#heartmamadiaries | LIFE AT THE RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE

For those of you who don't follow my instagram or have me as a facebook friend, I think a little blog update is in need! On Monday morning we packed up the van and kids and pulled out of our driveway ready to relocate to Edmonton. We had our hotel booked at $77.00/night, and were still holding out hope that we would hear from the Ronald McDonald House ($12/night) in the next couple of weeks. Well, we we didn't even make it outside of our little town when we got the call! The RMH had a room ready for us! We laughed and I cried and we quickly canceled our hotel reservation and hit the road! God is so good you guys! I can't say it enough!

Since arriving, we have been absolutely blown away by everything they do here at the house. There are really no words. I honestly don't think you could ever understand it unless you came and saw it for yourself. I think the food alone would blow your mind. 

The kids have been having a fantastic time exploring and playing and making new friends. Being out of regular routine has it's novelties and a downside (meltdown central), but overall they're doing really great. We are so thankful to be here and have some special family time together before Iver arrives and things get a little more complicated.

And now, I'll bomb you with cute pics of the kids and our time so far at the RMH.

Stay tuned for another post update on appointments etc.

I'm much too tired to do that right now!

Thank you again for your cotinued prayers.

OUR TOTSCHOOL ADVENTURE BEGINS

First day of TOT SCHOOL! What a handsome hippo!

As you know, Mark is a school teacher. However, we're still not 100% sure that we will send our kids to public school. We might, in fact, in some form or shape, homeschool! I've slowly started doing some research on what homeschooling could look like for our family, and while doing so, came across "Tot School" (Pre-pre-school at home). Basically all it is, is intentional learning through play and reading. Super basic, every day learning with purpose! You can learn more about what it is by visiting our "Tot School" page. Anyway, as you can see we're going to give it a go. Here are some snaps of what that's looked like for us this week!

Exploring letters learning about magnets, while working on fine motor skills.

Simply using a metal pan and some scrabble magnets!

Our colour of the month is red, and this little activity was Thaddeus' favourite. I don't have a printer, so I've been making all his activities by hand. All we did here was make some circles, and stick some red-themed stickers in the middle of them. Colour recognition and fine motor skills!

This was simply a handy little fine motor activity to keep him occupied while I unloaded the dishwasher. I wrapped a bunch of toys in tin foil, and he unwrapped them. Then we found all the red ones (our colour of the month). But his favourite part was finding "Stega"!

Totschooling is easy when you have a cute little helper!

Our letter of the week is "A", and our colour of the month is red, so we originally tried making some apple (A!) stamps by dipping and stamping half an apple, but it was much too slippery. So finger painting it is!

He loved it, of course!

His finished piece!

Here you can see some of the activities we did to learn more about the letter A and the colour red.

Every month we are going to focus on a certain colour, and every week we will be focusing on a different letter. We are following along with "Songs for Saplings ABC", an awesome album designed to teach Scripture to little ones. Our verse this week is Psalm 17:8 "Keep me as the apple of your eye", which coincides with the letter A! I'm so thankful to have found Songs for Saplings. It's the perfect tool to use for our totschool year.

Seriously, cutest helper in the world right here! This also counts for a late 8 month picture!

Just wanted to share that I made him stand on his change table to get this pic. Heehee!

I also put a bunch of hats on my head so he'd look at me and smile. SUCCESS!

Follow our totschooling adventure here on the blog and on instagram! Be sure to check our TOTSCHOOL page where I will keep track of all our totschool posts.

Juliet Noelle Westman

This is the story of how our beautiful Juliet came into the world! It was such an amazing day.

I started with contractions at 9:16 PM on December 28th, 2014. I was SO excited! At this point I was 7 days overdue and very ready to have a baby!

Mark and I left for the Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon at around 12:30 AM on December 29th, once my contractions were coming every 4 minutes and lasting about 50 seconds each. We were already staying in Saskatoon, where my mom was able to watch Thaddeus for us. Thank goodness baby decided to arrive before my mom had to fly home to Ottawa!

We were so excited to meet our daughter, and also so so tired. It was such a different experience labouring in the middle of the night this time around! Luckily Mark was able to take a good snooze. I was even able to nod off in between contractions - they honestly weren't very bad!

I knew I wanted an epidural (best thing evvvver), but when the nurse asked me if I was ready for one, I said no. I wasn't hardly in any pain! Not even close to the pain I had with Thaddeus. When she asked me the second time, I just took it so that I wouldn't miss my chance, around 6:30 AM. After that, my contractions slowed a bit so they put me on some oxytocin and broke my waters at about 9:30 AM.  Then my contractions started coming stronger and closer together - but since I had already had my epidural, I felt no pain. Just a lot of pressure. 

At about 10:15 AM I was getting pretty close. The nurse told me to ring her if I felt like pushing. She said, "I bet we'll have this baby by 11:40!", and walked out the room. I literally had ONE contraction a minute later, and had to ring her right away!

They called the doctor and got me all set up for delivery. They helped me breathe through a few contractions (in order to try and wait for the doc), until I couldn't wait any longer. The doctor arrived JUST in time! I pushed painlessly (thanks to my amazing anesthetist) for 6 minutes, and at 10:31 AM our beautiful and healthy Juliet Noelle entered the world, in the very same room which we welcomed her older brother a year and a half ago.

At birth, Juliet was 8lbs, 11 1/2oz, and 22 5/8in long. They were very precise lol. She was bigger than Thaddeus was, but she was also cooking an extra 8 days! She had a full head of dark brown hair, which explained the constant heartburn since my first trimester! She cried out only once after being born, and just stared up at me ever so peacefully as she lay on my stomach. She didn't even cry during her examination.

The nursing staff was amazing and waited as long as they could to do all the newborn tests so that I could breastfeed her right in the delivery room. This pro latched on strong first try! I did't even have to adjust her once. 

Once we were settled upstairs in our postpartum room, Thaddeus and Nana came to meet Juliet for the first time.

Thaddeus was so sweet! He just showered her in kisses again and again!

Nana was pretty happy she didn't miss it! It was about time she decided to arrive!

And that ends my collection of cell phone pictures!

Here is Juliet getting her first bath by the nurse.

Right from the beginning, this girl of ours has loved to sleep. AMEN! (Thaddeus was not IS NOT a sleeper!)

We later discovered that Juliet has a really cool patch of bright blonde hair on the back of her head! It will be so neat to see if it stays her whole life. One of the nurses got really excited and said, "Have you seen Frozen?!?!". 

Such an awesome day, and a dream birth for me! Juliet and I stayed one night at the hospital, and were discharged on the 30th. We were so happy! We were in the hospital for 5 days with Thaddeus. 

We stayed a couple more days in Saskatoon before heading home to Beauval. Here are some of her first pictures at the apartment in Saskatoon. She didn't fit in this newborn sleeper for long!

Skin-to-skin snuggles with daddy, watching some basketball.

She has the longest skinny feet! Can't wait to see what those feet can do to some fiddle music!

Juliet will be 3 weeks old on Monday. It has been a really smooth transition since coming home. Mostly because she is a great sleeper! I'm so not used to this!! I was definitely expecting a baby just like Thaddeus, so this has been way easier than I ever imagined. We are so blessed and so in love!