She's getting so big!!!

On Tuesday, I was a little bored and wanted to get out of the house so JoAnn and I went swimming. For the longest time she would have nothing to do with the water wings we have for her, but the last couple times I've taken her out I've finally gotten her to keep them on longer than 2 minutes. The only problem is that I haven't been able to show her that they can help you float because she won't get in the water. She only wants to sit on the edge and play or pick the flowers around the pool. So, on Tuesday we were outside for a little over an hour and it wasn't until about the last 10 minutes that I convinced her to actually get in the water. Once I got her in though, she did so great! She quickly figured out how to float using the wings and after a little coaching was able to figure out how to kick her legs in order to get where ever she wanted to go in the pool. It will still be a while before I will let her swim without me in the water, but I'm so excited that we are on our way to that point, especially with hot season right around the corner. I think this year she might be able to play with the bigger girls instead of staying on the steps with the babies. It is a little crazy for me to think that she is getting old enough to start (and I stress start) learning how to swim though.

On another totally unrelated event, for the last week or so I have been trying to get things together so we are ready for the baby around the house. I cleaned out a drawer and washed his clothes. I set up the swing and washed the cover. I'm having a new carseat cover made. A couple months ago, we moved JoAnn to a big bed and put the crib where we are going to have him sleep and yesterday we finally got the curtains hung so the sun won't be shinning in his eyes whenever he sleeps. I absolutely love the fabric I got to make the curtains out of. When I first found out we were having a boy I wasn't sure if I would have as much fun picking out blue things as I had with pink, but I've come to the conclusion that it's just fun to pick out anything for a baby. Anyway, since our entire place is nothing but cement, they had to drill in order to hang the curtain rods, which meant we had a thick layer of dust all over the entire house by the time they were done. So, immediately I started cleaning up and evidently JoAnn decided she was going to help. She looked so cute I had to put a picture up...

(I'm not sure what she was doing with the tea cup in her hand???) I can't believe the little guy is due to arrive in 4 weeks, but I will say getting everything together makes me much less anxious and just leaves more excitement than anything else.

A few cute things

So, I don't really have much that happened this week to write about, but I do have a few things that JoAnn does that I think are pretty cute and don't want to forget, so I thought I would create a little list of things that I love when JoAnn does.

*Every time Dora or The Backyardigans come on TV, she will go running through the house screaming at the top of her lungs, "Mommy, Dora" or "Mommy, Backigans" or if she is looking for Daniel, she'll scream Daddy instead.

*Every night when we give her her vitamins and allergy medicine, she will call it her "medimis."

*When we go to McDonald's she asks for "French fries and hammermer."

*She often says phrases backwards, for example instead of pineapple she calls it "apple pine" or a red truck is "truck red."

*When Daniel isn't home, she always says "Daddy at baskball" regardless of where he is.

*She calls her belly button her "belly butt."

*She loves to go to the pool, but isn't a big fan of actually getting in the water.

*She likes to stretch and do sit ups when she sees someone else doing it.

*Whenever she sees someone else wearing socks (which is rare), she wants to put on socks too.

*She loves to "help" cook anything.

*She gets really excited every Sunday when we tell her we are getting ready for church.

*She loves to give massages to us whenever we are laying down and recently has been also using "water" (really she just licks her hands). This is a picture of her giving Daniel a leg massage last night. She was so into it that I had a hard time getting her to look at the camera.


*She loves any animal and will point them out every time she sees one, but any time they get even remotely close to her, she gets so scared she starts shaking and clings to whoever she is with.

*When she's riding in a car and hears a horn, she starts yelling "GO!"

Anyway, I am sure there are plenty of things that I'm forgetting to put on the list, but that's just a few of the things that she does that makes me smile. I feel so blessed to have a daughter like JoAnn.

Another B-day

I know I sort of sound like I'm repeating myself but....


Happy Birthday Ryan! It's Daniel's brother Ryan's birthday. We have been able to be home the last few years at least around his birthday, so it seems strange to not be able to tell him this in person, but we miss you and hope you have a great day.

Starting off 2010 with a bang

Before I get to the other stuff, we wanted to share this with you...


