The girls started school today. Ella in Kindergarten and Ainsley in Pre-K 3!
Our biggest adjustment is that both girls come home for lunch. A at 11 and E at 12 then E goes back to finish her day while A stays here with me and the Ivah!
We are still in the guesthouse so they girls are picked up by their own special driver instead of the bus/van that will pick them up with the rest of the kids in our new neighborhood. They Love it! (seriously spoiled rotten)
Ella has a hard time with anything that doesnt follow the pattern she has planned. We had a gate at St Rose that we would wave goodbye from after assembly and there is no gate here so she got a bit teary on the first day, and I promised her a treat if she made it to Friday....well, luckily she came home and said "i dont need a treat I want to go to school just because I like it!" Yay!
Its a tradition here that new families get introduced and "Gonged" in at morning assembly after a few questions like 'whats your favorite food?' (Ella=smoked salmon, Ainsley=noodles???)
The principal here is the most even tempered calm spoken and at the same time excited person I have ever met, of course Ella loves her :)
We are very happy with how welcoming everyone has been:)
We arrived safely in Rumbai after a Looooooooong 31 hr trip door to door. Whew.
Really though it wasnt that bad, the girls were great, They slept on both flights and loved the service from the nice Singapore air ladys (which we told them NOT to get used to, its coach from here on out ;)
We hit a small bump in the road in PKU airport customs. we were dropped off in the wrong part of the new airport and had to go through immigration the wrong way, which they were none to happy with. Then we get to customs with 6 out of the 18 bags that the want to search, including the ice chest full of venison yikes! Little did we know traveling with a baby makes things very easy in customs. every bag they opened as soon as they saw baby items, it was "Oh, for baby?" and bag was closed. this was especially fun when the shy Indonesian opened my breast pump and we had to use charades to explain what it was and he turned bright red and didnt inspect any more bags. :)
Coming in you arrive early in the morning and have to try and stay awake as long as possible to start adjusting to the time zone. I think because of the baby and the limited sleep I have been getting it wasnt so bad for me. Ainsley did amazing, actually, she made it to 6pm the first night.
Jet lag however got the best of Ella....
I have been nervous as can be about this whole house staff thing. So strange to get use to. Then I found out they were going to be at the house to meet us when we arrived. Ahaa!
Turns out, not that hard to get used too :)We went to the park to try and stay awake while our bags were getting unpacked.
Dylans favorite part was the couple bags we did unpack, they didnt like how we folded our clothes and the following day they were all refolded. My closet looks like a table at the Gap.
You have given us two wonderful years full of friends and family, another beautiful baby girl and fantastic memories. We discovered a new community with a church and school that we adore, and Houston for some reason is always good on our waistlines ;)
Luckily it seems, in our world that all roads lead back to Houston.
Maybe I'm naively optimistic and I should be more sad..... after all people change, neighborhoods grow, friends move....
But the building up to this departure has lead me to believe whole heartedly that our family is following a path laid out for us, its up to us to go discover it.
I like to have a family picture that represents our "current state of life" before each move. While I had tried to get it done before I was showing, or after baby 3 was born, these pictures could not represent our Houston yesrs any better! Outside, girls running, me pregnant :)
Im always behind the camera and knowing what I am looking for makes it more difficult to step in front of someone elses. LUCKILY I reconnected with a friend I knew at A&M, who is a brillant photograher and was able to capture our family perfectly. I havent kept up with "clients" in awhile with baby 3 on the way, but am more than happy to refer everyone on to Jane, such a sweetheart!...All pictures by Jane Foster Photography, please visit her beautiful blog! http://www.janefosterphotography.com/
Below is the picture I had in my head that Jane was able to capture so well. Love the lopsided belly :)
IF D was miked in this pic you would hear "You owe me so big for this!" haha
Its taken me awhile to be able to post this story...Not just because it is so intimate and raw, but I feel like I need to share it with everyone and want to express it correctly....
I had been waiting to choose and transfer to a midwife after my 20week ultrasound. Dylan was out of town and I went to get the results from the OB. He simply said we needed to repeat the Ultrasound b/c they did not see a small membrane in the baby's brain but not to worry the baby was moving a lot and they probably couldn't get a good picture....well I worried...and started researching (bad idea)...
The small membrane is called the Septum Periducullim, its a small Membrane that divides the brain, which is not exactly the problem, the concern is that it is in the midline of the brain where all kinds of important things meet up including the optic nerves, the corpus callus, as well as the pituitary glands. Its extremely rare for it to be missing, like .2 out of 10,000.
I was referred to a Radiologist that I saw the following Tues.
It wasn't good.
He clearly showed me where the membrane should be and it was clearly not there. I fell into a tunnel at that moment. He started on a long list of different diagnosis, what else could be missing, a bunch of things I couldn't even begin to focus on.
Manly what stuck out was his rush to get me to an MRI so we could see WHAT ELSE was missing, so that we had the opportunity to terminate......
Well, of course my world fell apart. Or more like it stopped. I spent hours on the internet looking for any glimpse of Hope. I found a few articles but most of them showed the varying degrees of Septo-optic displasia, (WOW, these parents are amazing, I just don't know if I could be that person...) to a forum that had stories like "I do not have a septum and am fine", or "My daughter is a blind but successful musician" which I held onto, but most were really scarey.
