Lotsa Pictures!

The 100,000 Question
So, we knew that as soon as a girl cousin was born on the Bryan side, that a burning question was looming in Adam's head after witnessing one of her diaper changes, but it was finally vocalized last week after four weeks of helping with Julianna: "Where is her pee-pee?" So, we've been having lessons on what boys have that girls don't. Don't be surprised if he questions your gender on your next visit! : )

Okay, I've been informed of my neglect to all of you who don't get to enjoy my darling little girl (and boy) every day of the year - so here you are! Enjoy. The live versions are much nicer, of course.

We're really not as hillbilly as this picture appears - we've been knee-deep in potty-training mode and he wanted to be outside with Daddy. Then he wanted to play in the rock pile, and - why not? We live in the country... who's going to see us, anyway, right? I mean, besides everyone who sees it on the internet...
What does a 200-pound Jack-o-Lantern look like in April? Now you know... :)

Strike a pose...

...there's nothing to it!

Best buds, already!

Sleeping like a baby

Welcome Julianna!

Early Tuesday morning we received quite the surprise when I awoke to the sensation or impression or something of that kind of feeling that prompted me to RUN to the bathroom. I made it just in time. David heard the “splash” and followed me quickly and asked what had just happened. I was sort of in a disbelieving state as I analyzed the situation and determined that my “water” must have just broke. David then asked what we do. Still in a bewildered state, I said that I guessed we call the midwife.

So, we did. She asked whether I was feeling any contractions. I wasn’t, but reminded her that when I had Adam, the OB broke my water for me and that within a half-hour I was in active labor. So, all of us wondering how fast our little girl would come since she “did the honors” this time, made haste for Methodist hospital.

David and I arrived at the hospital at about 4:30 AM after a brief detour to drop Adam off at grandma’s house. I was paying close attention to what few contractions I did have, though they seemed a bit scattered and not enough to produce our darling little girl.

Sure enough, after monitoring them at the hospital, the nurse confirmed that they weren’t very strong and what I did have was coming about every 4-20 minutes. YIKES! So, from 5:30 AM to 10:30 AM I began the standard practice of hall-walking hoping to engage the baby and get something going. In that time, I got to know the other 5 laboring mothers at the same time. One woman’s experience was nearly identical to mine – her water had also broke at 3:30 that morning. We were all fairly chipper (at that point, anyways…).

Finally, at 10:30 AM, the midwife offered that she had a few “tricks” up her sleeve to help mother nature along using mother nature’s own bag of tricks (i.e. not true medical intervention or drugs, etc…). Well, within 15 minutes, the bag of tricks was working and I suddenly found myself with contractions that were STRONG and right on top of each other. Unfortunately, within the hour, the little girl went “sunny side up” and my first-ever experience with “back labor” began.

What an evil little misnomer “back labor” is! Again, I thank a very knowledgeable and skilled midwife because I have no doubt that it was made much easier with her help. Finally, at the literal last minute, the little girl turned the right direction and she was born about 10 minutes later!

Was she early? You be the judge. Either she was truly 2 and a half weeks early, or about right. She came out at 8 lbs 0 oz, and was 20.5 inches long. Either way, I think she came at exactly the RIGHT time (I don’t even want to imagine having a 10-pound baby!).

We named her on the way to the hospital. We had briefly talked about names in the week prior to her birth, but as we drove there, confirmed that for both David and I, the only name that seemed to “stick” was “Julianna.” Glad to know that we were on the same page with that name was pretty cool. David’s family had a German girl named “Juliana” (pronounced Julie-ah-nah) and she was such a delightful girl, and we just really liked the name. However, we watched as time and again, people here called Juliana “Julie-anna” (anglicizing the name), and so, we decided that we would just follow suit and give our daughter the anglicized version. It’s taken some getting used to for us, but we’ve found that even some of the nurses, who never knew our German girl, use the German pronunciation, anyway. I’m about 50/50 about how I pronounce her name. Hey, at least I’m calling her “Julianna” or “Juliana” all of the time… I kept calling Adam the wrong name for about the first 2 weeks of his life! : )

Her middle name is “Deloris” after David’s maternal grandmother who passed away a few days before we were married. He was extremely close with her and it also just seemed to fit better than any other middle name we were considering.

