kids

T at 2 years and 2 months

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(This post was written back in December, it is now March, but I wanted to record it for posterity’s sake!)

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He just went with Daddy to get his first hair cut at a barber shop! He did great. He was a little unsure but didn’t cry at all!IMG_8378 IMG_8359

I’m ready coach!IMG_8923

Three sweeties in pjs.IMG_8938

He dressed up as Rubble from Paw Patrol for Halloween.IMG_9100

He helped decorate the Christmas tree. See where all his ornaments are? On one branch.IMG_0267

Here is T on Christmas morning. He sat in his little chair that Daddy got made for him and looked at his new Paw Patrol book.

 

Our T is such a sweet guy!

T at 18 months

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(I started this post a long time ago! He is now 20 months!)

On April 10, T turned 18 months old. Here is some of what he is like at this age:

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  • He is a good eater, if it is something he likes (I keep trying but he refuses eggs and pasta every time). His favorites include fish crackers, pretzels, apples, pears, cheese, apricots, beans, green peas, french fries, yogurt, Daddy’s pide, and ice cream cones.  This boy wakes up signing “more” for more food. He carries a snack cup around with him all day.IMG_7164.JPG
  • Though he signs more, all done, and please, he is still only really saying mama and dada. And sometimes it seems like Mama means less of my name and more “someone help me!”. Sometimes if he is playing with a toy and he gets frustrated because it won’t cooperate, you can hear him saying “mamamamamamamamama” at it. He has said ball and bubble a time or two. He makes sounds for a cow, dog, and cat and makes a smacky sound with his lips for a fish. He is a world class grunter. You can manage to figure out what he wants with his pointing and grunting. And then if you say what you think it is he wants and you are right, he nods his head and says “uh!”.
  • He waves bye bye and blows kisses well. He tries to jump and it is hilarious. He likes to throw balls. He has a funny way of gasping and chunking things straight upwards over his head.IMG_7105.JPG
  • He thinks his big sister is the greatest and he tries to do whatever she is doing.
  • He moved into share a room with his big sister around the time he turned 18 months. It was rough going for about a week while he got used to being in a different space, but he finally settled in and I think he likes to know she is over there.IMG_7179.JPG
  • He dropped the morning nap but still takes a champion afternoon nap.
  • He drinks a sippy cup of milk before his nap and bedtime. He has pictures of his family in his room near his bed and he likes to tell them all night night before he goes to bed.IMG_7128.JPG
  • Mickey Mouse Clubhouse seems to be his favorite show that he watches with E. He has finally started being able to build with duplos and not just tear them up. His favorite books are Brown Bear, Little Quack’s Opposites, a Little People Farm book, and Dora Counts.IMG_7178.JPG
  • He knows parts of the body like eyes, ears, nose, hair, mouth, tongue, teeth, toes, hands, tummy. He likes to do the movements in the “Shake a Leg” Sesame Street book.IMG_7095.JPG
  • T is such a smart boy and understands everything you tell him. We are just waiting for the day when he has lots to tell us back! He has a great smile and sense of humor. You can see the sparkle in his eyes when he is about to be silly and knows he is funny. IMG_7152.JPG
  • T, you are such a sweet boy and we love you so!

Apparently I am a monthly blogger now…

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Apparently I am also a phone photo dumper blogger. Since my last post that was an update and lots of phone photos from about a month ago, I have had to pay for my website again for the next year, so I figure I better use it since I pay for it. Haha.

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So E has finished a month at her school and is still doing well and liking it. It helps a lot to have a little friend there! Here is the picture we had taken for her for school. They basically ask for the equivalent of passport photos.  I thought she looked so pretty and grown up in it! She loves purple!

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One day after we took her to school, we went over to the park and sidewalks by the water and went for a walk with little brother. It was a chilly day but nice to see the boats and the cats that hang out on the rocks by the water.

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We went to the mall for lunch one Sunday after church and E and I had a little dessert. Frozen yogurt is a little lower in carbs than ice cream or custard so I shared one with her.(null)

 

We have gotten to see baby #3 a few times lately. He is doing well. Measuring at 6 lbs 10 oz as of 34 weeks, according to the ultrasound machine. Which isn’t huge but isn’t small either. Both my other kids were about 8 lbs 12 oz. Thankfully, my amniotic fluid level has gone down since controlling my gestational diabetes through diet (it was too high) and I have also lost about 7 lbs. so that is good.

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Cutie tootie likes to eat yogurt with corn flakes in it. But he makes a huge mess! Sometimes mommy doesn’t have the patience for that and just feeds it to him herself. But sometimes he gets to play. And then he gets a bath.

