Spring

Spring is here.  Gavin got a new haircut and thinks he's super cool!  Miles of course wants to be like Gavin and wants his hair spiked, too.

We play outside when our cleaner is at our house.  We also stop friends who are exercising to come and play with us!  My kids LOVE when Jacob comes over!

I totally dressed our kids up for St. Patrick's Day (not sure where Gavin's green shirt was for the picture), only to realize I dressed them up March 7th, not March 17th.  Oops.

We spend afternoons at the beach with friends if the weather's pretty and the winds not blowing 90 mph.  The little ones didn't mind how cold the water was and loved the sand between their toes.

We take advantage of when Brooks and Micah are off work on the weekends and hang out before dinner playing washers and relaxing!

Having a Vision & Commitments

I feel extremely vulnerable sharing this blog post, but am excited and hopeful that it has the potential to help me strive to meet my goals, keep my commitments, and continue holding onto a vision that I have.

At the beginning of the year, Brooks and I sat down and shared with each other our vision for this year, individually and as a couple.  We talked about:
- goals we have
- things the Lord has laid on our hearts and that we feel called to do
- specific areas in our lives we want to change and work on
- scripture we want to pray over for ourselves, our family, and our kids
- tentative plans for the year -- not that what we plan will always happen, but we can HOPE! 
- trips we want to take
- new things we want to try

We wanted to be open with one another and show each other what's been on our hearts so that we can help support each other and hold each other accountable.  It's really been an amazing experience to walk through some of this together and to see how far we've come in a matter of months.

One of my commitments was to not yell at our kids in anger when disciplining them.  This is something I've struggled with, what mom doesn't?  But, I honestly wanted to make a change and speak to my kids out of love and to teach and train them without yelling.  I've only slipped twice in the last 82 days, which I'm quite proud of, but the best thing I've noticed is how my kids have been interacting with one another.   Gavin has stopped screaming at Miles when he gets mad and their overall conversations together or towards us when they get upset have drastically changed. It's so true how our kids react based on what they see or observe from us.  I've also been extremely encouraged to know that our kids are still learning right from wrong and life lessons even without me having to yell.  So far my commitment has produced some positive things!  I feel like I like myself more when I'm calm and observant of my actions.

Brooks and I both discussed the calling we had on our hearts about building up our marriage and speaking into the lives of others' marriages.  Over time we watched the Lord orchestrate the opportunity for Brooks and I to speak at one of our weekly meetings.  Due to the large response we had from attenders and other schedule conflicts, it ended up being a 3 week series that we lead and were able to incorporate some great messages from our home church, CCCC, from a Redeeming Marriage series they had.  God really had his hand over that entire situation as Brooks and I learned even more about ourselves and our marriage was strengthened.  While we were preparing for the messages a few "issues" came up and we were forced gently reminded on a continuous basis

While I've been tackling issues inwardly, I decided to make some commitments for me that had to do with taking care of myself.  Besides learning how to fix, curl, and style my hair, which has gotten really long; I've started doing some strength training work outs every morning at the gym (my sweet hubby created a small program for me), AND I've cut out eating sweets.  I never realized how much sweets I consume on a daily basis and it was just adding up.  I've actually kept up with this commitment for the past month and allow myself one sweet treat on the weekend, if I made it all week not cheating.  It really hasn't been that hard-- but I've become much more aware of when I do want to snack on some chocolate and have been eating fruit, yogurt, or nuts instead.  I'm hopeful I can keep this up and eventually want to make other decisions to decrease the amount of fried foods or starches that are in my diet.  I, non intentionally, gave up soft drinks, but that's more because I'd rather have another cup of coffee in the middle of the day then a diet coke.

So far, I'm loving the results from my commitments and have the motivation to keep up with these things!! It's all because I grabbed onto a vision I had and am following through to make that vision happen!

Wait, I have a blog?!!?

I don't remember the last time I've gone this long without blogging or with having so much time go between my posts.  I love blogging and I love the idea of sharing with family and friends what we're doing in our lives on this side of the world.  In a strange way, blogging helps me feel connected with people.

I've actually made a list of all the events, topics, and happenings that have taken place in the last few months that I have all intentions of sharing on the blog.  I'd love to have it all done in the next two weeks before our family vacation!!  Hmmm.. let's see if that happens.  Life has become extremely busy with 3 kids all on different schedules and having their own things going on... I feel like we're always going in a million different directions and when we're not busy, I'm determined to spend intentional time with our kids and my man and not on the computer!!  But, when I do have some down time, I get extremely overwhelmed with the idea of starting all these various blog posts and giving each one of them the "attention" they need!  We'll see how it goes!  Until then just know that all these things have happened and one day I'll post about them:

