Long-awaited update

Sorry it's been so long since my last blog; we haven't had much internet access since we've returned. Now that Jason's back (safe and sound), we have our laptop which picks up a wireless signal (most of the time) from our nearby church.

Not much going on here. I'm still pregnant :), and we've done a little bit of traveling. Ellie and I spent a week in Tucson visiting friends and took a quick trip up to Kingman to see some of Jason's family. Ellie sure loved playing with Uncle Jordan! She's also loving having family galore to shower her with attention. We have grandparents, great grandparents, great aunts and uncles, and lots of aunts all in town to entertain her. I'm starting to feel very uncomfortable all of the time now, so I think my traveling days are over until after this baby comes. We finally have health insurance here now, so the baby can come any day now (please!). Everything looks good at my doctor appointments, and my doctor seems to be very supportive of natural deliveries, which is something Jason and I really want.

We'll let you know when we have more news, but for now we are just hanging out and preparing for the baby to come.

We're baaack!

Just wanted to let everyone know that Ellie and I are back in Arizona! The flight was long, but really not too bad. Ellie was great and I was as comfortable as I could be. We just got in a day or two ago and we're still dealing with jetlag, but hopefully we should get back to normal soon. Thanks to all of you who were praying for us!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers out there! Especially to our mothers, who we will be seeing very soon!

Ellie's second year montage

Here is Ellie's second year! Don't buy a dvd of this from the company, if you want one, I can make you one of this and her first year. Just let me know!

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

We have a drought!

It seems that the water system for our house has been tampered with, and we now have no water. For some reason it is not connecting to our place. So, we came home from the Dead Sea with no water in our pipes. We've been given a temporary solution, a hose from a source outside, but needless to say, it is not very convenient. Added to this, I forgot to put our water bottle outside last week, so now we've run out of drinking water too. Crazy! Luckily the delivery men come tomorrow for the drinking water. Who knows when our other water will be fixed.

I forgot to mention that we were in two extremely minor fender-benders last week in taxis. The bumps were less even than going over a speed bump. But it was kind of crazy with them happening within a day of each other. Then yesterday I totally fell outside. I landed on my knees, extremely hard, but nothing else was hurt. I was holding Ellie, so luckily my neighbor was able to keep me from falling on my face or squishing Ellie (or the baby). All I have are bruised and scraped-up knees. Can you tell that God has been protecting us lately? :)

Update on the binky situation: Ellie had a rough time falling asleep that night (she even threw up from crying too much), but her nap the next day was ok. She finally put one of the other binkies in her mouth. When we went to the store that afternoon, we found some really cheap pacifiers (3 for $1.50) that she has accepted as a substitute. So, we should be fine now! Thank goodness.

We're back from the Dead...

The Dead Sea that is. It was a fun trip; we were able to see a lot of things. On Friday we took a minibus up to Madaba, a town about 45 minutes away from Amman. After checking into a hotel and taking a nap (well, Ellie slept while Jason and I watched 2 episodes from 24), we walked around the town of Madaba. It is a Christian town, known for it's many historical mosaics. Then we went back to the hotel for the night, where we swam briefly in the freezing swimming pool before settling in for the night.

Today we rented a taxi (and driver) to take us to Mt. Nebo (where Moses stood to view the promised land), Bethany (where Jesus is believed to have been baptized), and the Dead Sea. It was all fun and interesting, and a lot of walking (more than I thought). Ellie was exhausted by the time we got to the Dead Sea, so she only lasted a couple of minutes in the salty water before having a breakdown. She slept on the bus ride back home.

We had one casualty on our trip. During the scramble off the bus in Amman, we lost the one "good" binky that we had left. She used one in her mouth, and two in her hands as she slept, but now the one for her mouth is gone. She refuses to use the others in her mouth (they are bigger and made out of latex, not silicone), so now she is having a hard time going to sleep. She's been in bed for an hour now, with no sleep in sight. The biggest problem is that without that "cork" in her mouth, she is babbling like crazy. Some could say that this could be the opportunity to wean her from her pacifiers, but we don't want to! Not to mention that we would not pick this time to try to wean her anyways, too many changes going on right now. Hopefully we can find a suitable substitute at a store tomorrow. Where's Walmart when you need it?

Introducing...Ellie, the 2 year old!

Happy birthday Ellie! She had a great/busy day today. This morning we had a mommy & me class at the local bookstore. I made rice krispy treats to share with her friends for her birthday. Then, after her nap, we went to a place called the Fun Factory. It looks like a daycare; it has outdoor play equipment and sand, an indoor playground and trampoline, an art room, a toddler room, and a kitchen where they cook simple things together. Ellie had a blast painting and then cooking and decorating pancakes (and then eating of course). Then she played outside in the sand. After dinner, we had a birthday cake. Here are some pictures of her fun day:

Her beautiful smile:

Dancing at mommy & me class:

Painting at the Fun Factory:

Making pancakes:

Blowing out the birthday candles with Daddy:

Happy Birthday Jason!

