Bachelor Party

Amy and Alice left Thursday morning for Santa Clarita to visit my parents and brothers.

I stayed in Orange County.

It was weird.

Sleeping alone in a king size bed is weird. Being able to spread books and magazines and my Kindle and my dinner all over the living room floor was weird. The silence was sometimes weird.

I realized that Amy has experienced what I experienced yesterday and today a lot more than I have. I realized how thankful I am for my wife, my gift from God (An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels - Prov. 31:10). I realized how different life has become since I got married, and then how different it became once Alice was born.

When we're living life, we're in it and going, going, going, so there's not often time to reflect. Or, maybe I don't make time to reflect as I should. I know I'm rambling, but it just feels so different I had to express it some way, even in such a disconnected way as this.

Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if I were single. It's hard to imagine. Sometimes it's terrifying to imagine. I'm not sure such speculation is all that helpful unless it brings me back to being thankful anew for the way God has providentially provided for me/us, especially since I met Amy.

Okay, work is calling, but I just needed to reflect on that for a moment. God is a good Father and he gives good gifts to his children. Praise the Lord!

Where Did the Nap Go?

Seems like I'm getting bigger by the second. Okay, that's probably an exaggeration. At our last doctor appointment (Monday) I was measuring right on the money: 27 weeks. I really don't remember when I started to measure bigger for Alice, but I'm thankful that Emma seems to be sticking to the charts so far. She still could become a moose baby... Our next appointment is in three weeks and then we'll start the every two week visits. Whoa. I can't believe we're already this close to her arrival. Actually, it really hit me the other day that we're having another baby. We're going to have two babies under age two.

Alice seems to be making steps toward potty training, though it's a bit hard determining whether she's pointing at her diaper because she has to pee, she just went pee, she has to toot, she has to poop... or some other reason that I've yet to figure out. If Alice had her way, she'd get a diaper change about 15 times a day, even if the diaper had next to nothing in it. She'll point and grunt at her changing pad and then her diaper and pat the changing pad and grunt. So funny. We're currently working on getting her to use words. Most of the time she just points or grunts or says animal sounds, though she definitely has "ma-ma", "duck" (duh), "tug-tug" (from a book), and "hot." She gave up on "da-da" and "da-dee" which she used to say exclusively. The last two days when I ask her to say "da-da" she says "na-na." Not really sure where that came from, but she does seem to be associating "na-na" with her daddy.

She also hasn't been napping real well for about a week now. The longest nap she's taken has been about 1 1/2 hours when it used to be up to 3 1/2 hours. Bummer for me, but I think she's getting more teeth. She's got all 8 in the front so now I'm expecting molars or canines... right? Something like that. I'm just hoping that these short naps are not indicative of a new habit. We shall see.

Alright, I've got lots to do before she wakes up from her probably too-short nap. Dude. She just started making noises after I finished typing that line. It's been 45 minutes. Seriously. Done. With. Lame. Naps. Off to dishes. Oh, and here's Alice playing with some friends in the nursery at church and at the birthday party of one of those girls.

The Longer Version

I'm going to attempt to keep this relatively short, but I make no guarantees...

Well, we went to Virginia and Washington DC last week and Alice had her first two plane rides. Both flights were non-stop and she napped! On the way to DC she napped for about an hour and the flight home... maybe 15-20 minutes. But she did really well and we had a few people tell us that she did great. YAY Alice!

We arrived late Wednesday night, were picked up by my sister at the airport, checked into our hotel, and attempted to put Alice to bed. I think she actually fell asleep around 10:30 or 11? I don't really remember. She had some pretty crazy sleeping patterns (if you could call them "patterns") while there. She slept in on Thursday until 9:30 or 10 and then we headed off to DC via the metro. It was a BUSY day and we saw tons of stuff, but we definitely need to go back. Alice did great in the stroller for most of the day and took a nice nap in the afternoon. We were all pretty beat by the end of the day and finished with dinner at Chipotle. YUM.

Friday we packed up from the hotel and went to breakfast at IHOP before heading over to Arlington National Cemetery. Since I'm a tired pregnant woman, we only saw a fraction of the cemetery before going to the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial (Iwo Jima Memorial) just outside the cemetery. Again, since I'm a tired pregnant woman, I asked Happy to let me stay (with Lisa & Alice) while he walked back to the car and came to the memorial so I didn't have to walk more. He got lost for about 45 minutes in the car and ended up near the Pentagon before finding his way back to us, waiting in the parking lot of the Iwo Jima Memorial. So exciting :-) We then sat in a bit of rush hour traffic as we left DC and headed to where we stayed in Virginia. Matt (Lisa's boyfriend) graciously housed us for the remainder of our stay in Virginia and was incredibly hospitable. Lisa managed to procure every large baby item we needed (stroller, car seat, high chair, pack n play) which made our lives significantly easier. It was awesome.

