Canada Day!

Little E likes to demonstrate his strength.  One way is by being chariot driver for his brothers!  (Video to follow.)

 Most of the time he is chariot driver for Sprout.

 Our new patio screen...Magic Screen!!  Works like a charm, totally worth the $25 it cost.

 Canada Day activities...cleaning,

 Bouncing on the mini-tramp,

 Eating the annual Canada Day Cake!

Little E giving Munchkin and Sprout a ride

A goodbye

We held Alvin's birthday party a bit early as we had made the difficult decision to send the boys to another home with more resources to help them.  With Big E gone six days out of the week and with the special needs that they had it was nigh impossible to keep up with everything.  We know that they will find a great place for them, especially with all of the assessments we had done while they were here.  Theodore became WAY more mobile over the 6 months he stayed with us and Alvin went from 1 word sentences to 4 word sentences.  I'm proud of how much they've improved and hope they'll continue to grow exponentially in their new home.

 Alvin's favourite....Thomas!

New Baby Has Arrived!!

The new baby has finally arrived. After 12hrs of Labour Benjamin Hyrum Zea has welcomed us with his presence. Her is a before shot of Mary and her big tummy. Things started out ok. We left our home at 6:45am to the hospital to get me induced. We arrived there around 7:30am and started to wait for the doctor. The strapped me to monitors and wanted to check how the baby was doing and how my contractions were coming. The doctor showed up at ten and he broke my water at 10:30am and that is when the waiting officially started. We waited until 11:30am and that is when I couldn't bare with the pain anymore. I asked them to give me the epidural and the doctor who did that didn't show up until 12:30pm. I was so relieved when the pain finally left. It took about a half an hour to feel no pain. At that point I was about 1 and half cm dialated. 3:00pm roll around and the nurse told me that she would let the nurse replacing her check to see how far I was. The nurse checked and to her surprise saw that I was fully dialated. We were very excited to hear that, because we knew that we were near the end now. She explained that it would probably take another 3hrs, but by now that didn't seem to be too far away. 5:00pm came and my doctor called to see how I was doing. At that point it was time for him to go home, but when we found out that I was almost ready to deliver he decided to stay and deliver the baby. For a whole hour I kept pushing and pushing with no result. The baby moved in the beginning but for some strange reason he got to a point were he didn't move anymore. The doctor finally realized that my pelvic bone was preventing the baby to come out any further. So, at 6:00pm he decided to call it a day and do a C-section. All this work and time to end up like this. Trust me, at this point it really didn't matter. We got everything ready and headed downstairs. Eden followed, but had to wait as soon as I got there before they would let him in. They got me all ready and started. Eden showed up a few minutes later and we were in the home stretch. Eden stood up and saw Benjamin come out. They placed him on the table and I finally got to see him. What a miracle. He looked amazing. As soon as they finished checking him they gave him to Eden and he held him while I looked on. Eden and Benjamin left while I got sewed back up. I met up with them about an hour later. Benjamin was born at 7:00pm on the dot. he weighs 8lbs 1ounce. Here are a few pictures of him with us. Long day, but well worth it!!

I'm losing my mind!

Nothing new has happened, or at least nothing of interest....not yet. Today was typical, except I lost my bagel. How you ask? Well...Eden was getting ready to head out the door to school and I was making my breakfast (a bagel). As he went out the door Ephraim began his usual cry at the unfairness of Daddy having to leave the house without him. :) So, also as usual, I went to pick him up so we could stand at the front window and wave goodbye. I had to put down my bagel...and when I came back to it...it was gone! Now either our house is populated with bagel imps, or I've lost my mind..and with it my bagel. I'm leaning towards the latter! Now my plan is to continue to my cleaning in the hopes that somewhere along the line I will come across a bagel....hopefully before any other living creatures do!

Today is a beautiful day here in Alberta. Our family has been living here for about 8 months. While we miss our lovely paychecks that we used to get in Ontario, we are excited about our opportunities here. Eden is working towards heading back to school in the fall. He will need to do some upgrading and then he is hoping to begin in a B. science program. I'm still looking for a teaching post, but will be on maternity leave again in January as we are expecting Baby #2 mid-February. :) Ephraim is walking, laughing, and babbling up a storm. He is great fun to watch and I wonder how he'll take to the new arrival in the New Year. He is signing "more", but we haven't added much to that vocabulary...we will be soon though as his needs to communicate specific things increase. All in all we are glad we are here inspite of the challenges. (Like grocery shopping...boy do we miss Price Chopper!) We are really glad that we have the opportunity to visit with family that we used to see so infrequently.