33 weeks

We are 33 weeks as of 10/25!! I'm starting to experience the lower-back discomfort, some aches in the joints and fatigue in general.... as well as excitement! I had an OB appointment today (10/25), and got to have another ultrasound. I really thought I wouldn't get to have any more, but they said they wanted to take a look so I said, Sure! It's such a miracle. It never gets old. This time the technician even gave me a DVD of the experience, showing motion just like a live ultrasound (unfortunately, without the benefit of the sonographer's commentary of what those gray blobs are!). I am grateful to get to share that with Sean and my parents. They said everything is looking good-- lots of amniotic fluid; my cervix looked great; the baby's measuring right on track for the gestational age, in the 46th percentile for most measurements (very similar to Caleb!); we could see all four chambers of the heart pumping away. I think she's going to look a lot like Caleb. Can't wait to find out! We all have predictions on hair color-- some think dark, some think blond. I'm going with blond. :)

33 weeks + Caleb!

It's hard to believe that there are only a few weeks left before Chloe is born. Most of all, I really want to enjoy the time with Caleb being essentially an "only child." I've been kind of sentimental about it lately, wistful and almost sad to lose this time with just him. I know my attention will be divided, especially in the newborn stage. I will just have to make it a point to have one-on-one time with him later-- and hopefully, carve out time for each of our kids to have one-on-one time with each parent as the years progress. He and I have had some really neat conversations lately, at the table, around the house, or in the car. I love how much we can communicate now! He is quite the talker, very verbal and willing to share his thoughts. I want to encourage that! Sean and I both love getting inside his little brain and understanding what he's thinking. Usually it goes something like this...

C: What doing, Mommy?
M: Mommy is making oatmeal for breakfast.
C: See ee-oh [oatmeal]?
M: Ok, let me stir it and then I can pick you up and show you.
C: See ee-oh?
M: See? Mommy is stirring the oatmeal.
C: Caleb stir it?

He likes to help me cook. He says, "Blue fire!" when I turn on our gas range. He even pushed a kitchen chair up behind me one time recently when I was working at the counter and stood up on it so he could see what I was doing (it must be frustrating to stand below counter height!). It was funny to turn around and see him right there next to me.

The other day, he tripped and landed on his bottom. I had to laugh when he asked, "Mommy kiss it bottom?" Um, no thanks, sweetie. :) I love ya, but even your mother draws the line at kissing your bottom! (I did give him a kiss on the cheek, though.) He's been calling us "sweet pea," probably because that's a term Sean and I use for him. I handed him his cup of milk and he told me, "Thank you, sweet pea." Being his parents is just awesome. We love it.

He's getting really good with colors, and even some letters. He knows orange, black, brown, yellow, green, blue, pink, and sometimes purple, sometimes red. He can consistently recognize A's, O's and M's (though he thinks W's are M's too, can't really blame him!). He consistently identifies triangles, circles, hearts, and stars. Still working on squares and other shapes like diamonds or rectangles. He knows the difference between airplanes and helicopters. He's learning so much!!! I really want to get his version of the ABC song on video, because it is the cutest thing ever. It's quite recognizable, even if some of the letters are missing or have a creative pronunciation.

One of his favorite questions is, "What ____ say?" He'll ask, "What a chicken say?" He knows lots of animal sounds-- rooster, doggie, kitty cat, duck, pig, etc... What's more interesting is when he asks things like, "What a zebra say?" uh..... Not sure! "What a palm tree say?" Hmm... Sean's answer: "Coconuts!!"

Along with what different objects "say," he also likes to ask, "What (is) the ____ doing?" What Mommy doing? What Caleb doing?... and the other night, What the moon doing, Mommy? Uh... shining! It's fun to see the wheels turning, and he's already close to stumping Mommy! I'm a little worried for when the "why" questions start, if I'm already having trouble! It's fun. :)

Homemade Pizza

Two or three weeks before we moved away from Colorado, I found an amazing high-altitude pizza dough recipe. The ONE time I made it, it was amazing, at least. I thought I'd share some photos from that adventure, since we've been having a "heat wave" here in Santa Maria, oh, getting way up into the 80's. 

Here's the yeast proofing!

nice ball of dough

the dough after rising

ready to put it in the oven!!

YUM. Just yum.

Of course, it was a hot summer day when I decided to heat up the oven to 500 degrees so I could try this awesome recipe. We had a "picnic" in the front bedroom, the coolest room in the house at the time. Caleb very much enjoyed his pizza, and we enjoyed a fun dinner. :) I'd like to make it more of a family tradition to have homemade pizza for dinner regularly, since I have fond memories of doing that growing up!

