She's here!...and 11 weeks old already

Life just gets  really busy with a baby in the house and before you know it 3 months have already flown by.

Isabella Kate Webb was born on Saturday, May 7th at 1:27 in the afternoon.  She weighed 8 lbs exactly and was 50 cm long.  We stayed at the hospital overnight and were able to leave just afternoon lunchtime on Sunday, stopping on the way home to pick up Juliana and Levi.  A pretty amazing Mother's Day gift! 

She has not been an easy baby, but she does like to cuddle and be held and carried in the baby carrier, which is not necessarily a bad thing.  She hates riding in the car and stroller, and will always know if you put her down, even if she's sound asleep.  It has been really nice to have the slower summer weeks to spend time with her and get to know what she likes and doesn't like.  She has been sleeping 6-9 hours at night and recently she has started smiling and laughing on occasion, in particular when she has a full tummy and a newly changed diaper.  Juliana and Levi love her, although she doesn't care for being smothered by their kisses. 

We have been here all summer, which has actually been a nice change.  We have been working on things around our house, getting our car worked on, and getting Isabella's Consular Report of Birth Abroad and US Passport.
Juliana and Levi are taking swimming lessons.  Juliana loves her 2 hour lesson twice a week and has learned a lot in the last month; Levi puts up with his 30 minute lessons.  It's a good day if he doesn't scream the entire class time.  We're talking about keeping at least Juliana in lessons during the school year.

The summer has flown by, as it usually does and I'm already thinking about buying school supplies in the next week or two.  Hard to believe we will have a 1st grader already!  Levi still has 1 more year, which I am thankful for.  He will have a few things to work on at home this year, like dressing himself, using the bathroom by himself, and helping around the house. 

Although it has been a good summer we're looking forward to new staff arriving the first week of August and returning staff over the next week.  We are hosting all of the new staff for a lunch on August 3rd, and I have 2 seminars for Honduran Fellowship that week.  Looks to be a busy start to the new school year!

April

Baby Webb
We've made it to 38 1/2 weeks!  She is healthy and everything at my last appointment looked good.    I have an appointment this Saturday, which the doctor thinks will probably be my last.  I was induced at 39 weeks with both Juliana and Levi because the doctor was afraid that I wouldn't make it to the hospital in time, so we'll see what he says at this upcoming appointment. 

We are nearly ready for her to arrive.  Kyle is done with all of his major events of the year and I have things pretty much set around the house.  We're just waiting on the school to bring over a set of bunk beds so that we can move Levi into Juliana's room.  Then the toddler bed needs to be changed back into a crib for the baby.  I'm really hoping the bunk beds will come tomorrow so that we can have them situated before the baby arrives instead of after.

Juliana
Juliana is doing very well in school.  She has been reading a lot, and working on getting higher on her behavior chart.  She usually does well behavior-wise, but if you get up to the color purple then you get a piece of candy and to take home the class stuffed animal.  She's gotten to purple 1 time each of the last 2 weeks and is pretty happy with herself. 

Levi
Levi has had a difficult last couple of weeks.  He has been potty trained for a year and a half, but he's so little that he can't get on the toilet by himself.  When Kyle was in the States the beginning of April he got Levi a stool so that he'll be able to reach and we've been trying to get him to use it...but he would rather have someone put him on the toilet instead of doing it by himself.  I have a feeling that it might get worse for awhile with a baby around, but hopefully he'll get a little more independent. 

His favorite song for awhile has been "Jesus Loves Me", and he sings it all the time.  He also insists on singing it at every meal before we pray. 

Kyle
Kyle made a week long trip to the US the beginning of April for his Grandpa's funeral.  He was able to spend the week with his sister and parents.  It was a pretty long & tiring week for the rest of us, and we were all glad when he was back. 

After he returned he spent several days and nights trying to catch up with the work he missed, in addition to coaching all 3 of the girls High School volleyball teams.  Last week was the national tournament.  Although they didn't win anything, it sounds like they enjoyed themselves.  High School volleyball is over, and Kyle is now coaching 5th & 6th grade volleyball a couple times a week. 

Kyle has also been playing in a basketball league for the last couple months with several teachers from our school and another school.  They called themselves Los Maestros, and they had their final game this past Saturday during which they won 3rd place.

Otherwise, not too much else is going on, just waiting for a baby!

March 2016

So I realize this has probably been a record amount of time not blogging, but I'm hoping to pick back up and keep this a little more up to date.  However, that may be a lot of baby pictures and info in the near future :)

This year has been very busy...Kyle has had one event after another the whole year long.  I do my best to keep up with the kids, the house, and Honduran Fellowship. 

Juliana
Juliana is loving school this year.  She is in Preparatory, which is the same as Kindergarten in the US.  She has started to read a little more and tries to read everything she sees.  She really likes her teacher and has several good friends both in her class as well as the other 2 Preparatory classes. 

  

Preparatory C Father's Day Party

In Honduras Father's Day is in March (it was this past Saturday), with a big program last Friday.  Preparatory takes part in the program, which involved them singing 4 songs (2 in Spanish and 2 in English).  She worked really hard to learn the Spanish ones and did a great job.  The class had a party as well and invited all the fathers to come.  The kids had made t-shirts and a couple other projects for their dads. 

She has this entire week, plus next Monday off for Semana Santa, or Holy Week.  Next week her class goes on their first field trip.  They will go to Chiminike, the children's museum, for a class on transportation (they have been learning all about transportation in Social Studies).  Then on Friday they will have a Transportation Parade for all of the elementary and their parents.  Juliana has to wear a school bus costume (made out of cardboard and paint).

