day 100 blog 89 pregnancy, newborns and now

i just spent the last hour or so trying to copy and paste an interview a friend of mine did with me about my pregnancies and how children have changed my life...i wanted to insert her questions and my answers between these photos and somehow the html or something keeps getting screwed up...so i'll see if i can just do the photos. also wanted to add my dear friend (best friends since age 6!) cara just gave birth to her first child, bria, today! yay! i can't wait to talk more to her about the birth and her first impressions holding that new life she has brought in to this world...top photo is me pregnant with sea a day before i gave birth to her...then the one below is her a day or so old...lots of hair!
me, manuel and sea in the hospital...
photo taken a day before story was born...
last moments alone with sea before we became a family of 4...you can tell her emotions went from really excited to sad to nervous to filled with love...kinda like mine...



and a newborn photo of story...
so, so many more in between and since...this seems like so long ago!

day 99 blog 88 "ma-muh, da-da?" "kee-kee mumgees"

two more photos from hawaii...story asleep on my shoulder...i wanted to post photos of him hugging sea's favorite little white tiger, "goggin"...even offering her his milkies (sea's word...he calls them "mumgees") or lately he has been trying to offer her (or any other baby or animal) my mumgees...i remember sea doing both of these things...tonight's post is about the biggest news in our family...story is now saying two word sentences....the post title is two of them...yesterday he asked me where "da-da" was and tonight he would not fall asleep for 2 hours presumably because he is so excited to be vocalizing more...so he just kept giving that little tiger more of his mommy's milkies and saying "kee-kee mumgees" (kitty milkies)...they are growing up so fast i thought it was appropriate to get a close up photo and then a "bigger picture" photo to both focus on the details and take a step back to soak it all in...slow down little ones...

day 98 blog 87 i'm thankful for...

so, so many things...but with the coop preschool thanksgiving theme and thanksgiving coming up i wanted to spend a few posts reflecting on the things that i'm thankful for...specifically, here, in this short and simple post, my FAMILY...daddy, daughter, sea, and son, story...shown here; they were in a friend's wedding in maui this past may...i'm thankful we have such wonderful opportunities with friends and to travel...i also wanted to include in this post my daughter's prayer of thankfulness...she prays something like this every night before bed...but it is just so cute word for word i may have to record it tonight...here it is as close as i can to memory...
"dear jesus...thank you for everything in the world...thank you for mommy and daddy and brudder and namenee and poppy and skye and ayva and auntie missy and auntie missy's baby...meadow geneveve flora hensel (her new cousin...she must be intrigued by her full name)...and uncle terence (clarence) and uncle michelle and auntie freddy and...(corrects herself)...auntie michelle and uncle freddy...and uncle matthew and auntie brina and auntie marci and mimi and don't forget granddaddy and hayno, and the other kind of hayno (she knows two people named hazelle)...and...(here she starts throwing in whoever she most recently hung out with...friends, cousins, playmates, teachers, people at the post office, etc)...finally, thank you for goliath" (she is intrigued by the david and goliath Bible story and asks why he would want to hurt people and so she decided he needs to be included in her prayers...thinking he is still alive i guess)...she ends with "A" -" A" - "MEN-MEN"...i really need to just put it up here in her voice along with inflections and pauses...

day 97 blog 86 thanksgiving themed preschool

yesterday i hosted a thanksgiving themed preschool at my house...only one mom (miss charita) and her two daughters (ruhi and sachi) came but we had a lot of fun...so much fun i forgot to get my camera out until after we had read stories and cooked together...i thought about getting out the camera when they were all around a big pot of mashed potatoes stirring like crazy but at that point they needed more supervision than for me to preserve the memory...
thanks to miss charita's vision and shopping we had garlic mashed potatoes, vegetarian stuffing, roasted corn, sauteed green beans, a quorn brand vegetarian turkey protein and cranberry sauce...yum! we had so much food i got to serve the same thing to manuel last night for dinner...
then we made turkeys by tracing each child's hand on construction paper and gluing it all together...
even story helped...
ruhi...
craft mess...
sea's completed project...

sachi's...
story wouldn't stay in the photo cuz he was ready for a nap but here are all the turkeys together...
after preschool sea dressed her froggy in a raincoat and hat...
sea and story's turkeys on the wall...
some fall leaves they colored...
and helped hang...
turkey craft from a different day at the children's museum...
admiring their work...

day 96 blog 85 more drawings

sea is REALLY in to drawing right now...trying to get in a quick post for my daily "NABLOPOMO" so i'll have to post about our thanksgiving themed preschool tomorrow...these are pictures she made for friends we are mailing care packages to...i'll have to ask her again what the top one is...close up below:
i drew this picture of "dorothy" from the wiggles and sea colored her and added the large roses...
later she drew her own dorothy here:
off to fill out "open enrollment" for benefits through m's job...

day 95 blog 84 cafe sevilla

we almost named our daughter sevilla. (we call her by her acronym, SEA)...tonight i'm going to a bridal shower in downtown san diego at cafe sevilla. i don't know how late i'll be out...salsa dancing is to follow dinner...so i may or may not update this when i return...spain was my favorite country in europe...i had my 30th bday party at the riverside sevilla location...love spanish music...more later...

day 94 blog 83 beyond words

loving a brother...i was moved beyond words by the euology given this weekend by dave's brother steven...i would quote it and copy/paste it here in my blog but am only able to get it as a pdf file...honestly one of the most beautiful things i've read. ever.