Bei Bei

Check out this photo of Isaac and his buddy, Bei Bei the tiger.



First of all, you need to know that I did not pose this photo! It totally looks like I did, but I promise I didn't. One day I went in to check on Isaac and this is what I saw. So I snapped a photo.

Our girls both have stuffed animal buddies that sleep with them each night. Julianna's is a panda named Jing Jing and Lydia's is a pink bunny rabbit called Carolina. Now Isaac has Bei Bei, his tiger. [The names are reflective of the places where each of the children were born.]

The girls were thrilled to meet Bei Bei - they each understand how important these little animals are! We travel a lot. Life is (too) full of transition, at times. But these little animals are like magic. I think we could plop down in the middle of the Sahara desert, pitch a tent, pull out these animals and the girls would curl up and fall asleep.

So when Bei Bei arrived with Grandma, the girls knew just what to do. Dump him in Isaac's bed! And somehow one nap he managed to sleep with his face cuddled up next to Bei Bei.

Who knows if Isaac will develop an attachment to Bei Bei like the girls have developed with their animals? But I hope he does. And I can't wait to show him the photo posted above!

Julianna will specifically ask to look at this photo of herself and Jing Jing:

And this is the first picture I could find of Lydia with Carolina ....

Well, Isaac is still sleeping, but I can hear the girls starting to wake. My glorious "three simultaneous nap-takers" time is coming to a close! Gotta run...

little children + sunglasses =

great photos!

I love little children in sunglasses .... So I take pictures :)



I took these a few days before we came home. Unfortunately, the pollution in that city makes sunglasses pretty obsolete. But NOT HERE AT HOME! Oh wow, I love blue skies and sunshine. We need our sunglasses again!

So far, the transition back has been pretty smooth. I love routine, so I'm eager to get back into the groove and figure out life with three little ones. Good thing I have Grandma in town to help me get up and running!

Julianna heads back to her preschool tomorrow, Lydia just moved into her big girl bed, and Isaac gets cuter every day. We've got big events happening here :) More updates tomorrow. Time is pretty precious right now!

hello hello

We are home!! All three kids were great little travelers. Julianna had her sunglasses packed in her carry on so she'd be ready for all our hometown sunshine! Lydia was busy as ever, but we had plenty of extra seats and she got to burn off some energy. Isaac, of course, slept 99.9 % of the way- if you've never flown with a two week old, I highly recommend it. I put him in the sling and it is a bit like having a 8 pound handbag, except cuter :)

It feels so good to be back on our own turf. Girls are snoozing in their beds and Isaac snoozing in Grandma's arms. We are looking forward to seeing some friends later this afternoon :)

Well, I don't think I can hold off any longer... all those bulging suitcases are calling my name.

starting to say goodbye

Friday we started saying our first "goodbyes" to our friends in this city. Although I am SUPER EAGER to get home and settled in to our apartment with our newest addition, I am also sad to leave some friendships here. It seems like we are almost always coming or going from somewhere :(

Friday morning we said goodbye to the house helper who has been a big part of our life for the past five weeks. She was so very good with the girls, made yummy lunches, washed mounds of dishes (over and over again) and stayed overnight with the girls on the night I spent at the hospital so Matt could be with me.





She loved to hold Isaac, walking around the house and singing to him!



Goodbyes are starting, with more to come.

But we've also got some great "hellos" ahead. One more day here, and we leave on Sunday morning for a short (!!) flight home!

Julianna's first haircut

In all my free time (ha ha!) I decided to give Julianna her first haircut! Actually, I'd been thinking it needed to be cut for a while now, and just hadn't done it yet. And it seemed like a fun little mother-daughter activity we could enjoy together.

So, this past Monday I pulled a chair up to the kitchen table, set up a little mirror, and went to work. [Speaking of first haircuts, it was also the first time I had ever given anyone a haircut!] Next time I'll skip the mirror and try a movie or something (like my friend Leah recommended). Julianna did NOT keep still for one single second. But I did my best.

She was exactly three years and three months old :)



Here's the finished look :) She's cuter than ever!

Welcome Grandma!

Grandma is here! Julianna got the special privilege of skipping her nap to go to the airport with Matt to pick her up and she was so very excited :) This was the scene about 30 minutes after Jan walked in the door of our apartment!


One of the first goodies she pulled out of her bag was chap stick! She sure knows the way straight to her granddaughters' hearts!




It's Wednesday morning now and all six of us are heading out to take care of some errands. Isaac needs to apply (in person) for his US passport, so first stop is the embassy!

Daddy of the year!

Matt has thoroughly eliminated all other competitors for the "daddy of the year" award, at least in my book. Since Isaac's birth he's been on full-time paternity leave and I am loving EVERY SINGLE MINUTE! Wow - where would we be without his help?

