Great news!

Jason just received word that he will be awarded the Advanced Opportunity Fellowship for his Ph.D. program! This is the same offer that was given to him last year, that was very difficult to pass on for the Fulbright. We were hoping that he would receive it again this year, but it wasn't guaranteed. This fellowship covers tuition, insurance for him, and a stipend that will cover most of our living expenses. And, it's pretty much guaranteed for the entire four years we are there!

Belly update

So, 23 weeks pregnant. Can you see the belly yet? :) Holy cow, I'm so much bigger than last time! Please excuse the messy hair. I can't believe I'm only a little more than halfway there. How big am I going to get this time?!?

Does it look like a boy belly or a girl belly?

Happy Birthday Bryson!!

My nephew Bryson is turning one today! It's so hard to believe that he's one, and Ellie is almost two! I know everyone says this, but kids really do grow up fast!

Ellie has been potty-training lately. She usually goes the whole morning, and then most of the afternoon. Sometimes we are lazy and don't take her diaper off after her nap, but most of the day she goes with just her undies (which are sooo adorable!). She definitely wears diapers when she sleeps though. I think sometimes she just holds everything in until she gets a diaper on; I'm hoping that as she gets used to going in the potty she'll do that less.

I must have been in a cooking mood today. For dinner I made homemade whole wheat flour tortillas and homemade refried beans. Those are two things that I love that are hard to find here, plus if we do find them, they are expensive. And I love homemade tortillas! I also made banana bread. Since we don't have a loaf pan, I made it in a round pan that used to be a saucepan. So, I guess it's more like banana cake. And it's a recipe I found that uses whole wheat flour and honey instead of white flour and sugar. It's really good though, I promise!

Jason started school again this past Sunday. On Tuesday he moved up an extra level! He skipped the entire level 6, since it was too easy for him. His teacher said that he was the best student in level 5. He probably wouldn't tell all of you this, but as his wife, I can brag :)

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

We send our love to all our friends and family! Ellie and I were busy this morning making creations for Jason. Here's the fruit of our labor:

I had never made powdered sugar before using regular sugar and a blender, but it worked fine today to make the frosting on these cookies.

And here is Ellie wishing everyone a Happy Valentine's Day!

So glad we don't curse!!

Ellie copies EVERYTHING I say. Luckily my vocab is at worst PG rated. But I've decided I need to try to bring it down to G. These are the not-so-nice things that Ellie has picked up. She says:

Oh jeez
Oh my goodness
Gosh
Jeez Louise

And then today, as I was cooking, I said "What the heck!" Guess who repeated?? So, I will be watching myself!

Packages!!

We went to the Fulbright office and post office yesterday, and we came home with mail from 3 people! Our 4-year-old friend Maggie drew me the cutest get well card that Ellie loves to look at, a lifegroup from Calvary sent us another box of yummy food, and Ellie's Grammy (Jason's mom) sent her a box of friends to play with. It was an exciting day! Here is a picture of Ellie with all her friends, old and new:

Petra - success or failure???

Well, we're back. Overall it was a nice trip. I was a little worried when we first climbed into the minibus and Ellie looked around at all the men and said "I don't like the bus." But, she soon fell asleep and didn't have any problems. Our hotel room was just fine, and the jacuzzi was amazing, although they charged us to use it! So, we only used it once. The town itself was pretty dead; I guess it isn't high tourist season right now.

The day after we arrived we went into Petra. The weather was cold, but we all bundled up against the chill. We set off walking, with Ellie walking much of the way, since she likes to be free. We walked quite a long way (almost 2 miles maybe?) before we reached the first real site. When we looked at our map and saw how little ground we had covered, I started to doubt that Ellie (and I if we had to carry her) would make it. We debated whether Ellie and I should go back right then, but I decided that maybe if Ellie and I rode a camel to the next part, we could make it. The camels looked like they loped along at a slow enough speed that it wouldn't be too jarring for me to be unsafe. However, after the first couple yards, I quickly saw that this wasn't the case. Plus, Ellie freaked out (she was already getting a bit cranky) over riding the camel. The camel ride actually scared me because I started getting Braxton-Hicks contractions. By then, Ellie was full-on crying and could not be consoled. So, Jason was able to convince someone to send a horse-drawn buggy to come and pick us up (at an extremely steep price of course!) and take us back to the beginning. The buggy ride was very bumpy as well, and I was having the contractions the whole way, and Ellie was screaming "Don't like the horse!" all the way back. Finally, Ellie and I made it back to the hotel, where Ellie took a long nap and I rested (the contractions went away completely). Jason, however, came all the way to the beginning with us and made sure we found a taxi, before he hiked all the way back in and further to see all the sites. What a trooper! He had a good time being able to hike around and see all the ancient monuments. Besides the botched trip into Petra, we had a good time seeing a new place.