We met up with Mom as we drove down to VA and stayed up late (or just stayed on CA time?) playing with Alice until her bed time and then chatting once she was asleep. Really wonderful. Dad & Belen drove down Friday as well, but went straight to their hotel since it was so late. Everyone (Happy, Amy, Alice, Dad, Belen, Mom, Matt, Lisa) spent Saturday walking around downtown Staunton (pronounced Stanton) doing some sightseeing which eventually led us to the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library. We got a tour of the home where he was born and got a glimpse of what life was like back then. Really crazy. Makes me appreciate running water and electricity and... carpet :-) Saturday night was dinner at El Puerto with a massive group of Godwins and Lenkers (Matt's family). The food was delicious and the company was even better. Mango salsa is, as Happy would say, the bomb diggity.

Sunday morning we went to church at Barren Ridge Church of the Brethren, where Matt grew up going to church and where his grandparents still attend and his cousin's husband is the pastor. We both thoroughly enjoyed the service and were warmly greeted by Matt's grandparents and cousin's family. After church my long lost friend from high school came for a visit (who knew she lived only an hour from my sister???) and we had a low-key, hangout afternoon. Mom made butternut squash soup for dinner that was delicious. In fact, I wouldn't mind some right now...

Mom had to go back home on Monday so we said our goodbyes before heading to Charlottesville (where Lisa lives & works) to tour Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. REALLY cool house and beautiful gardens. Alice did well on our tour of the house as Mommy maintained a steady stream of Cheerios to her mouth. She lost it at the very end of the tour and we slipped out a side door before joining back up with Daddy & Aunt Lisa for our self-guided tour around the gardens & cemetery. After Monticello we were all ready for lunch, but decided to make a very important stop for cider donuts... I mean, to see the Carter Mountain Orchard and the amazing view of the Virginia countryside. Okay, I'll be honest, I've been craving cider donuts (specifically from Mack's Apples, the farm down the street from where I grew up) for basically this entire pregnancy. Unfortunately, cider donuts do not exist in my southern California life so I was MORE than happy to stop and check out these cider donuts. I want one right now...

Alas, donuts do not make for a hearty lunch so we went to a delicious sandwich shop called Baggby's which Lisa recommended. We then found a bookstore that Happy wanted to check out, which was where we ended our small tour of Charlottesville. Lisa showed us her house and then, as we drove back to Matt's, pointed to where she works. Such a nice area! It makes my southern California life feel like the big city. Dinner was at Matt's house--these spectacular lasagna rolls that Lisa made--and then laundry as we prepared to leave Tuesday morning.

Phew. That's the "stuff" version. Lots more could be said, but I'll save that for in person conversations with those interested :-) We're home now and mostly adjusted back to California time. Alice is going on 1 1/2 hours in her nap (the first decent nap since we came home) after a fun morning at the Irvine Pumpkin Patch. Pictures can be found here, but here's a cute one just to entice you to check out the rest!

Alice's First East Coast Visit

Here's the little woman waving in the airport after her first flight. She did SO great. I don't have time (or energy) right now to write a full post, but wanted to point interested readers to pictures from our trip. There are over 200 and mostly of stuff (as opposed to people), but SUPER cool. We had such a wonderful time visiting my sister and other family members and seeing what life is like in Virginia. Alice is mostly back to California time, though hasn't napped so well yet. We'll see how tomorrow goes. Glad to be home, but missing family. Hopefully there will be another visit in the not-too-distant future!

