Our Last Week as a Family of Four

Samantha: 75 Months, Week 5
Aedan: 40 Months, Week 3

This week was one of those weeks that you just keep going about your normal daily routine and then all of a sudden, something changes everything in your world. This is about our last week as a family of four. I will begin my next blog post with details and pictures from the birth of our son, Owen. But for now, back to this week.

Samantha continued on with her second week of school. Monday was a big day for her because she started going to the second grade class for Math. I walked her into school that morning, and we stopped by the classroom she was going to go to so she could see it and meet Mrs. Fewchuk. Samantha was a little nervous about it, but I think she was excited that her hard work paid off. She kept asking, "So do they think I know enough to go to second grade math?" To which we replied, "Yes! That's why they are letting you go up for math class, something no one else in your class gets to do." When she came home from school that day, Samantha declared that math was her favorite part of the day and that it made her feel like such a big kid. I'm so glad that she is starting off in second grade math right at the beginning of the year, and Mrs. Fewchuk seems like a good teacher, so I am hopeful that this will be a really good, challenging experience for her.

This was a week of "firsts" in our house, with math on Monday and then MOPS starting on Tuesday. Aedan and I went to MOPS last fall together, but we couldn't go anymore once I started working full time. I was looking forward to being back with other moms and hopefully meeting more people and making more connections. Aedan had a good time playing in the green room, and I'm sure it's fun for him to have the chance to be with other kids as well, especially now that Samantha is off at school every day. I know he misses playing with her.

Here are Aedan and me eating lunch together on Tuesday afternoon. He likes to take advantage of eating at the counter since there are just two people and two stools.

The other "first" that happened on Tuesday was the first meeting of our new small group. SWC is trying to kick-start small groups, and Ben offered to help Brooks go through the papers and try to organize groups. Ben and I were willing to lead one, and we wanted to get something started quickly, before Owen were to arrive, if possible. We figured it would be easier for people to commit to a group if it started at the same time everything else starts at the beginning of the school year. We had three other couples coming over to our house with their kids, along with a babysitter to help us with childcare. We had everyone bring some food to share so we could eat shortly after everyone arrived at 5:30. It was a beautiful night, so we sent the kids outside to play in the back yard. Then, the adults were able to sit and talk, get to know each other a little better, and make plans for how our group is going to meet. It seemed like everyone was on the same page and that everyone was interested in committing to a small group. We are excited about this starting up, as we have always been involved in small groups, and it's been weird not being in one since we've moved to the U.P. 

On Wednesday night, another new thing started for the kids: AWANA. It's a pretty big thing around here, and a lot of people we know send their kids. We didn't do it last year because Aedan was too little and Samantha was needing to adjust to full day kindergarten, but we had planned on doing it this year. Whenever we talked about going to AWANA, Aedan kept calling it Moana, like the Disney movie. Neither of the kids knew what to expect since we haven't done anything like this before. We ate an early dinner so we could get to the church and get the kids registered and where they were supposed to be. Ben and I thought we would be free to go, but they ended up having an orientation meeting for the Cubbies so they could explain to parents a little bit about how their time would go and explain a little about the book. We were going to leave after that, but I was then invited to stay for a women's Bible study of moms that meet while their kids are at AWANA each week. I decided this would be a great opportunity for me, so I stayed and Ben drove back home. The worst thing about AWANA is that it goes until 8:00, which is half an hour past our kids' bed time. With having small group going until around 7:30 the night before, this meant that the kids will have two late nights in a row during the week. However, we feel that both things are important, both for our kids, for us as a family, and for Ben and I as a couple. The kids had a good time at their first AWANA meeting. Samantha was still battling her cold and has been exceptionally tired the whole week, so it was hard for her to keep it together until 8:00. It will take her awhile to get adjusted to this new routine, and hopefully she will kick her cold soon which will help her as well.

I knew my time of being with just Aedan was coming to a close, with my due date of September 17th fast approaching. Even though I was extremely tired on Thursday morning, I decided to get out of the house and take Aedan to Point Iroquois Lighthouse. It was going to be a nice, warm day, and he loves going to the lighthouse, climbing up the stairs to the tower, and playing with rocks down by the shore. We had a fun Mommy-Aedan day, and it was wonderful to spend more meaningful time with him like this. (Little did I know it would be our last outing together before Owen would arrive.) Here are some pictures from our morning together. I got some really cute pictures of him smiling. He doesn't always smile for pictures, but these are pretty adorable.

On our way back, I decided to stop at Superior Pizza in Brimley for ice cream. Even though it was pretty much lunch time, I decided it would be a fun thing for Aedan and I to do together. He got Superman ice cream in a cone and was super proud of himself for being able to hold it and eat it all by himself like a big kid. We got to sit outside on the patio in the warm sunshine while we ate our ice cream. It was a great end to our morning.

We got back home later than we should have, meaning I got Aedan down for his nap later than I should have. He's been giving me a little more trouble lately with calming down for nap time. Sometimes it takes him over an hour to fall asleep, and I will have to go in his room a couple times to remind him to go to sleep and to stop talking and playing with Happy Bear and blankie. On this particular day, Aedan did not take a nap at all, and I ended up just getting him up because the contractor was coming to install the door downstairs in the basement anyways. It's frustrating when he resists napping all afternoon, but it doesn't happen very often, for which I am glad.

