The Kids

Yo Waz Up

Costume Time

We're Still Here

Fall Fun

We played in the front yard in the leaves last weekend. It was such a beautiful sunny day that we decided to take some fall photos of the kids too. (We're trying really hard to take lots of pictures of Quinton, like we did with Ella - tough with such little time). We had a lot of fun and got some great pics.

Quinton's Room

Quinton's room is "Where the wild things are" theme. He has dark furniture (minus the glider and ottoman that we got at Segals for $99 before they closed....deal of the century!). We got a great deal on the rug on overstock.com too. The walls are a smokey blue color. Leafy curtains from Ikea. There are pictures from the "Wild Things" book and hand puppets from the book around the room too. Although he has yet to take residence in his own room, it's cute and complete and ready for him when he makes the leap to his own space instead of sharing ours. We really LOVE how it turned out!

Ella's Room

We painted and decorated Ella's room a while back, and never posted it. In an attempt to catch up a bit on blogging before I go back to work in a week, here are some bedroom photos. It's lavender, with flowers on the walls, a big leaf above her bed, a flower light, Ikea storage bins & a pretty white mirror over her refinished white dresser. She likes her new room a lot. We think it turned out pretty cute too!

2 Month Old Quinton

Happy boy!

Boy oh boy does time fly by! Hard to believe that Quinton is 2 months old already. He is such a big baby. He is SUPER strong and holds his head up really well. You have to be careful when he's laying on your lap because if he kicks his legs out and pushes off of your belly he could push himself right off of your lap. He is a very smiley, happy kid most of the time. He is really cooing and "talking" to us when we talk to him. He's already keeping his eye on Ella when she walks by. He really seems to smile at her a lot. Sure hope they will be buddies....she is becoming more tolerant of him and his baby ways...at least she doesn't scream when he cries anymore! :)

Here are Quinton's stats from his 2 month Dr. Appt. Weight: 13lb 8oz (87%tile) Height: 24 1/2in (97%tile)

Sleeping in the swing

Playing "nigh-night" in the playroom (the diaper and wipes are for Ella's baby)

Enjoying tummy time for the moment...
Ella holding her brother

Ella's First Haircut

Ella has never had a ton of hair, but after 2 1/2 years it finally grew enough, or got uneven enough to need a haircut. A month or so ago we went to a place in West Linn called "Sit Still". She got to choose the chair she sat in and what she wanted to watch on TV. She chose Dora to watch (although she didn't watch any of it) and an airplane to sit in. She was a bit apprehensive about the whole thing. The salon was busy so she got to watch all the other kids getting their hair cut, which I think eased her anxiety a bit. She sat very still and was really good the whole time. She held my hand, I think to ensure I wasn't going anywhere. She got a sucker and sparkly hair spray when she was finished - what a big girl!

Randoms

Last night Ella started singing "Take me out to the FOOTball game" lol, oh the funny things she says!

Pumpkin Patch

We took advantage of our beautiful sunny October day yesterday, and went to the pumpkin patch. We went to Sauvie's Island to "The Pumpkin Patch" on a whim. It was a bit of an adventure. Ella woke up on the wrong side of the bed so she was a bit grouchy the whole time. Quinton had a total diaper blowout up to his shoulder blades conveniently at the same time as Ella had a major meltdown, meanwhile there were bees everywhere and they were major pests and tried to attack the apple cider in my hand (It wasn't much appreciated with Quinton in a pack on my chest!), the nearest garbage can was a long way away so as I was trying to avoid getting stung while heading to just dump my cider in the trash I let go of the cart holding our pumpkins, camera jackets & such...the cart became a run-a-way and almost took out Jason from behind. Maybe we should check to see if they have a surveilance video we can get a copy of because it could win us $10,000 from Americas Funniest Videos...I'm sure we looked like fools running around with a screaming kid, a poopy mess, bees swarming, me running & batting the bees, cart rolling away. There were literally strangers looking and laughing at us. We changed Quinton's awful blowout mess in the trunk of the car (can you tell we need a bigger car?) and headed home, pumpkins in tow. All in all we had a good time and we all survived the trip!