One semi-sad anecdote to share: When we walked into our apartment, Jason and I felt a bit of relief to be back, but Ellie did not share our sentiments. As soon as Jason shut the front door, Ellie ran over to it and started crying "Our room!" (referring to our hotel room). I guess we didn't properly warn her that we were leaving our hotel permanently and coming back home. She was fine once she found her toys that she left behind.

On Vacation

Just to let you all know, we'll be away from the computer (most likely) for the next couple days. We're finally going to Petra, the number one tourist spot in Jordan. Wish us luck, as it is a lot of walking and hiking. I get out of breath easily now, and I'm sure Ellie will tire out quickly. So, we'll see how much sight-seeing we are actually able to do. Our hotel supposedly has a jacuzzi, so maybe we'll spend most of the time there (although I will have to be hopping in and out to make sure our baby doesn't get cooked!). Plus, I'm planning on using their Turkish bath once, if they are able to give a massage to someone with a big belly in the way. This is a link to the hotel we'll be staying at: http://www.amrapalace.com/index1.asp .

Miss Manners

Ellie is starting to do very well with her manners, when she wants to, of course. She knows she can pretty much get anything she wants, as long as it isn't dangerous, by grabbing our face with her little hands on our cheeks, putting her pleading face right up to ours, and saying "Please mommy or please daddy." She knows how to work us already! And if anyone in her vicinity sneezes, she immediately says, "Bless you." If we don't say "thank you" quickly enough to her, she'll beat us to the punch by saying "You're welcome."

Then again, miss proper can also be very unladylike. She is starting to potty-train (and doing very well!) so she talks a lot about her bodily functions. Everytime she "expels gas" she exclaims, "Toot, toot!" There's no more blaming our noises on Ellie, because she'll point out exactly who makes what noise. Anything crusty that comes off her cheek or eye or anywhere on her face is a "booger, yuck." I know she must have learned all of this from us, but did we really teach her this?

About potty-training again. Today we received a new potty seat for Ellie (thanks to the Harkins family). It is a Dora the explorer seat, which is Ellie's favorite character right now (well, Elmo is still in the running). We have one Dora dvd that she asks to watch over and over again, and we often let her because it is so cute to watch her dance with Dora and Boots. (Yesterday she was twisting from side to side shouting "We did it, we did it, lo hicimos") Anyway, she was very excited about the seat, but was very apprehensive of peeing on Dora. Once I convinced her that Dora wanted to see Ellie pee and poop, then she was able to relax. I'm amazed at how well she's doing with this, hopefully it will continue!

It's a....

baby! We went to my doctor's appt today, hoping to find out if the baby is a boy or a girl. The doctor really tried, but she couldn't get the "money shot." So, we don't know yet. But, the baby looks really healthy, and that's what matters most, right? Right?!? I know, we're disappointed too. Hopefully next month this baby will cooperate. I am just not patient enough for this!

We're planning on another bus trip next week, going to Petra. In October we had plans to go, but they never happened, so we're trying again. We're running out of new adventures in Amman, so this should be a lot of fun for us. We just hope it's not too cold.

Sorry we don't have much news to report. It's just normal life as usual here in Amman.

Ellie's First Year

So, I guess I'm being a little nostalgic with this new baby coming, thinking about Ellie growing up. So, here is a photo montage of Ellie's first year (bring on the kleenex!)

Make an online slide show at onetruemedia.com

Another hospital trip

This time it wasn't for Ellie!

I've had a cold for about a week, and yesterday I figured out that it had turned into a sinus infection. When researching it online, I discovered that this is common in pregnancies. Who knew? So, yesterday I had some pretty bad pain in my cheek area; right under the cheekbone is one sinus cavity. I wanted to wait until today to find a doctor, since yesterday everywhere was closed. Last night however, my sinus infection turned into an ear infection, with extreme pain in my left ear. Then, around 5am, my eardrum burst! So, after a night of hardly any sleep, I woke up Jason around 7am and we went to the emergency room. Luckily an ear,nose, and throat doctor was coming in soon, so we waited there for him. He cleaned out my ears (SOOOO painful in the bad one) and prescribed antibiotics and pain killers, both safe for the baby. He also prescribed a nasal spray, which he and the pharmacist assured me was perfectly safe. However, when I came home I read the info about the spray and it says this, "Otrivin should be avoided during pregnancy...the medicine should be administered only if the potential benefit justifies the potential risk to the fetus." So, I won't be taking it. I don't think the potential risk is worth a less-stuffy nose.

