Isaac Matthew

Isaac Matthew
August 8, 2012
11:56am, 6 lbs 15 oz

I'm exactly one month behind on this post!  Things have been pretty crazy since then.  Caleb started 1st grade, Levi started Mother's Day Out, and mommy has been juggling 3 kids every morning trying to pack lunches, feed everyone breakfast, and get out the door to the bus stop on time.  And throw a newborn in the mix who thinks sleep is optional and whose feeding schedule is totally unpredictable, and it's no wonder I haven't blogged at all.  :-)

Here are some pictures to document that we actually do have a new member of our family.  I'll get to his birth story one of these days.


Here is the only picture you'll see of me after Isaac was born.  I was very sick for many hours after his birth, and it wasn't pretty (quite a few times I was alone with Isaac and holding him with my left hand and the "basin" with the other. Fun times.).




Big brother, Caleb, meeting Isaac for the first time:

We were so happy Mimi could be there for Isaac's birth (note the time...Isaac was born at 11:56, and this is the first time we're seeing him.  He had swallowed amniotic fluid right before he was born, and they were sucking fluid out of his stomach for a while and then monitoring him.  I could NOT wait to get my hands on that little guy!): 

Big brother, Levi, holding Isaac

 

Caleb and Isaac:

 

Aunt Kiki and Isaac:

Cousin Ava with Isaac:

Ava and Audrey giving their newest cousin some love:

First bath at home (about 10 days old):

 

 

Almost There

I turn 38 weeks tomorrow, and I have reached that magical time in pregnancy where I just want this baby OUT of my body.  My c-section is scheduled for August 8 (the very earliest they would let me schedule it...the day I turn 39 weeks).  Although I'm having lots of false contractions, I'm not having any that would make any sort of progress or changes.  I guess that's good since I don't really want to be in labor and then have to have a c-section anyway. My doctor is also on vacation and won't be back at work until the day before my c-section.  She and I have been through two c-sections together already, and I'd rather have her with me than whoever is on call.

We are all excited to meet Isaac! It's a little surreal, at the same time, that we are adding a baby to our family next week! We are ready. Or as ready as we'll ever be. ;-)

So, until next week we're going for sno cones several times a week, trying to get as much sleep as possible (difficult), anticipating Justin's mom arriving this Saturday (yay!), and trying to stay cool inside.

Waiting for Isaac

Yes, we finally chose a name for this baby!  Isaac Matthew.  It took us a lot longer than the previous two times, but, then again, we had a lot going on in the first 6 months of this pregnancy.  We had a long list of names that we slowly narrowed down (or I would occasionally add to!), and then we set ourselves a goal to have the name picked out before my family reunion last month.  My Dad was sending messages through my mom every few days asking if we'd picked a name yet, so it was time to decide.  :-)

My friend, Jenny, is an amazing photographer.  I've admired her work for several years through another friend's family photos and on Facebook, and once we moved closer(er) to her, I couldn't wait for her to work her magic.  We are thrilled with how these turned out.  We've never done maternity pictures before, and we haven't had many family pictures taken, so these are a treasure!  I cannot wait for Jenny to get pictures of our new addition.

Thank you, Jenny, so much!  Click here to see Jenny's post on her blog with more pictures.

 

 

 

 

I love this one because it's a good representation of our family...we're all laughing and Levi is acting like he lives with a bunch of crazy people.  My kids have lots of facial expressions!
 

 

 

 

 

Australia, Part One

Well, it's only taken me 3 1/2 months to blog about our trip to Australia.  I was 14 weeks pregnant when we left for Australia (I'm 29 weeks now), and my doctor had just taken me off of my nausea medication the day before.  Great timing.  I wasn't feeling great during our trip, but I only got sick once (in a mall bathroom.  Fun times.).

We are so thankful we were able to make this trip, and we would LOVE to go back to Australia and New Zealand one day.

Caleb started getting sick right before we left Singapore for Sydney, and he coughed solid for 4 hours out of the 8-hour flight, and then he fell asleep for the last half.  When we arrived in Sydney, he promptly vomited in the hotel lobby. (Dear Singapore Airlines, please don't seal the top of your airsick bags.  It makes it very difficult to get them open in times of need.  And a sick, pregnant mommy will not enjoy cleaning the mess off of her and her child.)  It turns out his cough/cold had turned into an upper respiratory infection, so our first day was spend finding a doctor, a pharmacy, and resting.

