Weekend in Cleveland

Friday afternoon we made our first trip to Cleveland as a family of five. Unfortunately we had to do it in two trips, Rylan and me in my car and Chris and the boys in his car, because Chris had to stay until Monday evening and Jake and Brenden had to be back for school and I needed to back to coach on Monday.

The weekend overall was very low key, just a lot of relaxing and spending time with Chris' family. We got visits from Jim, Aunt Susie, (Aunt) Meredith, (Uncle) Todd, and Dylan. We arrived Friday evening and the kids and I left on Sunday night at bedtime. The kids got to go on an adventure Saturday morning to Chagrin falls with Grandma and Grandman. Chris got to spend some time with Jim and see lots of people at the Browns game on Sunday. And I spent most of my time laying around with Rylan, which was very nice. All in all, a very good weekend.

We had a very nice time with everyone, but I would have to say our visits with Meredith and Dylan were the highlight. Dylan was born last year in late October and I have been a very bad Aunt and just got to meet him for the first time on this trip. It was so nice to finally meet the little guy! The boys had met Dylan a couple of times on visits to Cleveland with Chris and were eager to see him again. On both Saturday and Sunday Jake was so eager for a visit from "Aunt Mer and Baby Dylan" that he kept asking me over and over when they were coming and what was taking so long, he's not very patient - probably gets it from me:-) Once they arrived it was a lot of fun to watch all of the boys play together. Jake and Brenden had a lot of fun crawling around on the floor with Dylan and Dylan had a lot of fun trying to get the boys. They were all very good to each other, I wish the boys were as nice to each other as they were with Dylan. I think the three of them will have lots of fun together as they get older. We also introduced Rylan to Dylan, but not too much playing since she's only a month and Dylan doesn't quite understand being gentle just yet. Overall, a very good time for all of us!

Here are some pictures of the boys playing and of Rylan at 1 month old:

Rylan in her Michigan gear getting ready for game time

Just for fun

I thought I'd put up pictures of each of the kids at about one month old:

Jake

Brenden

Rylan

Kindergarten

My little boy is all grown up! Ok, he's not all grown up, but he's getting big and last week he started kindergarten. There were no tears, from either of us, only excitement.

The week before his first day we went to his school to meet his teacher and find out more about what is going on with the bus. At the open house to meet his teacher, all the children sat down for a story about starting new things and how they can be scary. Of course Jake chimed right in to inform his teacher and everyone else that he was not afraid to start kindergarten - made Chris and I very proud. At the open house we were given a small list of items that Jake needed to bring in the first week. We promptly went back to school shopping the next day. We got everything we needed including a very nice Transformers backpack that Jake picked out and he could probably fit inside of :-)

The bus was scheduled to pick up Jake 11:27am and Jake was outside by 11am ready to go. My mom and Chris were able to be here as well to see him off on his first day. When the bus came a woman got off to explain to Jake where to wait for the bus and when he should get on. He listened very well and got on when she was done, he looked so tiny walking up the steps!

After school Jake takes the bus to his old preschool for after school care since I am still coaching when he gets done each day. I picked both him and Brenden up after coaching. Jake told me he had a good day and kindergarten was easier than he thought because, in his words, "we got to play the whole time". I came to find out later that they had had art class as well as play time and he even drew a picture of the whole family at the pool.

He's continuing to like school. He has had 2 homework assignments, gym class, a picnic for all the kindergarteners and their families, and much more. Hopefully this love of school will continue for at least a few more years!

FOOTBALL!

As most of you know Football season is here! And that makes the Eby family quite happy! Chris grew up in Cleveland and is a huge Browns fan and I of course grew up in Ann Arbor and am a huge Michigan fan. We are both very happy when fall rolls around and we're able to watch football all weekend long.

This year Chris was given tickets to the Browns/Lions preseason game from a customer. Since kids of all ages need a ticket to go to an NFL game none of the kids has been to a Browns game. Since Chris was given two tickets and it was a preseason game Chris decided to take Jake to his first Browns game. Of course Jake was very excited and Brenden was very disappointed. Brenden was assured though that he would get to go to a game when he as a little older. Jake and Chris had a good time at the game, but Jake was very displeased with the amount of noise. Apparently he yelled at everyone around him to be quiet, which seems odd to me since he's very loud most of the time :-) Here's a picture of Jake in his Browns jersey, he was ready to go by 10am and the game wasn't until 5pm!