Yesterday morning he took the girls to church while Isaac and I stayed home to enjoy some rare peace and quiet. Just to shake things up a bit, he treated the girls to a ride on a double decker bus. Now, you need to know that bus riding is not for the faint of heart - I guess you could go so far as to claim that the system is pretty "user-friendly", the problem seems to be there are a few too many "users" of the system. And I am intimidated by the sheer number of bus routes - do you want bus 764 or bus 922 or bus 17?

Not Matt. With a 3 year old and 19 month old he decides he's going to pick a double decker bus and ride it. And he did. And took the girls upstairs, to the front of the bus, for maximum effect. Oh, they were thrilled!

Isaac is thrilled with his daddy too, and I'm sure one day he will be looking forward to a ride on a double decker bus. In the meantime, he's pretty happy to just relax in Matt's arms.



We love you Matt!

tomboy or girly girl?

It's definitely still to early to make the call on the "will she be more of a tomboy or a girly-girl" question for Lydia. She does love to play with babies and do all sorts of "girly" things, but check out these photos....



That's her putting her baby through the basket! We haven't watched any March Madness - though we did listen via the internet as the Deacons lost in the first round :( and UNC won! Apparently, Lydia was inspired to play a little basketball herself!

5 days old

We are definitely staying busy, enjoying our newest addition, laughing with the girls, and sleeping when we can! It's a FULL time in our lives, that's for sure.

Isaac is doing great. This morning was his "5 day birthday". He celebrated with a nice, long 3 hour stretch of sleep. I woke to hear him making little baby grunting noises at 6:30 and felt SO RESTED after that nice 3 hour chunk of rest. Good rest is relative, you know? It was a good start to the day, that's for sure.

I am beginning to look ahead to our journey back to our home city. After 4 weeks here, we are eager to get home! Julianna loves to talk about the people she will see and the things she will do when we get there. But we've got one more big event on the horizon before that airplane trip home: Grandma is coming! Matt's mom arrives Tuesday afternoon and we can't wait :) She will be the first of our extended family to meet little Isaac.

So, that's the random assortment of news from the homefront here. More photos in the next post :)

the journey home, part 1

Well, we left the hospital on Tuesday afternoon for part 1 of our journey home. We'll complete the journey (probably next weekend) when we head back to our home city!

It was good to get home, although I had a few moments that first evening when I secretly thought, "maybe I should just go back to the hospital, life here is too crazy!" That evening at dinner we sang Happy Birthday Baby Isaac and ate cupcakes. Isaac was barely 36 hours old and slept through the celebration in my arms!

We are doing well - Matt and I are sleeping in shifts at night and Isaac is eating and sleeping and crying and doing his little baby thing. Friends are helping out with meals and the house helper is trying to keep the sink mostly clear of dirty dishes and the laundry under control. I really feel pretty good, just a little bit tired (ha! maybe more like exhausted!)

So, here are a few more photos to enjoy!

Just a few minutes old

Julianna's first chance to hold the new baby - she anticipated this moment for weeks!


This is definitely one of my favorite photos from the girls' visit


He was pretty content getting ready to leave the hospital


Leaving the hospital.....


Arriving at home...

Lydia is starting to satisfy some of her baby holding desires with her baby dolls, which is a helpful compromise for everyone involved!

What a sweet big sister!

Announcing...

the arrival of our son, Isaac Luther!

Born early Monday morning, March 16, 2009, 5:07 am local time. Labor was quick and God was so good to answer prayers for perfect timing! 8 lbs, 5 oz and 20.5 inches long - and oh so very cute!

We called a friend at 2am who came to stay with the sleeping girls while we headed to the hospital. It's quite a drive from where we live, and I was concerned that a rush-hour ride across a city of 14 million people while in labor wouldn't be my favorite way to spend time! Thankfully, at 2:15 in the morning, traffic is pretty light :) We made the trip in about 30 minutes. Isaac arrived two hours later.

Friends brought the girls to visit this morning - they were delighted with their new little brother!


Just to clarify, in the photo below those are not tears of joy in Lydia's eyes, but tears of disappointment. For the first 30 minutes of her visit she cried unless she was "holding it" (she later transitioned to saying "hold it Isaac" which she spouted at regular intervals throughout the entire visit - she LOVES to hold her baby brother!). Any time anyone else had the baby she sported this sad little face!


Julianna was such a GREAT big sister! She loved examining his fingers and toes and touched him so sweetly and gently.


Matt and I are delighted and awed. A baby is such a sweet gift from the LORD! Wow - what gracious abundance he has lavished on us.

preparing the big sisters

We talk every day about our 'new baby' and Julianna is so excited about welcoming him to the family. (Yes, after lots of practice and constant reminders, she almost always refers to the baby as 'he', but every now and then still calls the baby 'she'!) Mostly, Julianna wants to hold him. Tight. When he cries. And bring him toys.