32 weeks (backtrack from 10/18)

From Babycenter:

By now, your baby weighs 3.75 pounds (pick up a large jicama) and is about 16.7 inches long, taking up a lot of space in your uterus. You're gaining about a pound a week and roughly half of that goes right to your baby. In fact, she'll gain a third to half of her birth weight during the next 7 weeks as she fattens up for survival outside the womb. She now has toenails, fingernails, and real hair (or at least respectable peach fuzz). Her skin is becoming soft and smooth as she plumps up in preparation for birth...

My baby is comparable to a large jicama? Am I supposed to know how much a jicama weighs, much less what it looks like?? (I bought one, once, at the grocery store, for a salad...) It's been so interesting to see the comparisons these articles make: your baby is the size of a Chinese cabbage, or weighs about the same as a large jicama... It just seems like they pick weird vegetables for the comparison. What about a zucchini or a potato or something normal? :)

In other news, we are only about 8 weeks out from meeting our little girl Chloe! We are excited! We are planning on arranging a tour of the hospital soon, and I have the pre-registration form ready to go. I am in full nesting mode! Which at the moment, means buying curtain rods, making cloth napkins, and organizing baby clothes! I need to figure out what we are going to do regarding a changing table/dresser. Good thing babies don't need much, and the things they do need are easily procurable (namely, breastmilk and diapers!).

Sorry, no tummy picture this time! Stay tuned. :)

Three Years!

Three years is...

...shorter than a high school or college 'career.'

...less time than a typical (four-year) military assignment.

...longer than it takes to earn a master's degree (usually).

...longer than it usually takes to earn an associate's degree.

...shorter than the span from one Winter Olympics to the next.

Three years is how long Sean and I have been married! In some ways it feels like a lifetime; in others, like it has flown by in a moment. October 17, 2009 was an amazing day: the start of our life together. I'm really glad God brought us together. :)

Here are some stats of our last three years:
8 trips to Hawaii to see Nalani
5 trips to CA to visit family
5 camping trips (I think)
4 "homes" in first 6 months of marriage
4 TDY's (business trips) for Sean (I think)
3 10k races
3 beautiful kids
3 Christmases
2 miscarriages
2 moves
2 tours, at Schriever and Vandenberg
2 sinners in 1 marriage
2 out-of-state weddings of friends
2 big promotions for Sean, 1st Lt and Capt
2 garage sales
1 mortgage :)
1 major car accident
1 trip to Alaska to see Nalani
1 death in the family, Sean's granddaddy
1 "century ride" (Sean rode a bike 100 miles, better him than me!)

It's been a busy three years! I asked Sean if everyone's first few years of marriage are that full, and he didn't think so. We've done a lot of traveling. Caleb has been on either 14 or 15 plane trips in his short life-- I have just about lost track (obviously)! God has been so faithful along the way. I never could have anticipated, on our wedding day, where we would be now. But I wouldn't trade any of it, even the painful parts, because I know God has used them to grow us, refine us, and reveal more of Himself to us. I love my husband more than I did when we got married, and I can't imagine life without him.

We are looking forward to the next 30 or 50 years!

30 weeks

GAH! I accidentally typed 39 weeks the first time! Whoa. Okay, I'm better now. That could send you into a panic if you let it (and if it were true, ha). :)

We are at 30 weeks today!! It feels kind of like when you come back from Spring Break: the rest of the semester just FLIES BY. I sense the next 10 weeks will be like that, especially since it has now been two months since we arrived in California, and that has flown by.

30 weeks -- 75% of the way there!

As far as projects go....

I have decided to wait on making a duvet cover for our queen bed. Washing the current comforter greatly helped my frustration with that room. It was just a bit dingy; now it's cleaner and I don't feel compelled to cover it up. :)

I'm past halfway on a little quilt for our newest niece, Maleia Allen, born Sept. 12. It's turning out SO CUTE, I almost can't stand it. I'm so glad, because I encountered a couple bumps along the way in the planning stage. Nothing that multiple trips to fabric stores couldn't alleviate!

sneak peek!

Still considering sewing up a diaper bag and constructing a slipcover for our armchair and ottoman. Neither of those are critical, but "nice to haves." I've found a great tutorial online for the diaper bag, and it doesn't look too hard (probably a couple-day project since I would be working on it in little snippets of time). For the slipcover, however, it's like a foreign language trying to decipher the instructions. I just haven't had the "oomph" (or undistracted time to concentrate) to figure it out. Yet. We shall see.