"Nap" Time

12:00PM Alice sits down for lunch
12:40 Alice finishes lunch
12:50 Alice has clean diaper and lays down for nap
1:30 Alice has played/fussed enough for mommy to correctly assume poopy diaper
1:35 Alice lays back down for nap with (another) clean diaper
1:55 Alice still hasn't slept but receives medicine for teething pain
2:15 Alice FINALLY falls asleep
2:55 Alice wakes and begins "unconvincingly awake" fussing
3:45 Alice begins laughing/playing... sounds like sticking her fingers up her nose while saying "nah, nah, nah, nah" (apparently I've heard it enough to be able to identify over the monitor)

So, what's a mom to do? I know she needs sleep, but it's looking like that won't be happening before bed tonight. Perhaps she'll go to bed early? Let's do a comparison of Alice's normal nap time routine:

12:00PM Alice sits down for lunch
12:30 Alice finishes lunch
12:35 Alice has clean diaper and lays down for nap
12:45 Alice is asleep
2:30-3:00 Alice wakes up from nap and plays happily
3:30 Alice is retrieved, cheerful and well-rested

Okay, I guess today I just lose. Perhaps this means she's getting her molars. I'll be sure to update if something happens in the coming days/weeks. It would be REALLY perfect if they decided to cause her the most pain during our flight to DC/Virginia and then is a disaster the entire week we're there. Am I being too sarcastic?

Seeing as today is the official first day of autumn, of course I had to change the theme of the blog. Even though I've had my autumn decorations up in our apartment since August 31, I decided not everyone shares my enthusiasm for the best season of the year so as to see it on the blog the second school starts. Now Alice is back to unhappy fussing. I think she's good and awake now. No chance of a good nap today. Oi. Have a lovely weekend! And happy birthday Scott!

Making a Liar of Mommy

Of course as soon as I post saying that Alice doesn't perform in front of a camera.......

Quiche & Cinnamon Rolls

 I made a broccoli and cheese quiche recently. It was really delicious and I'm glad I took a picture so I could remember how delicious it was. I also made cinnamon rolls which were spectacular, although not the kind that use yeast. They were more of a biscuit than a roll. Unfortunately I have enough frosting left over (in my freezer) to make another batch.

Bummer. I'll just have to suffer through eating MORE cinnamon rolls. Click here to find the recipe for Easy, No Rise Cinnamon Rolls, which I found on a blog. She's got some pretty good recipes and ideas to stretch your meals so you pay less for groceries. Smart lady.

Words

I can't believe it's already September 20. Sorry for the lack of posting these past couple weeks. Apparently being under the weather sucks out of me any desire to blog. I think we're all mostly better now, with a lingering cough or runny nose here and there.

In the last couple days Alice has started to really try to say words. For about the past week she's been making animal noises and before that was particularly interested in the different parts of her face. The cutest and most recent word she's been attempting is "Amen" which sounds more like "ah-nnn." Unfortunately, she's camera shy and I haven't been able to capture ANYthing on video. Most of her performing happens when it's just Mommy & her. Even with Daddy around she gets a little shy at times. I've seriously considered hiding a camera some time and letting it run. Surely I could capture something then...

But did you know that a cow says "buuuuu" and a dog grunts twice and a cat says "mah" and a monkey makes a high pitched "AH" sound? The animal she's closest to the actual sound is a sheep "baaa" and that's stinkin cute. She also does a horse noise that's pretty good and a bear "BAAH!"

Parts of her face & body that she knows: eyes, nose, mouth, tongue, lips, cheeks (some times), chin, ears, hair, hands, knees, and feet. If you ask her "Alice, where is your nose?" She'll usually point to hers and then yours and probably anyone else around who's listening. The same goes with ears and eyes and sometimes a few of the others. When you ask about her mouth she opens it wide and squints her eyes a little. Her tongue is stuck out of her mouth when requested and she runs her fingers over her lips and says "bbbb" when you ask about those.

I know I'm biased, but does every parent think their child is THIS cute???

Oh, and you can find more pictures from the month of September (granted, not that many) on the web album or click here.

Sick

Tuesday morning Alice woke up with a gross runny nose. By the end of the day she had a fever and her nose was a constant slimy mess. Thursday morning Happy woke up with a sore throat and runny nose. By the end of the day on Thursday he had a fever, could barely breathe through his nose and his cough sounded horrible. Saturday morning I woke up with a sore throat. By the end of the day on Saturday, I DIDN'T have a fever or runny nose (praise the Lord), but was pretty exhausted. Today Alice & I stayed home from church so we wouldn't pass our germs onto anyone else. She just went down for her nap and I think I'm about to do the same. I think times of sickness really make me appreciate the immune systems the Lord has given us. Not to mention the fact that we have never had chronic pain to struggle through. I am so thankful for the health that the Lord gives us day in and day out, but it reminds me of so many I know that do experience chronic pain. Many of them are such an example to me of joy in suffering. I pray the Lord will guide me in that joy if/when I experience suffering.

"Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness." James 1:2-3

Updated Picture Album

Check out some updated pictures from the summer!