Floriade

Every year in Canberra they have a flower festival called Floriade. Every year since we moved here I have wanted to go but have never been able to. The first year Nate went on a day I was working and last year we were in the Philippines. I was excited to be in town this year and not working. I knew I especially had to go since this will be our last spring in Australia (have I mentioned before we are moving back to the US? We are! At the end of November). Liam's whole school was going on an excursion to Floriade so Jonas, Adele and I went and met up with him for a little while.

There are flowers everywhere planted to make different shapes (butterfly, shooting star, rainbow, etc).







I could have walked around all day looking at the flowers. Jonas was not so interested. Luckily they had a Kid's Corner with a petting zoo (even though he wouldn't touch any of the animals) and play area.







They also have a garden gnome painting contest. I heard some other Floriade go-ers talking about it and they said you buy the unpainted gnomes from somewhere, paint them however you want and submit them. They had a large display of the best from each age group.

Submarine Birthday Party

We finally got around to having a birthday party for Liam and since Jonas' birthday already passed as well we made it a combined party. They have most of the same friends anyways so it worked out well. Liam wanted a submarine party so we turned it into a submarine/underwater party.

We made a submarine pinata:




Had sea animal cupcakes -complete with fondant animals:

ha ha, just kidding. I just bought some little plastic animals to stick on the cupcakes.

Played pass the parcel and some other games:

There were a total of 20 kids! (2 had to leave before this picture was taken)

Note to future self: only invite the number of kids you think you can handle!!!
I let Liam invite 6 kids from class, a bunch from church and 4 who live out on our street that they play with all the time. I figured maybe half of the people would be able to come but all but 2 came! It was a bit out of control at times but I think they all had fun.

165 photos later...

we finally got one!

Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a 6 week old to lay still, look at the camera without any funny facial expressions, eyes open, arms out of shot with enough lighting on their face? 165 photos should give you a clue. It took us 3 "photo sessions" to get this shot and even then I was nervous we would get to the US Consulate and they would say there was something wrong with it. Happily there were no problems (at the Consulate anyways...we did get a flat tire while we were in Sydney).

Here are a few more out takes...

Passport Photo Rejects

Big Brothers

I need to start off by asking when did Jonas get so big?! Just a few weeks ago he was my little baby boy and now all of a sudden he is a huge (nearly 4 year old) boy. Every time I look at him I am shocked at what a big boy he has become overnight!

Jonas loves his little sister. He especially loves to give her kisses and rub her fluffy hair. Sometimes he asks to hold her but can only sit still for a few minutes before he is ready to hand her off to someone else and get back to running around. When she was first born and would cry he told me she was fake crying (because there were no tears). Now when she cries he just says, "Adele, stop crying!" or he'll try and give her a pacifier.


Liam is such a proud brother. Every time I walk into the room with Adele he makes sure to tell her hi and how cute she is, even when she is asleep. After school one of the first things he wants to do is hold Adele. When he was sick a couple weeks ago he wasn't able to hold her and I think that was worse to him than not feeling well.

He thinks she is the most hilarious thing because of the way she moves her arms and legs and often comments about how she just "stares at nothing". He loves it that she will grab onto his finger while he holds her. They have decided that Jonas' job is to teach her to walk and Liam's job is to teach her to run.

Liam and Jonas have both been so good with Adele. She is a very lucky girl to have such great big brothers!

Quick Update

I haven't been on in a while. Not that I wouldn't like to have been posting pictures of our sweet little Adele but we have had a few other things going on.

It all started the Saturday (August 2) after Adele was born. Nate went to play indoor cricket with a bunch of guys from church and while he was playing he fell on his left arm. He kept playing but by the time he got home he was in a lot of pain and couldn't straighten his arm. After talking with some friends about what they thought he should do he went to the emergency room. 5 hours later he came home...

They took some x-rays and said it wasn't broken...then said it was broken but they'll have to send him to a specialist (in 10 days) to find out for sure. By Tuesday he had run out of pain medication so was in a lot of pain and was running a high fever and feeling pretty terrible. He called the Dr and she said to come in right away because there could be an infection. They determined that the fever was not related to the arm injury but he was probably getting the flu (oh joy!). They also redid the cast because you can see in the photo above that they stopped way before his wrist so it is just hanging there. Too bad the new cast went all the way down to his fingers making it impossible to type with two hands (we took a saw to it and fixed that ourselves). By Thursday we were sure he had strep throat so we took him into the health centre on campus. The Dr there said it was a very severe case so he put Nate on a pretty high dose of antibiotics to hopefully help him feel better soon. He is now feeling much better, the throat spots are gone and he just found out from the specialist today that there is definitely a small fracture in the radius bone really close to the joint. He doesn't have to wear a cast but it will need to be in a sling and he will have to be really careful with it for the next 6 weeks.

Recovery from giving birth had been going really well for me but just before she was born I caught a cold that just seemed to get worse. While Nate was sick and broken I was feeling pretty terrible myself. Mostly with a sore throat, congestion and a nagging cough that made it hard to sleep (when I wasn't getting much sleep already!). Then on Friday night (August 6) things got much worse. On top of my cold I was having pain in my stomach and back, chills, hot flashes, throwing up and dizziness. First thing Saturday morning we got the kids to a friends house and went to the emergency room. Within 10 minutes they had me in a bed hooked up to an IV, telling me they were going to admit me for a few days. Turns out I had an infection in my uterus. So I spent a couple of nights in the hospital being pumped full of fluids and antibiotics. They released me Monday with another 10 days worth of antibiotics. I am feeling much better now but know I need to take it easy for a while. Now if I could just get rid of this cough!