Can I nominate Jason for the husband-of-the-year award? When I came out around 1:30am, not able to sleep in the bed, he set out to make a comfortable place for me to sleep. He made this contraption for our bed:





UPDATED: Today I feel better, my ear doesn't really hurt, I just have a lot of pressure in my sinus area. The antibiotics are making me sick, but I just took one with a lot of food, so hopefully that one will stay down. And in other news, tonight Ellie tried to secretly change her own poopy diaper. You can imagine the mess that made! Actually, she did a pretty good job, she just couldn't quite wipe everything off herself. Sorry, no pictures for that :)

My very first french braid attempt!!

You can learn anything online!!

Back to school

School again for Jason. He's had a really nice (and unexpected) break since Christmas, but he had to go back today. Fortunately he only has two weeks left of this semester, then he has another 2 week break. Hopefully we'll be able to travel a little bit within Jordan during that time.

I'm feeling a lot better as far as morning sickness. I have an episode every once in a while, but for the most part it has gone away. And I'm pretty sure I've felt the baby moving around a couple times! I was starting to get worried because at the last ultrasound (about 2 weeks ago) the baby WOULD NOT MOVE, even when the doctor poked at him/her. I was reprimanded for not eating enough, so I was starting to worry that my morning sickness had caused some sort of permanent damage. I know logically that it didn't, but it's hard not to worry about everything! Since getting over the sickness, I've started cooking good dinners again. Jason's excited about that!

Recently we took Ellie to this place that is like a mini-carnival for little kids. There are about 6 small rides (ones that pretty much go around in a circle) and tons of those toys like in front of Walmart that you put quarters into. But Ellie's favorite part was the bumper cars that she went on with Daddy. Now she stands at the front door every day and asks for the bumper cars.

Ellie is also her own biggest fan. All day she walks around saying "Ellie's beautiful, Ellie's gorgeous, Ellie's adorable, Ellie's cute, Ellie's awesome." And each time she says one, we have to repeat it before she'll move on to the next one. She also tells herself "Good job" a lot and today after I gave her a cup of tea (basically warm whole milk with a couple spoonfuls of my tea in it) she kept saying "Good drinking" every time she took a drink. She was very proud to be drinking out of a cup without a lid!

I have some pictures that I'll have to upload soon!

Happy New Year!!

I hope everyone's celebrations were fun. I woke up last night to the sound of fireworks; I couldn't even stay up late enough (not that I really tried).

Here is a video of us reading the Christmas Story. This video is only the first half, but if you only have time for one (they are almost 5 min. each) then watch the second one instead. If you want to see the beginning of the story first watch this one:


This second video starts in the middle of the story, so that people who don't want to watch everything can at least watch some. We have more, but it takes about an hour to upload each one, so I'm only doing one a day. This one is the cutest though:

It's snowing!!

Or at least it was. It snowed enough for it to coat the ground for about half an hour, and then it melted. It was fun to watch though. We're hoping it will snow enough at least once while we're here so we can build a snowman.

We had a lot of fun in Aqaba. It was colder than we hoped, but not as cold as in Amman. We were still able to snorkel a bit the first day we were there, the second day it was really windy. It was nice just not having a schedule, although our every day life is pretty laidback anyway. And the food was great! Our last night there we went to a seafood restaurant. Jason had some decent fish and I ordered a calamari stew, and it was soooo good. It's probably the first thing I've eaten since becoming pregnant that I really enjoyed. The hotel also had a decent breakfast each morning, which was really nice. The only downside to our trip was coming home. Our bus ride back to Amman was not comfortable at all!

We want to see pictures of everyone's Christmas celebration! We had a very short one of our own; I'll try to put up pictures soon.

My belly popped!

Well, it didn't explode, but it's finally popped out enough that you can tell that I'm pregnant and not just thick around the middle. I didn't even realize this because since it's winter I've been wearing sweaters and such. Today I wore a tighter shirt and I could totally tell!