- Summer 2012 Arkansas Trip (with family and friends)
- An engagement and a party
- Summer 2012 Lake Charles
- Brooklyn turned 6 months
- 2 year Saudiversary
- Gavin's 4th Birthday Party in Lake Charles
- Traveling Back to KSA
- Jetlag and a new bed
- Brooklyns nursery (since I never posted pics of it after we finished)
- Gavin turns 4
- Brooklyn turned 7 months-- crawling.. what!! what!!
- Day with friends- birthday parties
- Vacation Planning
- 1st day of school- Miles and Gavin
- 4 Going on 14-- a new Gavin and mommy's reactions
- Superhero Party
-House Organizing-- thanks to Pinterest and becoming OCD all of a sudden
- Bahrain

What my boys have been doing

Brooks has experimented and played with his tortilla maker and really likes it.  We found a homemade flour tortilla recipe online and tried it out (we didn't use lard and it still worked).  They were pretty good.  

Gavin's starting to get a goofy personality.  He's always made amusing facial expressions but now, they're to a whole new level.

When my mom was here, she helped me tweak a few things around my house and had a great idea to hang chalkboards on the wall in the kids play room area.  Gavin, his friends, and even Miles love writing and drawing.  Gavin shocked Brooks and I when he drew a sun, house, and tree, with some grass in this picture.  At school last month, they learned about houses and whats found outside a house, thus what prompted this drawing!!

Miles, our little tornado, is living up to his name!  He made every effort to get the bowl of Fruit Loops and I've finally decided those dumb suction things don't work.  He got to the bowl by climbing up on a chair and throwing it off the kitchen table.  I was changing Brooklyns diaper while this was going on and found him eating the Fruit Loops off the floor.  

 He's also our climber.  He climbs on everything, all the time.  Nothing seems to work to keep him from climbing on things.  He could fall down, hurt himself, be screaming crying from the fall, while trying to climb back up the very thing he just fell off of.  

Gavin being goofy!

Miles eating his first popsicle.  The child HATES cold things... like hates them!  We have to fix his milk cup and let it sit for 10-15 minutes to take the chill off before he'll even drink it.

Miles also learned how to escape from our yard.  Since we live on the end of the compound (literally, the 10 foot wall of our compound is next to our house) and there is a street for cars to drive on we called the carpenters to install a fence to keep Miles in.  This has made life very easy in letting the kids play in the backyard.  

That's what my boys have been doing!!

This is what we do

Caution: Picture Overload!!  

We introduce Brooklyn to people on skype

We try to laugh and goof on since someone always seems to be crying around here

 

We give friends opportunities to take care of our kids.... Micah was practicing!

When we're delirious and tired and exhausted, we seem to do anything to entertain our kids.  You can tell Brooks was thrilled!

We find new ways to keep Miles, our little tornado (that's his new nickname), contained in one place!

Mom takes care of Brooklyn and helps keep her out of arms reach from all the chaos!

Do you know there are thousands and thousands of recipes for dates?  Since dates are really popular around here-- mom went to town creating recipes with them... they were actually good, too!

Gavin even tried them-- don't know what he thought about this one?!?!

Delia holding Brooklyn for the first time.

 We take long walks and play on the playgrounds to get out of the house and have some fun!  Love my new stroller by the way!

 

 





We make attempts to get out of the house and load 3 car seats in and out of cars.  It was an experience and we have no room for anyone or anything else to fit into the car!

 

As you can see, we're making it with 3 kids and feel like we have a house full!  My dad left a week and a half ago and we miss him, but praise the Lord my mom's still here!  We're doing everything we can to make special memories with her and take advantage of her company and her help!   

Behind the Scenes

We had some moments last Saturday that I didn't post about in the previous blog nor did I put the pics on facebook, but thought I'd share them with those that read our blog just for fun and so Brooks and I can remember them for years to come.

Do all couples have moments like these while in the delivery room?  *pause the music down below.

That was my sweet, loving, caring, supportive husband making fun of me feeling sick after just getting an IV.  I'm pretty sure I called him a jerk moments after this... but then we made up and I was over it, and he behaved himself the rest of the morning!  

My doctor's assistant came and checked me at one point in the morning and said it'd be another 30 minutes before I'd be ready to deliver.  As she was walking out of the room I felt the STRONGEST urge to push and it terrified me since they said I wasn't ready yet.  I refused to let her leave and started yelling her name as she was walking out of the room.  She decided to check me again, just minutes after checking me.... she quickly ran and got the doctor.  

Stephanie has a story that represents this picture.  You can read about it on her blog here.

 Post delivery, my doctor came back in the room.  He wanted to show me pictures from his vacation he took over the weekend.  I was NOT interested at that moment.

Brooks helping me get re-situated from all the tubes they had coming off of me.  Can you tell I was out of it at this point, post delivery?!?!