Happy Birthday Mom B!!! We love you very much and wish we were able to spend the day with you (especially since you are in FL). We hope you have a great day.

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Alright, now to back up a few days, we experienced a very interesting New Years Eve here in the Philippines this year. One of the biggest things that they do to celebrate the day is set off fireworks, so it was a very loud and colorful evening. JoAnn loved watching all the explosions and would yell, "Look, firetruck!" It was really cute. Anyway, at one point we had some neighbors who were a little too close to the building for my comfort setting off some of the loudest firecrackers I have ever heard, but thankfully JoAnn slept through the whole thing. I couldn't believe it. The other thing that made our night a little more interesting was the partial power outage. Something happened around 8:30 or 9 that all of the sudden made everything in our house turn off except for our TV. I immediately assumed we blew a fuse and had Daniel checking the fuse box when we noticed our fans started turning again, but very slowly. We got a little suspicious and asked around the building and pretty much everyone was in the same situation as we were, which made me a little relieved to know it wasn't just us. So for an hour or two we had enough power to weakly run a fan and the TV, but not much more. Then once again everything went out except for our TV. After midnight hit and we still didn't have a fan we tried to plug the fan into the same outlet that our TV was plugged into and it still wouldn't turn on. After which we plugged the TV back in and evidently we never should have unplugged it because it no longer would work. That left us with absolutely no electronic device that would work in our house until sometime around 2:45 AM when they were able to fix the problem and things went back to normal. It was very strange. I have never experienced a power outage like it before. Once again, I was very thankful that JoAnn didn't even wake up. So, it was a little bit of a rough start to 2010, but by the time I went to bed and woke up things we looking much better. On New Years Day we got together with some friends and had a yummy American style BBQ for lunch. It was great.

That is where the "looking up" part ended. Last night I found one of these in my hair...


That's right, I have lice! I was brushing my hair last night before I went to bed when I noticed the bug crawling around on my comb. I sat there for a minute completely grosed out and a little in shock, until I decided it was too late in the day to do anything about it right then, but first thing this morning I tore apart the house and started some major cleaning. I also found a neighbor who was kind enough to share some left over Nix to help us get rid of them. Lice is pretty much a way of life for a lot of Filipinos, but I can't handle the thought that I have bugs crawling around on my head. It is just another reminder of how much I admire the fact that they can go through stuff like this and not complain. I have a lot to learn from them when it comes to not complaining. I will say I am slightly thankful for the much needed motivation to clean my our place since I was wanting to do it before the baby comes, which is getting so close. Anyway, I'm off to throw in another load of laundry and wash my hair.

The Holidays

So, it has really been a very long time since I've put anything new up and there has been two main reasons for that. One, I feel like there has pretty much always been something else that needs to be done and the other reason is when there isn't anything else to do, I just wanted to sleep. Finally, I have found some time to catch up a little. I feel like there has been so many things that have happened I could either write about 10 posts to tell about everything or I could just put up some pictures and briefly list what has been keeping us on our toes lately. I'm choosing the second option. So here we go,

*Way back in November, Daniel took me to a nice hotel for two nights and we left JoAnn with our neighbor. It was so fun to get away for a few days and just spend a few days with Daniel. The hotel we stayed at had a beautiful Christmas tree in the lobby, so I made Daniel pose for a picture in front of it...


*We didn't do much on my actual birthday since we spent time at the hotel right before, but I officially turned 27 last month...it still sounds crazy for me to say that since I always picture myself as much younger.

*Around that same time our condominium building put up their Christmas decorations and JoAnn LOVED them. We would take her on walks through the lobby so she could look at all the lights and "bubbles" (aka ornaments).


*The weekend before Thanksgiving we had a big dinner with a bunch of missionaries in our mission where we celebrated together. I had a lot of fun eating all the favorite holiday foods without having to cook them all myself. Since we celebrated early, I just made a couple of my favorites (stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy) for our family for our actual Thanksgiving dinner. It was my first time making Thanksgiving dinner for ourselves since we are usually with family or friends and I had a lot of fun. I already can't wait to make some of my favorites next year.

