Birthdays and a potential birthday :)

 Hi!  October has been a busy month for us and always will be I think! :) We started off the month with Addison, Emily, and Hailey's 7th birthdays!  They are truly getting SO big.  I just can't believe how fast time goes.  They are loving 1st grade.  Addison even says "Mom the weekends take SOOOO long.." :)  She is quite the bookworm and loves cramming ANY info into her cute brain.  She just loves learning and still loves competition and following the rules.  She is a little leader and always willing to help me with anything around the house.  She is such a light.  I love you Addison!!

 Em - Em continues to crack me up.  She is hard to explain sometimes but she has this like lower voice or sarcastic tone or something about her.  She is so matter of fact and down to earth.  She loves being comfy and playing house with her sisters.  Em also loves school and especially loves learning Spanish this year! She is such a joy and so much fun.  I love you Emily!!!

Hailey continues to be my little fashionista.  She loves her skinny jeans (impossible to get her to wear anything else) and definitely knows what she likes and doesn't like as far as clothes go.  :)  She LOVES playing school with her sisters too and continues to love to organize and carry things around the house in a million purses or backpacks.  Just the other day she said "Mom where is a good place to set up my apartment and when can I get a cell phone?"  She is growing up TOO fast.  She also loves school and is such a sweetheart.  I love you so much Hailey Grace!

 I didn't take many pics of the girls opening their presents this year but some fave 7 year old things are new outfits for their American girl dolls, acoustic guitars, new bikes, journals, the classic game Mancala, etc. etc.  :)
 
For their birthday, I went into school three separate times to celebrate each of them.  The tradition in 1st grade is that the kids draw a big poster of the birthday kid and then they spend some time raising their hands and writing what is special about the birthday kid.  Well since doing three of those all in a row would get a little tiring for 1st graders, we split it up and I went in in the morning, then before lunch, and before the end of the day. :)  It was so cute hearing what their friends said about them.

 Singing to Hailey

 After each little celebration they got to  play a few rounds of heads up 7 up.  Classic!

 Singing to Em

 Then they had their birthday party after school at a trampoline park with all the 1st grade girls.  It was CRAZY!  Ryan and I were like over stimulated by all the squeals and hyper-ness and giggles and 1st grade humor.  It was hilarious and so fun to see them interact with all of their friends.  :)

 Singing to Hailey (as Em tries to get in on blowing out Hailey's candles)

 This room was a little small for ALL the craziness! :)

Then the next weekend we celebrated Ryan's birthday which was much more low key but so nice to go out on a date! :)
And THEN...we THOUGHT baby girl was going to arrive last Thursday night!  Here's the scoop.  So I went in for my 38 week appt...

and found out I was 3 cm dilated and 80% effaced (woohoo!) Then that night around 7 I started contracting regularly like 10 minutes apart.  They weren't too painful or anything but the first time they were actually regular! So I started paying attention....they were then 7-8 minutes apart regularly until about midnight.  So we decided to go into the hospital since my Dr. said to go in if contractions were 7 minutes apart for over an hour.  So my mother in law came over to stay with the girls (THANK YOU!). When I got to the hospital, they were 5-6 minutes apart but when the nurse checked me I was still 3 cm.  So they let me just contract for 2 hours to see if any progress could be made.  My contractions went to 2-4 minutes...and then at 3 a.m. they checked me again and STILL only 3 cm!  What the world?!  So they wanted to send me home but I started to cry with the sounds of that because if I went home, how would I know when to come back?  When they were 1 minute apart and her head was out?!  I was so confused!  Plus I have this new fear of having a baby in the car like my sister in law did...and my mom specifically told me don't let them send you home (because I have a high school friend who was sent home and had her TWINS at home 2 hours later!)  EEK!  So I was freakin' out.  They let me ride out more contractions for another hour just to be sure.  And sure enough, NO change again!  So confused!  So we headed home then at 4:30 in the morning...I couldn't sleep the rest of the night because I was still contracting every 5 minutes...and then the girls were up for school.  I went back to bed around 8:30 a.m. and thankfully the contractions stopped at 10 a.m.  So now I'm just back to normal braxton hicks contractions that I've had the whole pregnancy.  And I've been very hormonal and frustrated and confused about what was going on with this baby girl!  They said they would have induced me but since I want to have a vaginal birth after a c-section, inducing isn't a great idea so I had to go home.  :(  My Dr. was out of town anyway that weekend so maybe baby is waiting for him.  I have no idea.  :) I just felt so rejected and also felt so dumb and so bad for inconveniencing my mother in law and Ryan too (he changed all his work meetings and everything thinking this was the real deal).  How in the world are you supposed to know?  I'm clueless!  When I had the girls it was so nice because I went in for my appt and the Dr. was like, you are contracting, to the hospital you go!  And then I had them 24 hours later!
I would really love to see what a normal birth is like....but we have a c section scheduled for the 30th if she hasn't arrived by then.  I am just dying to hold her in my arms and the excitement and anticipation is killing me!  This little girl has been wanted/prayed for/and waited for for over 5 years!!!!  That's a long time to wait so now that it's so close it's like a tease!!  Ahh! :)  Prayers for patience and a healthy baby, smooth delivery, and peace of mind for me would be so appreciated.  Thanks everyone!  Here's my before-I-knew-it-was-a-false-alarm pic :) Oh dear.