Christmas!

Christmas this year was extra special but also super low key! We had some pretty sick kids, not to mention baby Josefine, so we had some really cozy lazy days home in our jammies!  We did a quick gift exchange with Grandma and grandpa when we got home from hospital before they had to leave. We celebrated Christmas with Omi and Opa and the Meyers on Saturday evening (the day we got home from hospital) we ate pizza, Christmas cookies and exchanged gifts at our house! Sunday was Christmas Eve and jack had a really high fever so Josefine, Elisabeth and I snuck out to Oma and Opa’s for a short visit and the family got to meet Josefine! Christmas day we managed to make it to a beautiful Christmas mass and then cuddled up at home all day!! It was pretty perfect spending all that cozy time with Joe and the 3 kids!!

 

 

 

Summer Nature Series!

A little late on blogging about this but I don't want to forget about a program I put together for friends this summer and it was a highlight of our summer! I called it Summer Nature Series and I organized a hike/nature program 1x/month from June to September.  We met at a different park and there was a different theme each time.  I invited a lot of friends and the turn out each time was outstanding - one week we had as many as 23 kids and all their moms!

The first month was called All About Bugs.  We met at Mt. Airy Forest.  We read a book about bugs, collected pieces of nature to make a bug craft, searched high and low for bugs along the way and even made our very own ants on a log for the snack.  The kids were great little hikers!

The second month was all about Trees and leave native to Ohio.  We hiked at Ault Park. We collected leaves, looked for different types of trees that we recognized and that we often find in our own backyards and we ate maple leaf cookies and bananas for our snack!

The third month was called Fossils, Fossils, Fossils.  We hiked down to the creek at French Park to enjoy the hot summer day splashing in the creek and finding our very own fossils!  We hiked back up to the picnic area with our fossils to try and identify the types of fossils and color the rocks.  We ate muffins and fruit!

The fourth and final nature series we also met at French Park because the park was a hit and it was another hot day for creek play!

This was such a fun way to spend summer days with friends and we will definitely be doing this again next year!

Welcome Josefine Rose!

It’s a Girl!! We are so excited to welcome and announce our newest addition Josefine Rose! We could not feel more blessed this Christmas season! Josefine was born on Thursday December 21st at 8:52pm. She weighed 7lb 15oz And was 21 3/4 inches long. She is absolutely perfect!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Had to snap some quick pictures before leaving my 2 babies for the hospital!

 

 

Josefine entered the world quickly! I took a hard hilly long walk with my friend Kelly on Thursday morning and when I came home I was a little more crampy then I had been days before. I informed joe that he might want to leave work that day with things wrapped up. Around 9am my water partially broke at home and so I knew, even though contractions hadn’t started, that I would have to be admitted To the hospital due to higher risk for infection. So I waited until 11am and called my doc and she told me to make my way into hospital. From 9-11 I was running around like crazy packing a bag, cleaning the house, making some food for the kids for the next few days and getting some last minute laundry done! I think I was suddenly overwhelmed and not feeling ready! Joe and I headed to the hospital and they confirmed my water had broke and that I would be staying in the hospital until that baby came! They told me they would need to start a pitocin drip 8-10 hours after water broke if contractions weren’t starting on their own. For the next few hours joe and I walked those hospital halls and I did so many squats to try to start contractions. Around 4:30pm they started a small pitocin drip, 5:30pm I was measuring 3cm and was starting to feel contractions, and at 8:52pm after an intense and fast natural labor/birth, Sweet Josefine came flying into the world! Stefanie made it for the last hour of labor and the birth and my mom was on the elevator just minutes away while Josefine was born (since i encouraged her to Hang at Home and get my kids to bed because I thought it would take much longer than it did..) I am so grateful for all of their support in the labor process and I definitely needed Joe and Stefanie there to keep me strong and motivated during labor. 

 

 

The kids came the next morning to meet her and they were so excited!! (Well my Mom said Elisabeth kept saying “I’m not ready to go yet” and Jack kept telling her how exciting of news he had about the new baby!) Once at the hospital they were both so in love with her and had many questions and comments to

Make about their new baby sister!