Today Jason is 25, a quarter-century! We celebrated with blueberry pancakes this morning, and then a trip to the mall tonight. We went to the mall mainly to eat dinner at a favorite pizza place, and then brought dessert home. Definitely not the most exciting birthday ever, but I'm hoping it was a good day.

Okay, we are definitely going to the Dead Sea next weekend. Especially since it is the next-to-last weekend that Ellie and I will be here!

31 week belly pics

Here it is; the big belly. Actually, comparing it to my last picture 9 weeks ago, it doesn't look too much bigger. I guess I just popped pretty early. Nine more weeks to go til baby brother gets here!

Opinions, please!

We went grocery shopping today, because we were in desperate need of food. The little store on our street that we use for necessities during the week was closed for some reason this week, so we have been out of bread for a while. Our bread doesn’t last long, since it’s all freshly baked in Amman, not stocked with preservatives like in the states. I guess that’s one thing we’ll miss :) Guess what we found at the grocery store?? Generic Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Captain Crunch w/berries! It sounds weird to be so excited about, but American cereal is one thing I’ve really missed while here. There are some things available, but who wants to buy Special K with berries for $7 a box? There is an Egyptian brand of cereal that we usually buy that is about $1.50 a box, but it’s not as good as American. I have bran flakes just about every morning (with a spoonful of sugar of course). This cereal we found was only about $3 a box, so not too bad at all.

Last night we treated ourselves to an expensive, but delicious dinner. We ate at a restaurant called Houston’s, which is similar to…Chili’s, I guess. Ooh, the nachos we ordered as an appetizer were sooo good. The meal, which would have been around $20 in the states, was more like $35 here, but we needed that extra boost to make it until we come home.

Ok, I have a dilemma that I would love opinions about. Ellie has been waking up dry during naptime for a couple weeks now, and the last 5 nights her diapers have been completely dry in the morning! I'm afraid to let her go without a diaper though, because if she did wet the bed, it would be a huge hassle to try to clean her foam mattress. Here are my options (that I see anyway):

- use a new diaper every day
- reuse the diapers if they are dry (I do reuse them after nap for that night). One idea that I saw recently was to put her in undies and then a diaper, that way the diaper is clean and I just wash the undies
- let her go without a diaper

Using a diaper a day isn't too expensive, but it seems senseless to throw away a dry diaper. What do you think we should do?

Fluff stuff

I've ordered my first cloth diapers! I'm going with the cheaper route for the first couple of months, when he'll need his diaper changed so often. There are cloth diapers out there that are exactly like disposables as far as ease, but they are a bit more expensive. We'll be using prefolds/fitteds and covers, so two pieces instead of just the all-in-one diaper. But believe me, it looks sooo easy. And, they are so cute! All I have left is to buy some prefolds, at least for now. (I know a lot of people have no clue about the terminology I'm using, but I'm too excited not to share).

5 weeks to go

Happy Easter everyone! Ellie had a blast hunting down easter eggs, although it took her a good while to find the first egg and realize that she was supposed to pick it up. It was pretty funny watching her look everywhere but directly at the egg.

I've tried out a few new recipes lately. One that was super good was a recipe for chocolate chip peanut butter oatmeal cookies. They were soooo yummy. The best cookies I've ever had are Autumn's mom's chocolate chip peanut butter cookies, but these come in a close second. Then I tried cheese fondue (I've been craving the cheese fondue from Barley Brothers in Havasu). This was not such a success. It tasted fine (actually Jason loved it) but it was more like melted cheese than fondue. This may be because I did not use a fondue pot, so it cooled off and hardened. Tonight I used a new recipe for chicken enchiladas, and they were very easy and good. Not the best, but pretty good. I think my time here has helped me become more confident in my cooking skills, since I need to be inventive in my substitutions and cooking methods. No more strictly following the recipe for me! (All the above recipes are available if you click on the name of the foods.)

I went to the doctor today. The baby is still a perfect size for his age and everything looks good. I, however, have a urinary tract infection and low iron. Both of these results were surprising, since I have had no symptoms of a UTI and I eat plenty of iron-rich foods. My best guess is that I am not getting enough vitamin C to help absorb the iron. So, we walked over to the pharmacy this afternoon to get all my medications. The antibiotic I have is really weird; it's little granules that I put in a cup of water. The granules fizz up and I have to drink it (three times a day). Hopefully this is the last of my weird pregnancy symptoms!

