PGness, Pics, Parties, and PeePee

Thanks for all your prayers for Lil's night training. She seems to be doing well as she's been dry for about 5 nights now and we've only been pottying her 1-2 times at night. Thanks babe for getting up at night to do that, you're the best! We decided that diapers were too expensive for the little that we needed them for...nighttime. Plus she'd just barely pee in them but then we couldn't use them again cause they'd been peed in. So now we use Kotex :) They're provisioned, and actually they work perfectly. We just put them in her panties and if she has a tiny pee accident, it works fine and keeps her dry, and if she doesn't pee we just save it for the next night. Kinda weird, I know, but it actually works great. Thanks Jo for the great idea, hehe.

Here's some more recent pics and finally some of my PG belly. I'll be 6 months on June 3rd...as of tomorrow I am 25 weeks. Everything is going fine and I feel great. Oh I also chopped all my hair off and I like it. Here in the PI the weather is so hot that I could never wear my hair down, and if I did it just looked like heck with the humidity. No point straightening my hair, it would just frizz out and look bad...so I finally just cut it and I'm glad I did. At least I have a hairstyle now instead of always just putting it back and looking like a hag with frizzies everywhere!

Lil is turning 2 on the 15th! Which also happens to be Father's day...so I have my work cut out for me, babying my babies. Should be fun! Love you all and happy belated birthday to Tina and Liz (the 22nd). I love you both lots and hope you're loving motherhood. Love to all!

My new do!

Trying to pose.

How do you like it?

Smooches! Hurry up this position is difficult! She loves her baby brother so much.

What Ricky calls my "ugly PG tummy" haha.

Fat and flaunting it

I think she really looks like Ricky's sister Sharon in this pic. At least it looks like the baby pics that I saw of Sharon.

She was really posing for us. What a sweet pea.

See how hard he tries to be cooler than me... :P

Me and my PG belly about a week ago before I cut my hair.

Potty Mouth

A couple weeks ago Lil stood up from her potty where she had made a poo. She pointed into the potty and decidedly said "Oh sh*t!"
I was horrified! My pretty princess was swearing. My initial thoughts pointed the blame at Ricky. She must have heard him calling it that! How could he! The next time I saw Ricky I questioned him and he denied using that language about poo. Still, somehow my nearly 2 year old had picked up a swear word from someone. I asked Jo, her teacher, where she thought she could have gotten it from. Jo thought about it and said "She's probably just saying 'oh sick' cause I say that sometimes about her poop."
Sure enough, after testing it on Lil, I figured out that she was just trying to say "sick!" as she said it about other yucky things as well. Something about her baby accent makes it come out sounding very definitely like "sh*t". We couldn't help ourselves...
That night we filmed her in her nearly-2-year-old girly voice saying "Oh sh*t!" over and over. We would say "Lily, say 'oh sick!'" and she would repeat with her slurred accent saying the profane word. It was too cute. We built on it and eventually had her saying "bull-sick" which came out even funnier. We swore to ignore it from then on so that she wouldn't keep thinking it was funny to say that word, but it was cute while it lasted.
Last night she did it again when we were hanging out with Jo and Chris for family time. She was much more confident this time and bravely shouted out "boosh*t! boosh*t!" over and over again. It's just the funniest thing to hear profanity from an angel voice, but we stopped laughing after awhile cause we don't want her continuing with it. It's a cute joke, but we have to restrain ourselves for the sake of our little girl's upbringing.
The simple joys of parenthood. :)

Billbill

Photoshoot with Andrea, being happy.

Her first tea party. Playing the perfect prim little princess.

Daddy's little b'ball thug.

Sweet as apple pie.

Here's a few pics, finally, of the little bean, and some more I've uploaded here. I don't have so many good ones these days, I'll try to get more but I'm not as trigger happy as I used to be, ha. She's very much a big girl now and will be 2 years old in 1 1/2 months. She's talking so much now and is at SUCH a sweet age. She always gives big hugs and kisses and is very cuddly. Some of the things she says regularly are:
"I do!"
*giggle "Yeah..." (when asked questions)
"Sit down"
"Draw pishure"
"Mommy auchie head!" (or other ailing body part)
"Baby aahh" (means there's a baby crying)
And of course many more.
She says almost every word now that she needs to say, although she still doesn't do full sentences, just little broken ones. She tells us what's happened in her day, what she ate for meals, what the other kids are doing that is "nonny". The other day when Ricky was on OR she prayed a prayer for him and it was so cute. Normally she just folds her hands and squeezes her eyes while I pray but I told her to pray so she babbled and threw in some words like "Daddy" "out" "home", etc. So sweet. When we go on OR together she stays with Jo and when we come home she just runs to us with her arms out laughing in that way that says "I'm so happy I could almost cry" as she sounds on the verge of tears. It's so darn cute and she has such a good heart. I love her so much.
Any tips from you moms on night training? I'm trying desperately to get Lil out of diapers at night before the baby arrives, but I'm also not into having kids pee the bed every night and just wash sheets 24/7...would rather diapers. My problem is that, although we try to potty her about 3 times at night, potty her before bed also, and she only has a few sips of water before bed, she still has pee in her diaper in the morning. I'm getting frustrated about it, plus it's hard to get up at night these days. I want her to be able to wake up fully, walk to the bathroom and help herself go potty so that she can get in the habit, but she's usually a deadhead when we wake her up and seems to be one of those that just sleep through the need to pee. Any tips would be cool :)