SMILE!

So this is very out of order in the sequence of what's been blogged in Quinton's life, and I had fully intended on posting the series of photos that we've taken up until now with stories of what we've been up to, but clearly that isn't going to happen. So here is a jump to current life....it's full of baby boy smiles! (Ok maybe not full of smiles but at least we got our first smile and subsequent others this week!) Here are some pictures to put a smile on your face too! I hope they warm your heart like they did ours. As a side note, Quinton is over 6 weeks old now - man alive where did that time go??? We're trying to soak it up while the babyness lasts.

He looks like he could just break out in laughter here!

Quinton's Birth Story

Below is Quinton's birth story. I know it's a little late...ok 4 weeks late, but life has been a bit chaotic with a 2 year old and a newborn. Better late than never. I wrote down all the details that I wanted to remember, so if you don't want details of his delivery then don't read on. It's version #1 and unedited, so forgive any mistakes, but if i don't post it now it'll never happen I think!Even as I type this I have a sleeping newborn laying on my shoulder, haphazardly stuck to my chest with a moby wrap, and a sleeping Ella upstairs....I'm racing the clock to get this posted before one of them wakes up!

Many thanks to my mother-in-law Lorri for taking photos at Quinton's birth....it's amazing what a blur it becomes and it's so nice to have photos to record and remember it all by!

Please give me the reward of a comment or 2 so I know anyone is even reading this! :)

More photos & stories to come I hope! :)

Quinton’s Birth Story:

On Sunday August 7^th, I was 39 weeks and 1 day pregnant, and oh so ready to be done being pregnant. I was really uncomfortable and just ready to meet our sweet new baby. About 3:30 in the afternoon I started having mild contractions. They were just like cramps and almost felt like Braxton hicks, just a tightening not really any pain. But they kept coming and coming so I decided to start timing them. They were about every 6 minutes apart. I’d been having contractions for many days that were often regular and lasted for hours so I wasn’t really thinking too much of this. All afternoon and evening I continued to have these mild contractions – we went about our day though, my dad visited, we played in the back yard, we went to visit my Grandma in the hospital. Once evening rolled around and I was going on 5 hours of contractions I decided that we should make a plan for what to do with Ella in case we went to the hospital. My step-dad John came to stay at our house for the night after we put Ella to bed, which was a big relief that we didn’t have to drag her out to someone else’s house. Jason convinced me that we should go in just in case it was the real deal this time. The midwife told us that if contractions were 6 minutes apart for a hour that we should come in, considering how dilated I was already (I was 4cm and 80% effaced starting at 37 weeks). I just figured that contractions would stop, as they had the previous days, as soon as we got there. So about 10:00 we headed to St. Vincent’s after a bit of convincing on Jason’s part. We left all of our stuff in the car thinking that we would probably be coming home. Once we checked into triage they monitored me and found that contractions were every 5 or so minutes and that I was 6cm dilated. We called all of our parents to let them know we were in labor and staying there. They moved us to our labor and delivery room and we met our nurse (who also was pregnant and wanted a natural delivery so that was a great match!). My mom came right away and hung out with us in our room. Jason’s parents were on vacation in central Oregon so as soon as they got the call they got in the car and headed back to Portland.

In triage, just sure we're going to be sent back home

Last belly photo!

My contractions picked up a little bit, they were every 3-5 minutes but were still just like period cramps – totally tolerable, I requested that I only be monitored intermittently so I could be free to move around and not strapped to a machine. I also requested to not have an IV, which was nice to not have to endure or feel tied down to. Around midnight I got really hungry so I had a veggie sandwich, and felt much better. We tried to rest a bit before things got too intense that we couldn’t. At 1:00am or so I was 8cm dilated but my contractions just dwindled down to nothing. I started to panic, thinking that they’d send us home or have to give me pitocin, so we got moving again to hopefully get labor going. We walked what felt like 100 laps around labor and delivery, I sat on a big yoga ball, I did squats, just moved a ton. Dale and Lorri arrived from central Oregon about this time. At around 2am we decided that breaking my water would probably kick start things into a good pattern again, so the midwife did just that. Man alive did it get my contractions going! At this point I couldn’t talk through them and had to really focus and breathe my way through. I was really worried that things would stop again though, so we kept walking laps around L & D. Leaning over the bed and walking were the two best things for me to do to get through the contractions. Eventually the nurse started walking laps with us. She told us later that the nurses at the station were shocked when she called for delivery assistance just after they had seen us all in the hallway walking – I was doing laps at 10cm dilated.