I decided a few days before Brooklyn's induction that I wanted her birth filmed.  I know that may seem weird, gross, odd... or whatever, but I really wanted to experience it and remember her birth.. it sounds strange since I'm the one giving birth, but I didn't want to miss anything and I figured if it was video taped, I could watch it once, remember everything and move on.  It was kind of a good thing I did have my mom videotape since I was really out of it with my epidural not working the way it was suppose to that I genuinely missed out on a few things. I'm glad I made the decision and it was a joy watching my little girl come into the world.

When Gavin came to visit me in the hospital, the first thing he asked me to do was get the bug out of his nose.  Um, okay.  So instead of a hug and a kiss I got to pick my child's nose.  Nice.

Here's a video of Gavin meeting Brooklyn for the first time.  He really was excited, but acted so serious!
**Don't forget to scroll down and pause my music so you can hear him!

Everyone took a nap at some point during our busy day Saturday once Brooklyn had arrived.  Brooks and I requested a private room for our stay in the hospital, but they were all full so we got a semi- private room (with 2 beds) but we didn't have to share it with anyone.  Mom, Brooks, & Steph all took turns napping on the extra bed.

Incase you're interested... 

The hospital I delivered Miles and Brooklyn at is a breast feeding only hospital.  That is the policy.  When you live in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia-- they can declare policies like that!  Well, this momma wasn't going that route again... been there, done that, struck out twice, and learned my lesson.  So, I asked the nursery to bring formula for me to feed Brooklyn.  This is what they did.  Needless to say, my mom sent a bottle up to the hospital the next day for us to have while feeding Brooklyn formula.  

 

This week flew by

A lot has happened this week, but thankfully, it's been stress free, easy going, calm, and over all, a relaxing, but busy week.

1.We moved the boys into the same room Sunday.  Wow-- what a transition this has been.  The first two nights were sleepless for everyone and naptime during the day pretty much was non- existent.  The boys are getting better with things and Brooks and I have learned the importance of not putting them down for bed at the same time so we're making some progress!

2. I got all of Brooklyn's clothes that we received from her baby shower washed, folded, organized by size and put away!  Whew-- huge accomplishment!  We set up an area in our bedroom with all her belongings for the first few weeks and while my parents are here and have everything ready to go!

3.  My parents arrived in the Kingdom Tuesday night.  They had a successful traveling experience, with no issues, made it through Saudi customs quickly, and met up with me at the airport soon after landing.  The moment I saw them I let out a huge sigh of relief and instantly felt relaxed and at ease (they made it here safely AND now Brooklyn could come if she wanted to).

4. Our boys were besides themselves to have their Kimmie and Captain at their house and have kept my parents entertained every waking moment.  We kept Gavin home from school Wednesday morning so he could be here when my parents woke up and I'm so glad we made that decision.  Gavin played and played and played his heart out with them- showing off all his new toys, how we moved his room around, etc.

5. I had a doctor's appointment Wednesday afternoon and to make things easy on everyone I left my parents at home with the boys so everyone could take naps (my parents were dealing with jet lag) and then my friend Stephanie came with me so that I wasn't by myself at the doctor incase something happened or was told to head to the hospital.   My doctor checked me for the first time and said I was basically 4cm and ready!  We scheduled an induction for Saturday (If I made it until then-- happy to report it's Friday afternoon here and I haven't gone into labor).

6. We took my parents to a local restaurant for dinner and met up with all our friends and had a fun night out!

7. Thankfully, Brooks got today (Friday) off of work (it's our weekend right now) so we've had the day to enjoy with him.  We went to our weekly meeting group and cooked lunch and ate with my parents and Micah and Steph.  The weather has been really cold lately, and today was in the low 60's-- something we're not use to, but want to take advantage of it so our afternoon was spent outside!  The guys played washers, the little boys ran around, and us girls just visited.

Well, there's not much else to report on our week!  We leave at 3am tonight for the hospital and will do everything as we did for Miles birth-- be admitted to the hospital, start the induction process, and hopefully within a few hours Brooklyn will arrive.  I invited Stephanie to come and be apart of Brooklyn's birth in Saudi and she willingly agreed.  I'm really excited about her sharing this time with us and hope it will be an "enjoyable" experience for her (we keep joking that it's a good thing she's already pregnant so this doesn't make her want to change her mind about having a baby).  We will try and keep you all posted on how things are going and Brooklyn's arrival- we already know we don't have internet in the hospital to blog... but can do facebook via our phones-- so stay tuned!

We're about to be a family of 5.... WHOA!! 

A New Year, 35 weeks, Nesting, & More

Happy New Year.  We celebrated the New Year by..... well, going to bed around 9pm- woo hoo!  You know you're jealous.