She is such a laid-back little girl. Probably a good thing with a big-brother as fastidious as Adam. He’ll be a great big brother and take good care of her, no doubt. However, he’s pretty stressed out right now. He is trying (much of the time) to be upbeat and positive, but he is sort of manic in his behavior as he switches from snuggly to fairly poorly behaved (throwing things, breaking things, etc.). We’re doing what we can to help see that nothing has been taken away from him – only added to his world, but it may take a little while. In the meantime, we keep plugging away with lots of personal time (trips and time alone with his grandparents, and personal time with either David or I without the baby seem to help somewhat) and pray for help and suggestions to facilitate this transition a little better for him. We know he’ll survive - - we all do (except for the babies of the family).

Out of the mouths of babes...

Oh the logic of a two-year-old… Unfortunately for me, it’s usually pretty sound. We have a pretty smart kid. I’m not sure where he comes up with this stuff, but enjoy it when he does. : )

A couple of weeks ago, we were feeding the missionaries at zone conference, and as I was in charge of the money, I was trying to figure out the reimbursement for those who had done the shopping. I was given four $50 bills and needed to make change out of one of them, but of course, who has change for a $50 bill? Adam piped right up and said, “somebody rich.”

Why would he know that?

Of course, a day or two before that, we went to visit a sister in our branch who’s been stuck at work at Burger King every single day for nearly two months, now. So we went to cheer her up. While we were there, he started crawling on the ground like he was looking for something. I asked him what he was doing and he replied that he was “looking for money.” Oh – a kid after my own heart! Unfortunately, his efforts got him nowhere except a free meal…

He’s pretty doggone smart, though, and just about everyone we meet is pretty amazed at his vocabulary and gift for gab. He will talk your ears off, but since he’s usually got something interesting to say, it’s worth a listen… He knows his upper-case alphabet pretty well (he gets a little tripped up on the “V, Y, and X”) and I haven’t been actively teaching him (homeschooling is going to be a BREEZE with this kid!), is pretty solid on numbers 1-20, and just has a total thirst for learning.

Recently, though, he began “seeing” someone in the corner of our basement. I was concerned that there really was someone there that he said was a “nice guy” but occasionally he would run to David or I acting a little spooked by the “nice guy.” But he was consistent about the location of the “nice guy” – so much so that my mother-in-law even starting breaking out pictures of dead relatives and asking him if he recognized any of them.

Then, last Monday during Family Home Evening, David went downstairs to print off a couple of pages for our activity (the “nice guy” apparently sat on the printer) when Adam asked me if I “heard it.” I told him “yes” to which he replied that it was the “nice guy” talking. After some probing Adam told me that the nice guy was the printer. I’m still wary, but somewhat confident that we have an imagination at work rather than an ability for little children to see spirits. Mostly confident, anyway…

We had fun in Family Home Evening last week. David really is a champion teacher and comes up with great activities. We made origami bunnies. Of course, he also found plans for an origami Stegosaurus (Adam’s dinosaur of choice these days), and a Star Trek Enterprise origami spaceship, but those both proved beyond our skills at reading origami instructions. However, I’m now all inspired to get to work on those flower balls that my sister-in-law, Cristiane, made.

This week we start potty-training boot camp. Pray for both of us! : ) I’d rather have the baby, but we’ll see what she decides to do…

Mystery Solved.

I went for my regular check-up with my midwife today. It seems that there is a reason that I have a sort of quarter-sized bruise looking thing above my belly button. And that it's connected to my painful contractions-that-weren't-exactly-labor-type-contractions on Monday night. And that, when I looked at my profile in the mirror on Tuesday night was surprised that 1) the baby no longer seemed to be "dropped" as we had excitedly noticed last Saturday, and that 2) I thought I even looked bigger. David confirmed that I did seem bigger in my mid-section. And finally, that I was profoundly more tired. Not only is there a reason for all of this, it's all due to one thing:

Baby went breech on me!

