Time flies when you're busy

Just thought I'd post a sheepish blog with a cute pic. Sorry, life as a preschool teacher and a Mommy is a bit busier than I could have dreamed, but it's a lot of fun too. My life is inundated with controlled chaos. :) The girls are doing well. Just yesterday my little Rosebud looked up at me and said "Sometimes giraffes are my favorite in the whole world. Sometimes." And my almost 8 month old takes after me to a "T"--I caught her cleaning up her sister's blocks last night. (She'd gum one a bit, put it in the wooden shape sorting box, then gum the next. She had picked up half of them by the time I noticed.) What a little organizer! (Of course, I like to organize things, but there's not enough time in the day, hence, my closet.)

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We all have too many blessings to count! :)

My daughter's account of throwing up all last night...

Remember yuckahs? Bed yuckahs, pillow yukahs....lots lots lots yuckahs. Then again yuckahs! Remember?

10! and a headache...

My big little girl counted to ten spontaneously when I started the microwave yesterday. She is growing up way too fast!

On a sadder note, my brother and sister-in-law are visiting us this week and Drew came down with a massive migraine that prevented them from taking my little Rosebud to the zoo as planned on Friday. The migraine turned out to be so brutal that he had to go to the hospital, and a spinal tap confirmed that it is viral meningitis. He's supposed to be released in the morning, and they leave tomorrow-- it's all been so sad for so many reasons! Please pray for him and his fabulous pregnant wife.

Birthday Girl

hanging with cousins



little friend

pool time!

CAKE!

fun in the sun

First time in the tub

yippee!

party pooper

Mickey cake (Dada ate one of the unfrosted ears by accident last night...)

Yummy fruit decorations

My big girl's big present!

Melissa & Doug dollhouse

sisters (sideways?...)

sisters again

Our little Rosebud just turned two! She is such an amazing blessing and I cannot believe how fast these past two year (and nine months, give or take) have gone by. Today we had a "wading pool party" in her honor.

Dada

He's Home!!!!

Update

Wow! I have a three month old! And an almost two year old, when did that get so close? I have been having a really outrageously good time being a Mommy. It has been really hard without their Daddy home for over three weeks now, but I've been learning a lot. The funny thing is that with all the help I've had with the kiddos, I wasn't very confident in taking care of them by myself. Last weekend my parents were away on a trip to the Big Island and I got a taste of what it's like raising two kiddos on my own without help, though I have nothing on single moms. They have jobs on top of the full time job of raising kids, and I have a day to count down to when I can see my husband again, Lord willing...5 more days!!!
Anywho, the girls and I have been having a lot of fun enjoying one another's company. My three month old is extremely smiley and talkative, loves the ceiling fan (thinks it's hilarious), sleeps great at night, and is very intent on watching her sister's every move. My little toddler is addicted to waffles and Boba (bubble tea for all of you in the islands), loves walking to the beach with her Bop Bop and playing with her Grammi, reading books, tubby time, going to the zoo, watching the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (she knows just who to ask to watch it too...), and is talking up a storm!!! I need Dada's computer to download pictures, but I'll try to get some new ones up asap.
Love to you all!!! :)

the stand-off

I had a 45 minute stand-off with my beautiful little girl this evening. It was sad. She was not obeying very well, and though I can reason it away as a teething, sleepy, missing her Daddy sort of temperament, it isn't good or safe for her to not obey her parents, so I brought in the reinforcements: time out. All she had to do to get out was say sorry for not obeying (just a quick "sorry" would have sufficed). She cried and screamed and mournfully yelled out the names of toys in the room she wanted to be playing with at the moment ("Bllloooocks....baaaabieeees, etc.). I kept repeating in an even voice that she could definitely play with them after she said sorry. 45 minutes later a small sorry escaped her lips, followed by a hug and a kiss, and off she went playing.

Kids are supposed to be testing their boundaries as they figure out their little place in life, and parents are supposed to stand their ground when the battles warrant being fought, but boy it's tiring! It isn't easy being a Mommy...especially one who's husband is a touring musician. Sigh.