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We had planned to celebrate Easter with some foreigner friends in a big forest like last year, but some people thought the weather might be too chilly, so it got moved to the indoor location, which was our house! We didn’t mind hosting since everyone was bringing everything, they just needed our space. But it was a busy day, and at the end, after everyone had gone home, I started looking at Facebook and realized I didn’t get anyone to take  a picture of our whole family. C and I had already changed into comfy clothes. So I got a pic of the kids. T likes smiling for the camera these days. He likes eating pears too. He actually likes to get food and walk around the house eating it, but I really need to stop letting him do that because I find apple peelings that he didn’t eat laying around!

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Some of the moms and I walked all the kids over to a nearby park for an egg hunt after lunch since we weren’t in the forest all day. E spied an egg up high.

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E was excited about her school outfit this day and wanted a picture of her Elsa shirt and Elsa socks.

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On Wednesday last week I had a doctors appointment. She has two offices, one near our old apartment, and one that is more on this side of town but still takes 40 minutes or so to get there. Well I drove to the one on this side of town, only to find out that she was not there that day, she was at the other office! Gah! Also, the store I tried to go to that was nearby closed down last week! Double Gah! So I had to reschedule my appt for Friday and this little guy came with me. He did well and sat in his stroller and ate apples during the appointment. I treated us by going out to lunch afterwards. #selfieinanelevator

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He was excited to get a balloon all to himself. Usually sister gets the balloons.

 

Lately

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Want the latest scoop around here? Well…I am in the middle of my second grad school class to be able to renew my teaching certificate. C has been working on his new business he started. E started going to a local pre-school three days a week last week. And I got diagnosed with gestational diabetes! Not much to see here, folks!

A few months ago, E visited preschool for a day with a 4 year old friend (who is British) at the school that he has attend for a couple of years and his brother went there before him. This friend knows English obviously and also knows the local language since he has been in school a while. So it was good that he was there to help translate for E who knows almost nothing. She had a fun visit that day. Then a couple of weeks ago, she announced that she wanted to go to his school with him. So we talked/thought/prayed about it and got the requisite health report and 6 passport pictures (??) and enrolled her for the month of March. She will probably also go in April and take May for the grandparent visit and maybe go some this summer, we will see. She loves it so far. She has learned the word for teacher and the word “yapma” which means “don’t!”. I am sure she hears the teacher say that a bunch during the day!

The other big thing, gestational diabetes…. I did my glucose test back in February and one number was over the limit so my doctor diagnosed me and sent me to a dietician. She gave me a sample diet that was more like what locals eat but not really like I eat so I scoured the web and made some alterations and it seems to be going well. Few carbs. Whole wheat bread. Not too much. More meat cheese nuts and veggies. The hardest part was that the most squeamish person in the universe was now required to mess with her own blood three times a day (before, 1 hour after, and 2 hours after one meal a day, different meals each day). At first I couldn’t get enough blood to come out to do the test but I finally figured out a better way after two or three days. But basically I stuck myself a lot the first three days. And cried about that some too. Even tried letting C stick me. Anyway, I had my one week follow up with the dietician and she said things looked good, so I guess I just get to keep doing this for the next 8 weeks. (I am 32 weeks on Friday! Crazy!)

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C went to the grocery store yesterday and found me sugar-free “nutella” spread. Yum! I also found some sugar-free strawberry jam the other day. Most of the time you just find jelly here, which is clear red jelly with red small whole strawberries in it, which I do not like. I like a more even consistency. So I think I like this diabetic jam better than the regular stuff.

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E and I have been painting our toenails some. The colors I had for myself (which weren’t very many to start with) aren’t really that great for her. I found a new nail polish for E and I. Its name is “girly”. It is light pink with pink and purple glitter in it. She was ecstatic about it. :) Of course she wanted me to glob it on so she got lots of glitter pieces.

(null)While E is at school, it is so fun to watch what T does with his play time by himself. We have a shoe cabinet in the hall that is empty because we have been trying to sell it. (Our apartment has built-ins so we don’t really need more shoe storage.) He took his lego duplos and set up camp in it. Super fun. He likes to get in their and open and close the sliding door and hide.

So there is what is up with us lately. Now I am going to bed! What is up with you?

Happy First Birthday to T!

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October 10 was T’s first birthday! We had been back in the country for about a week and tried to figure out how to celebrate at a time when none of us were sleeping all that well yet, we were freshly missing family and friends back home,  and Mommy was coming down with a cold.

We started out with breakfast at home!

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Then we went to a big baby store in town that has a little play area for kids. We were going to buy T’s presents and let the kids play a bit.