Levi
This boy has gotten super silly.  There is no mistaking that he is Kyle's son.  His favorite things to do are playing with his cars and in his sand box (or even better, taking his cars into the sand box).  He has this plastic ride-on "car" that he rides ALL THE TIME...even when we take
Juliana to school in the morning and pick her up in the afternoon.  He really likes to stay at home with mommy, but every morning he asks who is coming over that day.  His friend, Gabe, who is also 3, usually comes over a couple times a week to play...which makes Tuesdays and Thursdays especially good days.

Lately he has been working on figuring out how to choose clothes and dress himself.  He's also started to count and knows a lot of colors.  And he likes to choose 1 cartoon to watch every morning...lately he's been alternating between Chuck the Truck, Chuggington, Thomas the Train, and Little Einsteins.  It's pretty fun watching him mimic what the characters say and do :)

Baby Webb
If you ask Levi what the baby's name is, he will tell you Baby Webb because she doesn't yet have a name, or really any good possibilities at this point.  Hopefully Kyle and I will be able to agree on something fairly soon, as her due date is in just over 6 weeks.  The doctor that I go to does an ultrasound at every appointment, and in addition to measuring her body size, he tries to get a good picture of her face.  The last 3-4 appointments he's been unsuccessful as she keeps her hands and feet tucked up in front of her face.  She is measuring perfectly, which is good, however she is still head up which had the doctor a little concerned at the last appointment.  He said that she needs to turn by the next appointment, which is April 6th...although I don't know what he will do at that point if she hasn't turned. 

Kyle
Kyle has several different activities going on this past month.  March started with the national soccer tournament for bilingual schools in Honduras.  All of our school's teams did well, but one of our girl's teams got first place in their division.  The tournament was in Tegucigalpa, so the kids and I were able to go to the championship game, which was very exciting.  Most of the rest of the games were while Juliana was in school during the week, so we weren't able to attend. 

Two weeks ago our school hosted Family Fun Day, where the high school classes all set up carnival type games and a number of different food venders come and set up on our soccer field.  Then several hundred kids come on a Saturday and spend the day playing games with their parents.  Kyle has a basketball shooting game that he sets up, so I went with the kids and let them play a few games and eat snacks.  Then we went to Kyle's booth to help him for awhile.

After that Kyle was gone for 4 days for Model UN.  This was the first time that our school has participated in this.  The kids seemed to enjoy it and Kyle said it was an easy activity for him to attend.  Generally during sports tournaments, he has to be very involved and know what's going on the entire time.  Model UN is primarily student led and they all actually go to bed when they're supposed to, so he doesn't have to stay up all night monitoring the hotel hallways. 

He returned from Model UN in time for the Father's Day celebrations last week, and then had to be ready to leave again early Saturday morning for a Youth Group Mission's Trip.  He's been wanting to do an in-country mission's trip with his Youth Group for the past year, and has tried to get it put together since August.  After many different delays things finally came together over the last month.  The kids all had to raise their own money to attend (which they did in about 2-3 weeks) and then they spend 3 1/2 days at a ministry a couple hours from here.  They installed water filters at several houses, a couple of latrines, worked on a cement wall for a new High School, and participated in a village church service.  Their focus during the long weekend was learning about God's call on the life of a Christian.  The kids and I went along, but didn't participate in the work projects.  The ministry is run by some good friends of ours, whose daughters are the same ages as Juliana and Levi...and the 4 kids have been begging to get together for months.  They have a studio apartment above their house that was empty this weekend, so the kids and I were able to stay there. 

We returned Tuesday afternoon and we've spent the rest of the week around the house.  Kyle has repaired a few things and I've been working on organizing the closet under our stairs.  Last night we hosted a movie night and this afternoon have a couple friends coming over to play games.  We also filled up the kiddie pool and the kids have had friends come over to play Littlest Pet Shop on our back porch.  They've had an entire town set up the last couple days and its pretty fun to listen to them play. 

Melodee
I've been moving pretty slowly the last several weeks and will be glad to not be pregnant anymore...although there are still several things I want to finish over the next several weeks. 

Honduran Fellowship hosted our annual retreat near the end of February.  It was very good, although I was exhausted when it was over.  Kyle was only able to attend the first day, and then had to return home for meetings, so I had to juggle all of my responsibilities as well as the kids.  We added 2 new volunteer staff members a few weeks before the retreat, who came in with a lot of new ideas.  It was a little late to accomplish any of their ideas for this year, but they were a lot of help during the retreat and we'll work of some of their ideas for next year.  This years retreat was the biggest we've hosted so far--we had 290 missionaries in attendance, 90 of those kids.  This year we also brought in a couple teams to work with the kids for the first time.  They did a great job, and are already planning on returning next year!  We are very thankful for this, as our retreat has tripled in size over the last 3 years.  It is very exciting to look back at retreats from the past and see how much they have changed.  As exhausting as that week is, it is definitely worth it to see 290 missionaries be able to attend a free 4 days where they are able to relax and reconnect with others. 

After it was over, I took a week off...at least from working on HFMM related work.  I was able to take a few naps, catch up on a few things around the house, and repair a couple computers for friends.  Since then we've had a couple HFMM planning meetings...one for next year's retreat, and then other for some changes coming up with our fiscal year (moving it from November to December and trying to figure out how to adjust to make this work smoothly). 

As this is pretty long I will stop there and do my best to update more frequently :)  I'll leave you with a couple clips from Juliana's program last week.  Unfortunately she is almost impossible to see in the video.  She was about 4 rows back, with a bright pink headband, but hard to spot with so many kids.