On a happy note, she immediately forgot the trauma and we played tons, read books, and I got to cuddle her to sleep. I thank God every day for these two little sweethearts.

My vote went to Danny

Okay, yes, I admit that I followed American Idol this season. It was my toddler's favorite show besides Mickey Mouse, and it was recorded, so we got to zoom by the commercials, which was a plus. My favorite contestant was Danny Gokey. He just seemed like a fun kid you would know from youth group, and he had a lot of character in his voice. Danny's a worship leader from Milwaukee who's wife recently passed away of a heart condition (check out Sophiasheart.org, a non-profit organization he founded in her honor). He made it to the top three, but Paula picked a really bad song for him, and the other guys were just really good, so alas, Danny didn't make it to finals. Sad. So while my parents were voting for Adam (my Mom voted 200 times), and my husband was voting for Kris (sorry love, hope that doesn't ruin your reputation), I decided to forgo the texting and not vote at all. I liked Kris' style and thought Adam was amazingly talented, but as a disheartened Gokey fan, it didn't really matter which of the two won. Did any of you vote?

Currently Reading...

Haven't written in a week due to this crazy flu thing. The kiddos haven't gotten it thank God, but Nathan and I have had a groggy week. I got this book from the local library recently. Don't worry if you're not pregnant, it has a lot of useful info on everyday healthy living. One fun site it recommends is Not Too Pretty, where you can view a "comprehensive listing of popular cosmetics and fragrances, and a grading system on their toxicity levels." Clicking around the site I found a parent's buying guide to children's personal care products. Aren't you curious?

Sleeplessness

If you find yourself waking up in the morning with bangs, don't panic. You may just have a nocturnal newborn and a rambunctious toddler under your care, and for this reason (these reasons?), you simply weren't thinking clearly at two o'clock in the morning. If you had been, you would have definitely put the scissors down because you would have remembered that you simply do not look good with bangs.

Fun in the sun

The girls enjoyed hanging out with their cousins last weekend!

Our littlest one is three weeks old today, I cannot believe it. Time sure flies when you don't sleep :)

Our biggest little one just had her first dentist appointment yesterday. Her Dada went in with her, and I got to sit in the waiting room listening to my daughter screaming. I think it scarred all three of us. As a reward we got her some sushi, her absolute favorite treat (can you tell we rarely give her sweets? :) ) She loves it so much she speaks of it in a hushed whisper, "sushi," and asks for it (in a hushed whisper, of course) whenever we are going anyplace in the car.

She just went to the beach with her Grammi. Littlest one is sleeping in my lap (her days and nights are flipped). I'm feeling blessed... and loopy from lack of sleep. :)

Emotional

I am feeling extremely emotional today. Maybe it's because I didn't sleep last night. Maybe It's all the hormonal changes of just having a baby. Maybe it's just because I'm a Mom. Very early this morning I was patting my littlest baby girl on the back trying to get her to go to sleep and I started tearing because she is so precious and I'm so thankful that she's healthy. Then again at my bigger little girl's nap time, she wanted to cuddle to sleep. Looking down at her, the tears started to flow again, because she's getting to be so big, and I just love who God has made her to be--her little personality is just fantastic and beautiful, and her heart is so huge and loving. Then just a bit ago, I walked in on my Mom watching the rest of the latest "Chuck" that she recorded. Chuck's father gets taken away at the end...and I started crying. Really?! It's just silly at this point, and it's not even noon yet. :)

More pics of Baby Soso to come soon, sorry I'm slacking. :)

Sophia is here! She was born on 3/31/09. She woke her Mommy up with contractions shortly after 2am, and was born at 4:49am...we barely made it to the hospital! :) She weighed in at 5lbs 10oz and is 19" long. Thank you all so much for your love and prayers. Can't wait to introduce you to our littlest blessing! :)

Busy...

