Baby It's Cold Outside Part II

I mentioned in a few posts back that the weather has been colder than normal this year. So I have been bundling up the kids a lot these days. That translates into taking at least 20 minutes to get out the door if we want to go outside to play. I am often approached by the locals for a lot of reasons mainly to talk about my kids. One of the comments I hear the most is your baby does not have enough clothes on. In this East Asian culture they think they are doing me a favor by advising me on how much clothes my child should be wearing. In their eyes I am a young mother that needs to learn the ins and outs of raising children. It is not rude for them to advise me on matters of my children. For the most part I just smile and take their advice in a kind manner. This winter I am getting a little tired of hearing "your baby doesn't have enough clothes on" so I have made it my personal goal to dress Layla in something that the locals could never say wasn't warm enough. So one morning when Kayleigh, Layla and I were off to pick Zeb up from school I put Layla in this:

Layla put up quite a fight getting in it but seemed to like it once the process was done. As you can see it is so thick that she can't even lay her arms down. In my opinion this thing is the warmest thing I could put on my child. So out I marched into the neighborhood proud that I wouldn't get ANY comments about her clothes. Do you think I was successful? The answer is NO! Most of our neighbors seemed pleased with my upgrade of the outfit but I did have one lady tell me that her hands were cold! My gracious! I guess next time I should add gloves to the outfit!

We Made It!

Well we made it to America safely! I would have to say the trip was not too bad. We have to take three planes to get home which Kayleigh and Zeb describe as the Mommy plane, the Daddy plane, and the baby plane. We take the Mommy plane to Korea. As expected, they did not sleep at all on this flight even though it was in the middle of the night to their bodies. They were just way to excited to do any sleeping. Once we landed in Korea we all crashed in a transit hotel room for about 3 hours then on to the Daddy plane. One would expect that on a 12 hour flight that your children would sleep but oh no not mine. Kayleigh slept a total of 45 minutes to an hour and Zeb a total of 0 hours. Yes, that is not a typo he slept none! He did however, watch Toy Story 3 at least 6 times maybe more. I would not normally condone that much watching but since he was happy and not screaming I was fine with it. You are basically in survival mode when you travel with young kids for that long of a time period. When we landed in Atlanta Zeb did what I expected and began to have meltdowns about every little thing under the sun. To make matters worse our flight to Greensboro was over booked and some how I had a seat on the plane but not John or the kids. So we started to pray that someone would take the $300 voucher and a later flight and let this poor exhausted family on the plane. God answered our prayers and we were all able to fly together on the baby plane! We were on the baby plane about 5 minutes and then Zeb was out. His body had finally given up. The unfortunate thing was when we landed in Greensboro he did not remember riding the baby plane and therefore had a melt down because he wanted to ride the baby plane! Once we got back to John's parents house they got their second wind and this it what they looked like:

Do you think he is just a little loopy?

This is what they looked like this morning when they woke up. A little less energy than the night before!

IT'S A.....

It's a girl! Yes number 3 is a girl. We went today to the hospital to get an ultrasound to see what we were having. Kayleigh has been hoping the whole time that the baby was a girl. I asked her this morning before we left how she would feel if it was a boy. She told me "Mom, I will be very angry!"

I am glad for her sake that it turned out to be a girl. We took Zeb and Kayleigh with us to get the ultrasound. Kayleigh loved looking at the baby's fingers and toes. She is really into having a little sister and was thrilled with the news when they told us. Kayleigh often talks about holding her and says the baby will laugh when she tickles her. I think it is so sweet that she is so into this baby. She was so young when I was pregnant with Zeb that she didn't really understand. We will see how Zeb takes to her arrival soon enough!

Just Hanging Around

There hasn't been much going on here and I like it that way. Sometimes we need to slow down for a while. We have just been hanging around doing some fun activities at the house. I suppose now is the time to announce to the blog world that I am pregnant. Yes, number 3 will be arriving sometime at the end of February, beginning of March. My due date is March 2ND. Kayleigh is super excited. She is voting for a girl. It is really neat to see her understand this time around. Zeb on the other hand understands a little but I still think he is going to be pretty shocked when this baby arrives. While we wait, I am taking advantage of the time I have to do fun activities with the kids. I know when number 3 arrives my time will be limited.