A Peek Inside

Ricky: Yeah...it looks like a girl
Ultrasound Specialist: Really? Why do you think that?
Ricky: I dunno, it just looked like it there
US: Let's see if we can get a better look...the baby is not in the best position for this (squishing my tums)
Baby: *Wiggle wiggle kick
Me: I can't see!
US: *Click--Ah there you see it looks like it might not be a girl
Ricky: Yeah it looks like there could be something there
Me: Let me see!
US: You see, it looks like it has a little "tip". I will put boy with a question mark.
*Keeps looking
Me: Subconsciously I've known it was a boy all along...of course it's a boy
Ricky: Silent
US: There! It is a boy, you see the tip and there is a white line instead of a black one. With a girl you have the hamburger where there is a black line. With a boy there is a white line so it's a boy...
Ricky: Grin
Me: Smug and feeling good about being right

There you have it. Little buddy is on his way into this world with much more kicks and punches than Lil ever delivered. He's a strong one, a fighter, a man! He's Jack Daniels Emerson...
Well that's what Ricky thinks anyway..... :P

Happy Anniversary Philippines

Yes, today we've been here one year. Wow, has it been that long?

1 year of Jeepneys and travelling like sardines which is the Filipino way
1 year of cringing past naked children sleeping on sidewalks
1 year of scrounging up pesos for 3 year old beggars and realizing I don't possibly have enough for them all
1 year of huge, packed Filipino malls
1 year of Zagu (yay!)
1 year of awesome outreach with easy-to-provision meals
1 year of destroying my lungs with Manila pollution, trike exhaust and airborne filth
1 year consisting of 3 seasons: Hottest summer, dry summer, and rainy summer
1 year of wishing to visit the beautiful places like Palawan
1 year and about 10 Tagolog words wiser (...for shame...)
1 year of missing the abundant life when it came to food
1 year of accepting the fact that rice comes with everything
1 year of seeing rice as part of mcdonalds, burger king, and KFC menus....also spaghetti
1 year of hearing songs like "Beauteeful Girrrl" and "Puede, puede, puede..."
1 year of answering to "Mam Sir" and "Ah Po"
1 year of being friends with Jo and Andy
1 year of molestation of Lil in malls, surrounded by 20 or so service personnel and wondering how on earth they can afford to pay so many people for doing nothing
1 year of not driving
1 year of missing family and friends and western ways (ooh...that was dangerous)
1 year of watching my baby grow up and get smarter and cuter by the day
1 year of falling more in love with my amazing husband
1 year of some of the biggest trials and bends in the road that I've ever experienced
1 really, really packed year...

I feel worlds older and more experienced than I did 1 year ago. Life has a way of doing that to you. I'm excited (and scared!) to find what this next year will bring our way. Cheers to experience, life's greatest teacher.

P.S. I'm trying to post pics but our internet is still too slow...we're changing our server soon so I'll post when we do. Hang in there!
Baby is alive and kicking at 20 weeks! Halfway there...

Sicky Ricky

This is just a short post to let you know of a sickness that Ricky has come down with and to pray for him. We haven't had internet for a couple days which is why I haven't mentioned it before. This is his 5th day of having a high fever, fluctuating between 101 and 104.2 F. 4 others in our Home also have this strange high fever which lasts for a while and is not accompanied by many other symptoms, at least not by everyone else. Ricky however has vomited twice and complains of stomach problems, also a lot of aches and pains. He seemed to be delirious last night and is often moaning and groaning and feels awful. Please do pray for his recovery. He's not eating much and has lost a lot of weight. We took him in to be checked today as we have questions as to whether it may be a strain of dengue fever. The doctor said it's possible, but that he would have to come back in two days to know for sure. Don't worry, Moms, it's not so bad as all that, otherwise they would have been much more concerned and would have hospitalized him. I don't think it's very serious, but he is in a lot of discomfort and sometimes pain. We don't think it's contagious, but anyhow, please pray also that Lil or I don't get it as it would probably be very bad for the pregnancy and could have nasty effects. If it is dengue, it's just transmitted by mosquitos which would mean that some of them had a heyday in our house. Anyway, I just wanted to post to keep everyone praying for the recovery of Ricky and the others in our home. Of the four others, only one seems to be still quite bad, and the others are slowly recovering, one of them was Kate and Rich's 1 1/2 month old whose fever got to about 103 at its highest. He seems to be better now, although his immunity is low and is easily susceptible to relapse or anything else that's going around. We appreciate your prayers that all will be okay and will recover asap, and that no one else in our home will come down sick. Thanks so much!
And happy birthday to little Violet, I can't believe you're already 2! Lil is close on your heels and she wishes you a happy birthday too! Lots of love to all.