Can't blog long, busy nesting... update to come...
:)

FUNNY and sweet :)

Please check out Nathan's March 10th posting on Dropping names. I almost died! :)

So I had kind of a tough day yesterday. Right before bed I was unloading the dishwasher and feeling totally drained. Then I heard the padding of sweet little girl feet coming into the room. She walked right over to the dishwasher and started handing me silverware to put away. It really touched my heart, that little gesture of love from my little helper. :) It reminded me not to get overwhelmed by silliness, when there are tons of things to be thankful for.

Cleverness

Check out The Art of Whimsy's blog, Nathan is in top form these days, he cracks me up. One of my favorites it about OP shorts. (This is Nathan posing with a Johnny Depp I.D.)

Baby Soso Update

Hi ya'll! Went to the Dr. today and had an ultrasound. She said that Baby Soso (as my little Rosebud lovingly calls her) is a big 'ol 4 pounds and is in the 20th percentile. She is expected to be 6 pounds at birth--she's a bit on the small side. They told me that Soso's big sister would be 7 lbs, and she ended up being 6 lbs 1oz, so who knows?

It was really wonderful to see her. I feel her all the time, but it's another thing to put a face to the kicks, it was quite precious. My Mom and eldest daughter got to come with me to see the ultrasound, which was special as well.

Please keep praying for our little bundle of love! :) Thank you from all of us! :)

Rosebud Speech

I will be really sad when my daughter learns how to pronounce some words right. It is just so adorable and innocent, and it's really hard to say things correctly to model proper speech for her (I do, it's just I'd rather say, "here's your apapple.").

Here are some of my favorites:

Ap-apple (she used to say this perfectly)
Op-open
Yesh (yes)
peese (please)
Onge (orange)(wish I had audio of it, it sounds French)
Wah-er (water)
Ma'am-a (banana)
Pahta (pasta)


But she can say tons of words perfectly, like "accident." :)

And my new favorite:
Baby Soso! Precious! :)

Another favorite:
She now plays air guitar, complete with sounds. It's awesome.

One last one:
She calls out "Jess" really loudly if I'm out of the room. She does it because her Dada does it, I don't think she knows it's my name. It makes me giggle.

Ouchie

My daughter slipped on a tile step going into the living room today. She hit the side of her face on the edge of the tile, giving her a shiner, scratching her brow area and cutting the outside crease of her eye. She cried for a bit but now is happy as a pig, and has continued on with her daily activities like nothing happened. I, however, feel so sick about the whole thing that I think I could just call it a day and wake up tomorrow, hopefully less sick. The funny thing was that I got chastised for running so fast to get to her once I saw those feet in the air. Hello?

It's a Beautiful Day!

It is a beautiful day. It has finally sunk in that I live in Hawaii. And I can breathe a lot slower and easier now that I have insurance--it is kind of an important thing for a pregnant woman to have. I just got the okay this morning! :) I haven't been able to go to a Dr. for the past two months, so I'm excited to see one finally, hopefully this next week. Hip, hip, hooray!

SWAP!

Check out swaptree.com! There you can post books, DVD's and games you don't need anymore and trade for ones you do want--super friendly for your wallet and for the environment. :)

Fat Tuesday

Happy Mardi Gras! Today is a day to feast, so enjoy! Eat lots of cookies and wash those down with milkshakes! :)
For Lent this year I've decided to give up Bubble Tea (A.K.A Boba). If you haven't tried it at least three times, you are missing out on a beautiful thing indeed. (I didn't like it until the third time I tried it, so there you have it.) I'm off to go enjoy my last one for awhile.

Aloha!

What do we have in common with the cast of Lost? We're back on the island! We got in safely (with all seven of our checked bags!) on Valentine's Day, and have been running around trying to get situated for the past week. There were a few times during our last week on the mainland that I wasn't sure we'd make it to Hawaii before the baby was born! It was intense! I didn't even get to go to our farewell show to say goodbye to family and friends, which was extremely sad for me and my little Rosebud. With something like three weeks to sell or pack all of our belongings, and with all the snow the last week we were there, I really don't even know how we got it all done, except that I had some awesome girls come over to help out. I couldn't have done it without Tiffany, Toni and Debbie!!! You went above and beyond the call of duty! :) And Amy actually flew from So. Cal to help and say goodbye! Doesn't that just touch the heart? :) Thank you so much for your help ladies!!!