First the guilt, all Mamas know it
Mama Guilt...
THe thinking back to every time I forgot to take a vitamin, ate sushi, or took a sip of wine, to the absurd like driving with my cell phone in my lap, or not choosing organic.
I felt like the most selfish person on the planet. I saw dreams of our family future falling apart. It was hard but I learned a lot.
A lot About myself and about what you don't see inside the people around you that might be hiding something huge they are dealing with, just trying to fight through the day.
A lot of patience.
My Mantra became "Lord, grant me the strength to accept the things that I do not control".
It was hard, and am not sure I convicence myself I was that strong of a person.
Finally the big day. Dylan took off a special friend took the girls for the day so we could get through it all. (how blessed I am)
It started with yet another ultra sound that showed the same results. Quite room. Lots of important smart people from Texas Childrens, with blank stares. Then to the MRI, where I laid for over an hour b/c the baby did not like that loud noise and it was hard to get a good picture.
Then Lunch,
not much eating,
plenty of worry.
lots of love.
I can't believe how much my husband loves me. and I him. What a rock I married.
We go back to meet the head neurologist who has agreed to come over to give us the results b/c it is so rare....great.
They put us in a room, close the door and 2 min later returns with a box of tissues that she sets right in front of us....awesome.
I will never look at a box of tissues the same. ever.
The Doctor arrives finally and after some small talk turns to open the results and says, " I don't know how to tell you this...but I have great news! everything is there! everything is fine"
WHAT?!
"See" He says " I told them you were going to cry!"
indeed I did.
Turns out they never see it 'reapear' on an MRI, like I said these tests were to see what else was missing not to find out the baby was fine. The explanation for it is that the septum is actually two thin layers of membrane very close to together and this baby has a small gap making it less dense and was not picked up on ultrasound.
Whatever, I have my own explanation, my prayers were answered.
My rock said "just remember to pray for all those who left this room, that did not get the results that we did." I love him.
We normally do not find out the sex of our baby....but after all those expensive pictures it was quite obvious that we are having another beautiful baby GIRL :)
And could NOT in anyway be more happy.
It puts new meaning to ..."as long as they are health"
Here is a video of our little blessing, its a new technology called an MRI movement study. SO COOL :)
We have some good friends on the Mutton Bustin committee at Rodeo Houston. Their son was going to ride this Sat so we decided if Ella in anyway wanted to do it, the only way she would is when her friend did it too, and she knew some of the adults in the stadium. So we made a last min trip to the rodeo on a Sat while my Mom, sister and niece were in town.
Of course as soon as we walked near the barn where they were just starting a round, Ella went white and started freaking out, saying "I dont want to do it!" We put no pressure on her, Papa just held her while we watched the first kids go, and the announcer seemed to get less loud! lol...I simply said, "Its completely fine if you dont want to do it, but remember only 5 and 6 year old get to and we might not be back next year." She thought long and hard and said yes. (well at least it would only be $15 that we would loose when she turned right around in the chute)
Papa waited with her as they dressed in their vests and helmets and I took to the stands, even Aunt Melissa and Uncle Mychal showed up to cheer her on!
This picture is where I just KNEW she would kick and scream and say NOOO WAY! as they put her in the chute.....but she didnt!!!
And this is also the point where I just LOST it! haha FULL ON crocodile tears! My timid little baby is growing up so fast and so BRAVE!!
Her Sheep was named "Ewe go Girl" haha perfect, and jumped right out the gate and stoped. The man leaned down give her a nudge......
And she took off!!! ran super fast all way to the end :) Score of 93!! (over 90 is great!)
She fell off stood up and they picked her up as she did the cutest little wave...(I missed that pic, b/c I was too busy sobbing my eyes out yelling I cant believe she did it!!! ahaaaaa!)
Ella walking out at the end, like "whatev...I got this" she ended up 2nd place to a little boy with a score of 95.
I cant lie Im a proud MAMA :D
Ainsley got to ride the Pony :) and was quite happy to stop there haha!
figure out how to keep up with this stinkin blog!!! Grr! ITs not like I dont have the time, I would rather jump on here and add an update with the few mins I get (like "bath time") instead of checking fb (over it), refreashing email (seriously, when is the last "important" email I have had??!?!), or preggo forum (OK, totally addicted)....I think my biggest problem is we have a center "HUB" computer upstairs in the office, the sit down office-y kind where all the external hard drives are that store pictures and movies and music and what not. Gag me.
I think if I could figure out a way to do a quick post from the laptop I could keep up so much better, but then I would have to save and go upstairs to add pics at some other point....
what am I missing?
HOW do people do EVERYTHING from their laptops?? (BTW, this nerd thought it was Labtop up until like 3 mths ago when D finally corrected me, I thought they were made for the lab, you know like the geeky scientist in me thought they were for the first time I saw one 20 years ago! ha) or even Ipads (not that I have one, but I do know a photographer friend that does everything from hers) without storing every picture one there and slowing it down??