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Then we headed to lunch at Shake Shack. (Mommy will look for any reason to go here!) But seriously, I figured since T had been eating hamburger meat so well lately, he would enjoy eating an extra hamburger patty from my burger and some fries. (No, we didn’t go to ChickFilA, that is just one of their place mats that I had in my diaper bag.) Turned out he wasn’t interested in the hamburger so mommy got to eat a double, and he just had fries. bday3

Family pic before nap time!

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After naps, we ordered KFC for dinner. Mommy didn’t want to cook today and T wanted chicken nuggets!

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After dinner, we had him open presents and we also talked on the phone with Nena and Pappaw. Big sister helped with the wrapping paper!

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He got a little barn with door that opens, a walking toy, and a toy garbage truck.

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Now for the cake!

I think he is crying because he wants to hurry up and eat it. Or because he has no clothes on. :)

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He did like the cake, but he didn’t devour mommy’s homemade cake as much as he did the bakery cake a few weeks prior.

T is a happy smiley sweet huggy little boy and we love him so! Happy 1 year T!

Random Summer Pics

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Okay folks, you have made it through all the posts from the summer! This last one is just random funny pictures that I wanted to include but don’t get a whole post to themselves.

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We checked out our storage unit one day. Found some treasures. Found some things we wondered why we kept. :)

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T started crawling when he was 11 months old. This is the space in front of the townhouse we stayed in.
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E discovered she likes jello while we were home this summer. She also likes Luby’s. Like her momma.

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Cutie pie in leg warmers!

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These two spent lots of quality time in the car together. E likes it better when he is right next to her. Isn’t this sweet of them holding hands?

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I ate a ton of these this summer! Yum!

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Sweet baby in a swing!

E turns 4

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E has an August birthday so that meant she got to celebrate in America this year.

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The night before, she helped making her own strawberry cupcakes.
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Here the birthday girl is on her big day!

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Nena also brought over more cupcakes for breakfast!

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Cupcakes for breakfast!

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Then it was present time.

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Money is always a hit!

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After that, we took her to the children’s museum. She really enjoyed it!

IMG_6018Of course Daddy found the magnets. His favorite.

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Later, after Chick-fil-A for lunch, and a nap, we headed over to some friend’s neighborhood park and pool for pizza and more cupcakes and swimming.

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Best buds!

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A rare pic of me and the hubs.

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Not only are they strawberry, but they have sprinkles and princess toppers!

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Then pool time!

IMG_6258Later on in the month, this big 4 year old became big enough to go to big church. She did great!

E, I can’t believe you are already 4! You are such a precious and smart and sweet big girl! We love you lots!

We’re Back

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Believe it or not, it has been a month since we arrived back in this country from our visit home this summer. It took us quite a while to get over jet lag this time, the worst yet for our family. Of course we also weren’t staying with grandparents who could help out while the parents rested, so there is that…

Our first leg of the flight was 10 hours and then a 2.5 hour layover in Munich, followed by the 2.5 hour flight here. Unfortunately when we landed in Munich, we waited for our stroller to come up from the gate check area, only to find that they had lost a wheel off it! So it was useless! They checked it on through to our destination so we didn’t have to carry it through the airport but it still meant I had to wear T in the Ergo (thank goodness I at least had it) and we had to carry all the bags we usually put on the stroller. It also meant we didn’t have a place to sit him down while we tried to grab a bite to eat. Ugh! When we landed at our destination, we got the stroller when we deboarded the plane, so that time we did have to carry it all the way through passport control to baggage claim! Yuck!

We did get a bulkhead seat on the long flight with a bassinet for T to sleep in. Unfortunately he didn’t really sleep all that much. About two hours total, and one hour wasn’t until the end. I was pretty exhausted after that. On the second flight he slept more and so did I. So the travel wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t good either. We were glad to be here, even though we had a four hour ride home from the airport because our flight landed at about rush hour and our new apartment is even further away from the airport than our old one.

It took about a week for the kids to start sleeping all night. T woke up a lot most nights until then. They say give it one day for every hour of time change so that would have been 8 days. The most it has taken in the past was probably just 2 days. We were sure glad when everyone started sleeping through the night again!

We have had a busy first month back. I haven’t felt that great. Some dear friends moved so we have spent time with them. C has been taking a Saturday morning language class. And we have still been doing some setting up of our home, since we had only lived here three weeks before leaving. Our time home was pretty busy so it felt like we needed a vacation from our vacation when we got back and time to rest.

October was pretty mild weather but it has gradually started getting colder. Hopefully in November we will start to figure out more of a routine. I would love to get back in the routine of blogging and am hoping to work on some posts tonight to set up. No pictures for this post but lots to come. Thanks for reading if you still are! :)