January Fun

As you might remember for all of December we were without electricity. It was finally all fixed on Jan 20th - YEAH (who was counting:)! Here is a picture of our "Mr. Fix it" man getting into the electrician's mess of wires and tools. He loved it! We have since then bought him his own tool set (plastic) and he is constantly hammering walls and drilling the sofa. I am looking forward to the home improvements he will do when he gets a bit more coordination.

Here are a couple of fun photos of Judah sleeping in the "big bed." As you can see in the picture above that he and Henna love to snuggle and actually slept that way. Judah loves balls so you will notice that instead of a soft stuffed animal he prefers to sleep with balls. I thought he was ready to transition into the bed with Henna and I could pack up the pack-n-play but not quite. We tried it for two weeks - one morning I went in to find him asleep in the middle of the bedroom floor with toys all around. I guess he woke up in the night and decided to play a bit before falling asleep again. Several other times he crawled out of bed and we caught him wandering about the house. And of course there were a few tears from Henna dealing with some little guy in her bed pulling her hair or pinching her face. So, for now he is back in the pack-n-play and it is Manon's job to take him out each morning so Mommy can rest a few more minutes until Judah wakes me by hammering my sleeping face with his plastic hammer.

Waffle night fun! One tradition we have began is that if Daddy is out for dinner then we usually make waffles or pancakes with all the yummy fixins' we can think of. On this occasion we had fresh strawberries and whip cream. Manon also decorated hers with chocolate syrup - delicious!

A Visit From Friends

We were blessed by a wonderful visit from some friends from the north. Their kids were a bit older than ours but played wonderfully together. In the photo above Henna, Ben and Manon are playing with a 70 year old turtle at the amusement park in town.

Ben and Henna riding the race cars.
Manon and Rebecca catching up!
Manon and Henna getting a kiddy ride in. Carol and the kids enjoying lunch at our favorite Burmese restaurant in town.

Other January Surprises. . .

One night around the first of the year I had a very interesting dream. If you know me well you will know that I am a dreamer but this one seemed so much more real and different than my usual dreams. So here is the dream. . ."I was in Bangkok in the delivery room at the hospital. My doctor came to me and put her hand on my shoulder and said, 'this is your 4th so I will let you do it on your own - just let me know if you need me.' She then walked away and I looked down to see that I had quite a large belly and was in position to deliver a baby. I then looked across and Henna was right there with me. She did not say anything but her eyes got big and round so I looked back down again to see the babies head coming out. Henna then stood up and started clapping so I checked again and the baby was out. Henna was quick to my side to help me lift up the baby and wrap it up. Before we wrapped it she said, "look mommy, a boy like Judah." She then said, 'We must name him.' I agreed and we thought for a few minutes and gave the baby a name."

I then woke up to jostle Monty awake and ask him if he thought I could be pregnant. He thought for a moment in his sleepy state and said, "yeah, probably." I said, "how do you know?" He said it was because I had napped several days the past week and I only nap if I am pregnant. I decided that made sense and dug around in the bathroom to find 3 home pregnancy tests (left overs). They all came up positive!

We are really excited baby #4 is on the way and all seems to be fine and healthy with the pregnancy. I am about 13 weeks along at this point (first of march) and the due date is September 1. I had an ultra-sound at 11 weeks and it was the clearest ultra-sound I have ever seen. I could see the baby sucking his thumb, I counted the fingers, and even got a glimpse of his face. I then asked the doctor to check the sex of the baby. I told her I thought I was having a boy but wanted to know for certain. She told me it was much to early to tell but I reminded her that the sex organs are fully developed by this point so to please check anyway since this might be my last ultra-sound until close to the due date. She scanned my abdomen telling me how it is much, much too early and then stopped to say, "yes, you do have a boy!"

Well, if you are wondering about the name I think I will let that be a surprise. I shared the name from my dream with Monty and he thought it was great and said we should go with it. Since we typically don't go with traditional names it is easy to get strange looks if we share a name we like when I am pregnant but if we wait until after the baby is born then the name always seems perfect.