We did wake up around midnight to loud, cracking sounds that were coming from outside our window.  I honestly thought our compound was under attack.  It took me a few seconds to realize it was midnight on New Years Eve/Day and maybe people actually celebrated this day with fireworks.  I eventually calmed down and Brooks looked out the window just to check things out and he saw some residents on our compound popping fireworks out near the beach.  Whew.  Nothing to be worried about.  5 minutes later, Brooks and I were both sleeping.

I had my 35 week doctors appointment New Years Day and Brooks and I laughed at the irony that this time last year we were across the way in the hospital and had just had Miles.  Hmmm..  Other then waiting 3 hours to see my doctor, we enjoyed our day trip to Khobar on New Years and brought the boys with us to have some family time.  3 hours in a doctor's office- not fun for everyone, but we were together so whatever.  Brooks and I met a princess- her appointment was right before mine and sadly, she had to wait just as long to see the doctor as we did.  Random- would have thought she'd have gotten the royal treatment or something.  She was very polite and sweet and complemented our kids and how beautiful and well behaved they were.  Thanks!

Brooklyn is doing good.  She's growing and looks JUST LIKE MILES in the ultrasound pictures.  I was surprised to learn that I've only gained 5 pounds in the last 9 weeks.  Even with our time in the states.. that was a shock!

We had two small incidents this past week where we thought I was going into labor.  On Wednesday I was having contractions every 20 minutes apart for about 5 hours and we were just waiting for them to get closer together before heading to the hospital.  I laid down, took a nap and they were gone.  Then on Thursday, I started having contractions every 15 minutes apart, but we weren't ready to go to the hospital just yet-- I felt like even though they were painful, they weren't stopping me from doing things (other then talking and walking) so again, we decided to wait it out.  4 hours later.. they stopped.  Ugh- I can't trust my body.  The contractions are getting annoying and it's really obnoxious to think okay, it's time and then it's not.  I'm trusting and praying that Brooklyn comes when she's suppose to and that I will have that mother's instinct or just a strong gut feeling when it really is time to go to the hospital so I'm not stranded, having a baby in a car, or have to have her at our local hospital.  God worked everything out last year, I'm confident all will work out this year, too.

I've been extremely busy around the house getting things organized, put together, moved around, and in  it's place.  Ever since we came back from the states, brought in 8 suitcases, shipped 6 LARGE boxes of toys and gifts, brought back baby girl clothes- I've been on a mission for everything to have it's place in this house.  I've moved furniture from Gavin's room down to the playroom and got rid of all the little baskets that were everywhere and put all the boys' toys in one location.  We've gone through every piece of clothing that is the boys and washed, folded, organized, and grouped it all together based on size then put them into space saver bags-- I was determined to not have any piece of clothing 9 months and below out since we didn't need it anymore and put away clothes of Gavin's that he hasn't worn since right after we moved here (2T and 3T clothes- the kid is in 4T and just turned 3 a few months ago).  We bought a dresser for Brooklyn's clothes to go into, but it's still sitting in the box needing to be put together.  I've washed and organized all the clothes we have for her by size and put into separate bins so that when we need a certain size, I'll know where it is and what we have for her in that size.  I've purged a ton of toys to donate, threw away every single broken or unused toy that was in bad shape  We just don't have room to keep all these things so I had to get over any sentimental value to toys that I had and realize our kids aren't going without  and we can bless some other little boy or girl somewhere with our stuff.

  

 I moved the toy organization furniture pieces from different rooms to maximize space and let everything have it's place.  Plus, we're going to put Miles and his crib into Gavin's room while my parents are here and the crib would not have fit with that big piece still upstairs.  

  

 

Brooks and I went through our clothes and made donation piles, too.  We just need room and it was time to get things reorganized.  I've semi been psychotic with my nesting and still feel like there are a million more things to do.  I've made Brooks his own list, but because of his work schedule, I'm debating on tackling his list, too.  The only problem is, some of the tasks I left him require heavy lifting or building things and that might be pushing it for me.  I just have such a strong desire to get everything done.

Delia started back this week.  Hallelujiah!  She is wonderful and takes such a load off of me.  It's nice too since I'm really slowing down and my body is just uncomfortable and hurts so with her here I'm physically getting a break.

I've spent the past week weening Miles off his bottles and formula.  I REFUSE to have two little ones in formula and bottles.  Miles is NOT interested in milk, same as when Gavin was this age, so we tried soy milk and he loves it.  I'm going to try very hard to get him onto regular milk quickly and have been adding a little more full fat milk to each sippy cup of soy milk to help make the transition easier.  He was willing to give up his bottle- thank you Jesus, so that wasn't even a fight.  I actually woke up one morning and decided okay, no more bottles (after spending a week with half formula/ half milk in his bottles).  I'm usually more of the quit cold turkey type and decided I'd tackle this with that idea and it worked!  So, as of today, I put up all Miles bottles and got down all the 4 oz bottles.  Now I just need to get those washed for Miss Brooklyn.