On day two, we decided to take a cruise of the Sydney Harbour.  Here we are going under the Sydney Harbour Bridge:

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The kids and me in front of the Sydney Opera House:
 

Boys and Justin in front of the Opera House:
 

Bridge from the shore:
 

 

Let's just pretend that this is the next thing we did (the pictures of our time in the Blue Mountains are on another card).  We'll get to that later, but since it was completely cloudy and rainy the whole time we were there, you're not missing much in the way of pictures.  The weather was AMAZING, however, since we'd been living on the Equator for almost 3 years.  We needed jackets!  And pants!  And blankets when we slept!  It was awesome.

We went to a wildlife park (a couple of days after the harbour cruise) and had fun watching and feeding the animals.
 

We asked one of the workers to take a family picture, and this is the best we got.  Where's Caleb?
 

Caleb loved feeding the kangaroos.  We had to tear him away from this area so we could move on and preggo Mommy could get a snack!
 

Levi wasn't as sure about the animals, but he warmed up:
 

See the joey in her pouch?  So cute!
 

Our boy in his element:
 

 

If we're all lucky, I might post about the rest of our trip.  Hopefully it won't take me another 3 1/2 months.

What's In A Name

When we decided on a name for Caleb, a friend at church with an adult son named Caleb told us to be careful because they live up to their names.  Caleb means, "bold, whole-hearted, faithful."  It's the bold part he was referring to.  And Caleb has definitely lived up to that name already, at almost 7 years old.  He is our thrill seeker.  Our adventure lover.  Our child who will surely give his mother a heart attack before he graduates from high school.  He makes new friends easily and enters new situations with confidence (he obviously did not get this from either of his parents!).

Levi's name means "attached, joined to."  He is our shy one.  He is the one who had to be dragged into Sunday School every.single.Sunday for the more than 2 years he went to the same class in Singapore.  He is the one I have to peel off of me whenever we go into any new situation.  We know enough now to know that he needs time to adjust to new things.  He is the first to tell you he loves you and is generous with hugs and kisses.

This baby in my belly doesn't have a name yet.  But based on how his two brothers have lived up to their names already and the stage of life we're currently in, we've decided to name him "Quietly Obeys."  It has a nice ring, don't you think?  :-)

We're, obviously, still discussing names.  Actually, there isn't much discussing.  More like, "we need to pick a name for this baby" and then I'm tired and go take a nap.  I'm 29 weeks now, so our time for name-choosing is getting shorter all the time (10 weeks since I'll have a c-section at 39 weeks).  The baby won't leave the hospital without a name, though, I promise.  It gets difficult with the 3rd child of the same gender, especially when the first two siblings have Biblical names.  We have a list, but we can't seem to decide on anything.  We'll be sure to let you all know when we do, so rest assured we are not trying to keep it a secret...we just don't know!

Stateside Update

Thanks to Jenn at Munchkin Land Designs for my new blog design. (And to my sister for the birthday present of a new design!)  I love it!  She did such a great job, and gave me exactly what I was looking for.  Since we're about to add another member to our family, I opted to not have pictures in the header this time around.  We'll update again sometime after our little bundle is born in August.  :-)

We've been in Texas for 7 weeks now, and they have been pretty busy.  We found our house the first week, closed 3 weeks later, cleaned out our storage unit, then had our sea shipment delivered.  We're still unpacking, but it's mostly done.

We love living in a neighborhood!  The boys are enjoying having a backyard and many playgrounds nearby.  It has been a great transition for us.

Yesterday our neighborhood had Nature Fest, and it was so fun!  Caleb climbed the rock wall twice and played laser tag with Justin.  That boy definitely has a sense of adventure...he's still mad at us for not letting him go paragliding in New Zealand.  (We weren't about to let a 6-year-old jump off a mountain, even with an expert attached to him!)  We were so impressed with his very first attempt at climbing a rock wall:

I still have never blogged about our Australia and New Zealand trip, so maybe I'll get that done one day.  :-)    We're settling into life here in Texas, and it's been great so far.

Texas

I don't have a lot of coherent thoughts to share, but I thought I'd update on our "status" as we have repatriated back to the United States.

The boys LOVE it here.  We were at the mall recently, buying maternity clothes for me, and the boys found a little fountain that people had thrown money into.  They wanted to make a wish.  Levi wished out loud that "we would never leave Texas."  He's pretty happy to be here, which makes us really happy, too.

