Thanksgiving 2015

Since it's only a week until Christmas, I figured if I didn't do this blog post now I wouldn't do it at all. It was a pretty busy Thanksgiving for us! Sam's parents retired from being missionaries this year after 14 years of reaching the unreached in Kenya and Tanzania, Africa. With them finally home for the holidays, we headed up to Dallas/Arlington to spend Thanksgiving with Sandra's side of the family.

Baby pigtails are the cutest!!

It was a short trip. We left on Wednesday around 1:30pm when Sam got home after working a half-day. I've never really traveled for a holiday before because my family gatherings around the holidays were only an hour drive away.  Man, did we hit some holiday traffic! It took us 5 hours to get up to Arlington. We stopped a couple times to walk around and use the bathroom. My midwife had advised me to get out and walk around as much as I could to avoid the possibility of blood clots. I also wore compression socks and moved my legs around or propped them up when I could in the car.

My little model

Jane did pretty well on the way up there. She only took a 45 min nap in the car which made things a little more difficult. I was hoping for her to sleep at least an hour and a half like she normally does. I think she was too excited to be going on a trip to sleep long! She made it 3 hours really well. (a trip she is used to, since we've visited Uncle Scott and Aunt Anna a few times in Austin) The last hour was kinda rough, but still not too bad and we made it!

Jane was cleaning the leaves out of the cinder blocks.

We arrived at Uncle Mike's house around 6:30pm to a wonderful lasagna dinner cooked by Sandra. We enjoyed chatting with family before heading to bed. Jane did so well sleeping in her pack & play. She is such a good traveler and will sleep through the night pretty much any where we go.

Jane loved all the fence art!

We had Thanksgiving dinner around 1pm and everyone brought something wonderful to eat and it was all homemade! Everyone in the Westbrook family can cook. Jane enjoyed the mac & cheese the most, I think I did too. ;) I didn't get a picture of all the food, I was too busy eating it.

Relaxing with dad.

Jane has always been really friendly and loves people, but I don't think she's ever been around so many people in that small a place before. She kept retreating to the rooms with no one in them. My little social butterfly might have a little introvert in her yet. It might have just been she was ready for a nap and couldn't find a quiet place.

Jane and Akuya

After visiting with family for a couple hours we packed up and headed back home. It was wonderful to get to see family we hadn't gotten to see in a couple years and I got to meet a few family members I never had before.

Jane meeting her great-grandpa for the first time.

Jane was definitely ready for a nap when we left she fell asleep about 5 minutes after we started home and didn't wake up again for 2 hours. It made the trip home really relaxing. We also didn't hit any traffic so we made it home in 4 hours. Here's a few more pictures of our trip.

Jane and Holden watching Finding Nemo together.

It was her first experience with an iPad.

Is it a phone?? Can I talk to Nemo?

All playing together!

The only thing about being in Dallas for Thanksgiving is that I missed Thanksgiving at my parents house for the first time. It made me a little sad, but don't get me wrong I'm glad we went to Dallas. I just wish I could have done both! I love family! I was able to get home in time to go to my grandparent's house for Thanksgiving on Friday, which made me very happy. :) They live just an hour away.

Will you let me pet you??

My grandparents have 3 Maltese and Jane loves dogs! She really enjoyed getting to be with Buttons, Beau and Bandit. I would love to get Jane a dog, but with a toddler, one on the way and working part time from home, I don't think I could handle training a puppy right now. One day!

Peekaboo!

I'm so glad I don't have stairs in my house. I know I would put up gates, but Jane would be asking to climb the stairs all day! She loves to climb. I'd rather take her to the park or to someone else's house with stairs. ;)

Whee!!

I love getting to watch Jane with the family that love her! It makes my heart happy. It also gives me a little break from playing and I just get to sit back and enjoy.

Tickles!

We enjoyed another yummy Thanksgiving meal. I love Thanksgiving food! Mac & Cheese was Jane's favorite yet again. 

Love my girl. (and my boy you can't see yet)

After we finished eating, I asked if anyone would like to go for a walk to burn off a little bit of the delicious food we just ate. We got a pretty good group together to go. Jane loved watching the dogs walk in front of her.

I always enjoy a good walk.

