The birth day

Well, we went from here...

...to here in about 30 minutes.  The whole thing was 3 1/2 hours.  You can only slightly tell from this picture, but he was pretty bruised up from his quick trip through the birth canal.  You can see it more in later pictures, but it really cleared up in about 24 hours.  
Labor coach  (and everything else) #1

Labor coach #2

 Having a little heart to heart about how nursing needs to go...he totally listened!

Introductions.  Margaret's first comment was, "Cuuuuute."  And then she started identifying body parts.

I guess most babies look like boxers - all swollen and tight fisted.  That's why my dad got the nickname Scrapper.  But he really has the boxer pose here.


She was really there for the food.

Seriously out numbered.



She's really been that attentive ever since he got here.


Welcome to the world, Henry Fletcher!


Labor project

I just remembered Mike had a few pictures on his phone.  This was project "Go Into Labor" beach walk.
 The project posse - plus Joe and Olivia whom Mike had taken to the bathroom.  Not sure where Greta is???


Posse in the dark, plus the enormous full moon I was counting on to put me into labor.  No dice.

Symmetry

It's called symmetry of the B's - when your butt sticks out as far as your belly.

 In case you couldn't quite see it - the other side.
This was the morning of the evening it all started.  We tried hard all week to go into labor - beach walking, neighborhood walking while stroller pushing, swimming, stationary bike, you name it.  On labor day Mike took us to Presidio Park.  Among its great features is a little cannon scattered with trails.  I hauled my sorry self up and down that canyon for about 45 minutes.  And still couldn't get a contraction!  By late evening, however, they began to roll in.  Water broke at 1 a.m.  Arrived at hospital triage by 2:30.  L and D by 3:30. Henry at 4:30.  And to this day we have never delivered a baby with a doctor present.  Olivia arrived by midwife and the rest came with the help of the L/D nurses.  Actually, they arrive more with the help of Mike and my mom for the last two - the nurses just caught them...(and cleaned up and made sure everything was as it should be - certainly don't mean to minimize their roll - we still talk about Ruth, Greta's delivery nurse.)

What a night!  Henry Fletcher McBride. 8# 2 ounces.  21 inches long.  He's actually 3 weeks old today - pictures to come!

Change is acomin'...

And she has no idea...


Libary cards

They're official.  Hopefully they won't have the same "issue" with fines that their mother has had.

Kids' turn

We had Gracie come back and do a little lesson for the neighborhood kids.  First they sketched out what they wanted to paint.
 Then they painted their backdrop of a sky and grass.
 Then Gracie did a quick color wheel lesson because they were only given primary colors and would need to mix if they wanted others.


 The one cloudy day we had in months - so we had to use the hair dryer.
 Would it work as finger nail polish??

Backyard Box Gardens

We started here.  They were supposed to be themed gardens.  Olivia chose a butterfly garden and Joe chose a pizza garden.  Only problem was our i.d. sheet for what we planted in the egg carton got wet or lost or something and we had to guess what we were planting where the boxes.  And, the squash and pumpkin seeds we saved from last year were not labeled, so it is all a big mystery what will come up.  Kind of exciting really.

 We knew we would need to transplant the pumpkins at some point, so the kids cleaned out our strip of dirt.  They were standing in that trench up their thighs just before we filled it in.  Forgot to get a picture of that.




We'll keep you posted on the harvest or any butterfly sightings.



No longer JUST a pedestrian

Watch your shins and toes.




Sister love

Sometimes she is so compliant.


Creative outlet

A month ago I asked our friend and art teacher Gracie to come over and do an art lesson for some friends and neighbors.  She taught us how to modge podge fabric to canvas to make a picture.  I completely forgot to take pictures until the last few were leaving.  Bummer, because it was a great mess of fabric and chattering women all over the place.  Don't know if you can see the end products very well in these pictures, but they were great!  The bottom one is mine - I did it on four separate canvases.
(And I know that what you really want to see are pictures of Henry, but I need to do a blogging blitz and get caught up first.  I'll work fast (as I can), I promise.)