Busy Christmas

I made a goal about a month ago to make it through Christmas preparations, the holidays, and Juliana's birthday...and then I could relax a bit before we move.  And I made it!  So today I have tried to ignore my house that looks like its been ransacked (at least mostly), played with Juliana and some of her new toys, caught up on some computer work, and after I took a shower I put my pajamas back on.

Its been a whirlwind of a month!  School ended on December 19th (I think) and before that we had Christmas concerts at school, Christmas and birthday shopping, and Christmas parties to plan and attend.  Once school ended we cleaned the house and went grocery shopping, as our cupboards were starting to look pretty bare and we had company coming.  My parents arrived on December 25th to meet Levi and spend lots of quality time playing with Juliana.  We didn't really go to very many special places, other than to Chiminike, the children's museum, have dinner/game night with the Raineri's, and my dad and Kyle went to see the Hobbit.  We spent most of our time at home playing games, reading books and playing with Juliana, holding Levi, etc...

My parents flew out the 31st and we spent the evening at the WGO Mission House playing games with several friends.  I believe both Juliana and Levi were awake at midnight (Levi slept throughout the evening though) and thankfully they both slept in the next morning :)  I spent New Year's Day afternoon working on website and database things for the Honduran Fellowship.

The 2nd we spend cleaning our house again, in time for the Mohagen's arrived!  We had a great time teaching them to play Settlers of Catan and referee-ing the two little 2 year olds who love to play with each other, but can't seem to actually get along for very long :)  I believe the only thing they can always agree on is that they both LOVE Dora.

Long before Christmas break ended I was busy preparing for Juliana's 3rd birthday party...realizing that I had scheduled myself too many things for this week...and Juliana wanted to invite many more people than I was originally thinking.  I had agreed to substitute on Monday for a teacher who was returning late from break, and Tuesday I had Ladies Bible Study in the morning and our Home Group in the evening.  Between all of that I made 6 dozen cupcakes, cleaned the house yet again, did at least 5 loads of laundry, decorated the house for the ballerina party, fed Levi (which if you've seen him recently you'll understand why it takes so much of my time), and tried to make Juliana's day extra special.  We ended up having between 40 and 50 people in our very small house (most people ate standing up) and Juliana had a great time.  Seriously, how can she be 3 already!

birth day

1 year old

2 years old

3 years old

And to top it all off, we're moving sometime in the next month, so we've been VERY busy looking all over this city for floor tile, bathroom tile, light fixtures, kitchen appliances, dining room and living room furniture, cabinet knobs and handles, and I can't remember what else.  Several times we've completely worn the kids our.  This is what they look like, and what Kyle and I feel like :)

Growing Kids

My smart girl stacked her boxes all by herself from biggest to smallest...almost :)

Just before we took Levi to his one month check-up.  He gained 2 lb 9 oz in 3 weeks!  (Weighing in at 10 lb 9 oz)  To compare...he weighs half of Juliana's current weight, Juliana just barely hit 10 lbs at 3 months of age, and he's 4 inches longer than Juliana was at 1 month.  I think he's taking after his cousin Kylan :)

Christmas Decorating

 We put up our Christmas tree this week!

Juliana "helped" by getting out all the "toys"

And Levi took a nap!

Unfortunately the string of lights on the bottom of the tree is having a problem...it sparked when I plugged it in and then the line got really hot...so until we take the lights off and replace them we can't turn the tree on.

After we decorated the tree Juliana and I made some salt dough ornaments and covered them in glitter.  I learned a big lesson that day...never do a glitter activity with a 2 year old when you have a newborn in the house!  Levi ended up with more glitter on him than Juliana did...and after 3 baths I'm still finding glitter on him :)  I knew that it was too humid here to do salt dough ornaments, but was hoping they might last till Christmas...however I think I might have to take them off tomorrow if they haven't already fallen off tonight...

Juliana and I also been checking out Christmas books from the library (and was embarrassed when Juliana thought the angel on the librarian's desk was a fairy), listened to MANY hours of Christmas music (we buy 1 CD each year that we stay in Honduras for the holidays...this year was Michael Buble), wrapped the gifts, watched 1 Christmas movie (so far), and will make paper snowflakes tomorrow morning!  And each morning when she wakes up, Juliana asks if it's Christmas Day yet and then tries to convince me that it is by showing me the tree (to prove it's Christmas-time) and then showing me the sun outside (to prove its day) :)  MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Happy Due Date Levi!

I realized a couple days ago that I never updated the blog when Levi was born.  And since I also hadn't downloaded all of our pictures off the camera until today, I'll just do all of that today, October 30th, Levi's due date!

If you hadn't already heard, Levi William Webb was born at Honduras Medical Center on October 22nd, at 5:37 pm.  He had been estimated to weigh about 7 1/2 lbs, but the first thing the doctors said after he was born was, "wow, that's a big baby".  He weighed 8 lbs 10 oz at birth, and seemed a lot bigger that first day than he does now (his face was pretty swollen and round).  He is a very good baby, rarely cries, and pretty much just eats, sleeps, and tries not to be crushed by all of Juliana's hugs :)

Juliana loves her little brother A LOT and was very excited when he was born.  We didn't tell her his name before he was born, because we didn't want her to tell everyone.  Most of the time she remembers his name now, but when I asked her today she told me his name was Baby Brother Webb :)  I think the excitement may start to wear off soon though...its very hard for me to get out of the house with the both of them and Kyle's been very busy lately, so pretty much Juliana, Levi, and I are home all of the time.  Before he was born we would at least walk to school a few times a week.  Now, every morning she asks me where we're going today, and when I tell her we're staying home she's pretty disappointed.  She has however gotten to go on a couple play dates and to a Fall party this weekend.  Should've taken a picture before we put the jacket and crocks on, but she went as a ballerina.

