Month 2

Month 2. 10 pounds. 8 ounces. 21 inches long. I sleep. Shhhh!

My first walk at night, out side. We went to vote, then Ice Cream!!

I can smile!

The kids were trying to catch a dust devil. A wind had blown these leaves around...

Future worship leaders.

One month old

It's so hard to believe that one month has passed all ready. It truly is a miracle. I told you I'd tell her birth story so here we go...
On January 11, 2011 Korak and I got up at 4:45 am to get ready. Really, every thing was ready but you know how it goes. My mom, dad, and sister were all here. My sister was coming to the hospital with us in the hopes that the doctors would let her be in the operating room as well as Korak. (It was a planned c-section.) My mom and dad were in charge of getting the kids up and dressed as they were dropping them off at Auntie Kay's house at 6:30am for her to take to school. A big undertaking on her part as she has 4 kids the youngest just 2 months old at the time! A big thank you there! Anyway, my mother-in-law was at Kay's house and my parents were picking her up to bring to the hospital. So at 5:15 after a short time of prayer, Korak, Ginger and myself loaded up into the car for the quick 15 minute drive to the hospital. At the hospital, the nurses were all very nice and quickly got me settled into the recovery room to get ready. After the routine 100 questions (my favorite being asked if I am being abused at home. I understand why they ask it but it still was weird. Uhhh, no. And both times they asked it they managed to do so with Korak out of the room. Interesting.) Anyway, the poor nursed tried without luck, to start the I.V. finally resorting to calling the main head I.V. starter who got it in on the 2nd try. In all it took 4 pokes to get it in. The anesthesiologist came in a we talked in length about pain control and nausea control. (After Lilly was born I threw up most of the first day and was horribly nauseated.) I asked him very politely if my sister could be in the operating room and he said yes!! My sister was so excited. About this time, 7:30 rolled around and it was time to walk to the operating room. After a kiss good-bye to Korak I walked with the nurses to the operating room. There is something very unsettling about walking into the operating room and seeing the bright lights, and the equipment on the table, and tubes, and wires, and machines. Gives me the hibie jibies just thinking about it. The weird thing was over all this was the music. They told me to get up on the table witch was so tall I had to heave my very pregnant self on to. Then came time for the epideral. NOT FUN!!! The poor anesthesiolosist had to poke me 4 times to get that tube in and it as excruciating each time!!! He felt really bad though and kept apologizing. Finally he got it in and started the numbness but I could still feel everything and I was very worried that I would not get numb. I must have though because soon Korak was there and they were starting. My sister watched the whole surgery and took pictures. She's a champ! I just remember shaking and telling Korak that it was taking too long. Later my sister explained that the baby was stuck and they were using the vaccumm to get her out. She also had the cord wrapped around her body and she was holding on to the cord. So I here something like. "Stop! The cord's around his body" And then the nurse said. "Him?" At witch point Ginger said there was a long pause where they kind of cleaned her off down there and said. "No, It's a girl!" But I just heard a baby crying and it didn't matter. It didn't really sink in until Ginger brought over her digital camera and showed me a picture of this naked little girl laying on the warming table screaming her head off! (they didn't show her to me right away because of being so hard to get out of me, she was breathing a little erratically. She was fine after a few minutes.) Finally, Korak went over and looked at her and cut the cord. And then they wrapped her up and brought her over to me. Korak held her while I admired her and they fixed me up. Eventually, Korak and Ginger and the nurses went to take her to quickly show the family and let them know it was a girl. After they brought me to the recovery room, they let me hold her skin to skin. That was great. They have something called the golden hour where it is just the mom and dad and baby. They told me not to force the breastfeeding and to just naturally let the baby root her way to the nipple. And she did! It was amazing. God is amazing to wire that into a minutes old baby. With in I'd say 45 minutes, she'd worked her way over and nursed (weakly) for about 5 minutes. It was neat. Different than when Lilly was born when a nurse (a male one) just opened my gown and popped her to by breast. After a while, my mother and mother-in-law came in to say hi and that's when it all happened. I started to throw-up. All I could say to my mom was "Pink...." And she frantically looked around for something pink and spied the throw-up basin. She got it under my chin just in time... but still managed to get thrown up on. Oh well, it wasn't the first time I threw up on her! My mother-in-law was asking if I wanted her to take the baby and couldn't answer and finally I motioned for her to take the baby. Just in time before another wave almost baptized the baby! So my mother-in-law is holding this naked baby because there were no blankets for her at this point because I had thrown up on the ones she had been wrapped in! She grabbed the one rolled up blanket in the bassinet and wrapped her up just as the nurses came in and took charge. After changing all the sheets and blankets and probably my gown all though I don't remember that we headed off to my room. We got settled and I still spent a good part of the day throwing up but it was much better than when I had Lilly. All in all I'm glad Jeyanthi is here and I'm glad I will NOT be doing it again..... By the way, she weighed 6 lbs 3 ounces and at 1 month old weighed 8 lbs 11 ounces. Whew!!!!