We have eaten a lot of Chick-Fil-A.  Now that they have grilled nuggets, I can actually eat there (gluten intolerant)!  And I have been craving their waffle fries!  But...Levi hates it.  He won't eat anything except the applesauce.  He'll actually tell you it's his favorite restaurant, but that is only because of the playground.  After several years of trying to get him to eat chicken in every form imaginable (grilled, baked, breaded, plain, fried...), we've finally just resigned ourselves to the fact that the kid won't eat chicken.

After 4 days of being in the country, Levi and I picked up a virus my nieces were passing between themselves. Thankfully we didn't get a bad case, but my poor 5yo niece, Ava, got it so bad that it took on a life of its own and she lost 6 pounds (she only weighed 41 to begin with) and had to be hospitalized.  We're thankful she's on the mend and back to being able to play (mostly) with the boys.

On our third day of looking at houses we found one!  We are set to close on April 5, and we are so ready to be settled somewhere!!

The same day we found our house, my car broke down.  Thankfully we have a great, trustworthy mechanic friend who had it back to us the next day!

I had to quickly find a pediatric dentist that will be on our new insurance plan when a piece of Caleb's molar broke off last night.  He has a cavity that started between his molars, and now he will have to have a silver crown put on it.  He also has several more cavities between his molars, despite our brushing and flossing.  His baby teeth are big and they are incredibly close together.  On April 11, he will go in for a big morning of dental work.  Fun times.

It's been nice being 10 minutes from my sister's house, and I've been able to watch my nieces while she runs errands.  It's really great to be near family again.

In the last week I've started to feel the baby move, which is always reassuring.  I go to the doctor next Monday to see my sweet OB that delivered both of the boys.

We are doing well, despite all the craziness of the last week and a half.  It's still weird that we're here indefinitely and not for a few weeks.  I don't need to stock up on a year's worth of clothes and toiletries, which is nice, but still strange.  We live here again.  Yep, still weird.

Limbo

I have some amazing pictures of our trip to Australia and New Zealand, but they are at our "old" apartment (which Levi took to calling it yesterday before we had even spent one night away) and I am at the hotel.  The boys and I are having a leisurely morning here while Justin is meeting the movers at the apartment.  They got a lot done yesterday, and it's amazing to watch them work.  They have stuffed sheets, towels, and toys into every nook and cranny of our furniture so that everything packs up tighter, which is great because we have A LOT of stuff.

We have four more nights in Singapore before we board a plane bound for Texas with no return ticket.  It's surreal that this 6-year adventure is finally over.  Justin started working on this project when Caleb was 4 months old, and that's how far in advance we knew that moving to Singapore was a possibility.  We even planned when we got pregnant with Levi around our move so he wouldn't be a newborn when we moved overseas.  It has consumed our lives for a very long time.

In Sunday School this past week, we were talking about the move and that it would be our last time in church there.  A "new" girl was sitting beside me, and she looked at me with "the look" in her eye and said, "You don't sound excited."  "The look" is recognizable by expats...it's the look that "newbies" have in their eye when they are overwhelmed with having left their comfort zone and moved to a new country.  I told her that I was excited, but that this week in particular I was feeling the loss more than I had previously.  It was becoming real.  I also told her that it took me a whole year to feel at home here, and I remember that time well.  I would have said the same thing in her shoes because when you're new you can't imagine not being ecstatic about going back home to stay.

But after 2 years, 9 months, and 4 days, we are different people.  And we have friends here (and friends who are like family) who have helped us cope, helped us grow, and helped us truly live here.  Thankfully, many of our friends here have ties to Houston so we will be able to reconnect with them again.  But that's not the case with all our friends.  The goodbyes here are different than when we left Texas.

To our friends and family in the US...we cannot wait to see you and catch up and reconnect!  Please be patient with us, though.  You might not understand why we're sad or why/how we've changed or why we're struggling when we've moved back to a place we know and love.  That's ok.  Just love us and give us grace.  And don't be surprised if you see us in HEB and we are completely overwhelmed by the choices.  Just smile and walk away.  :-)

House hunting here we come...

Homeward Bound, Almost

Well, I've been pretty quiet on here since my last post.  Not a lot of exciting stuff has been happening.  I am now, finally and officially, in the 2nd trimester.  And, praise God, it's being kind to me!  I have a little more energy and am less sick.  My doctor is weaning me off of my nausea medication, so let's hope this continues to go well.  I'm down to one pill every 2 days.  So far, so good.  In the first 14 weeks of pregnancy I lost 18 pounds (which dramatically slowed down with medication!).