I told the midwife about Monday night's events. She felt around my tummy and remarked, "yep - that's what I wondered. Her head is up here under your ribs." So, she gave me several exercises to do each day (including placing a bag of frozen peas on her head - supposedly it's quite effective because the baby doesn't like the cold on her head like that and will move away from it). I'm totally NOT looking forward to experiencing the feeling of her turning, again, but at the same time, I'll be glad when it happens. So long as she doesn't flip back into a breech position afterwards, anyway.

So - prayers are welcomed. I'm not worried about it at all, but since Heavenly Father has answered stranger requests, I'm certain He'll help with this one, too. It's not the end of the world if she is breech - it's just a lot easier if she was in the proper position... Thanks!

Winding Down…

Last night was a little adventurous. Folks who live in the area almost got called in for a sleepover. Four contractions in about 40 minutes. I was “one more” contraction away from getting David up and going to the hospital, but after the deep breathing exercises and constant prayer, that “one more” never came. However, since these were completely different than the usual “false labor” contractions I have been experiencing over the last two weeks or so (totally normal for this stage on a second timer, I’m told…) you might want to get your bids in on the due date pool. As I’m a little more fatigued today, too, I’m hoping this doesn't become a pattern until d-day.

Silly, silly, silly.
One of Adam’s favorite words lately is “silly.” Almost everything is designated “silly” though, after Sunday, I’m thinking that it’s more of a term of endearment to him than what it usually means to us. On Sunday, his lesson in Nursery was apparently about the Holy Ghost. He proudly told me that the Holy Ghost helps him to remember to pray and be good. He said that the Holy Ghost was a “big guy” (which we’ve come to understand as either powerful or good). His very next sentence was “silly Holy Ghost!” I’m really not sure how to address this, since it was really said with as much reverence as a two-and-a-half-year old can muster. I’m just concerned that if I set the record straight, he’ll figure out what I really mean when I tell him he’s being silly (during a crying fit when I don’t give him ice cream for breakfast, etc). It might be just as good to leave this one alone…

Such tender feelings…
Last week was a week. Oi was it a week. In retrospect (and even somewhat at the time), I knew that it was largely because of the adversarial bombardment David was receiving. However, it affected all of us, and in spite of my best personal efforts to keep things from coming apart at the seams, it really did take the guiding hand of God to keep it all together. It seems that Adam was affected right along with David and I because for about 3 days straight, my darling angel was replaced by something I hate to even think about my little boy becoming – a brat. And, of course, my deepest concern was that he might be developing traits that would make him a certifiable one and I spent a lot of time in prayer (and him in time out) trying to keep that from happening.

In the meantime, during his episodes of ultra-assertiveness, I needed to make a phone call to a friend. Typically, I can distract him with his puppy dog toy or just reason with him that he needs to let mommy talk and I have no problems. However, on this particular day, nothing was working and rather than having the talk I needed to with this friend, he was using his most loud voice and was in constant need of my attention (though when I would ask him what he needed, he would say “nothing” – ARGH!).

Finally, out of desperation, I locked myself in the bathroom and turned on the fan so I could focus 5 minutes on the phone call. He knows how to open the door and when determined enough, will do so. Having locked it, though, he was even more upset when it wouldn’t open. I finished my call and when I emerged from the bathroom, he tearfully (and forcefully) let me know that what I had done had “really hurt [his] feelings…”

Thankfully, my little angel was back on Friday. He’s really becoming aware of the world around him. He’s getting more excited about his baby sister. Mostly that is. Last Thursday, I visited my old office because I had agreed to go to lunch with a friend of mine. There are several therapists who work out of that office and one of them is a part-time savvy grandmother type. She asked Adam if he was excited about his baby sister. In one of the clearest voices I’ve heard him use he told her that he was “really worried.” She offered her card to him and told him to call her anytime he needed to talk.

We’re also struggling with getting him to be potty trained. He’s just plain terrified of the toilet. Most mornings I get him up with a dry diaper and he knows when he needs to go – he just won’t sit on the toilet. As much as it grosses me out, we’re going to try a separate potty chair rather than the special smaller seat that goes on the regular toilet to see if that helps. I’d REALLY like to have him trained before we’re buying diapers for his little sister, but we’ll see how that goes. I did get him to sit on the toilet for all of three seconds one day before his terror kicked in and he literally jumped off and into my arms. And, no – no amount of promises of ice cream and candy did anything. He only sat there for three seconds when I promised a bubble bath if he did.