Our little Rosebud is having way too much fun with her Grammi and Bop Bop. She has the undivided attention of everyone in the house, lots of fun new toys to explore, and is very busy taking care of her baby dolls. She has also graduated into a toddler bed here, which she thinks is fabulous, though she scoots out of it nightly and wakes us up whimpering, still asleep. We situate her back into bed, and there goes the routine.

Our youngest child is "running out of womb," and is trying to remedy the situation with 3am construction activities in there (lately I think she's been using a jackhammer). We have less than 8 weeks to go, or less than 6 if she's anything like her little sister. We're not quite ready for her...though I guess we will have to be if she comes early! :) We had to sell pretty much all of the baby gear before we left, so I'm keeping a keen eye out on craigslist for the stuff we can't live without (like an infant car seat!). The only item that has been an even trade has been the baby swing. We sold ours for $50 in CA, tithed $5 of that, and then bought one here off craigslist for $45. What a deal! But with the price of shipping to Hawaii, almost everything is way more expensive here than on craigslist than it is in CA, so that has been kind of disappointing. I've decided to not worry about it though, and I find comfort in constantly reminding myself that everything we have is a gift from God, from the breath in our lungs to the shoes on our feet. God provided all the things (and more!) that we needed for our little Rosebud, and he will provide for this baby too. Already we are in a beautiful home with a loving and supportive family to help out, we have our health, and the beach is less than a mile away! What more could we ask for, right?! :) We are definitely taken care of.

To all of our friends and family back on the mainland, we love you and hope you can find room for us in your future vacation plans, we'd love to see you! And to all of our friends here in Hawaii, sorry we've been jet lagged, but let's hang out, we can't wait to catch up on life! :)

The big move

It's official, the tickets are bought, the house has been turned upside down, and we're having a yard sale this weekend (weather permitting). We plan to move to Hawaii on Valentine's Day!!! It's so soon and this has all been a whirlwind. I think once this garage sale is over, I will be able to think clearly, but right now it's a bit overwhelming.
Does anyone have any yard sale pointers? The layout of our yard/drive area is super tricky, I'm not even sure where to put the stuff, because I think the grass will be wet most of the day, but if people can't park in the driveway, I don't know where they'll park. Then there is the whole pricing issue. It's tough because most of our stuff is new (some of it hasn't been used at all...), we have only been married for three years and it was in storage for half of that. So we're selling things here we'll need to buy again in Hawaii, but yard sale people I'm sure won't care. I hope no one makes me cry, I'm not good at haggling.
If any of you friends and family out there are free this weekend, stop on by and rummage through our stuff! And if any of you are insane enough, you're welcome to help out as well! The sale is Friday and Saturday from 8am to 1pm. I won't put any more info than that on the net, but feel free to e-mail me if you'd like to know more.
Why are we moving to Hawaii? Lots of really good reasons! :) A big one is that it will be nice to be near my parents with baby #2 on the way. But we will miss our friends and family here (including those that live on the other side of the country or in another country), and those that are a quick 8 hour car ride away. We hope that you'll visit us, and I'm sure that we'll see our "mainland" friends more often there than we would have here, as it's always fun to have an excuse to go to Hawaii! :)

Things I could eat all day long

~In-N-Out french fries
~Avocado
~Mint 'n Chip ice cream with Lucky Charms on top
~Salt and Vinegar chips
~Turkey hot dogs, burgers, bacon and meat loaf
~Cilantro
~Chocolate
~Frosted Mini Wheats
~Candy canes
~Chocolate muffins from Costco
~S'mores
~Onion dip

Yes, I have craved pickles and ice cream, but not simultaneously yet, thank goodness! :)

Happy New Year!

Our little Rosebud started off 2009 with a 6 day tummy flu. Hope your New Years was better! :)