She recounts this scenario daily. "Don't worry mommy, when the new baby cries I will hold him tight and bring him some toys." She even shows me exactly how she will hold him :) It's fun to watch her anticipate his birth, since last time around, she was pretty much clueless until the day Lydia showed up.

All Julianna's talk about holding the new baby reminds me of this photo ... Lydia must have been about a week old.


Lydia is not nearly as well prepared, of course. A few days ago the girls and I sorted some baby clothes together ... as you can imagine, they were a tremendous amount of help to me - makes me wonder how I did this kind of task without them :) Lydia wanted to try some of the things on herself. She finally did find a hat that she could squeeze onto her head, but was sorely disappointed that most of the stuff was way too small! She might grow up to be a bit of a clothes horse - she also loves to try on Julianna's clothes and would run around wearing a pair of Julianna's panties on top of her own pajamas all day long if I let her :)

In the end, both the girls settled for dressing their baby dolls in some of the new baby's clothes. It still seems crazy that we will soon have a REAL baby to wear those little socks! I hit the 39 week mark today, and we are settling in for the final wait. With no history of early babies, I think it'll be a while -

life as a 3T

One of Julianna's current fascinations is the size of her clothing (3T). She even refers to herself as a "3T". As in, "Yeah, I can go down that big slide because now I am 3T." Or, "On Sunday I am going to the 3T class at church". And, every morning there is the ritualistic examination of each piece of clothing to ensure that it is, in fact, 3T. She still wears a few 2T things and it leads to all sorts of concern - she will put the clothes on, but only after receiving assurance that the clothing is probably 3T, it was just mislabeled :)

Well, Lydia is most definitely not wearing 3T - which Julianna is quick to point out. "That's ok Lydia, one day we can be 3T together" says a sympathetic little Julianna. Or, "soon it will be your birthday Lydia, and then you will be 2T, how about that?" ['Soon' is, of course, relative. Lydia's birthday is 5 months away!]

Lydia is wonderfully unconcerned with whether or not she is a 3T. But she has started to be picky about her clothes - mostly she wants to wear something similar to what her big sister is wearing. Especially if Julianna wears a dress, Lydia is sure to want one too.

All that to say, getting dressed each morning is a bit more complicated than it seemingly 'should' be. There's Julianna in one corner of the room, doing the "3T tag check" and Lydia in the other, hollering "dress, skirt, tights". Some day they'll probably be really concerned about expressing their individuality, and refuse to share clothing. In the meantime, Julianna is anxiously waiting for Lydia to be old enough to wear 3T, and Lydia wants to wear a skirt just like her big sister. Fun.

sweet or spicy?

One of the bigger and more momentous decisions in Julianna's day is the kind of toothpaste she wants to use. I'm not kidding. It's a pretty big deal.

For starters, both girls just love to brush their teeth. This morning Julianna ran to find Matt getting ready for church and loudly proclaimed, "I know, let's get Lydia and all go brush our teeth". Nothing like the promise of a good teeth-brushing to get the heart racing!

The "sweet" toothpaste is a kid-variety-bubblegum-flavor toothpaste. "Spicy" is just plain old minty Crest. It always takes a few minutes of deliberation before Julianna can decide just which one she wants at any particular teeth-brushing session. Lydia almost always chooses spicy (which she refers to as 'picey' since she can't pronounce the initial 's' sound).

When I saw these two photos of Lydia, they reminded me of the big toothpaste decision.

She can be so very SWEET....


but without a doubt, there's a great deal of SPICY!


PS - I have no idea why she was wearing her hat for these photos, it's toasty warm in our apartment. Maybe she's starting to accessorize?

Happy Birthday Matt

We celebrated Matt's birthday yesterday. Even though his birthday isn't March 5. It's February 28th. But according to plan A, we weren't going to be together as a family on Feb 28th. Then, Julianna got really sick, plan B went into place, and we were actually together that day, but celebrating a birthday just wasn't in the cards. For one, I could hardly stand up I was so tired. And, of course, our cupcake-eater-extraordinaire wasn't eating much of anything, so the day would have been a bust for her. So we rescheduled :)

It was a GREAT DAY! Matt took most of the morning off - we celebrated with cinnamon rolls (my specialty, and a family tradition) and then opened presents.



Later that morning Julianna and I made cupcakes (can you tell she licked the spatula?)


Just the two of us went out for a lunch date and then came back in time for a little cupcake eating with the girls. Then, yesterday evening, Matt and a few buddies went to a local restaurant and enjoyed some time hanging out.

