpering, crying thinking there was NOWAY I was going to get this head out. I think I let my fear of birthing a LARGE baby get the best of me. In my head I kept saying I can't do this, what if the baby is too big, they are going to have to call  911. I then realized what I was doing so I took a deep breath and said to myself I CAN do this. Your body will not grow a baby it cannot birth. I few pushs later  baby sipped out of me. What a relief! It was the biggest rush of endorphin's I think I have ever experienced. 1. It  felt so good for the pressure and pain to be gone and 2. My baby was here. I did not catch the baby or guide her out, my midwife did.I was to focused on getting the baby out. She  laid the baby down between my legs ( I was still squatting) Baby was was sooooo blue. I was worried he/she was not okay but my midwife wiped out the babies mouth and then he/she cried. I lifted up a leg to see what it was (I expected to see boy parts) but I did not, there were  girl parts!!!!  I picked her up an fell in love.

Baby bird #5!

 Getting baby ready to be weighed.....9lbs6oz. 21 1/2 inches long. Not my biggest baby at all!!

My 2 older children really wanted to watch the birth but I was so scared at that time that there was going to be a problem I never called them in. They were just one room away playing Rock Band on the Xbox and doing the song "We Got the Beat!"

I birthed the placenta then the midwives helped me into bed so all the kids could come in and see her.Things didn't go exactly as I had planned but my baby was born safely at home and is healthy and happy and thats all that really matters.

Now I just need to give her a birdie blogoshpere name!
Canary? Hummingbird? Raven? Not sure yet......

Side note: I did eat my Placenta 2 tablesspoons of it raw. My midwife cut it up into pill size pieces for me and I swallowed them whole like a pill with cherry juice, It had no taste. Why would I eat my placenta you may ask? Well that is a blog post for another day. If you just cannot wait  ......just google it!

Will I be pregnant as long as an elephant?

I have never gone overdue with my other babies but there is a first time for everything.

Will my baby be huge? I usually have 9-10lb. babies about a week early. How big will this baby be now that I am overdue! Babies come when babies are ready I keep getting told. I am trying not to worry and just
relax

I didn't plan much school work this week with the kids because I thought I would be snuggling a baby right now but boy was I wrong.

We went to the library for a homeschool  board game day.

We went to the library for our World Travelers club presentation on Egypt. Robin typed up some facts that morning on Cleopatra then got to dress up like her as  well. Her friend brought a hot dog she mummified.

While there I collected books on Spring.

I plan to get a nature table started with the kids again. The  overall topic will be the season but I will rotate out topics with that theme.Some ideas I have are:

Spring related books about the season but each week or two I will change the topic of what goes on in  during spring. I love spring it is my favorite season everything seems so new and fresh and bursting with possibility.

First up we will be doing  Baby animals.  Other ideas are thunderstorms/tornado's, flowers/seeds, and trees. When I get it all set up I will  post pictures.

Pinterest inspiration:
Nature table 1

Some outdoor fun on a warm 40 degree day throwing snowballs - spring is on it's way!

Girl Scout Cookie Thank you Cards

It is Girl Scout Cookie time!

Of course we needed to make thank you cards to send off with our boxes of cookies.

The first ones we made were rainbow ones ( my idea.)

We used Do A Dot markers to create rainbow pages which we then cut and folded to make small thank you cards to add to our cookie packages. I got the idea here  

Not the greatest picture, my flash washed out all the colors. On the front we added the customers name and what they owe. We taped these cards to one of the cookie boxes and bagged up orders together in plastic grocery bags.

The inside.

It was Robin's idea to make Samoa cookies and add those to the card. I think they turned out so cute.

She got sick of making rainbows and said t was no longer fun so she came up with the idea of making pop up cards.

Again we put the name and amount owed on the outside of the card and thank you for your order on the inside. (The crayon is covering up her real name)

Here is a small pile of some of our thank you cards. My favorites are the rainbow cards but I LOVE rainbows. I  am happy to have them all finished. Next year I think we will spread them out over a few weeks so we are not doing so many at once.

It was a great learning experience this year for Robin 

1. She is doing multiplication now so it was a great way for her to practice her 4 times tables since GS cookies are $4.00 a box this year.

2. Working on adding and multiplying by 12's when she helped sort cases ( there are 12 boxes to every case) for our whole troop

3. Confidence in asking those she doesn't know well to buy cookies.

4. Courtesy and Grammar ( she still has issues with capitalizing proper nouns) by writing thank you cards.