So with the Michigan opener scheduled for September 4th and Rylan's due date September 5th we had been hoping that she would come early so that we could all as a family go to the Michigan opener which was also the Rededication of the Stadium with the construction complete. I was so happy that we were able to make it work and all go to the game. Somehow we all made it down to the stadium and we some how were able to get to our seats right as the game kicked off. The boys even got to see the jets fly over before the game started - very cool for them! Unfortunately I was unable to stay for the whole game, but I was able to get home in time to watch the entire second half. Jake also came home with me, he was very upset with all of the noise, he even started cheering for UConn because "their fans aren't loud". Brenden and Chris stayed through about 3/4 of the game and had a great time. I was unable to get a group just because Jake wouldn't cooperate, but my mom did get a few shots of Rylan in her Michigan gear and one of Brenden at the the game:

So that's been some of our excitement over the past month. I headed back to coaching about 2 weeks after Rylan was born and have had one meet. She's been doing great so far being at the pool everyday, she sleeps the whole time:-) The boys are busy with school. Chris has been busy working and keeping the boys out of my hair so I'm not too crazed all the time. He has also been able to have a break and he's playing Ultimate Frisbee a couple of nights a week since I haven't gone back to coaching at Legacy just yet. Overall we all seem to be adjusting well to being a family of five!

Busy, busy, busy....

I'm finding out very quickly that there is very little free time with three kids! We've been very busy since the arrival of Rylan a month ago, but enjoying (almost) every minute :-)

Where to begin? Well, we've had lots of visitors. My mom flew in from Arizona the day after Rylan was born and stayed for 3 1/2 weeks. She rented a cottage on Portage lake where Brenden had lots of fun getting away from the craziness and he got a chance to be the center of attention for a change.

A few days after Rylan was born Chris' mom and dad came for a visit. They were only able to stay for one night, but the boys had lots of fun playing with Grandman and Grandma got to enjoy some quiet time with her granddaughter. Didn't get any pictures, but we're heading to Cleveland for the weekend tomorrow and I'm sure we'll get some pictures while we're there.

Our next visitors were Pam and Sarah. For those of you that don't know, Pam is my birth mother and Sarah is her daughter and my half-sister. Pam's dad passed away earlier this summer and the family had a service planned back in Michigan for late August. Fortunately for us, Pam and Sarah were able to plan their trip back with a little extra time to come see us, and lucky for them Rylan came early so they could meet her. It was really nice to see them, it had been since Jake was born that we had seen them. Their flight coming in was delayed so we only ended up being able to spend a day catching up and visiting, but it was a full day and it was nice for the boys to be able to meet them. Once again though my camera seems to have been MIA from the visit.

Of course we've also had all of my family that lives here over as well, my brother, dad, aunt and uncle, and grandma (Bama). When Bama came to visit we were able to capture a 4 generations picture:

Its been great to see everyone and have some extra help over this first month. As I said earlier we're headed to Cleveland for the weekend to introduce Rylan to a few more people. She also got to meet a lot of my friends this past weekend at a baby shower for my friend Molly. My mom will be coming back to Michigan in a few weeks, lord knows she can't stay away too long! And I'm sure there will be lots more people to meet Rylan in the coming days, weeks, and months!

Rylan's Arrival

She's finally here! I say that like she was weeks over due, but she was actually 19 days earlier than scheduled - Thank God! I don't know how much longer I could have lasted in all of this hot, humid weather. Even though she was a bit early, she was a healthy 6lbs 11oz and 20.25 inches long.

The labor and delivery were relatively uneventful. My water broke sometime in the early am on the 17th and I called the hospital around 5:30am to let them know and see when I should come in. They told me to take my time and wait for contractions to start and strengthen, but not wait too long since I had a history (with Brenden) of quick labors - I was in labor at the hospital for about an hour and then he was out in less than 2 pushes. Chris and I went to the hospital around 10am after getting the boys situated with my brother - BIG THANKS to him for watching them all day! Once at the hospital they confirmed my water had broken and got us moved from triage to labor and delivery. I let the doctor's know that I wanted my epidural then and not to wait, Brenden came so fast that I wasn't able to get an epidural in time and that was NOT going to happen again. I probably could have gone a while longer without the epidural because my contractions never really got going on their own, but I'm still glad I got it early. Because I wasn't making any progress, stuck at 4 cm for a few hours, we decided to start pitocin to speed things up. I had had pitocin with Jake to regulate my contractions so I didn't hesitate at all to get it started. Once they got me hooked up everything got going and got going fast. Within 2-4 hours I was at 10cm and ready to push and about ten minutes later Rylan was out.