I’m in really big trouble…
I’m always impressed with Adam’s memory. He can sing a song literally once or twice and he’s got at least several lines of it memorized, if not the whole song completely. I don’t hardly work with him at all on reading or the alphabet or printed numbers at all, but he knows them on sight. When we had a “Winter Weather Warning” flashing across the bottom of the TV screen a couple of weeks ago, he excitedly told me every time he saw a ‘W’ – and he was right! He’s pretty solid on ‘B’s and ‘S’s, too. He also remembers events that happened weeks or even a month ago. I’ve always known he was too smart for my own good, but now I know I’m in big trouble with a memory this solid!

Not such a ‘Beautiful Disaster’

In an effort to maximize the opportunities to use my food storage, I decided to embark on an experiment using the dried beans we have on hand. We have a LOT of them (a year’s worth for three adults), and rather than just eat a bazillion soups involving this musical legume, I thought I would do as was suggested by my favorite food storage website – foodstoragemadeeasy.net – and make flour out of some of the beans.

To their credit, they have never suggested doing anything with the bean flour except using it as a thickener in place of flour in various SAVORY dishes. However, being the enthusiast I am, and looking for a delicious substitute that will take it a little easier on my blood sugar and small intestine issues, I thought to try it as a 100% substitute in chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. After all, with the oats and chocolate to distract from any potential flavor given off by the beans, it would be the “safest” dessert experiment, right?

WRONG! What a disgusting outcome. Even as I type this, I have yet to get the aftertaste to leave my mouth. Please – whatever you do, do NOT use bean flour as a way to make a more nutritious/gluten free dessert! Even my tummy is not so sure what kind of prank I was trying to pull by ingesting that. And, what is worse, I tried a first cookie, and, discovering that the taste was not really to my liking, thought it might be because the cookie was not fully cooked, so grabbed one that was a little toastier. It was worse.

The flavor of the cookie is indescribable, but the aftertaste is sort of that of rotting peas. And, yes, I do know the flavor of rotting peas. It’s the flavor of the peas I tested in the garden before deciding whether to harvest or plow under (yes, they were plowed under). Ugh!

So – be forewarned – the use of bean flour may be okay in savory dishes where a small amount is called for in thickening, or even when combined with other flours, but steer clear of large amounts of bean flour used as 100% wheat flour substitute – particularly in sweet dishes. BLECH!

Picture updates!

After trick-or-treating, it's never a good thing to hear your two-year-old announce, "M-M, nose." Sure enough, it was exactly what I thought it was. Of course, rather than let him fish it out, I held his hand while I grabbed my camera. He was thriled, obviously. :) Don't worry, though, when he did retrieve it, he didn't let it go to waste.

Our first deep snow of the season... Adam wasn't a fan. He thought he would stand on top of it...

My two cute clowns! (Pre-M&M incident)

A little too much Christmas cheer. Like any good mother, I wouldn't let anyone rescue him before I got a good picture.

"Here, kitty, kitty!" For all of the naysayers saying there aren't mountain lions around here, please tell me what cat leaves paw prints this big in the snow!

A silly boy finding new uses for his mittens!

So – I see that I have a LOT of catching up to do on this blog! Now that I’m a SAHM (stay-at-home-mom), my intention is to keep this thing up-to-date on a weekly basis! Life just changes for us far too quickly these days not to!

So – what’s happened since last time I wrote? TONS! I’ll just post the Halloween pics at the bottom of this post for your entertainment…

But in November, we found out that we are expecting a girl this time around! I know that some of you did not know that yet. It wasn’t for a lack of trying to let you know… I had tried to post the video that the clinic gave us at the 20-week ultrasound that showed the information (the sonographer typed it out on the image – you weren’t expected to be able to read it yourself…), but after trying to load it for about 8 hours on several different occasions onto the blog, I gave up entirely. If you have access to my facebook profile, it was posted there.