*Since this is the first year since Daniel and I have been married that we didn't travel over Christmas, I talked him into getting a small Christmas tree for our place (our first ever tree). I had been casually looking at them for a few weeks before I actually went to buy one in the beginning of December. By the time I got to the store they only had a few trees left. I guess they didn't restock any of them once they sold. Luckily, I was able to get the last tree in the entire mall that was less than 7 feet tall. (I would not have had any room in our place for a tree that big.) It was my first time ever putting up a tree on my own (real or fake). I waited to take a picture until we had some presents wrapped and under the tree, but I love it and really don't want to take it down. I really wanted JoAnn to be in the picture with the tree, but this is the best shot I got.


*These next couple pictures will be some of my favorite memories from this Christmas. I decided since we were going to be home this year I wanted to make cookies and other treats for the holidays. Usually, I just make one or two things and end up eating whatever my mom and/or Daniel's mom makes. So, when I started thinking of what I could make, I ended up going a little overboard and made a bunch of stuff. I ended up giving a lot of it away, but also ended up eating a lot of it too. I'm curious to see how much weight I have put on over the holidays. The doctors here still tell pregnant women that they should only gain about 20 pounds and I think I was at about 15 before all the cooking. I may end up getting a lecture when I go in after the new year.

(I have no idea how she ended up with the flour all over her face, but I think this picture is hysterical.)

*I forgot to look at the forecast on Christmas Day, but on Christmas Eve it was 87 and sunny, so I took JoAnn for a swim that morning.

*That night our neighbors had some of the little kids from the building over and gave each of them a present. JoAnn got a bucket full of fake McDonald's food. She loves it, especially the fries and "hammermer". It was fun to have all the families get together and celebrate Christmas together with the other families. It made it feel a little more like home. These are the girls that were there that night. There were two more little ones that didn't get in this picture.


*On Christmas Day, I made us wait until after we ate breakfast together and Daniel read the story of Christ's birth from one of the children's books we have before we could open the presents under the tree. JoAnn did great at being patient, I'm guessing that was because she is still sort of young to really get the whole concept of presents so we'll see how that goes over next year. But anyway, here she is patiently waiting to open her presents.


*That night we had Christmas dinner with two other families that have young kids. I was very thankful that we didn't have to eat by ourselves. Not that it would have been awful to spend Christmas with just us, but because it meant that I didn't have to spend the whole day in the kitchen and could actually enjoy being with Daniel and JoAnn. Anyway, dinner was great and we had fun letting JoAnn play with the other kids and all their new toys.

Alright, that's good for now. JoAnn is up from her nap and I don't know how much longer I can hold her off.

Sorry it took so long

Alright, I am going to back up about a month or so in order to talk about when my brother-in-law came out to visit us. I had planned on doing this the day that we got hit by Typhoon Ondoy, but got sidetracked and haven't really had the chance to go back and talk about it til now.

Its been so long now, I'm not positive of the dates, but sometime in mid September Daniel's brother, Ryan came out to visit us. I always love it when people are willing to make that absolutely dreadful trip to come spend a few days with us on this side of the world. Anyway, Ryan wasn't really here very long, but he and Daniel managed to pack a ton into a such a short time. Again, it has been so long that I don't necessarily remember the order of events but here are a few picture from his time here.

This is at one of my favorite restaurants. It is a Greek place called Cyma. They have good food and most of it is relatively healthy. Anyway, we took Ryan there for lunch one day and while we were sitting at the table Ryan had his computer out working on it and was trying to find an internet connection. One of the guys that worked at the restaurant stood right behind him and helped him find the best connection...and then continued to stand right behind him with his hand on the back of Ryan's chair looking over his shoulder at the computer for what had to be almost 5 minutes. It was pretty funny to watch how Ryan increasingly became uncomfortable with the guy standing there and how the worker seemed to think nothing of it. One of the things I have learned over the last few years is that the Filipino idea of personal space is much different than ours and they also do not consider it rude to stare either directly at you or in this case whatever it is that you are working on. Ryan handled it well, but it was still pretty funny to watch.

