4th of July

Bo's family came up to stay with us for the 4th of July weekend because we were having Naiya blessed. We started the 4th of July early with a 5k. Bo, Shane, Azure and Dad ran/walked it and had a good time. I wanted to do it too, but it was right when Naiya's first feeding of the day starts. :( I'm proud of Bo for doing it though considering we haven't been the least bit active lately. :)


After the race, we all met down at the water hole to swim. Yes, we now swim in things called "the water hole". Ahh, small town life.



We topped off the day by eating pizza and getting good old Thrifty ice cream. What could be more American than that?

Hair We Are

After a year of being here, I finally went to get my hair highlighted and cut so I could feel normal again. Right in the middle of the process as I look like this in the above picture, Melia comes up and says, "Mommy you look so pretty. Are you done?" :)

June? July?! What?

Where does the time go? I don't know. It's now been a whole month since I've updated this and a lot has been going on, so here's a little bit. First of all, our friends, Chris, Vicky and Lenore came up for a visit for the last time before they move back to So. Cal. We had a good time like always when we see them. Melia and Lenore were so cute playing and dancing together.


I'm not exactly sure why, but I would have to say that Chris is definitely Melia's favorite out of all of our friends. She's always excited to see him no matter how much time has passed since we've seen him and she likes to spend most of her time talking to him, sitting with him, holding his hand when we're walking, etc. She even noticed when I reframed our group wedding picture and Chris got covered up because he was up in a corner. When I showed her the picture in the new frame, I pointed out Grandpa and Grandma and other relatives and Melia's response was, "But where's Chris?" I have since found a bigger mat for the frame so that Chris shows again. :)

So Bo and I decided that we were tired of not doing anything up here besides taking care of the kids and going out to eat occasionally for "fun". So we started looking into other stuff to do. One of the things we found was a hike down to a river that was pretty fun. We had a good time and it was so great to just get out into nature again and enjoy.


That's my little smiley!

Another thing we found was the "water hole". It's this place where they dammed up part of a river and paved the bottom, so now it's like a huge swimming pool. We had fun swimming and Melia is getting more and more comfortable in the water, which is good except for when I'm not paying attention. :) So the other day, we went swimming with my friend and her daughter at the pool in the gym here. Melia and my friend's daughter were playing on the stairs and my friend and I were chatting just a couple of feet away in the water. Earlier, Melia had been jumping to me in the water and I guess she decided that she was going to do it again. The only problem was that I didn't realize she was jumping to me. So I look over and see this green thing at the bottom of the pool next to my leg. It took me a couple of seconds to realize that this green thing was Melia's bathing suit and that Melia was under the water. I grabbed her and picked her up trying to stay cool so she wouldn't freak out about it cause she's not used to going under the water--especially not by herself with no one holding her. Luckily, she was fine and I was able to convince her that she was such a big girl jumping all by herself. Child protective services hasn't showed up yet, so I think I'm good.

Que Paso?

So the other day, Bo decided to shave his hair all the way off with a razor. Melia was very fascinated watching him do this and wanted to do the same thing to her head. She was pretty disappointed when we denied her idea. Hours later we were driving in the car and out of the blue, Melia says: "Sorry Dad." Daddy: "Sorry for what?" Melia: "Sorry your hair looks funny." Daddy was moted.

Ahh, life.

So this is the image that I prefer to keep in my head during incidents like the following. Naiya is laying on our bed and Melia leans over to start talking to her. Naiya's hand gets caught in Melia's hair and becomes locked in a death grip. She then proceeds to pull on Melia's hair. Melia starts to scream with a look of hurt and betrayal on her face that seemed to say, "Why is my baby sister hurting me?!" So then Naiya gets scared and begins to scream too. I come over and try to get Naiya to release her Kung Fu grip, but I have no success. Who knew that such a tiny little baby could have such incredibly strong fingers? Anyway, I continue to try to pry her hand open while the two of them continue to scream. It was one of those situations where you can either become totally stressed or laugh. I tried to keep my laughter in though seeing as how my girls were both so distressed. By the time I finally got Naiya to let go, she had a big chunk of Melia's hair stuck between her fingers. It took Melia 10 or 15 minutes to walk around and finally calm down so I could explain to her that Naiya doesn't know how to open her hands on her own and didn't mean to hurt her. Luckily, kids bounce back quickly and a little while later Melia was sitting with Naiya again talking to her about how she doesn't know how to open her hands. :)


This is what happens when two 3 year olds are left in the bathroom by themselves for 5 minutes. Melia and her friend, Holly, found my lipstick and proceeded to smear it all over their faces. By the time we found them, Melia had already soaked the bathroom hand towel and wiped most of hers off. She was about to start wiping Holly's face when she was caught red handed.


After biting Cinderella's head off, Melia "fixed" her.

Ode To Bo

I just want to take a minute and pay tribute to my awesome husband. He does so much for us and I don't think he realizes how great he is. Over the past month since we've had Naiya he has been on overdrive helping with the baby, taking care of Melia, cleaning the house, taking care of me, working, going to school, and on and on. Here is a small list of what he's done lately (in no particular order):
*Took care of Melia full time for the first two weeks after Naiya was born--got her up in the morning, put her to bed at night, read her stories, fed her, played with her, put her down for her naps, took her to the park and various other places, entertained her during the days, dealt with power struggles and fits, brushed her teeth, got her dressed, brushed her hair (even ponytails sometimes), danced with her, and the million other things that taking care of a three year old involves...
*Took care of me after my c-section full time for the first two weeks--lifted me up off of the couch, bed, chair or wherever I was because I couldn't move on my own yet, lifted my legs in and out of the car for me, brought Naiya to me every time she needed to nurse, changed her diaper every time she needed changing, got up at every night feeding with me to help with what I needed, brought countless things to me wherever I was (food, remotes, phone, etc.), made meals for us, took me to my daily doctor's appointments when my incision wasn't healing and watched the kids in the waiting room, loaded and unloaded all three of us in and out of the car countless times, cleaned and packed my incision with gauze twice a day (gross!), stayed up with Naiya when she wouldn't go back to sleep at night...
*Kept the house cleaner than it usually is--vacuumed, did dishes like 20 times a day (if there was a dish in the sink, it was only there for like 5 minutes), did countless loads of laundry, picked up the clutter frequently...
I could go on and on, but I just wanted to say how grateful I am to be married to my best friend who is so giving and loving and who never takes credit for all he does.
Thank you Bo!!! I love you!

What were we thinking?

Well, we're 3 1/2 weeks into this new adventure and we're definitely feeling the lack of sleep setting in. It's funny how you go through all of this before, but somehow you seem to forget how challenging it really is and then you do it all over again and then in the middle of it you remember why you said you didn't want to do this again last time. :) Don't get me wrong--it's definitely all worth it. Too bad they don't come automatically sleeping through the night though. Naiya was a really good eater and sleeper for about the first 3 weeks or so and then she developed this gassy problem that has driven us crazy during the nights for the past 4 nights now. I started having flashbacks to the seemingly endless gassy, fussy, colic filled nights with Melia that lasted the first 4 months of her life and started panicking a little at the thought that this might be the same thing all over again with Naiya. But I'm trying to just relax and go with the flow. It could just be a short phase, right? Anyway, God is really taking care of us and blessing us with all of the help we need. My mom came up and spent a week helping us and Grandma Adeline has been a big help too. On another note, my incision is almost closed now and the nurse was impressed with how fast it is healing now that we started the other way of treating it (leaving it open and packing it with gause twice a day--Bo has been my at home nurse.). "No one ever said that life is fair. Just eventful."--some guy on TV. :)