November Life Lately

November was baby month around here, which means that not much happened in this household AT ALL!

I was due the 20th, but was pretty miserable the last few weeks of my pregnancy, so I hoped every day would bring a baby. Our car also broke down, so we ended up becoming a one car family, which meant I didn’t get out as much as I usually do.

We took a hike in the gorgeous fall colors. Ohio had like 4 months of summer, 2 days of fall and now we are officially into the winter weather (the snow is falling outside as I type this!).

Theo told me I don’t even look pregnant from behind and then took this picture to prove it.

Ah, but there is the proof. Couldn’t even zip up my jacket. I couldn’t even make the two sides of the zipper meet at the bottom LOL.

It’s been so fun this past summer to have two kids who are walkers! I’ve pretty much ditched the stroller and just have both of them walk everywhere. Next summer I will be back to hauling a baby everywhere, but it was nice to see a glimpse of my future without strollers and having kids who are a little bit more independent.

38ish weeks. I was HUGE.

My three babies.

Last picture as a family of four!

I tried to do well at taking the kids to the park, but the cold weather and the last stages of pregnancy did end up throwing a damper on that plan. We made it all the way to the park a couple of times, though (its about a mile from our house – I push Kiah in the stroller or he sometimes walks a bit while Tera rides her bike).

Prior to November, I hadn’t done a single thing to prepare for baby. I was so anemic that I had no energy to do anything at all. Once I finally got my iron levels up, I felt SO MUCH BETTER, so I was able to pull out and organize all the baby stuff. I really wanted to keep it simple this time around. Also, that entire drawer of clothes? Newborn clothes that Ezra never even wore. LOL.

The last month of my pregnancy was really, really hard. I’m not going to lie about that. I cried almost every day and I was very miserable. My husband and children were also miserable as a result. I tried my hardest to not project my emotions onto them, but it was a challenge. So I started to do one fun thing each day to look forward to before the baby came.

We went to the library…

We went to the Air Force Museum…

We had a picnic dinner on the kitchen floor…

We buried our hamster…

Ok, that one wasn’t a fun thing or a planned thing, but we woke up to our hamster being dead. She was close to 4 years old and had been given to us by someone who was moving overseas. We knew she wouldn’t live long, so it was a good little life lesson on taking care of pets and then saying goodbye to them. Kiah didn’t understand, but Tera did, and she was pretty emotional about it. It did bring up lots of great discussions about death and dying and heaven.

Tera wanted to jump in a pile of leaves, so I figured raking a big pile would either put me into labor…or not.

They LOVED playing in the leaves. I could hardly get them to stand still for a picture!

LOVE the fall colors.

Look at those smiles!

Oh, sweet Kiah-man.

Love this girl.

Throwing leaves!

Us girls need to stick together, since we are now outnumbered by the boys!

Tera asked me how to spell “HINES” and when I spelled it out loud for her, she wrote it all by herself. Obviously, there is still work to be done, but I am SO PROUD of my girl and how incredibly smart she is. She also has her sweater on backwards because she insists on wearing the red bow in the front. So, this sums up my four year old in one picture.

The last week before we had Ezra, we had lots of stuff happen that I for sure thought would send me into labor. An ice storm was first on the list…

Fall, meet winter.

Icy leaves.

And finally, the arrival of sweet baby Ezra (you can read his birth story here).

The kids got to come and meet Ezra when he was a few hours old! (You can read about the kids meeting their brother here).

Grandma Hines came down the day after Ezra was born and got to help us out, even while we were still in the hospital! It’s been so lovely having her here for the past week.

The kids go between being smitten with Ezra and completely ignoring him. It’s nice having two bigger kids who entertain each other (even if entertaining means fighting) because I don’t think either of them are feeling extra jealous or pained about adding a new family member.

I just cannot stop laughing at the fact that my newborn is pretty much the same size as my toddler.

I had Ezra on Monday, we got home from the hospital on Tuesday night, and on Thursday we celebrated Thanksgiving! We just got a rotisserie chicken, and then my MIL made sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole and we had some rice on the side as well. We pulled out a pie filling I had made from our apples and my MIL baked it. It was a lovely Thanksgiving!

Ezra’s first outing was to the pediatrician the day after he was born to check his jaundice levels, and then this second outing was to the library when he was four days old. LOL. No surprise there…the library is practically our second home! We also asked my MIL to snap a few family pictures so that I can use them for a Christmas card photo!

On Sunday evening, I got the brilliant idea to go see the wild lights at the zoo. We weren’t sure what to expect, so it was interesting. The lights were great, but there were no animals to be seen (except the reindeer and the aquarium). It was super crowded and I ended up spending an entire hour in the “nursing station” at the zoo feeding Ezra. Still, it was great to get out of the house and this was probably the last warmish day of the year, so I’m glad we went! I just need to remind myself over and over again that everything takes at least two hours longer with a newborn!!

And that’s a wrap on November! We sure are grateful and thankful and blessed…!