It's a girl!

It's been a busy couple of months!!! On January 11, 2011 our 2nd daughter was born. She is perfect and simply delicious! She weighed 6 lbs 3 oz. Was 17 1/2 inches long. Since I'm holding the baby right now. I'll tell the whole birth story later. Enjoy the pictures.

Happy Halloween!

We had a very low key Halloween. Went to a pumpkin patch yesterday, had a church activity today and then trick o treating. Korak did most of the walking around with the kids.

One fine day, before school starts....

Josiah loves sushi so we took him to get some...

Notice the new glasses? Only needed for school but he likes to look cool.
Our beautiful girl..... All smiles and twinkly eyes! Heart breaker.

Our last beach day...

Lilly usually is afraid to go near the waves, but she went with Mason today. Good job guys!
Good looking kid....
Yes, that's me covered up from the sun and the weather was a little cool...

First day of school!

One dapper dude! 3rd grade and lovin' it!
My full time Kindergartner. Cutey Pie!
My two great and wonderful kids..
Awwwww. Holding hands.

Soccer Time

Go Josiah!

Time to update! We're cookin' up number 3!

Please keep checking back this week as I am going to update the last 5 months of my blog! A lot has happened! Most of you know that I am pregnant. Yeah! Korak has always wanted more children but I was satisfied with my two wonderful children! Yet, a part of me felt like someone is missing. So after prayer, and thinking about it I decided let's go for it! Only I didn't want to be "trying" for months or years. So Korak and I decided we'd try for 6 months and if it happened great, if not, oh well. Well, we got pregnant on month 2 of trying. So this baby was meant to be here and we are excited and ready to start all over! I am now 24 weeks pregnant or 6 months. The baby's due date is January 17. We are not finding out if the baby will be a girl or a boy until it's born. So if I say him sometimes or her sometimes it does not mean anything.
Check back for more updates!

Update

Got the results back from Josiah's cat scan. Basically they aren't worried about anything. Nothing showed up as out of the normal. The allergist asked me what step I wanted to take next? (How should I know?) I told him I wanted him to be able to stop coughing and sniffling. So he told me that if the allergy medicine is not working then we will do allergy shots. Ok. Hold up. Enough is enough. The child is not miserable. He can breathe. His allergies do not interfere with his school work, play, or happiness. We are not doing allergy shots. A mom has got to draw the line somewhere. So we will give him allergy meds when needed. I'll dust the house more often and even put allergen free bedding on his bed. I might even buy a new mattress for his bed and encase it in allergy free casing. But I won't do allergy shots. Nope, we're not going down that path. Just a quick update!

We are going high tech!