Video of Ellie

Here is a video of Ellie that I took today. She's pretending to open birthday presents; it's really cute!

New friends

Guess what Ellie and I did today?? We went to a toddler Mommy & Me class! The classes just started up at the bookstore we visit. It was sooo much fun! And Ellie was much more interactive than I thought she would be. She was fairly shy, but she never cried and she even ran off by herself sometimes. The class is for kids ages 1 1/2 - 4, but most kids were about 2. We sang songs, read a couple books, did a craft, ate a snack, and then had playtime. This is not a free service; it's actually pretty pricey, but it's worth the interaction that Ellie gets. We'll go once a week until we leave :)

I can't believe Ellie will be turning 2 in less than a month! We're tentatively planning on a birthday party in Lake Havasu after we get back, even though it will be a couple weeks past her birthday. We really want all our friends and family to come, especially since it may be the first time in almost a year that we have seen you! Jason probably won't be there :( but Ellie and I would love to see everyone. We don't have an exact day and time yet, but I'll be sure to post it here when we do.

We haven't gone to the Dead Sea yet, but hopefully soon. I'll be sure to post about it.

Potty-training

Ellie is fully potty-trained! She hasn't had an accident in quite a while (well, besides last week when she peed her pants downtown). She also wakes up dry after naps. This morning she was dancing around as I was getting her cereal (she's going through a phase where she eats the cereal dry and drinks milk out of a cup). Finally she said, "Have to go potty!" Boy oh boy did she pee for a long time! And...her diaper was completely dry! We're so excited! Our only problem now is using toilets when out and about, because for the most part, there aren't any! If there are bathrooms, it is usually a hole in the ground, and Ellie won't go in those. I don't blame her! So, if we go out for an extended period of time, then we'll still be using diapers. Oh, it will be so nice to not have two children in diapers!

Speaking of diapers, we have decided (well, I did and Jason is fine with it) to use cloth diapers with our new baby. We'll still use disposables we already have some, nothing against them, but we don't plan on buying any. There are several different reasons why we have chosen use this method, but a big one is simply cost.

We're thinking about going to the Dead Sea soon. It's so hit and miss with weather right now though. Some days it will get up to 70, now it's back to the 50's. I guess we'll just have to pick a weekend and go, hoping that it's warm enough!

7 weeks to go!

Okay, here are our adventures from the past week:

On Thursday we went to a park. Yes, we finally found a park! And it isn’t any normal park, it is a HUGE complex with 8 different playgrounds, a couple of soccer fields, and many basketball courts. It also has a café, plus a couple of carnival-type food stands. There is popcorn, corn on the cob, cotton candy, and things that are like churros but with honey instead of cinnamon and sugar. These carnival foods are soo cheap. Ellie has a great time there, and she is improving a lot on being afraid of other people. She is no longer afraid to climb on the playground if other kids are in the way. Ellie also loves to swing! Although she is terrified of the baby bucket-style seats, she loves swinging on the normal “big kid” swings. So, we’re planning on going to the park at least once a week from now on.

Ellie and I also found a small bookstore that is all children’s books. They have a little area with toys to play with and books that can be read. As desperate as we are to find things to do, we’ll be going there often just to play (although I’ll be buying a small book each time, or else I’d just feel weird!). I found a book there called “Broken Biscuits” that is currently Ellie’s favorite. It’s neat because it’s in English, but it’s based on Egyptian culture (the mom and daughter have to hurry to the village oven so they don’t miss out on their turn for the day). There are also some nice Arabic baby board books that we’ll be buying for our little guy.

On our way home from the bookstore last week, I was approached by a woman who was collecting things in our neighborhood. This has happened before, people coming to our door looking for “stuff” that they can have. Well, obviously I don’t speak fluent Arabic, but I caught the word for clothes and she kept pointing to Ellie, so I asked her if she wanted some of my daughter’s clothes. She said yes, so I told her to follow me back to my house. I had just gone through Ellie’s clothes and separated out all of the ones that are too small, intending to donate them somewhere here (so we have room for all the stuff sent to us!). At one point walking back the woman picked up Ellie, even though I told her not to, and Ellie freaked out (which is exactly why I told her not to). So, when we got to our house, I gave her the clothes and shoes, and then she asked me for some of “Baba’s” clothes (which is referring to Jason). I told her no, and she asked for some of my clothes. I told her no, then she gestured to Ellie’s toys. Finally, I put my hand on her shoulder and gently led her to the door said “No, sorry, there are none.” Ellie of course is crying hysterically this whole time; it was naptime and she was not happy to see someone taking her things. I’m sure we have some other stuff that I could have given her, but I did not want to go through our things with her standing right there, especially since Ellie was so upset by her. But she finally went away! And I was glad to help her out, even if she was so greedy :)

Ellie and I went on a nature walk this morning. Here are some pictures: (the cat next to Ellie is "our" cat that hangs around our house and plays with Ellie)

It's snowing!!!