We walked to the park not to far away and played for a little while before walking back.

There she goes!

One of my old favorites at the park

Jane loves just about everything at the park

Once we got back, I asked if anyone wanted to watch the ultrasound video that I brought of baby boy. My grandparents really enjoyed getting to see it. They hadn't gotten to see an ultrasound in 4D before. We visited for a while longer and headed home. Such a great few days with family. I loved it. Just a few more pictures of our Thanksgiving.

Playing with Pappaw

Hangin out with Marmee, Great Papa and Buttons

Hello??

We're ready for Christmas!

Jane in the same chair 1 year ago

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks;

 for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Baby #2 Weeks 18-25

It's a boy!! We're having a little boy this time around! Which is really exciting. It's funny though, after I found out it was a boy I was a little disappointed that I wouldn't get to use all the cute girl stuff I have again this time and that Jane wouldn't have a sister so close in age. (We'll more than likely have more kids so I'm holding out on getting to use my girl stuff again.) But don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean I was really hoping for a girl. If the baby had ended up being another girl I would have been excited, but then I also would have been disappointed that I wouldn't get to go buy cute boy clothes and get to enjoy the whole new experience of having a son. I'm hoping that Jane and our little boy will be able to have a brother-sister relationship like my brother, Scott, and I had. So I think I was going to be super happy and yet just a tiny bit sad with either result when I found out it was a girl or a boy.

So can I talk about for a minute how awesome the ultrasound place was?? First off, I've only had 5 ultrasounds total over my 1 1/2 pregnancies so far. The first ultrasound for each baby was around 8 weeks when they are just a little bean baby and you can't see much other than the heartbeat. So there's not much to compare because it's done just to make sure the baby is in the right place and it's heart is beating. My 18 week ultrasound with Jane was alright. It was great to see Jane's face, arms and legs for the first time, but the screen was super tiny and the ultrasound tech wouldn't tell me almost anything. Any question I asked she basically said "I'm not allowed to say." She said she thought it was a girl but wasn't 100% sure. So we kinda had that "Well, it could be a boy..." feeling for a while. The ultrasound tech also didn't give me any pictures of her face which was a little disappointing.

This is pretty much all I got. "I think it's a girl..."

I had my final ultrasound with Jane at 36 weeks to make sure everything was good and she was in a good position for birth. (And to verify that she really was a girl) It was much better than the my 18 week ultrasound, but the area it was located in was a little shady and they had the ultrasound screen positioned so I couldn't really see it very well over my huge pregnant belly at that point. Also the bed I was lying on seemed really uncomfortable, but that could have just been because I was so pregnant at that point. Also, they were telling me "Oh look at her purse her lips!" To me, it looks like she was sucking on her hand instead. I did get a couple pictures of her profile so that was cool, but that was it.

That's totally her hand over her mouth and not her lips...

Alright, now on to the lovely ultrasound place. It's called Inside Story. Isn't it a great name for a place that does pregnancy ultrasounds? So cute. They have a nice little waiting room and they let us wait about 10 minutes after my scheduled appointment time to let Sam get there from work. They have a large viewing room with room for lots of family to watch with you. There are a couple of large TVs around the room for everyone to have a good view. They also had a few toys for older siblings to play with while we're looking at the new baby. Sam, Jane, my mom, Sandra and Joseph were all able to come and experience it with me. The ultrasound tech said she was able to tell the gender almost as soon as she put the doppler on my belly. She said "'It's a boy and he's not shy!" :)

Yay! We have a son!

We all said "Yay!" I just love finding out the gender. I can start calling the baby he or she! It makes it more personal. I feel like I can already start bonding with my baby in a way I couldn't if I waited to find out. The ultrasound tech switched to 4D to give us a peak at baby boy. It was really cool.

His legs and feet. You can also see the umbilical cord.

I'm pretty sure he was trying to sleep, because as you can see in the picture below he has his hands over his ears and is pushing his face into my placenta.

So adorable!

The ultrasound tech was trying to get him to move so we could see his face in 4D, but he wouldn't budge. At the same time Jane was wanting to be right next to me and wasn't settling for sitting with anyone else. So we let her up on the bed with me and she started pushing on my belly. As soon as she did that, little brother responded and moved so we could see his face!