Liam with his "sick kid" hair

Sunday night (the day after Nate's arm injury) Liam was complaining that his eye hurt. It was pretty obvious right away that he had conjunctivitis so we had to call the clinic first thing that morning to try and get him an appointment for that knowing that he wouldn't be able to go back to school until he started on some eye drops. It was kind of funny (not really) but they wanted to know if we could be there in 20 minutes and because Nate was on pain medication and only had one arm he couldn't drive but I had to feel Adele right then. So all 5 of us had to pile into our car, I had to drive them to the Dr, park and feed Adele and then pick them up after. Then we had to go the pharmacy of course. It was quite a morning! The Dr said he wouldn't be able to go to school until Thursday. :( On Thursday he still seemed to have a little bit of stuff in his eyes and they weren't totally clear so we thought we would wait until Friday and keep going with the drops. Have you ever tried to put eye drops in a 6 year old eye? Not fun. By Friday he was looking much better and got to go to school. Yay! When he went to school on Monday he seemed fine but after a couple of hours Nate got a call from the school saying Liam was in "sick bay" and needed to be picked up. Conveniently that was right around the time I was being released from the hospital. He did have a pretty high fever but by today he is feeling mostly better and hasn't had a fever at all. We kept him home from school just in case and hopefully he will be 100% tomorrow.

So tired he fell asleep in front of the heater

Jonas has had a cold for what seems like weeks. Poor guy has been coughing and had a runny nose. One day he was scratching his arms and complaining of them itching. I lifted up his sleeves and he had a rash all over them. I lifted his pant legs too and his legs were covered as well. By bedtime they were gone and we still have no idea what caused them. It was so strange.


And on top of all of that we have a brand new baby in the house! Adele didn't escape the sickness either. Her little nose is congested and she has a bit of a cough. It doesn't seem to bother her too much though.

So it has been a pretty tough time for our family. If it hadn't been for the great friends we have here I am not sure how we would have gotten through it. We have had tons of meals brought in, people coming to clean and taking the kids for us. All week I kept thinking to myself that it couldn't possibly get any worse because what else could go wrong...and then something else would go wrong. So, I don't want to jinx us by saying things seem to be getting better but I think they might be.

Sorry, there was nothing quick about that update...

The Birth

I woke up Sunday (the 25th) having contractions but I'd had lots of contractions before that didn't lead to anything so I went to church as normal. They mostly went away during church until 11:30 am when I was in sharing time. I was having enough that I decided to write them down to see how far apart they were. Right around 12 minutes. By the time we got around to leaving they were coming much closer together. They were so close that I had 2 on the car ride home (its only about 10 minutes). I think that was when I realized this was probably the day. At one point they were 5-7 minutes apart so we called our friend Monique who was going to look after Liam and Jonas for us while we went to the hospital. She came and picked them up to stay for the night so I could labor at home as long and I needed and then leave for the hospital when we were ready. I was sure that with contractions 5 minutes apart we would be leaving soon but for the next 7 hours I only had around 10 contractions an hour.

Mid-contraction

By 8:30 pm they were close enough together and strong enough that I wanted to go to the hospital. I really didn't want to have the baby at home because we waited too long to leave. When we got to the birthing suite there were no other ladies there. I was shocked how quiet it was. They got us settled in our room and then we waited for the midwife to come in. We talked about pain options (nitrous oxide, pethidine and epidural), my birthing plan (or lack thereof) and then waited. She said they liked to see that you are having 3 contractions in 10 minutes and I was not so there was a little talk of sending me home. I wanted her to check me and see if I had dilated at all. I could tell she didn't really want to but agreed to check me at 10:30 pm. I was only dilated to a 4. I thought for sure I would have been a little further! The contractions were getting much stronger and although I was thinking I would try it without an epidural I was having my doubts that I could do it if I was only a 4 (maybe that's why they don't like to let you know how far dilated you are?). I decided to try the Nitrous Oxide even though it seemed like the strangest thing to me. You suck on this tube of gas during contractions. It didn't really do much for me so she turned it up more. After probably an hour of sucking on the tube and still not feeling like it was doing anything for me, I gave it up. It was mostly just annoying me. I felt like I had done a pretty good job of controlling my breathing and staying relaxed and calm through the contractions on my own but while breathing in the gas you have to breathe in hard. It was making me more tense than anything.

All of a sudden there was no break between contractions. They were really intense but because I had been only a 4 not too long before I thought I still had a long way to go. I was debating whether or not to try the Pethidine but I remember having it with Jonas and not liking it. It mostly just made me drowsy. Before long it was too late. During contractions my body just started pushing - something I never experienced before because I had epidurals with both Liam and Jonas. The midwife shouted out, "Are you pushing?" I thought I was in trouble because I wasn't dilated enough. I said, "I'm not trying to!" but she told me it was fine. A few contractions later I could feel her coming out. At 12:18 am (July 26th) she was born. I couldn't see her because I was turned backwards leaning over the back of the bed but Nate said, "It's a girl!" I almost started crying right then because I was so excited it really was a girl.

I got to hold her while the midwife took care of things (no tearing!). We were amazed at her dark hair and dark eyes! From 1-3 I fed her and then after that was able to take a shower while they weighed and measured her. 7 lbs 12 oz and 19 inches long.

Adele's first picture!

We had to move to another room for the rest of the stay. I had been worried that I would have to share a room with another woman or other women but because things were so slow that night I had the room all to myself. Nate still wasn't able to stay even though there was an extra bed. Poor guy didn't get home until after 4 am. After she got settled, Adele slept pretty well. I know I should have slept too but I mostly just wanted to look at her. I think I only got 2 hours of sleep that night. I told them I wanted to leave that day (the 26th) so they made arrangements to get the hearing check and baby physical done early that morning. By noon we checked out and were on our way home after only 15 hours in the hospital total.