Monday, August 17, 2015

Playing catch up: Edition 1

It has been nearly 4 months since I blogged. No one has been pestering me for material. Lol. But I just can't bring myself to give up altogether. I'd really like to have a lifelong documentation of my story, mostly as entertainment for my kids. So maybe 3 posts a year over the course of a lifetime will suffice.

I'm nearly 15 weeks pregnant. Three weeks until we found out this baby's gender. Sophia seems very excited about having a sibling. The gender she wants changes every time you ask. For awhile she insisted that she wanted a brother AND a sister :) Unless we get a big surprise in 3 weeks she's going to be disappointed on one account at least. I think last time we were down to just a sister.

John and I don't really have a preference. We've certainly enjoyed having a little girl and we'd love another. But we'd also enjoy having a little boy. Someone to be Papa's helper when he grows up (selfishly for me, someone to take out the trash? lol).

I've been living in the land of pregnancy symptoms for about 2 months. It is the worst part of pregnancy by far. I'm mostly over the very worst of it, but very ready to be done completely. I declared today that if I'm to ever do this again, I will need to quit work so I can loathe in my misery at home. Along with the nausea, weird food aversions (basically anything and anything healthy, I've gained 8 pounds), and exhaustion; this time I've added headaches, right hip pain and a decent amount of tenderness in the mammaries, lol. Oh, and I have to pee an INSANE amount. More than I recall with Sophia. If I try to put off going it makes me nauseous. So weird. I really do not like feeling like an invalid. Not.one.bit. in fact as I write this I'm a bit nauseous and I've had a headache that's gotten worse since about 3pm on. I'm propped up in bed with my pregnancy pillow and rotating a heated rice bag between my head and my hip. And I had an hour and half nap after work. Thank goodness tonight John was able to take Sophia duty.

But enough complaining. I know first hand and second-hand that I'm fortunate to be pregnant. I thank God that the baby is healthy. At the same time I pray to God for relief from these symptoms! The poor unfortunate women in my family and even just acquaintances who were sick their entire pregnancies- and did it more than once- I don't know how!

John's first day of full time radiography school was today. Five semesters seems like a long time still, but I'm sure it will go by quick enough. I only hope he can survive balancing work, school and a family through it. I pray it comes easier than he thinks.

Sophia continues to be the joy in our home. She provides us endless entertainment. We love her to pieces. She is 2 years and 8 months now. Her latest favorite thing of mine is that she has started singing. Mostly she does it when she thinks no one is paying attention. It's not unusual to hear her signing in her room as she falls asleep, and also in the morning when she wakes up. She will rock her baby dolls and sing to them. She will sing along to music in the car. Her little voice is just adorable. I have some incredible videos I want to keep forever. She is still very affectionate. Her "I Love You's" are heard many times a day. She will often pipe up with it out of nowhere and is also happy to say it just if you ask.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm expecting too much of her. Her vocabulary is so advanced I question if because she communicates so well that she's also emotionally advanced. Maybe I expect her to understand and remember things that are a bit above her maturity level. Hopefully I'm doing ok with that :)

I do know that there are certainly things that show emotionally she's more on level. We still rock and read books and sing and have a sippy of milk nightly. She still constantly wants to be held. She seeks me out for comfort.

And for the love of Pete we are still 100% NOT potty trained. She'd definitely had some real anxiety in this area that is unfortunately not unfounded. We seem to have a program down to make sure everything is normal and routine as far as that goes, but she's still traumatized I think. Either that or she's dug in her heels in this area. Either way we've tried all kinds of bribery and she is not.having.it. And we can't push it because she's already afraid. Hopefully things will turn around before baby #2 arrives. I'd really love to only have one kid in diapers. But if not, it isn't the end of the world. It just gets tricky when you're fully communicative verbally advanced child is still in diapers. There's definitely some social pressure there.