It's pretty incredible that you can see this detail at 19 weeks.

I actually got more than two pictures from this visit! They also gave me a video of the whole session that I can watch over and over again. It's awesome! The best part is I got all of that and they were the cheapest ultrasound I've ever had. My ultrasound tech was so nice too. I would definitely recommend Inside Story to anyone looking for a affordable and enjoyable ultrasound experience.

Yay!

At the very beginning of my pregnancy I thought this baby was a boy, then I went back and forth between boy and girl for a while. Right before the appointment I guessed boy. I didn't even realize I had wore a blue shirt until after the appointment was done. Jane was also dressed in blue unintentionally. I used the picture below as our gender announcement.

This is the dress jane wore to the appointment as well.

Jane is reading a Berenstain Bears book in that picture. Most of you know that those books are all about Brother and Sister bear! :) I didn't do that on purpose either... It worked out! The shirt for our little boy that I used for the gender announcement I bought when I was pregnant with Jane and didn't know that she was a girl yet. It was on sale and seemed so perfect since Sam always wears plaid and has been called a lumberjack many times. So I just had to get it and I thought, "Even if this baby is a girl, I will just keep it until we hopefully have a boy one day." I'm so glad we're having a boy this time who will be able to wear it! :)

18 Weeks!

A lot of people have been asking me for our baby boy's name and it's not that we're keeping it a secret or anything, he just doesn't have one yet. I got to have my favorite name for our first girl, so now it's Sam's turn to have his favorite for our first boy. He's not in any hurry to settle on one name right now. Our little boy might not have a name until he's born and that's totally fine with me. Before we knew Jane was a girl, our boy name choice was Uriah, but we're not settled on that one this time. It's still in the running though. I like the name Malakai and I would call him "Kai". Eli and Gideon are a couple of my other favorites. I'm a lot less particular with boy names than girl names. I have a lot of favorite boy names. I think the name Flynn would be cool as a middle name because it means "Son of the red-haired man". :) Just last week Sam said his favorite name right now is Atlas. It means "to endure" which we think is pretty cool. We're still not settled on it, but it has first place right now.

22 Weeks. Really starting to show!

Our baby boy is getting very strong and very active! Pretty much anytime I'm still he's moving nowadays. Also, I can feel and see him kick from the outside now! I felt his hiccups for the first time just the other day as well. Such a fun time. I loved it last time and I'm loving it again this time. I'm feeling great. Morning sickness is long gone now and I made it through without throwing up this time, which I'm pretty happy about. I love the second trimester! It's the best. The only thing that I can complain even a little about is some lower back pain which is probably because I have to pick up and carry Jane throughout the day. I've been walking, stretching and trying to lift with my legs more and it's helping. It's hard to believe the third trimester is just 3 weeks away! Man, this boy will be here soon!

I don't think I've mentioned yet that I have two other close friends due within 3 weeks of my due date. We call ourselves the sisterhoodies since we all met and became close friends when our brothers were on a baseball team together 10 years ago. We all showed up to a game once in hoodies.

The dawn of the Sisterhoodies! I think this was taken in 2005.

3 out of the 4 of us are pregnant right now. Super fun! We got together recently and had sort of a baby supply exchange. Liz lives in China right now and Melody wasn't able to make it because one of her kids wasn't feeling well. But at least I got to see Katie and all our wonderful mothers!

2 Sisterhoodies, 3 grandmother-hoodies and 3 babyhoodies.

I got a bunch of boy clothes!! I love hand-me-downs. Liz had already been given a bunch of hand-me-down boy clothes before she found out she was having a girl and Katie found out she was having a girl too, so I got all of the boy clothes. I gave Katie some maternity clothes that were passed on to me and either didn't fit me or didn't look right on me and said it was cool for her to donate whatever she didn't want. I was going to pick up a double stroller from Mel but she couldn't make it. Just another excuse to get back together! :) Pretty much the only thing I need before baby boy is born is a car seat for Jane so he can have Jane's old one.

I'm 24 weeks and Katie is 21 weeks here.

It's such a blessing to have such wonderful friends to experience life with. Love you girls! Can't wait to get all 6 of our babyhoodies together next year!