Grandmas waiting patiently for our little man to be born!

Sitting on the birthing ball. Notice the tennis ball, Jason used it to massage my back.

Eventually I started to feel pressure and wanted to push. I just pushed on my own as I felt the urge to, I didn’t want to be told when to push or be counted at….of course I needed much more coaching just before he was born because it hurt like heck to push so I didn’t want to do it. I asked them if I could use a squat bar to push with, basically I was in the squatting position kind of leaning over a bar using gravity to help….that was the thought anyway! I recall it being sort of comical that I couldn’t hold myself up over the bar because I was too tired and so that idea went out the window. The midwife had me lean over the back of the bed and push that way (let me tell you when people say all modesty is out the door when you’re having a baby it’s no joke! Sure glad our moms are forgiving because I'm sure my backside hanging out wasn't pretty! :)) That wasn’t working well for me either, so I finally turned and pushed in the “normal” position with the help of a mirror and that seemed to be the most productive. I pushed for a total of 19 minutes they say, but my gosh it felt like hours!! It felt like I was a bit of a contortionist during that time, trying to find the best position to push in! My entire labor, with exception of the last 2 hours or so, was really not bad but the pushing phase was SO INTENSE! I kept trying to remember some of the helpful hints I read while pregnant, and tried to remind myself that childbirth is natural, and I thought of all the animals in the wild that have babies all the time and that all do it naturally...I tried to tune into my inner lion and be strong! I don’t know that I will ever forget that burning, stretching and pressure feeling, that was something I didn’t experience with Ella because of the epidural I had with her. It took quite a bit of coaxing from the nurse and midwife to get me to push through that pain. I wanted to go slow enough that I didn’t tear but my gosh I wanted it to be over.

What a joke, trying to push with the squat bar didn't work for me at all, we all got a good laugh out of how silly i was trying to use it! SO tired by this point.

At 3:55am, after 12 hours of labor and 19 minutes of pushing it was time to meet our little man. He came out looking sideways instead of down. The midwife had me reach down and pull him out and up onto my chest. It was a feeling of such joy, elation and relief to have our baby finally be born! He cried immediately upon being born without any stimulation. He hung out on my chest skin to skin for about an hour before they took him to weigh him. He weighed 7lbs 15oz and was 19.in long.

He's here! So happy to meet you baby, Quinton Alan Manson!

Overjoyed and so blessed!

I don't like my bath one bit!

Daddy's first time holding me

7lb 15oz

After weighing him they gave him back and he latched on right away and nursed for a little bit, then they took him and gave him a bath and cleaned him up. He was just perfect! 10 fingers and toes, no cone head at all, kissable lips, he was just as sweet as could be! He looked so much like Ella when she was born.

Our newest family member!

What an amazing experience it was to deliver Quinton naturally. I only needed one stitch (which she gave me without any anesthetic mind you, OUCH!) I felt so great immediately after the delivery. I was able to move around and walk as soon as he was born, it was so great! Ya I was exhausted from being up all night and from laboring and pushing but didn’t have any meds on board, no fluid making me feel puffy and bloated, or any lines tying me down. I completely realize that any number of physical and medical conditions make it so not all women can have a natural delivery, (let alone have children at all!) so I feel so blessed to have had a healthy pregnancy and birth. If I had it to do again I would do my darndest to have another unmedicated delivery!

All dressed up in style for my hearing test!

He looks like a grumpy old man here!