This picture is from Malaybalay. Daniel thought it would be fun to take Ryan outside of Manila and show him how beautiful the Philippines can be and at the same time see the other orphange that is connected with the one we do things with here. This is Daniel and Ryan with two of the Filipinos who help run things in Malaybalay, Donald and Grace. Although, I get jealous of Daniel any time he is able to go the province and I am stuck home in the pollution and congestion of Manila, I was thankful they went without me on this trip. They left very early Friday morning and got back just over 24 hours later on Saturday morning. Both of them were exhausted by the time they got home.



Saturday night, Daniel rounded up a few other missionaries to play with him and Ryan in a ministry game not too far from the Arthur Center. JoAnn and I went along with them to cheer on Daddy and Uncle Ryan. I ended up not seeing much of the game since I spent most of the time making sure JoAnn didn't run off the side of the stage she was playing on and tyring to keep her away from the red ants that were all over the place, but from what I did see the guys seemed to have fun and the crowd enjoyed the game. I didn't get a picture but at half time they were able to share a quick word with the crowd and invite them to church in the morning. The next picture is Ryan right after the game...I don't think he was used to playing in such hot and humid weather and he looked like he might pass out.


It didn't take long for him to regain his composure and brag to the camera about the 41 points he scored in the game though.

The next day we took Ryan to church with us at the Arthur Center and that night Daniel took him to watch Kirk play for Ateneo at the same arena that Ali fought the "Thrilla in Manila" fight at.

All in all, it was a lot of fun to have Ryan out to visit. (Although I said it to him when he was here and I will say it again, I would have very much enjoyed it if he would have brought Heather and/or the kids with him.) JoAnn made quick buddies and loved having Uncle Ryan around.

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On a completely unrelated side note I have had a few people ask me if I was showing yet and to put up a picture of my belly. Getting a picture was actually a little more difficult than it probably should have been since we don't have batteries for our digital camera right now and we tried to use our video camera to take the picture, which for some reason doesn't like to focus when taking a still picture. So, after taking 4 or 5 pictures, this is the best we ended up with...

Sorry for the annoyed look on my face and to tell you the truth I feel much larger than I look in this picture.

A Few Updates

First, I'll start with this picture...


Notice the color of the icing? Does it mean anything? I just had my appointment Wednesday and found out we are having a boy! I will admit, it sort of shocked me. Not that I really felt strongly about wanting a girl or a boy for that matter, but I guess since JoAnn was a girl every time I imagined this baby it was wrapped in pink. Which also led to the realization that pretty much everything we have is pink or has lace, so my mind started almost instantly thinking of things that I will need to get in boy colors. The doctor quickly helped me snap back to reality when she started showing me his heart, face, feet, hands, etc. on the ultrasound though. Everything looked great and the little guy seems to be completely healthy. Unfortunately, this appoinment had gotten pushed back due to the typhoon last week and when it was rescheduled Daniel wasn't able to go with me. So, wanting it to be sort of special I made these cupcakes to tell him it was a boy. Daniel being true to himself, had no idea why I was making cupcakes with blue icing and didn't really care, he just wanted to know if it was a boy or girl. So much for my fun way to tell him.

One more picture...


That's right, JoAnn is eating a banana in this picture! After months of trying to get her to eat bananas at home and not just when she is at someone else's house I had given up. Since neither Daniel nor I eat bananas ourselves I haven't bought them in a long time, so when JoAnn turned to me the other night and asked for a "nana" I thought she was talking about the toy that goes with her toy monkey. I'm not sure why, but she kept asking for one for about 20 minutes and each time I told her we didn't have any, she would get upset. So, finally we walked down to the neighbor's and they were kind enough to let JoAnn have one of their bananas. You would have thought they had given her ice cream by how happy she was to finally have a banana. I couldn't believe it.

Alright, on a completely different note...thankfully the second typhoon that I wrote about last week ended up heading more north than they had thought, so it really didn't affect us too much. It was cloudy and windy and it rained for a little bit on Friday and Saturday, but we were spared from anything too serious. However, Daniel and some of the other guys left this morning to head to a city up north for the weekend and I guess the area they are going to got hit pretty hard from the second typhoon. They had planned this basketball trip before either of the typhoons, so they had no idea at the time that they would be going into an area that is still really flooded and as of Wednesday still did not have any electricity. I can't help but think that their trip may be used even more during a time like this, so I am praying that the guys will stay healthy and be open to how God wants to use them.