On a positive- we are in a big girl bed! We switched her to a twin bed about 4-6 weeks ago. It went great. She loves to jump on her bed. She does get up a bit earlier now that she can get herself out. We have to put her back to bed some. That's to be expected. But overall I think it has gone well. She doesn't even have a bed rail. So far she has stayed put and not fallen out.

Well, this preggo girl is getting tired (again!) so I think I'll wrap it up.

See y'all again in about 4 months? Who knows ;)

Friday, April 24, 2015

(Road)Trippin'...Trip Trip Trip Trippin'

So I've been on two big trips recently! In March John and I went to Peru to visit friends, and it was also our fifth anniversary when we were there.

John put out a "ridiculous" wish on Facebook for a trip to see his missionary friends there, and his dad and grandma granted his wish! It was so super generous of them!
It was a long 17 hours of traveling to get there, but it was nice to be together.

The tourist trap market

Vince keeps a few "pets" including 3 small alligators!

The guys going off to work on the jungle property building a home for Vince and Megan

And the girls going off to the local resort pool :)

Dinner out then walking around one of the many plazas in the city

Cindy and John- people doing great work for the Lord

A Catholic cathedral in the plaza. The lights change colors.

At the zoo. One ugly monkey.

A pretty Mink

The trick porpoise

A day at the zoo/park

Church on the Mortimer's property

The whole family except Melissa got cutoff!

Motorbikes and Motorcars are 99% of the transportation

A Sunday afternoon river ride

Tributary of the Amazon

The Iquitos Hunting and Fishing Club

Holding a sloth at the Serpentarium on the river

John with the sloth

A Macaw!

A Night Monkey. So so sweet and cuddly!

John harassing the night monkey

Baby alligator

World's ugliest turtle- the Leaf Turtle

Mostly one way streets to keep the traffic safer since there aren't really any traffic "laws"


A squatter's village
We had an awesome time. We did a lot of cool things, but for me my favorite part was probably spending a lot of time talking to the missionaries and hearing all their touching amazing miraculous stories over 40 years of mission work both in Mexico and Peru. Man have they trusted God! They have done some really scary things and been extremely flexible. God has provided for them and done such wonderful works!

Then about six weeks later Sophia and I drove to Maryland to visit my mom and do some sightseeing around the greater DC area. It took two days of driving. That part was kinda tough. Thankfully we flew home. But I got to see a lot of really cool metro areas and really beautiful natural scenery...and a lot of historic architecture. I hope to return someday without kids so we can really delve in deeply to the ton of things the area has to offer.

Driving Day 1

Hotel Night 1

Driving Day 2. Thank God for the DVD player and Curious George

Then we got there and Mimi drove us instead!

With Mimi at last!!!!
We are chocolate

And took strolls

Crossed over the Potomac lots of times

Figured out the Metro

Got served chilled coffee

Played on sculptural merry-go-rounds in the "Innah Hahbah"

Even mom

Perused the National Aquarium

They have a HUGE sea turtle

Little eyes and hands in wonder at the anemones

So happy to take a picture. Ha!

Found some play mates

But mom's the best one
Had a lovely time at the local park

With Mimi


Gave mom an arm workout

Watched a seal show at the National Zoo

Looked at elephants while eating popcorn

Saw birds

Sat on the brass panda

With Mimi too

Got a cool hat

Loved the zoo carousel for 2 or 3 trips

Picked the giraffe even though it was stationary

Switched to the moving horse for round 2
Had the most delicious cupcakes. Not just hype!

Because I just had to take a pic

Bureau of Engraving and Printing

Tidal Basin. All the cherry blossoms had dropped :(

First Mate Sophie

Sad excuse for a selfie

Saw the monument from almost everywhere we went

Dept of Agriculture

Grave of JFK, Jacque O and 2 children

Lee House overlooking Arlington National Cemetary

Maybe my grandma's relative?


Of course the White House. Which looks small in comparison to the other grand architecture around.

Sniffing flowers

Hanging on the barricades at the White House