Sometimes I Just Need to Breathe

Lately I have had crazy dreams. Dreams that leave me feeling restless and sometimes even anxious. I lay here in bed and say a prayer in my hazy brain, takes some deep breaths and usually miss Eerika wakes up by then and off we go for another day.

Eerika loves sleeping on our floor. There is a comforter folded up as a mattress, a pillow and another comforter to work as a blanket as on most nights, she ends on the floor. Last night it was little after 1 am when I heard some whimpering. She was laying on the landing and wanted a drink. She got a drink of water, went potty and was back to sleep within 20 seconds. She just likes the comfort of sleeping near us. It is quite wonderful to be the source of comfort for someone like that. I always sleep so much better when Troy is sleeping next to me. 

This week has been busy with Saku's birthday celebration and the birthday party. Yes two different things. Grandma and Grandpa have been visiting us. It has been very good. Tomorrow night is my last shift at work. I realize that being busy sucks the life out of me. Especially when I am pregnant. So this morning I am craving for our usual routine of slow morning with lots of reading, lego building and the obligatory playing of "little girl".

These two children are growing. They are still little, but they aren't so little anymore. Eerika vacuumed her room, by herself, after playing with styrofoam.  

Pictures to prove that I strive to have Eerika's hair done every once a while, but the reality is that we do our hair about every other day. It is a fight to get it done, but then she is usually pretty proud of her "pretty hair".

Here is pictures to prove Saku's culinary skills the other day. 

My growing belly. This picture was taken in the afternoon as I was 19 weeks along. The little one moves all the time now. It is such a blessing to feel it. 

The anxiety of this morning has left me as I listen to Eerika's breathing. Sometimes i just need to lay here for a bit, look at my wonderful life and take a deep breath.  I am blessed.

Saturday Reflections

On Saturday morning, Troy and I went to the Gilbert temple. I feel much obligation go to the temple to be obedient and also to serve. It is not that I don't like it, but it feels a bit like work sometimes. I always leave feeling great, but I am not always running with enthusiasm  to get back there. 

I really enjoyed my time there on Saturday. I felt peace. I felt like I found some simple answers to what I am looking for. I loved watching the sisters who were helping with the temple work.  I felt renewed sense of wanting to focus on the things that matter the most. 

It was simply a good morning.  

I am not great at taking pictures of myself and Troy together so it is fun to see our happy faces together here. We really live a happy and blessed life. 

I love this man!

Striving for simplicity

I have been reading a book about being intentional about our lives.  Slowing down so we can enjoy life. Making choices that support the way we want to live. I have loved every page of that book. 

So I will be intentional and quickly write my joy of feeling the little baby move inside my belly. Just since Thursday can I feel it more consistently. Ironically enough it was after my doctor's appointment and hearing the whoosh of the heart beat. Maybe my poor crazy brain needed another assurance that everything was okay to really believe that what I was feeling was the baby.

We have started to read Harry Potter to Saku. He loves it. We love reading it to him. His imagination is captured by the world of wizards and we spent a good 45 minutes during the day reading it. 

I snuggled Eerika to sleep during her nap time as I do on most days.  I treasure these little moments with her. 

Saku cracked six eggs and made scrambled eggs with ham for lunch today. He said that "being a chef is hard" but insisted on doing it all on his own. I helped just enough to make sure all the eggs were cooked.

A little voice is calling my name from my bedroom. The kids are sleeping in there. Or at least Saku is. Camry and her kids are upstairs. Tomorrow will be a full day with friends and swimming lessons and I will go to sleep so I can enjoy it.

Mr. Peabody and Sherman

Because we live far away from everything, when we go to town I try to multitask and do several different things in one trip. Sometimes it works great and sometimes we come home so exhausted. 

On Tuesday morning I had the idea of taking the kids to the movies before their swimming lessons. 

We saw Mr. Peabody and Sherman 3D. I wondered if the kids would be okay keeping the 3D glasses on for the whole movie. They did fine and looked so cute with the glasses on munching their popcorn.

We also smuggled our dinner with us. It was a fancy peanut butter and jelly sandwich and string cheese. We did not have enough time to do a proper dinner so we packed it with us.

Fortunately, this outing did not leave us exhausted. The kids got scared for times during the movie but liked it overall. 