Now for me, its what happened the night before that makes me smile and where the real story of Rylan's birth will be told. There are two parts, the first involves Jake. Over the past month or so we've been telling the boys about their birth stories. We told Jake that he was so excited and ready to come out that he poked a hole in his water sac with his super sharp nails - the kid was all scratched up on his face in the first days from his nails. Since hearing this story Jake started talking to Rylan in my belly and telling her she should "punch a hole in that water bag". Well, on Monday night at bedtime Jake went a little farther in his talk with Rylan. As he was about to tell her once again to punch a whole he stopped and you could see the wheels spinning in his head. He had realized that she might not know how to make a fist and proceeded to tell her how so she could do it right and have it work. He also told her that he loved her and really wanted her to come out. It was really cute to watch this all happen. The next morning when he got up I told him that she had listened to him and that my water had broke and she would be out to meet all of us later that day. The look on Jake's face when I told him that Rylan had listened was priceless. He was so surprised and SO PROUD!

The next part of the story involves Chris. Chris and I had been toying with the idea of painting the kitchen for a while. Since redoing the master bathroom, Chris seemed a little extra motivated to get moving on it and to do it himself. Before I knew it, we had a color almost picked and Chris was getting all of the supplies. Chris spent Sunday taping the kitchen, then Monday we picked a color and he got the paint and began priming and by Monday night he was putting on the first coat of Paint. We had the kitchen all taken apart and Chris wouldn't let me help at all. He continued to work and had gotten the first coat on and everything cleaned and ready to go for the second coat by 12:30am. It was going great, the paint looked good and the boys and I were planning to be at the pool in the morning for practice so Chris could finish the job. Then of course my water broke in the middle of night! You know if he hadn't started painting that night there's no way my water would have broken. He even asked me while he was painting if I was going to go into labor that night and I joked that I wouldn't and thus I probably would. I like to believe that Chris' nesting instincts kicked in and he knew on some level what was going to go down the next day. Needless to say, the kitchen did not get finished on Tuesday, but since everything went fine in delivery and Rylan was healthy, he was able to finish the job on Wednesday before we all came home from the hospital! What a nice welcome home for us:-)

So here we are now on Rylan's 5th day of life and everyone is doing well. We are all enjoying the new addition to the family, the new look in our kitchen, and the fun stories of how Rylan was born. Below are some pictures of Rylan from the hospital and her first days at home and of course a before and after shot of the kitchen, ENJOY!

Before: After:

Rylan and Family:

Jumping and Diving

I took both of the boys to the pool this afternoon since it was about 90 degrees with about the same humidity. It felt great to get in the pool! After a busy afternoon with the boys, it was a great way to end the day and I got not one, but two surprises from my boys.

First, Brenden asked me if I would go to the shallow end and catch him. Brenden has been reluctant to leave the the area of the pool where he is able to touch and where he wanted to go was definitely over his head. I of course quickly said yes and was so pleased to see some of his comfort in the water coming back. After jumping to me at least 10 times, we then went down to the deep end for him to jump to me! I was only able to catch him once. I think he would have tried a few more times, but its kind of hard for me to tread water and catch a 3 year old while 8 1/2 months pregnant. He definitely had fun jumping to me and it was so good to see him smiling and being playful in the water again.

Next, Jake came over to me while I was taking a break and asked if I would catch him off the diving board! All summer he has been telling me he would, but always saying he would do it next time. Apparently today was next time. The first time he jumped I was out in the middle of the diving well to make him feel more comfortable. He jumped right in and didn't need any help from me. He proceeded to jump at least 10 more times with me on the side watching. He was so excited and had so much fun that even asked Chris after we got home if we could go back so he could show him.

I was able to get a few of the jumps on video, enjoy!