Higher priority is decorating the kids' room! We have received our moving money, so now we can go to town! Not really. :) But we did set aside a little bit for curtain rods, curtains, rugs, etc... as well as a second set of ABU's for Sean, and a washer and dryer. You know, just a few little things. It is such a blessing to be able to set aside money for them without impacting our monthly budget. We budget pretty carefully in order to make all the trips to Hawaii that we do, and stay out of debt, and plan ahead for Christmas and birthdays and random, recurring things. God has provided so abundantly for us and we are thankful.

So... I am off to clean the bathrooms while Caleb is at Grammy's! Cleaning them is so hard to do when he is around (and awake). That and vacuuming! Because he wants to ride the vacuum cleaner. Or hold the handle. Or generally not want Mommy to be able to vacuum. :)

27 weeks (as of 9/13)

Here we are, on the cusp of the third trimester... fewer than three months to go! We have started a "girl clothes" bin (among the numerous boy clothes bins we have!), and my mom got an overflowing laundry basket full of adorable girl clothes at a garage sale last weekend. Looking at tiny onesies and little dresses and hats and tights makes it sink in a little that there's a real live little person coming soon. :) We are excited. 

self-portrait, with self-timer!

I haven't really done much to prepare. I have done very little reading this time around... I hope I remember what labor is like (ha). I do want to tour some of the local hospitals, since I get to pick this time. No military facilities nearby means you go to a civilian provider, which is nice but then I have to make an informed choice! :-P I also want to decorate the nursery/kids' room, but we are holding off on extra expenditures until we get our moving money--- almost two months later, and the process still isn't finished. I've been bitten by the sewing bug lately, and am working on a couple projects. Will post those soon! I want to sew a duvet cover for our queen comforter, just need to find fabric or curtains or sheets to use. I'm also contemplating making a slipcover for our arm chair pre-baby, but that's a little daunting since it has curvy lines and it's a new endeavor. Purses and quilts are pretty simple in comparison! 

artsy shot

Life is good. We feel pretty settled, and I am working on enjoying the little moments, not stressing about getting everything done. Not much else to report!

Pictures to come of projects and park outings. :)
M

Counting my blessings

There are so many things we can be thankful for here. I've been wanting to catalog the "easy to take for granted" ones, so here goes. I'm sure there are more I will think of later!

1. Sidewalks in front of our house. This was one thing that bugged me every time I went jogging or walking from our house in Colorado. There were not very many sidewalks near our house, so I would have to walk on the street, evading cars and dealing with a slight slant to the road. Here there are tons of sidewalks, and neat neighborhoods to explore.

2. Two parks within walking distance. The closest park to our house in CO was 0.9 miles away-- not insurmountable, but it was sometimes enough to dissuade me from making the trek. (I am a pretty pathetic pregnant lady, very bad at wanting to exercise much, despite my earlier enthusiasm for going to the Y.) Now, we have a great park just around the corner from our house! We pass five houses (along the sidewalk), turn right, and Caleb sees the roof of the play structure down a block and says, "Slide? slide? slide? slide?"

3. Familiarity with the area. It's very nice to not have to look up directions or an address every time you want to leave the house! I already know how to get places, and going to the base is no sweat (used to commute there every day!). I am a little rusty on where specific offices/buildings are on base, but it's coming back to me. :) It's funny how what I once thought of as "all the way at the other end of town" takes, at most, 10 minutes to get to. I was used to driving 20 or 30 minutes to get most places in the Springs, since we lived on the north-eastern edge of town. We currently live north(ish?) of where my parents live, so I am having to get used to the fact that some things are south of me.

4. Caleb's moldability. He has started saying, unprompted, "choo choo train after dinner" when we put him in the high chair, even at snack time or breakfast time. It's so great to see (and hear) confirmation that he is absorbing at least some of our instruction! I have started reading Bringing Up Boys by James Dobson, and want to re-read Shepherding a Child's Heart and dive into Instructing a Child's Heart, both by Tedd Tripp, I believe. We need help!!!! Caleb distracts himself (and tries to distract us) when we are trying to discipline him-- recently he showed us his belly button while we were "having a talk." It's so hard to stay serious when he does stuff like that-- it's so cute!-- but at the same time it's super frustrating when he refuses to pay attention and tunes us out. It's very important that he learns to listen to us, especially in light of his new game of running away when we call him, to make us chase him. VERY bad if he were to run into the street. We are still working on that one...

