Halloween happenings

We enjoyed various Halloween festivities throughout October:

We paraded.

For the third year in a row, the girls participated in the Hampstead Women's Club Halloween event.  Princess costumes were the obvious choice.  The girls paraded around the streets of the Hampstead village with the other children, collecting treats along the way.  The parade concluded with all the children and parents taking in a movie at the local cinema. 

We carved.

While the girls were on their school break and I was about to pop a baby, to occupy ourselves we had some fun carving jack-o-lanterns.  The favorite part for both girls was watching me pull out all the pumpkin guts.

We baked and decorated.

One child added frosting and sprinkles.

One child ate the frosting and sprinkles.

We partied.

Olivia's classmates (twins turning 5) had a birthday party on Halloween.  Costumes for children and adults were encouraged.  The girls wanted to go as insects - a ladybug and a bumblebee - and Quinn had a skeleton outfit so Geoff and I decided to pull together costumes to complete the family dress up.  My costume was easy.  I went as myself...momma of a newborn baby.  Geoff's coworker randomly had a dinosaur costume in his office that he left Geoff borrow so we were set. 

Side note: the highlight of the dinosaur costume was Geoff coming him from work with the costume and putting it on before he walked in the door.  Hearing the door open, Ashton ran towards the door to greet Daddy, but instead spotting a dinosaur instead, she started shrieking.  Poor thing was shaking in fear while the rest of us were shaking in laughter at her reaction.  Such compassionate parents we are.   

Our family took home the party prize for best costumes. I really think it was more a prize for effort for showing up to the party at all, let alone in costumes, with a 9 day old baby.  Either way, we'll take it!

We trick-or-treated.

After the birthday party ended, we took the girls trick or treating.  This was our first time trick or treating in London.  I can't believe the last time we did it Olivia was only 13 months old!  Halloween isn't nearly as popular here as it is in the States so we had to search the neighborhood streets a bit for homes participating, but we eventually found enough.  It took them a little while to get the hang of saying "Trick or Treat" when people opened their front doors, but they got it.  By the last house. 

Boy oh Boy!

Welcoming to the world
Quinton Benedict Streit
Thursday, October 22, 2015 at 3:13 pm
7 lbs/3.18 kg

Our little man is almost four weeks old already.  It seems like he has been in our family forever.  We all are absolutely smitten with him. 

So before I get into his birth story, let's back up 9 months.  We found out I was pregnant in late February.  Similar to my first two pregnancies, thankfully I experienced no morning sickness and felt nauseous maybe once for 30 seconds.  I only had the general fatigue that comes along with the first trimester and that also comes with chasing around two small, active girls. 

Here is a quick video that we sent our families when I was 10 weeks along, right before we took our big trek to Southeast Asia, announcing our exciting news with the caption "This is what Ashton thinks about becoming the middle child":

Our announcement to the rest of the world

We had the ultrasound scheduled on May 14th to find out the gender.  Geoff was out of the country on business so he wasn't able to come to the appointment with me.  Rather than find out without him, I asked my doctor to circle the gender on a slip of paper and seal it in an envelope.  Geoff's birthday was that weekend, so to celebrate we went out to dinner and opened the envelope together at the conclusion of our meal.  Our poor waiter was probably confused as to why we were crying and laughing at the same time when he brought out the desserts.  We would have been happy with a third girl, but we both were hoping to add little Geoffrey Jr. into the mix.

Ashton excitement, or lack thereof, of get a baby brother

The rest of my pregnancy went pretty smoothly.  I had a lot more aches and pains this time around, primarily in my legs, than I did with my others.  I'm sure it was combination of it being my 3rd pregnancy, being older and keeping very active throughout.  

27 weeks 

Baby Boy at 30 weeks

35 weeks

When I went in for my 39 weeks prenatal check up, I was measuring 3 cm dilated.  My doctor suggested I schedule a time later in the week to go in and have him break my water to force labor to start if I didn't go into labor on my own before then.  So we scheduled it for the morning of October 22, three days before my due date.  

On the morning of Oct. 22, we arrived at the hospital at 8:30 and got settled into the labor room.  An hour later, my doctor arrived and broke my water.  After monitoring me and Baby for about 45 minutes, they told us that we were free to leave the hospital until my labor intensified.  So Geoff and I had ourselves ourselves a coffee date at Starbucks down the street from the hospital. From there, we wandered over to nearby Regent's Park and took in the fall flowers and beautiful foliage. By then, my labor was definitely underway and my contractions were growing stronger.  We arrived back to the hospital around 12:15 and got settled into the room again.  Three hours later, Quinton make his grand appearance into the world at 3:13 pm.  

Our plan was for Geoff to go home and bring the girls to the hospital so they could meet their brother.  However, shortly before he left as I was feeding Quinn, I looked down at him from my conversation with Geoff and he was all blue/purple from being cold.  We called the nurse who quickly took him and placed him under a heater to get him warmed up.  He did warm up some and his pink colored returned but when the pediatrician arrived to assess him, she determined he had mild hypothermia and wanted to get him into an incubator immediately and leave him in there overnight for observation.  So our plans to bring the girls in that evening had to be scratched.  They were pretty disappointed but between photos on Daddy's phone of Quinn and pasta for dinner at a local restaurant, that made things better.

By mid morning the next day, they were able to release Quinn from the incubator and bring him to my room which meant the girls could come see him.  When they arrived, they anxiously looked at him sleeping (Their response: "He's so little." "He's so cute.") before quickly moving on to scope out all the exciting things a hospital room contains, like endless buttons and a bed that goes up and down. 

One of the meanings of the name Quinn is Five and his middle name Benedict means blessed.  Both meanings are appropriate for him as he is the fifth member of our family and we are so, so blessed to have a healthy baby boy.

At home