John 13:34-35

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

Two are better than one,

Because they have a good reward for their labor.

10 

For if they fall, one will lift up his companion.

But woe to him who is alone when he falls,

For he has no one to help him up.

Yeah, I'm an Anime Nerd

I love Anime! I thought it was about time for a blog post about something other than babies. ;) I know some of you reading this might be like "huh? What is Anime?". If you've never heard of Anime it stands for Japanese Animation. They are basically cartoons, but usually the animation is far superior to typical american cartoons. Also the content is normally much deeper and more mature that the cartoons most people are used to. By mature I don't mean like the Simpsons or Family Guy or the like. I guess some Anime can be like that, but that's not the type of Anime I watch. (I hate the Simpsons or anything like it, just FYI.) What I mean by mature is that the content can be much too scary or sad or complicated for young kids. Most Anime's advise viewers be over the age of 14 or in their older teens at least.

Before Pacific Rim there was Gundam!!

I think around 13 or 14 is about the age when my brother and I started watching Anime. Toonami on Cartoon Network all the way! All of the shows on Toonami were censored for young teens. I remember if there was blood in the original scene then it was colored out so you couldn't see it. Any curse words like hell or damn were normally substituted with heck or darn. I can't remember if the first anime I watched was Dragon Ball Z or Gundam Wing.  I loved them both!

I used to act out my own stories of Dragon Ball Z on my trampoline.

A couple more of my favorites growing up were Outlaw Star and G Gundam. I specifically remember thinking the show Sailor Moon was lame and such a girl show. I would always roll my eyes and change the channel whenever it came on. I thought the show Hamtaro was cute and liked to watch it when I caught it on. All of the shows I watched growing up were dubbed, but now if I watch an Anime it's hard for me to watch it dubbed. I always choose subtitled over dubbed episodes. The american voice actors never seem to be able to sound anything but lame compared to the Japanese voice actors. The only Anime I will watch dubbed are the shows I watched as a kid. I remember whenever my dad was around while Scott and I were watching Gundam Wing he would always make fun of it and make up his own dialogue for the characters. Haha!

Seriously, it's a show about Hamsters.

I'm very careful with the Anime I choose to watch. There's a lot of Anime that has content I don't want to see. Anime has such a variety of shows that the content can range anywhere from PG to unrated. I'm very leery when starting a new anime. It takes me some time to really get into one too. It's like a good book, but once I get hooked it's hard to not read the next chapter and in this case watch the next episode. Normally, the only way I start a new anime is if Sam tells me I might like it. He has great judgement in what I will like to watch.

The show is named after the main character. Naruto Uzumaki.

A few of years ago Sam said he thought I would like watching an Anime called Naruto. I watched a few episodes as he watched it, but only here and there. Gradually I became more interested and before I knew it I was hooked. I told Sam he couldn't watch any more episodes without me. :) Even as I write this I'm watching old episodes that I missed when we first started watching Naruto.

The show is about Ninjas. Need I say more?? It's awesome. It has great character development and the story will keep you guessing about what's going to happen next. It will keep you laughing with it's silliness, but then also be quite serious at other times and cause you to think deeply about life and the choices you make.

We watched the entire first series and started on the next series called Naruto Shippuden, but didn't get too far. Then we took a break for a couple years. (you know, had a baby and all that jazz.) Just a few months ago we got back into it. We watch a couple episodes together almost every night. We love it.

They get a little older and cooler in the second series.

The other night we were talking about our favorite characters in the show. I've always been torn between Kakashi Hatake and Shikamaru Nara. I mean Kakashi has a Ninja Pug named Pakkun, that's pretty hard to beat in my book.

Kakashi & Pakkun

In a recent episode I realized that Shikamaru is my favorite character. Shikamaru hadn't been in an episode in a while and when his character was highlighted on an episode, I was like "yay! Shikamaru!" I started to wonder why Shikamaru was my favorite character. I mean he's a cool character, but there are lots of cool characters in the show.