Hopefully, this will give us some idea of what's going on in Josiah's head. We had his allergy testing done with the skin tests and it came back fairly normal. He is allergic to dust mites and Juniper trees. (Juniper trees? Seriously? Do we even have Juniper trees here?? Hope we're not camping in a Juniper forest this summer.) We are also fairly certain he is allergic to penicillin although to test for that is a much different procedure. So his allergist wanted him to get a ct scan of his sinuses. He thinks he has a chronic sinus infection which keeps flaring up and causing him to have post nasal drip. Which in turn, causes him to cough (clear his throat) all the time. So, off we went to the medical center to get a ct scan. What a cool experience. I know, I know, you wouldn't needlessly expose your kid to radiation but, hey, he's having it done anyway. Korak and I took him and Korak went into the room taking this picture on his cell phone. I watched from the window and was able to watch the technician work on the computer. I've always known Josiah was smart, but now I've seen his brains to prove it!!! From what I could tell (and all my medical knowledge!!) It looked like one of his nasal passages way up in there was pretty blocked. But who knows. I'm just a mom. Anyway. Just letting everybody know.

Happy Easter!

This Easter, Josiah got to do something very special in church. They asked him to lead the procession into church carrying the cross. He lead everybody down the center aisle. The pastor, associate pastor, worship leader and choir all followed him. He took his job very seriously and did an amazing job considering they asked a 7 year old boy to stand at the front of the sanctuary holding up a cross and never taking his eyes from it. Good boy.
In Lilly's class they had an Easter egg hunt after we told the Easter Story using the Resurrection Eggs. It was very cute!

La Brea Tar Pits

As a reward for the end of Spring Break, went to the La Brea Tar Pits. The kids love to look at all the great bones and see what life was like "way back then". We had a great time!






I love this great pictures of kiddos!










This is how tall Lilly would be to a flat faced prehistoric bear.











Know what it would be like to get stuck in some really sticky tar? Very sticky and hard to move!










A giant sloth skeleton.

15 year Anniversary

Yes. Korak and I have been married for 15 years. We've gone through a lot together. It hasn't always been easy. It hasn't even been fun some times. And sometimes it was down right frustrating. But I look back over the years and I am so thankful. The good times far out weigh the hard times. And the hard times have brought us closer. Even now, 15 years later, we still are learning about each other. I think it will always be a learning process. I see what we have accomplished together. Our two wonderful children. Josiah being our first and born premature and in all honesty our first major hurdle or hard time to get through. He is caring and funny. Compassionate and out going. Our beautiful daughter. She's going to take the world by surprise! She is going to do something great when she grows up. Thank you Korak, for 15 wonderful years. May we continue to grow and keep God in the center.

Yeah! Allie's home!

The kids were so happy that Allie was home for Passover from college. It's really been an adjustment for Josiah and Lilly not having Allie this year. It was Spring Break for the twins also so everybody had a great time playing outside instead of doing homework!!!

What we did on our spring break....

We got the amazing opportunity to "piggy"-sit Lilly's classroom guinea pigs for the spring break. Stripe and Monty. There are several posts about these guinea pigs. The kids had a great time feeding and holding them. They learned about the responsibility of having a pet. (No, we will not be getting a pet anytime soon!) They learned that even small animals that live in a cage need lots of care. We had to change their bedding three times in the 11 days that we had them. The need dry food and water every morning and veggies and fruits several times a day. It was great and we really loved having them.

Welcome to the family!

Introducing Tyler! Our new nephew and cousin! Born March 19, 2010~ Congratulations Ernest and Crystal!

Let's start our Spring Break!

We started out right. A trip to the beach. It was a last minute decision with my friend Sanseria. We just grabbed some snacks and some buckets and towels and went. It was a bit cold though so instead of swimsuits we were wearing sweats! A little weird but the kids didn't mind at all. I absolutely love the second one with the silhouette of Josiah and the sail boat. He was standing at the edge of the water raising his arms like he was in command of the very ocean. Kind of like Moses! I missed the arm raising part in the photo but it still turned out great!