We’re pretty excited, though. I mostly felt vindicated because, while I didn’t care what gender the baby was (I’ve discovered boys are pretty great critters, too), my intuition kept telling me it was a girl. I didn’t have much more to go on than that – but I had a lot of naysayers telling me that intuition really didn’t count for much. Well, after a lifetime of listening to it, I’ve learned to believe my own. And it was right again!

No – we don’t have a name picked out, yet. Unfortunately for subsequent children, I find myself far less uptight about the whole thing. With Adam it was about 30 seconds after I found out I was pregnant that I worried about picking out the RIGHT name for him – even before I knew for sure it was a “him.” This time around, I admit that even at 7 months along, I still feel like I have all of the time in the world before having to worry about that.

As for Adam, he’s beginning to suspect things. Occasionally he’ll pat my tummy and say “nice tummy” or just take general notice of the fact that it is there at all. He was laying his head on my tummy last week when all of a sudden his little sister kicked the spot his head was on. It was enough to get his attention and he sat up and asked me, “What was that, mommy?” I just told him it was his baby sister kicking him in the head for the first of probably many times. J

He really has gone through a language explosion. It’s probably about 50% still garbled, but 50% completely understandable. And he repeats EVERYTHING he hears. Having had some language development classes, I recognize this “parrot” stage as his attempt to un-garble his speech, and it must be working. He comes up with the most interesting stuff.

Two weeks ago at church, Mom, Karla and I were hanging out with Adam in the nursery because his nursery teacher didn’t show up to church. (And, yes, it does take all three of us to watch one toddler at play…) J While we were in there, he began doing his fake sneezes (something that he picked up on when watching one of his favorite TV shows – “Jungle Junction”). Anyway, he would start each one with “ah, ah CHOO!” and we would all respond with a “bless you.” After a few of these in quick succession, he began, “ah, ah, ah…” then as we were all poised and ready to offer a “bless you”, he said, “maybe not!” We all about died laughing!

Then, after sacrament meeting, mom and dad were talking to a woman investigating the church and as she left, said to Adam, “bye-bye, baby.” I prompted him to say goodbye to her, too, to which he said “bye-bye…… sweetie.” I guess it was the best he could come up with when he realized that he didn’t know her.

He’s also picking up on songs pretty well and always is surprising me by singing something I didn’t know that he knew. For example, after only hearing “Jingle Bells” a couple of times over Christmas, began to sing it one morning to himself to entertain himself in his crib. A couple of days ago, I told him that he’d get to see Grandma Bryan “tomorrow” and he began to sing the song from the movie, Annie! We have only watched that movie one time and that was at least 6 months ago! But he rang out with “tomorrow, tomorrow, I wuv you, tomorrow…” and continued that way every time I reminded him that we’d see Grandma Bryan the next day.

As for our children’s parents (let’s be honest – our blogs are all about showcasing our cute munchkins, right?) we’re doing well, too. We’re settling into our new schedules pretty well. As I mentioned, I quit my job at UNMC on Dec 21. While my house isn’t quite as well put-together as I had intentioned after the first month of being home, it’s greatly improved and I LOVE it! I’m busy organizing my food storage and learning to make more nutritious and filling meals, as well. Not to mention getting ready for the new baby.

David loves his new job. It keeps him unbelievably busy, but we know it’s a sacrifice that is necessary for now, but not forever and that it is helping us meet our personal and family goals – not the least of which was getting me out of the workforce and home. I love the confidence that this job is giving him, and love the fact that I have amazed myself by loving all of the things that go along with being home – including the cooking and cleaning part. Something that 7 years ago I never saw myself doing, let alone actually LIKING.

I particularly love the opportunity to develop greater relationships with our neighbors (who are faithful women of God and who stay home with their kids) as well as hopefully complete the books that I have begun writing. After giving it much prayer, I felt that the book I should focus on for this year is one that may become a series of books highlighting the lessons women can learn from the examples of the faithful women in the scriptures. Each morning, after David leaves for work (around 6:30) and before Adam gets up (usually around 8:30), I am able to spend about an hour or so reading scriptures and then writing my reflections on the lessons there. I realize that this schedule may get put on hold once the baby comes, but for now, I’m really loving this and the lessons I’m learning, right now.

Well, this is long enough – enjoy the series of pictures from the last few months!