One day we were doing stamps and Zeb found a bug on his stamp. I am pretty sure he watched that bug for a good 10 minutes. He was so intrigued with it. Maybe I should find him bugs to play with more often so he will sit still??

Kayleigh taking a picture of herself.

And finger painting...

Zeb's version of cleaning himself up from the paint!

Saying Goodbye

We have lived overseas for 6 years and saying goodbye still hasn't gotten any easier. We leave in two days and have just finished saying goodbye to my side of the family. My sister Hayley had a baby in September. When we came home this month it was the first time I had met her. She is so sweet and I am really sad that I don't get to see her grow and change. Kayleigh loves her and tries to hold her but isn't so successful. We are not sure when we will be home again so saying goodbye is hard. We had such a good time here and our month flew by so fast. We can't wait to see everyone again sometime in the future.

I asked Kayleigh to open her eyes for this picture. This is the result I got!

Kayleigh and her cousins Savannah and Bryleigh.

My sister Hayley.

Treasured items

The two outfits below that Zeb has on may seem pretty normal to you but they are very special to us. John's mom made those outfits when John was a baby. It is hard to believe that John wore them when he was Zeb's age. I think that it is so special that his family saved them for us. I never got to meet John's mom but to be able to hold something that she made warms my heart. I plan to save them for Zeb in case his has a son some day.

Baby Bash!

Recently we had a Baby Bash to welcome back all the families that had new little ones. There were four new babies to add to our community here. Jack Huffman, Sarah Dean, Zane Smith and Issac Kvernen are the new additions. We had a great time of fellowship with our friends with a cookout and lots of fun activities for the kids. We decided to take a picture of all the kids. It is amazing that not one of them was crying at the time. There are 12 kids total, all 4 years old and under and another one planning to arrive in June! It is so great for John and I to have such a great community of young families here to fellowship with.

Back from left to right: Julianna, Lydia, Callie, Kayleigh, Zeb, Emma Grace, Zion and Bright.
Front from left to right: Issac, Zane, Sarah, Jack

It was really warm that day so the Huffmans brought out their pool full of warm water for the kids to play.

Zeb loved the pool!

Zeb Cooing

Title says it all.

Tunnel of Love

In our city there are four moms including me that basically rotate clothes and baby items between all of us. We joke how every time we see each other one of us has a bag of something to give to another. Today the item I received was this baby tunnel. Although, this tunnel was meant for Zeb, Kayleigh thought it was something new and fun for her! Even after I put Zeb in the tunnel she thought she would join him. John and I frequently wonder if Zeb will survive to see his 1st birthday!

Wrapped Up

One of the things Kayleigh sometimes begs me to do is wrap her up in a blanket just like I do with Zeb. This time, I used her blanket that she sleeps with during nap times and at night. It was big enough to wrap her up completely! She loved being Daddy's little baby again. Here are a few pictures to go along with the video:

Kayleigh and Baby Doll

Kayleigh loves to imitate mommy, especially when it comes to taking care of Zeb! Here, she tries to feed her baby just like mommy feeds Zeb.

Dentist

Today was a long one, starting at 4:30am flying from Samui to Bangkok. We arrived at our guest house before breakfast was even served to the other guest that had stayed there the night before! Alisa and I had dentist appointments and all was clean and clear, no cavities. We are not to fond of Bangkok due to it being such a big city and not too kid/stroller friendly. We do like the fact that there is an Outback Steakhouse about 15 mins from where we are staying. The only reason we stay in Bangkok is for the incredible hospital facilities that exist here.

Tomorrow, Kayleigh will be getting her 18 month shots and checkup so I don't think tomorrow will be Kayleigh's favorite day. Alisa will also be getting another ultrasound done of the baby and its heart. We'll find out more tomorrow if anything has changed. We also continue to pray for the new baby and its health.

The Juniper Tree

Here are a few pictures form the Juniper Tree in Chiang Mai, Thailand. This is where we will be staying to have our next baby. Each bungalow is on stilts and some even connect to others by a small walkway. We really like the grounds and the staff there. It has a pool and many play things that we feel Kayleigh will really enjoy. We did not get to enter a bungalow because they were completely booked. We feel very blessed that we were able to get a reservation for later in the year.