Shikamaru

I started to consider Shikamaru's personality and characteristics. He can be seen as a lazy Ninja because he doesn't do anything that is unnecessary. He doesn't care to do something just because someone else thinks he should. He also doesn't care much about what others think of him. All the superficial cares of those around him don't mean anything to him. His catchphrase is "what a drag." or "What a pain." But that doesn't mean that he won't do what is needed to protect his friends or village. He is very protective of his friends and will do anything for those close to him. He is extremely intelligent and is known for his great strategic mind. He sees straight through the enemy's attempts to deceive him. I really like his quiet confidence. His confidence doesn't come off cocky. He is aware of his strengths, but doesn't gloat. He is a very steady guy and stays calm in stressful situations when everyone else is freaking out. Because of that he doesn't show many emotions, but it doesn't mean he doesn't have them. A lot of times it seems like it would be too much trouble to him to try to explain his feelings so he doesn't waste his time trying.

I admire all of Shikamaru's characteristics and after thinking through it, I figured out why. Everything I just explained about Shikamaru also explains my husband almost to a tee. :D Sam also happens to be my favorite person.

So basically I married a Ninja. WIN!!

We love Fall

I took a bunch of pictures of Jane outside the other day and looking back at them I love them all! I'm not sure how they all turned out so well, but I figured they deserved their own blog post. Also I haven't been blogging about Jane much at all since I got pregnant with the new baby. I can't let Jane lose all the attention before this baby is even born! ;)

Looking like a little model here.

She's growing up so fast! She's holding her little Mario action figure here. She loves him and will give him kisses. I'm already passing on my love of Nintendo. :) She likes most things around that size though. My mom set up my old dollhouse in Jane's room at her house and there are several little babies that go with it and she'll carry them around too, kiss them and call them baby. She will call Mario baby at times.

She came and laid down on my leg

Jane has become so affectionate. She loves to give kisses and hugs. She will give me a hug almost every time I ask for one. It's the best! Just yesterday, when she was running around outside she stopped, looked at me and came over to give me a hug and then she went back to running around the yard. She repeated this several times. I have to be honest though. She is a toddler and we are trying to learn not to hit or bite or pull hair, but the hugs make all of it worth it and she'll learn one day!

The lighting was so great on this beautiful afternoon

Walking is now second nature for Jane. She is now on to running! I try to keep her from running too much on concrete because I don't want her to skin her knees. She's already had a couple skinned knees just from loosing her balance when she wasn't quiet the pro walker she is now. It makes me so sad to see any kind of scratch on her. I try to remember all my skinned knees and scratches from exploring when I was young. They never bothered me growing up. I would take bumps and bruises over not exploring! :)

Inspecting a tree

Jane has already acted like she was going to climb a tree or two. I already have a monkey on my hands indoors! She tries to climb everything! I think she can climb up on every chair in the house now. She has learned there are things she is not allowed to climb on. Like the coffee table and the subwoofer. She is obedient when she realizes I'm serious and I stay consistent. It's amazing how much obedience is about the parent staying consistent and strong.

So much love

I love that Jane likes to sit in my lap while we're outside. We'll watch the cars go by or the planes in the sky. I will make bird noises with grass and Jane will pull up a piece of grass and put it to her mouth and try to imitate the sound. It's so cute!

Giving me a kiss

Her kisses are so sweet. She will get close to my face and make kissing noises with her mouth several times. She will give Sam kisses goodnight. It melts my heart! :) She sometimes tries to kiss the characters in a book. It's so fun.

Watching the busy world around her

She decided to lie down in the grass and watch the world go by for a minute. About a month ago Jane started to fall asleep on her own for her naps without me even trying to get her to go down. We would just be sitting on the couch and she would just fall asleep in my arms or right next to me. I guess it was around the same time I stopped nursing her. Strangely enough, sleeping seems to have gotten better all around for Jane since she stopped nursing. Some days I have to remind her she needs to nap so she can feel better and keep playing. She takes her naps on the couch now while I work. It works out great for us.

Serious face

Silly face!

Well, I need to wrap up this up. Jane is growing up so fast and is making this pregnancy go by so fast! I can't believe I'm almost halfway through already! I'll leave you with a few more pictures from our fun day outside! We are loving the beautiful fall weather and are enjoying the outdoors as much as we can.

Riding on mom's back is so fun!

Love these hugs

And those smiles

Got a nice pose on this one

Love this girl so much!!