Okay, after it being almost 80 degrees last week, today it snowed all day long! This picture was taken around 10:30am, but it's still snowing now at 4:45pm. How crazy is that? It was definitely a surprise for us. We are slightly jealous of all you Arizona people with your warm weather, but we're supposed to get into the 70s again next week.

Technical difficulties

Jason just took Ellie with him to the Fulbright office to pick up some mail. Do you know it's been months since she's gone out of the house without me? I'm happy for the free time, but I was a little sad watching grown-up Ellie marching down the street next to daddy. Man, I knew she would have some adjusting to do when we returned and she is not only with me all day, but I think I'll have an even harder time adjusting!

I thought I would fill you all in on the major appliances in our apartment. Here is a picture of our "washing machine." The left side is the "washer." I fill it up with water, add soap and clothes, and then it agitates the clothes for up to 15 minutes. Then, I drain out the water (into the nearby sink) and put all the clothes in the right side of the machine, the "spinner." This spins out all the excess water. Repeat this process two more times (to get all the soap out) and then the clothes are ready to hang for a day on the drying rack. Needless to say, washing clothes takes a bit more time than in the usual washer/dryer. Hey, I'm not complaining, as this is the first time we've even had a washer in our house. But, we will all be needing new socks, undies, and shirts when we get back, since this process is very rough on our clothes!

And then our stove. There are many problems with it, but I've managed to figure out how to deal with most of them. It runs off a (propane?) tank, not electric. So, when the tank runs out, we have to get a new one. This is not too much of a hassle (Autumn had it much rougher!) since a truck drives around the neighborhoods during the day with filled tanks. The truck plays music (much like the ice cream man) and if you hear him coming, you run out and flag him down. The first time ours ran out, it was no big deal. This time however, I was right in the middle of cooking dinner (chicken-fried chicken and mashed potatoes - yum!). What to do? It was already getting dark, so the trucks weren't running that we could see. So, here is a video of the solution that Jason so brilliantly thought of. It worked!

All about Ellie

Ellie has really been growing up lately. It's kind of sad to see her leaving babyhood behind, but luckily she's not our last baby!

Potty-training is pretty much accomplished, except for when she sleeps. We don't really ask her if she has to go anymore; we trust her to come to us, except for when we're leaving the house, then she must at least try. Today was a mini-milestone when after her nap she asked to go potty while she still had a diaper on.

Her vocab and conversation skills are incredibly advanced (I think). She speaks in complete sentences all the time, and knows when to say thank you, you're welcome, bless you, things like that. The other day our friends Alex and Kendra were here for lunch and they were cracking up at the things she would say. We all laughed at something and she said "What's so funny?" She is also very imaginitive and has conversations with her "friends" often. Here is a typical conversation that I've had with her recently:

Ellie: uh oh

Me: what's wrong Ellie?

Ellie: It's Benny the bull!

Me: what's wrong with Benny?

Ellie: He's stuck in the gooey geyser! (this is all from a Dora dvd)

Me: oh no, what can we do?

Ellie: We have to help him!

She goes through many Dora episodes this way, acting them out with her "friends."

For the past week, she has had trouble sleeping, and I could not figure out why. Recently, I think I found the culprit. Her two-year molars are coming in on the bottom! She has one that has broken through, but the other side is still barely under the gums. I can't see any coming in on the top, but I'm assuming they're coming soon too. I was just thinking that I can't wait for teething to be done, but now we're starting all over!

All right, I think that's all the latest Ellie news. Here is a recent picture of her as a big girl.

It's a ... (take 2)

Hmm, I thought about teasing you all and making some way that you would have to wait or jump through hoops or something, but I guess that's too cruel.

So, the doctor was doing the ultrasound and showed me all the tiny body parts, and everything looks great. The baby was sucking on the hand; it was so cute. The doctor started putting the ultrasound thing away, and I said, can you tell if it's a boy or a girl? She replied, I already told you, I pointed it out to you. I must have missed it. I thought I might have seen the gender at one point, but I don't remember her talking about it. Maybe it's a culture thing and she didn't want to out-right name the parts?

So, we're excited to finally know. Now we can start thinking about names and planning room themes and everything. Don't ask us about the names though, because for one, we have no idea right now, plus we might decide to keep it a surprise :)

Oh wait, did I forget to tell you boy or girl? So sorry. It's a ... BOY!