Flounder and Goldfish

The kids had their first official swimming lesson. Last summer we did few lessons with Andrea, but the pool was freezing and it was not a fun experience for any of us, including Coach Andrea.  So we decided to fork out the money and enrolled Saku and Eerika at Sunshien Swim School. There are three kids per one lesson so they get good personalized time with the teacher.

Eerika is not afraid of water per se. She will go under water in the shallow area and in the bathtub and she will hold her breath nicely for good five seconds. But this summer, she got afraid of the "deep end" and has absolutely refused to swim with us.

She was all smiles before the lesson. And she was all smiles after the lesson.

 Their lessons are 25 minutes long and Eerika cried 20 minutes of it at different degrees of loudness. "I want to be done" "You are not listening to me" as she referred to the "I want to be done", "I want to sit at the steps" were frequently heard phrases during the lesson.

However she calmed down by the end of it and she was smiling when the lesson was done. I was impressed how composed the teacher was. She was kind while being firm. She dunked Eerika under the water, made her hold on to the pool's edge and climb out and she held Eerika a lot. 

Eerika is not usually the kid that cries a lot so it was hard to watch her struggle, keep cheering for her while knowing that she was little bit afraid and a lot of bit mad. I hope that by end of our 10 lessons she will be happy in the water and learn the basic swimming skills. 

Saku, on the other hand, rocked his lesson. He would throw a ring, swim to it and dive to the bottom of the pool to retrieve a ring and then swim back to the steps. He needs to work on his back floating but he let Ms. Paige help him with it which is better than he does with us. He really loved the lesson and I think he will improve in his skills dramatically. He is a natural swimmer so it will be fun to how much he can learn when he has someone teaching him.

Crowded Camping

This girl slept well all night and had an awesome bed head to show for it.

Last weekend we went on a family camp out up in Mt. Lemmon. We like camping and I have felt the urgency of doing things this summer as Saku will start school in July and our days of freedom are numbered. 

We had fun, but it was not an optimal camping set up. 

Troy was sick. 

Our tent ended up being too snuck for all of us. We were fine with it last summer but our kids have grown and I am pregnant now.

Our tent was on a downhill so Troy kept sliding downwards for the first half of the night before we switched sleeping positions.  I dont think he slept at all until 2 am. And then I was wide awake and freaked out by some animal sounds.

There was fire restrictions so we couldn't have a fire. And camping without a fire is little anticlimactic. 

BUT the kids had fun playing in the dirt. Though I am ready for a less dirt camping and more forest camping. 

We had a fun hike on Friday night.

I had come prepared with bagels so we had food to eat for breakfast even though we couldn't make scrambled eggs and bacon. 

Troy was crafty and boiled some eggs for us on his small camping stove. 

The kids slept beautifully through the night. 

18 weeks along

Some people say that when you are having your third baby, fourth baby etc., you don't think of how far along you are. I am not one of those people. If you ask me how far along I am, I can tell you the exact number of weeks and days. I think it is because for so many weeks, I just wanted to get past those early weeks and feel like I could actually enjoy the pregnancy and the idea of having a baby. We are way past the first trimester, but I still have my moments of worry and doubt.  I think they will stay with me until I actually hold this baby in my arms.

Prior to our last appointment, I had worried that I hadn't gained weight while we had vacationed and eaten plenty of good food. Any other time it would have obviously been a cause of a celebration to get away with it, but I was worried that it was a sign that something was wrong.

Well this past month, I started to gain the weight. I think that is the pattern of my previous pregnancies as well. Between weeks 16 and 24, I suddenly gain a lot of weight and then it evens out. I really am not that concerned about it as I don't aspire to be the cutest pregnant lady on the block, I just want to be a pregnant lady. But then again, I don't want to turn into a whale because I was "not that concerned about it".  I have been walking on the treadmill. For some reason, I get very out of breath when going up and down the stairs.

I can feel the baby move every once in a while. It is not a constant and obvious movement yet, but there are times when it surprises me and makes me feel very happy.

The kids just love the idea of the baby. Saku informed me that he loves me but he loves the baby more. Eerika constantly hugs and kisses my belly.

Troy affectionately pats my belly and says "you looks so cute".

I think it is safe to say that we are all looking forward to this baby. As Troy says "babies are awesome 20% of the time":)