Here is the final result of the new door separating our bedroom from the other bedroom that is now Owen's room. Now we have privacy and when he begins sleeping in his own room, we will have a way to separate ourselves so as not to wake him up or feel like we always have to be tip-toeing around. The door is not the same natural wood color as our closet doors, but if we stay in this house long-term, we are planning on painting all the doors white anyways, so we will just leave it for now. It's nice that we finally got someone to take care of this for us, especially just before my due date.

Most days when Samantha gets home from school, she heads right outside to play. She loves to play in the back yard with Izzy, to swing and climb on the play set, and to just have time to herself to unwind after a busy day at school. On this particular afternoon, Samantha was outside swinging to her heart's content, singing at the top of her lungs the song, "This is Amazing Grace." I loved hearing her singing, boldly proclaiming about Jesus' love and grace, with no inhibition or worry.

That evening after dinner, we went over to campus to let the kids ride their bikes around. This is one of their favorite activities, and one of the many reasons I love living right across the street from campus. It's like an extension of our own back yard, and the kids love exploring and riding around on the sidewalks. Here is Aedan posing with the large anchor. He asked me to take his picture. :)

As I get closer and closer to my due date, I have definitely been feeling more and more uncomfortable. With the warmer weather, my feet and hands have gotten very swollen. I feel huge, and I have not been sleeping as well either. In fact, Saturday morning I was woken up by a contraction at about 6:00 a.m. It seemed slightly stronger than a Braxton-Hicks contraction, but nothing that made me too concerned.

We had plans to go to the Bush Plane Heritage Festival in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario that morning. It looked like a fun event with characters the kids could meet, bounce houses, face painting, and other fun activities for kids. We had always wanted to visit the Bush Plane Museum anyways, so this was a good excuse to go. Here are the kids sitting in the back of a bush plane.

Here they are posing with a beaver.

Samantha wanted her picture taken with this girl dressed up as Belle, even though she made a comment about her dress not being as fancy as the Belle at Disney World.

They had this cool ropes adventure course set up for the kids to try out, and Samantha was very interested in this. They got them harnessed and strapped in, and they got to hold on to the ropes as they were tethered from up above and climb from one log to the next, or then from logs to tires. The man underneath helped hold the objects steady as she walked, but she crossed the course with much determination.

Aedan wasn't too little to try it out, so he wanted to follow right behind Sissy. However, he was a little more unsure about how to do it. He couldn't reach up as high on the ropes to hold on, and his legs are shorter so they couldn't step out as far as Samantha's could. Nevertheless, he did the first section really well. When he got to the second section with the tires, it was a little too scary for him, and he wanted to turn back around and get down. We were really proud of him for trying it and being so brave.

The Bush Plane Museum had lots of different planes that the kids could go inside and try out. This one where Aedan got to pretend to be the pilot was particularly fun.

One of Aedan's favorite parts of the day was getting to meet Spider Man! I love how he is even posing like Spider Man for the picture. Aedan loved it.

The kids got to go on a little train ride, and Aedan thought it was pretty cool that he got to ride in the very back of the train car all by himself. Samantha thought it was fun as well, although she was worried about her little brother behind her that she couldn't see.

Here is Samantha posing with some sort of beauty pageant queen.

More pictures inside planes...

Samantha with Smokey the Bear...

They had a wonderful time jumping and sliding on the several bounce houses. They always have fun together. It's great to watch them smile and laugh. This was definitely worth a trip over to Canada.

They did a few bush plane demonstrations over the water, but I was the only one that got to see it because the kids wanted to wait in line to get their faces painted.

The line for the face painting was really long. (We should have waited when we first got there so it wasn't as long of a line.) Anyways, Aedan decided he wanted to look like Spider Man, and he did a great job sitting and waiting patiently as his face was painted.

He was so proud of the way he looked, so proud in fact that he wanted to go find Spider Man so he could show him his face paint.

Samantha decided she wanted to be painted like a butterfly, so here she is as a beautiful, pink butterfly. Both of them were really excited to see what they looked like.

After spending the morning over in Canada, we did everything we wanted to do at the Bush Plane Festival, and we decided to go get burgers for lunch before heading back home. As the morning progressed, I continued to have contractions, and they definitely seemed different than the Braxon Hicks contractions I've had on and off for many weeks. When we got to the restaurant to eat, Ben suggested that I start timing my contractions using the app on my phone because it seemed like they were happening more frequently and were a little more uncomfortable. I feel like I was kind of in denial of this being the actual start of labor. I just assumed that it was going to be like it was with Samantha and Aedan where I had contractions for a few hours for a few days before anything consistent happened. However, as the afternoon went on, so did my contractions. I carried on with the rest of the day like normal with nap time and our usual Saturday activities, continuing to time them on the phone. Once it got to be evening and my contractions were continuing whether I was sitting or walking around, we decided to let Ben's parents know that my contractions started, but they were still 10-15 minutes apart, somewhat sporadic, and not painful yet. We did not encourage them to head to our house, but instead told them that we would keep them informed as the night went on, or if anything changed. I tried to go to bed like normal that night, hoping or thinking that my contractions would just go away. However, that was not the case at all. In fact, I couldn't go to sleep at all because the contractions were just too uncomfortable for me to sleep through them. I was beginning to think that this really might be the true start of my labor, and that Owen would make his entrance into the world sooner that we all thought. The ironic thing was all of these contractions started on September 16th, the day before my due date. With Samantha and Aedan both coming late, we did not anticipate him coming right around his due date. More to come on the next blog post about the progress of my labor and the birth of our son, Owen. :)

(Blog about September 12-16, 2017)