5. Timing of our move. Fall Bible studies are just starting up, so we will hopefully be able to get plugged into a church fairly easily. We have visited five so far, one for each Sunday we have been here, and have some great options. I am looking forward to getting back into more of a routine with midweek Bible studies.

6. A healthy, uneventful pregnancy. Today (9/5) I had my first OB appointment with my new doctor here in CA, and it was great. (We are officially 25 weeks, 6 days today.) He wanted to do an ultrasound to check out the baby (in 2D and 3D!!!), and of course I was thrilled to get to see her! That's always a treat. Everything looked good, and measured on track with my existing due date, as far as the baby's head and abdomen size. It doesn't hurt when the doctor says you are "thin." :) It's such a miracle, so surreal to see a little human body inside you. She was kicking, too, in response to the pressing of the ultrasound probe. Very cool. I happen to think she's super cute!! Can't wait to meet her and see her up close and hold her. That's a special moment, meeting your baby for the first time.

Just chillin...

No more paparazzi, please!

7. The mild climate. It has been in the 60's and 70's here, which is 20-30 degrees cooler than it would be in Colorado Springs! When I was pregnant with Caleb in the summer, I remember being very uncomfortable, and my feet were often puffy. Here I haven't noticed having that condition once! It's more humid here too, with the nice ocean breeze; my skin always enjoys that.

8. An abundance of fresh produce. I have really been enjoying the farmer's markets here! We haven't gone to a "pick your own" place yet, but that is definitely on our family radar for sometime soon. This past weekend we went to the Avila Valley Barn with Mom and Dad and got watermelon, asparagus, corn, nectarines, strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries. SO YUMMY. I don't even like raspberries that much, but they were sooo good. I can't say I love watermelon, but maybe it's just bland, watery, pithy watermelon that I don't like. :P Fresh, primo-ripe fruit is just so good. I'm so thankful we have access to such a variety of fresh (and usually organic) fruits and veggies. I cannot WAIT for pumpkins. Caleb will really be old enough to enjoy picking out pumpkins this year, I think. Fall's my favorite season... and I love pumpkins. I just love harvest and hay and orange and red... and baking. Lots of baking. I bought the big box of butter at Costco today- four one-pound blocks, which is equivalent to 16 sticks. (Hey, it was way cheaper per pound than at the grocery store!) I usually slice the bricks into sticks, then freeze all but a couple. I have many, many good-looking recipes I want to try out-- strawberry bread, apricot breakfast muffins, autumn muffins. I LOVE cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves. I will let you know how these new recipes turn out. :)

9. My amazing husband. Not only does he give me the opportunity to have (beautiful) children, he takes care of us so well. He's so diligent, and more often than not, if I happen to run an errand while he is at home, the dishes are done when I come back! He likes to straighten, he plays with Caleb and puts him to bed most nights... He does laundry and gives good back rubs (it's a toss-up to me, which of those two is more romantic!). It's so sad to think about "falling out of love" or not wanting to be married anymore. It kills me to think about us drifting apart, and I don't want that to ever happen; I never want something to come between us. I used to wonder, How can you know if your marriage will make it? So many of them don't. So many people give up, even after 20 or 30 years of marriage. And I have decided, at this point, that I can only do my best with today, and 'a long obedience in the same direction' will Lord-willing result in a long, stable, happy marriage (happy in the sense of "we still enjoy hanging out with each other after 10 or 20 or 30 years," not in the "he will fulfill all my wishes" sense). As in so many areas, with marriage, I am responsible for being obedient to God today. It's impossible to guarantee where you might be in 20 years, but I know where I am today (most of the time!), and I can be faithful with the big or little things God has given me at this moment, whether it's changing messy diapers or respecting my husband, cleaning bathrooms or training a two-year-old. Any task can be done for God's glory, whether it's fun or not-so-fun; visible or transparent; important or just necessary.

10. Family close-by! This is a biggie, and I'm not just saying that because my mom reads my blog. :) It is such a huge blessing to be near family. We really missed that in Colorado, especially around holidays where we couldn't go home. (Looking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas this year!) We get the blessing of awesome meals that I didn't have to cook, fellowship, wise counsel, a "home away from home," a place where people know you and love you... and have known you and loved you your entire life. They get the blessing of being able to invest in their grandson, and soon granddaughter, and of course their daughter and son-in-law. It has been a really neat element of moving back. We are enjoying the opportunities for date nights too, with the best babysitters around. :)

I'm sure there are many more things to recognize and appreciate, but for now I'll stop at the nice, round number of 10. :)

Talk soon,
M