Fun stuff. Julianna asked Matt was his favorite part of the day was and he couldn't decide - so he asked her what her favorite part of his birthday was.... the answer: cupcakes and presents. And the presents weren't even for her! She is a natural at celebrating birthdays and she's already busy prepping for the next family birthday - our new baby! I managed to store a few of the cupcakes away in the freezer and we'll celebrate another birthday in a few more weeks!

living the high life

Our apartment is on the 11th floor, and in many ways, I am definitely "living the high life" of convenience here. Of course, in a perfect world, I would not have to move far away from home just to have a baby. But, if I do have to move, I am so grateful I can enjoy some fun new things about our temporary home.

So, in no particular order, here are some of my favorite things -

* A playground in our apartment complex!! The girls are in "slide-heaven". And as if the playground itself wasn't enough to satisfy, there's a KFC with indoor play area that's a 5 minute walk away. More slides! It's almost too good to be true!

* The elevator! If this were a Top Ten List, the elevator would definitely be my #1! Oh man, what a difference this makes. 15 steps from our front door I've got 24 hour access to an elevator that scoots me, my belly, my girls, my stroller, my groceries, my whatever, up and down those flights of stairs with ease.

* The neighborhood grocery store is big and amazing. About four minutes from my building... instant access to all kinds of things that are "pretty inaccessible" in our hometown. I am LOVING it!

* Fancy yogurt! Small confession: I like when my yogurt tastes more like a dessert than a health food. Have you ever eaten Yoplait Whips Key Lime Pie flavored yogurt??? Oh wow, it's amazing. And it's technically a 'breakfast food' :) Well, there's no Yoplait Whips here, but they do have fruit flavored yogurt with large yummy chunks of real fruit. Makes me hungry just thinking about it!

* The house helper here is such a blessing. She's super familiar with the apartment, knows all the ins and outs of the neighborhood, and makes the girls giggle :) I'm also learning all kinds of local lingo from her- we're in the same country, but there is a lot of local dialect, so I'm learning the northern way to say "zucchini" and "iron clothes" and "cilantro".

* Friends!! I'm not sure I realized how lonely I was back home without my buddy and neighbor and fellow-mom Erin Ashley. Wow - it's great to be around some other foreign moms again :) Thank goodness Erin Ashley is busy packing her family's bags and getting ready to return to this side of the globe - they'll be home in just a few weeks and I can't wait to get back home too so we can be living "mom life" together again!

* The LJ baby catalog. You will not believe this - but there is a store here that has a 200 page catalog of baby goodies. And they deliver. For free. I think one of a mother's primary love languages must be "home delivery". Especially in a country with no minivan, no carseats, no drive-thru pharmacy, no child-seat-equipped shopping carts, etc. Let's say it's 9pm and you realize you are almost out of diapers. No problem. Call the LJ catalog folks. Your diapers at your doorstep, the following day! Not to mention that they carry all kinds of items I can't even buy back home - like rice cereal (which I plan to stock up on before heading down south).

I'm sure there's more! Of course, I miss home. I miss our neighborhood. I miss my own house, my own bed, my own kitchen, my own routine. But let's face it. I'm hardly in "enduring" or "persevering" mode here. It's good stuff. So we're settling in and enjoying the wait for our baby boy!

big city living

A few photos of our new-temporary home. It is definitely big city living! We've got plenty of neighbors :) I bet there are almost as many people in a square kilometer here as live in our entire little suburb back home!

Here we are right outside the entrance to our building. Take special note of my longish hair, I got a major hair cut a few hours after these photos were taken. I'm pretty sure I love my new style, but it will take me a few days to make a final decision :) I'll get a picture and post it tomorrow.


The baby boy in the belly.... 37 weeks and growing!

Here you can also see the other buildings in our complex and a big fancy office building in the background. We live on the 11th floor, I think there are 20ish floors in our building.


Our building is on the far right side of this photo. This is what it looks like when all four of us are on the move!

the proof is in the bathmat

Healthy? Yep, pretty much. Julianna is still partially limited in what she can eat (I hesitate to give her anything too spicy or acidic) and her appetite has not fully returned, but I'd say she's almost back to normal. The rest of us feel pretty good too - three straight nights of decent sleep and I feel like a new person :)

The real proof? I put the bathmats back on the bathroom floor. You see, after washing the same thrown-up-on-bathmat twice (maybe three?) times in a 24 hour period I picked up all bathmats (and extraneous floor rugs) and put them up on a shelf. Tile floors are much quicker and easier to clean, and I was doing a lot of cleaning! But last night I decided the coast was clear and put the bathmats back down. Here's hoping I don't have to wash any more throw-up-bathmats this month!

We're running out to get some lunch here in a minute and I'm going to take some photos of our apartment building and neighborhood, so check back soon.