We've been having these very nasty looking bugs in our place. They seriously look dangerous, so I looked them up online. They are called house centipedes and look like this (about 2 inches long)->

Apparently they rarely bite and if they do it's like a bee sting. The sites I went on say they are very beneficial and not to kill them, but there is no way I'm letting those things stay in our house!! I don't care how beneficial they are, they are disgusting!! Whatsthatbug.com says they are the most common asked about bug, but I have never seen one before. Do they exist in Arizona? Has anyone else ever seen one?

In other news, Ellie is becoming my clone. She is such a little mother to all her toys. Today I saw her lick her finger and wipe off her baby's face! I didn't realize I did that so much! She is always giving her babies a "dider(diaper) change" and today she picked up something fragile and said "Don't touch that, gentle." Every time she goes into the kitchen she warns herself "hot, doooon't touch" while pointing to the stove. And whenever she thinks about climbing up on the table she says "Ellie be a good girl, noooo table" Whenever we get into a taxi now she starts saying "Yameen, shamel" Which means "right, left." I guess she's picked up on us giving directions to the driver. Maybe she can take over someday soon! :)

Packages!!

I picked up three packages at the post office today. Thanks grandparents!! Ellie is LOVING everything we received. She has all her clothes in a pile; it took a lot of talking to convince her that she didn't want to wear everything at once. So, she is only wearing: a shirt, tights, undies, pants, one of my new bras, a huge shirt of mine, and her new hot-pink tennies. I would say she is wearing at least 8 different shades of pink. She immediately introduced her new baby doll to her old one, and they are very good friends now (poor doggie has been abandoned). I am currently listening to a Christmas cd and eating goldfish crackers (yea!!).

I had quite an ordeal at the post office; including a lot of tears. I don't know if it was because I got three packages at once, but I was told that because the combined "worth" of the packages was $400, I had to pay 160JD to customs. That's over $220! I told him that was too much, so he said, ok, I'll reduce it to 75JD. I told the man that I couldn't pay that, so he sent me to the manager. I went to the manager, said I didn't have that money, but he just sent me to the cashier (maybe he thought I could pay with credit card?). So, I took the outside stairs, and stood there bawling for about 10 minutes. I was just so frustrated and discouraged after being so excited to get the packages. I'm sure the pregnancy hormones played a part as well! Finally, I was able to pull myself together (I thought) enough to go back to the manager and explain that I couldn't pay that much. As I started talking, I burst into tears again. I don't know if he took pity on me, or if he just wanted to get rid of me, but he asked "How much do you have?" I told him I had 50JD, and he said, ok, 41JD. So he led me somewhere else, and all the men in this room know me from picking up previous packages. They were all like, "Don't cry, what's wrong?" By this time I was kind of hyperventilating (mom knows how I cry!), but I was trying to stop. These guys were all so nice to me, and one of them found out that I live in the same neighborhood as him, so he said "Ok, 27JD." By this time, I was so embarrased to be dragged all over the post office crying. I ended up paying about $45 instead of the original $220. It was definitely worth getting all the fun stuff! I don't know what the rules are when sending packages, but if people could put a VERY LOW estimate on the worth, that would probably help. I know the estimates on these packages were right-on, because we receive a lot of nice things. I guess if this happens again, I'll just turn on the tears again :)

Christmas pictures

All is well

So, not much going on here. I'm still sick, Jason's still going to classes, and Ellie's still very cute. Jason's been playing basketball and soccer with some classmates after school on Thursdays, which is very fun for him. I've been doing pretty well at keeping my food down, but I don't eat very much. I can't wait until this part is done so I can eat like a pregnant woman!!

Ellie is very particular about how she does things now. She knows each routine and everything has to go exactly that way. For example, every morning she must have cereal with milk in a certain bowl with a certain spoon. She must push up her sleeves, wear her bib, and have baby and doggie "watch me eat." After the cereal is gone, I have to help her get all the milk. At night, when she goes to bed, she has to put on her "night-night jacket" (footie pajamas), get a drink, get a hug and kiss from me, have her doggie and binkies, and then Jason reads her a couple stories. She also makes her opinion well-known. Very often I'll be singing a little song under my breath and Ellie will say "Mommy, no sing." I didn't think I was that bad! But, she is still very sweet. Today I told her I couldn't do something because my tummy hurt and she looked at me for a second and then started kissing my tummy (that's what we do to all her owies). It was so cute!