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Thursday, May 26, 2011

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Too Do

My goals for yesterday were:

-blog about Behr
-Work on uploading/editing pictures from all of Ayla's life so far
-clean the living room
-unload dishwasher
-go grocery shopping
-workout
-take a shower/wash hair
-hand wash the handwash only pile (it's been piling up for a loooong time, didn't have super high hopes it was gonna happen)

Here's what I did:
- watched Rachael Ray
- listened to a sermon
- made an awesome sandwich for lunch
- blogged about Behr (applause!!)
- uploaded/edited 11 pictures from a month ago (um...out of several hundred pics, this doesn't get us close enough)
- did a load of Ayla's laundry (well, steps 1-2 of 4 anyway)
- watched some TED videos on Hulu
- went for a walk with John and Ayla (applause! we're counting this as a workout because I was wearing running shoes)

So, 2 out of 8. Somehow, I'm just fine with that!

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Ayla's Behr-friend

Ayla has a Behr-friend. He's not quite her boyfriend, but he is her friend and his name is Behr.

Behr's mom is Shannon, my friend whom I met when she moved in with me for a few months a couple of years ago. Shannon and her husband Mark quickly became good friends of ours, and I was excited to find out they were expecting their first baby at the same time as us, "due" 4 days before.

Here we are at Shannon's baby shower at 32 weeks:

(I was wearing heels and she was barefoot)

Here we are just 7 and 11 days from our due dates:

How did we go from cute to enormous in just a few weeks?
Wouldn't you know it, Shannon had her baby, Behr Robert, in the early hours of January 12 at 12:55am. He arrived just about an hour before my water broke! When I was at the hospital at 6am and saw Shannon post that he was born, I thought it would be cool if "Blueberry" would come that day, too.

When my labor took longer than I expected and I was finally ready to push a little after 11pm, I asked the nurse if I could have this baby today and she said I probably could. Sure enough, Ayla arrived at 11:33pm, just about as close to the end of the day as we could get!

We've gotten our babies together a few times and as you can tell, they are crazy about each other:




Well, at least we are crazy about each other's babies! It's so fun to have a mommy-friend with a baby who has the same birthday but different Every Thing Else! 









Wednesday, May 18, 2011

One Baby, Two Parents, Three Grandmas, Four Generations

Ayla has now had the fortune of meeting all of her living great grandmothers. When she was five weeks old, we took her to Texas, where she met John's paternal grandma, "MeMa"



and John's maternal grandma, "Great Grandma."


Then, last week, my wonderful mom took me to see Ayla's third great grandma in Arizona.


This is extra special because she is not my mom's mom. (Ayla will have to wait till heaven to meet her.) "Bubbie Min" is my dad's mom. Even 20+ years after my parent's divorce, my Grandma Min still calls my mom "Karen Darling" and introduces her as her third daughter. 

I am blessed to be related to all these amazing women. They've lived long, hard lives. They've loved strongly and lost so many. They've prayed over their children, welcomed their children's children and now they have spread their love over my daughter, too. 

I wonder if my mom was thinking the same thing I was? If she'd be posing for a four generation picture with my or my sibling's grandchildren? Will I be fortunate enough to meet Ayla's grandchildren? Time will tell, I suppose, but if I do, I will have to find some technology to pull up these old pictures and show them their heritage.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Every Day Ayla - Month 4



I simply marvel at this gift I've been given. My little girl is one of my favorite people in the world. I really like her. She's funny and smart and thoughtful. I noticed in this month's pictures, I have fewer of her smiling. It's not because she doesn't smile, because she smiles and laughs all the time. But when she sees the camera, she usually stops and just looks at it like she's trying to figure it out.

Her favorite thing to do right now is put her head back as far as it will go and look up, like she wants to see the world upsidedown. She's also started sucking on her bottom lip to make a little slurping noise. It's really cute!


She rolled over from her belly to her back a few weeks ago, but I think it was an accident and it scared her, so she started crying. She didn't try it again for a while, but on the 11th, I found her on her back after two of her naps (yes, she sleeps on her belly), so I guess she did it again! We'll see how long it takes me to get it on camera!

She loves sucking on her fingers or on anything she can put in her mouth. She smiles at everyone she sees, but I think she has special smiles just for me. She will start laughing at me and throws her head back, so I kiss under her chin, which she just loves and squeals with glee. She loves her daddy, too, and goes to sleep much faster when he puts her down. He's got the magic touch!

She's still a great sleeper, though she's currently rearranging her nap schedule, so she keeps me on my toes. At night, she goes to bed around 8:30, then wakes up at 4:30 to eat and goes right back to sleep until around 8.

During her 4-month appointment, the doctor said I could start giving her rice cereal, but I don't know if I'm ready for that. I kind of like that she's exclusively breastfed, and she's so sweet and chunky, I think she's getting along just fine. Do you all have any opinions about when to start? (Who am I kidding, of course you have opinions! That's why you're my friends!)

Enough talking about her, here's her daily pictures from month 4. (For review, here's months 1 and 2, and 3)

Monday, May 9, 2011

Do you like to laugh and/or eat?

I have some really exciting news to share.

But first, you must know that two of my favorite things in the world to do are enjoying good comedy and good food. Those are probably what I spend most of my non-housekeeping, mothering or relationship-building time on. And if I can combine any of those things with eating and laughing, then I am a happy girl.

Did you also know that I was a drama major in college? The degree was called Drama/Theatre/Film Performance, but it was mostly theatre. Even though I am clearly not using that degree to its fullest, one thing I learned to love most about it was performing in front of a live audience, and especially making people laugh.

(Now my audience is usually one chubby little baby girl, but she has the best laugh and it's enough for me!)

Anyway, my exciting news is that I've been invited to be a part of a women's comedy troupe with five other ladies from my church and we are performing our first show, of skits and songs, on May 21st!

Now, I know what you're thinking. That's also Judgement Day. And you're right, so, clearly we did not coordinate this well with God's end-time calendar, but we are going to keep our fingers crossed that the judging will occur after our show.

Well, we don't want to be judged after our show, but if Judgement Day means the end of the world, we'd rather go out laughing.

I digress.

So, performing comedy. Love it.

It gets better.

Another awesome lady from our church has started a program called Food for Life. They use food to educate and train low-income young adults in Washington, D.C., empowering them to become change agents in their lives and communities.

We are excited to do our first show as a benefit for Food for Life and we're calling it Laughs for Life. Brilliant, right?

The tickets are only $20 and it includes a delicious dinner prepared by the FFL students and a hilarious show.

Ok, I can only guarantee the delicious dinner part. We'll do our best to make the show hilarious.

If you're in the D.C. area and want to come, let me know and I'll get in touch with you with the details and info about getting tickets. All the proceeds from ticket sales go to Food for Life. If you're not in the area, but are inspired by Food for Life, you can donate to them directly here.

Friday, May 6, 2011

One year ago today



This is how I told John, gave him this little box, suggesting
we include it in our Mother's Day gifts for our moms.

And here's my Ayla Jewel today!
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