We leave Singapore in 3 weeks and 3 days.  Here is our schedule from now until then:

Friday: fly to Sydney, Australia
Saturday: Sydney
Sunday: drive to the Blue Mountains
Tuesday: drive back to Sydney, fly to Melbourne
Wednesday: drive the Great Ocean Road to Warnambuhl
Thursday: drive back to Melbourne
Friday: fly to Christchurch, New Zealand
Saturday-Wednesday: drive around the south island of New Zealand
Thursday: fly from Christchurch to Sydney
Friday: fly back to Singapore
Saturday-Sunday: finish sorting/purging our belongings
Monday-Tuesday: movers pack us up
Wednesday: follow-up day for movers, if needed; run around town disconnecting services
Thursday: clean apartment
Friday: hand over apartment to management company
Saturday: 7am, fly to Houston

We're going to be a little busy in the next 3 weeks, but it will be a great family time we will always remember.  It'll be good to be busy because all this leaving business is starting to get real for me and I'm starting to get emotional about it.  I'd like to put that off as long as possible.  :-)

I borrowed a book from my friend, Andrea, called Homeward Bound: A Spouse's Guide to Repatriation.  (You might assume that because we are moving "home," that there wouldn't be any culture shock or issues to deal with.  In that case, you'd be wrong.  We've lived almost 3 years of our lives in another country, and we are not the same people who left Texas in 2009.  Our kids don't remember living in Texas.  We definitely will have some stuff to deal with. *smile*)  One of the things it suggested is that we drive around town and let the kids say goodbye to all our favorite places, to give them closure on this part of our lives.  So, we'll be doing that our last couple of days here.

Today is my "see ya later" party (since the next 3 weeks will be pretty hectic!), and while I'm looking forward to spending time with my friends, I don't like saying goodbye.  Does anyone?

Another chapter is closing for us, and I wonder what our next chapter will look like...

Changes...They Are A Comin'

I don't think there's anyone reading this blog that doesn't know I'm pregnant with our 3rd child.  (If there was, Surprise!)

You may or may not know that we are moving home from Singapore in 9 weeks.  NINE WEEKS!

I have so many thoughts about all of this, and I don't even know where to begin.  I'm a little overwhelmed with it all, and I have been S.I.C.K. for the last 3 weeks with this pregnancy.  I called my doctor on Tuesday and begged for some medication, which she gladly prescribed.  I'm feeling better, but still not wonderful.  I don't think I've ever felt wonderful when I'm pregnant, so I guess this is pretty good!

I've already lost about 10 pounds (I'm 8 weeks, 3 days pregnant), and I'm hoping not to match my 25 pound weight loss with Levi.  The medicine is helping, and I haven't been sick in 2 days now.  It's definitely progress.

Now, about us moving back to Texas.  I'm excited.  I'm scared.  I'm tired.  I'm happy.  I'm sad.  I can't wait to live close to my sister again, but I'm not ready to leave our friends in Singapore behind.  It's all a little much right now.  And we have SO much to do before we can have the movers come and cram our stuff into a 20-foot container (read: we have a lot of stuff to sell/donate before that can happen).

That being said, I do daydream about shopping in an American grocery store (so many choices!) and going to Sonic for Happy Hour.  And having a kitchen big enough to really prepare meals in, and a refrigerator that holds a gallon of anything.  And a sink that's more than 4 inches deep, hot water that just magically appears in the tap, and a dishwasher.  Ahhhh...a dishwasher.

We're looking at houses online, and we've found a few we really like.  It's nice knowing that we don't have to sell a house before we can buy one, but it's a little stressful knowing that we cannot have our shipment from Singapore unloaded until we own a house because where in the world would we put it all?

We have a lot of major changes coming for our family in 2012.  I'm clinging to this verse the whole way through:

In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength. ~Isaiah 30:15 ESV

Merry Christmas

Stationery card

View the entire collection of cards.

Happy

This picture makes me happy. Even though these two fight like brothers always do, they love each other so very much.

The Christmas season is upon us, even though we're still wearing shorts and t-shirts.

International Santas

I started collecting these Santas last year, and love that they represent some of the countries we've visited.


China:

Cambodia:

Malaysia:

Singapore:

Thailand: