Jenna

I'm so happy to announce that Jenna Marie joined our family this week. She was born on Tuesday, Nov. 13th at 7:12 a.m.

She came without much of a fuss.  In fact, I can honestly say that I didn't feel any real pain with her delivery.  I don't know where I got the notion that I need to wait to get my epidural until I am in significant pain.  I have always waited until I cannot bear the pain on my own before I "give in" to getting my epidural.  This time, because it was in the middle of the night, the anethesist was only temporarily in house, and it was now or possibly miss it all together.  Good news-I should have done that with all my others.  It was glorious!  It kicked in before the pain really did.  I felt my contractions, but not pain.  I made quick progress and it took just 6 pushes to get her here.  We came home the next day and we are all doing well.

Her first visitors were her three big brothers and Dave's parents.  They generously gave of their time to come and help during her delivery.  My mom came about the same time and stayed much of the day to keep me company.  In times past, she has been the one helping with our other kiddos and has spent very little time at the hospital.  It was so fun to spend the day with her. 

 Greyson is one proud big brother.  He loves to "hold baby" and talk to her.  He has been very sweet with his new little sister.  I imagine he'll be very protective of her as she grows. 

My sister and her family also came up to meet Jenna.  Her daughter is the only other girl in our family so she is pretty excited to have another girl to play with.

So are we.  Our little family is growing.  Jenna already brings us so much joy and I can honestly say (now that I'm not pregnant anymore) that is was all worth it. 

Halloween

I always loved Halloween as a kid.  I loved that my dad always dressed up with us and took us door to door.  I loved our family tradition of making and decorating sugar cookies and carving pumpkins.  I've tried to carry on some of those traditions in our own family, and I hope for our boys that Halloween is something they look back on one day with fond memories.  

Now, as a parent, I find the day to be very chaotic and busy, but we still have fun. 

We grew our pumpkins in our garden this year.  Some years, we have success, other years, not so much.  We had two nice size ones this year, and one that grew giant!  Tyler claimed the huge one, and Chad did not even argue because at the time, it was still green and the others were already turned.  Of course, it turned by Halloween, but everyone seemed to remain happy their his choice of pumpkin.  

We mostly let the boys design their own Jack-O-Lantern's.  They clean them our and draw on the faces, and Dave and I do the carving. 

They were pretty proud of their finished result. 

Here are our three skeletons.  This year, I had wanted to make a skeleton shirt for Dave and I, and Tyler had already decided to be a skeleton.  Chad and Greyson wanted to be Woody (from Toy Story), but I never could get Greyson to put the Woody costume on.  So, I knew he would happily wear his skeleton pajamas, and all we had to do was convince Chad that we should ALL be a family of skeletons.  We found Chad's shirt and just used fabric paints to add bones to his arms and legs. Here is our finished outfits.  Nothing creative, as I have seen this all over blogs, but I still thought it was cute. 

And one last picture, of Chad sorting his candies.  This is one of my favorite memories as a kid.  When I finished trick-or-treating, I loved to dump my bag and sort my candies.  It was so fun to see Chad and Tyler do it on their own this year, and even Greyson followed suit with a little help. 

Hope you had a wonderful Halloween as well.  Our baby should be here in just one week!  Happy Day!