And just in case you don't have facebook, here's some of the ones I'm posting there...

Our new house!

A couple weeks ago Kyle, Juliana, and I went up to the school to look at the progress made on our new house.  Kyle had seen it somewhat recently, but this was the first time that I had been up in a couple months.  It actually looks like a house!  

This is the back side of the house; we'd have the right side (the part that's slightly lower).    There will be a patio on the back side (where the pillars are) with patio doors walking into the living room/dining room area.  The lower level also has a kitchen with pantry, 1/2 bathroom, and laundry room.  The 2nd floor with have 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and an open area at the top of the steps for an office and maybe a smaller living room or play area or something.

This is the front side of the house (ours is the left side).  You can also see the water tower that they built in the background.  They've also dug a sewer system and have started digging the foundation of a 2nd building (that will have 4 apartments with 2 bedrooms each).

It's a little hard (exhausting) for me to get up there with Juliana, so I haven't been back since, but they were supposed to start on the 2nd floor last week.  Before we left for the summer we had been told they would start work immediately and have it done around Christmas.  There were some additional problems with the permits, so work didn't really start till August.  If I heard correctly, the builders are still being told the Christmas deadline, with the actual deadline being Easter.

Almost There

No new baby pictures today, as I think his face is too hard to get a good look at now...that and my doctor had a very packed schedule plus a patient in labor the day I went for my last appointment, so maybe he just didn't want to take the time :)  But everything is fine with the baby, I have now been going for weekly appointments, and my due date is 2 weeks from today.  I go for my 39 week appointment this coming Friday (a few days short of 39 weeks) and I think my doctor isn't expecting me to make it much past that, since Juliana was born at 39 weeks and 1 day.  And according to Kyle, there's only 2 more blackout dates that he can't be born on...this Saturday because of a big athletic fundraiser, and then Monday because he's speaking in chapel...  Personally I hope he's born early because our pediatrician leaves for a conference in the United States on my due date.  I think the only thing we're still unsure about is what our insurance company will cover...and its looking pretty bad.  In August our new insurance company told us that they cover 80% of hospital bills, but only 70% at the hospital where I will deliver.  However we were ecstatic that they would cover 70%.  Then a week and a half ago we found out that we had to get a bunch of papers from the hospital before they would cover anything, and then it would take 7-10 days for them to pre-approve my birth.  We managed to get the papers in 1 afternoon (a big miracle) and because it was so close to my due date they pre-approved it in a couple days (another big miracle).  But after reading the fine print, it looks like they MIGHT cover 50%.  Or if you read it a different way, they might cover more like 30%.  But either way we might not know until we're actually at the hospital.  And it's kind of open so that we're not even sure if we might have to pay all of it outright and then get reimbursed for a some of it later on.  So for now we've notified our credit card company that there might be a large charge made sometime in the next couple weeks from Honduras and are praying for an even bigger miracle in the meantime.

We have been working hard to get the house ready and I think we're nearly there.  The big sister was having a bit of a hard time at first, especially when we took her changing table/dresser and gave her a regular dresser (she likes to climb the changing table) and when I took the pink cover off the infant car seat and put a blue one on instead (when I was done she got into it, cried, and said "I NEEEEED IT!") After that I was kind of dreading taking away her crib, especially since we were moving her to a regular twin size bed.  But this summer we bought her some super cute bedding as a surprise (I had let her pick it out earlier in the spring and then waited till it was on sale this summer to buy it) and for a couple weeks kept talking about how she was going to get a special big sister bed and asking her if she was ready for it.  She was pretty sure she was ready and when a maintenance man from school finally brought it she was so excited.  She looks pretty tiny in it, and thankfully hasn't fallen out of it...though I line the floor with pillows and check on her a few times every night.

She's so proud of her new bed

Posing after she asked me to take a picture of her with her pony :)

Drawing pictures for mommy

Last Tuesday Juliana came home from a friends house feeling fine, but within 2 hours had a fever of 102.  The next morning we took her to this clinic that is a part of our insurance plan, where we pay $5 and it will cover Urgent Care, doctor's visit, lab work, prescriptions from the pharmacy, etc...  After a VERY stressful morning of trying to get Juliana to go potty in a cup in the clinic's bathroom (Kyle's sure she has some weird phobia), we finally went to the grocery store to buy a bowl for her to go in and then took her to McDonald's to bribe her with a hamburger.  We then went back to the clinic and waited for the results from that test and a blood test...then back to the doctor in Urgent Care...to find out she had a throat infection.  They gave us antibiotics, assured us that we couldn't get it from her, and sent us on our way.  Well apparently the doctor was wrong because I've had a sore throat and fever since Saturday.  I've talked to 2 doctors...one who told me to go on antibiotics immediately and get the infection taken care of before the baby is born, the other who said to wait it out and see if it might be a virus first and then if it doesn't go away then start antibiotics.  So at this point I haven't started the antibiotics and feel miserable, but don't really know who's advice to go with.  

There's been so many things going on around here...the biggest of all is that we bought a different car even though our old car is still not working...but I'll see if I can get Kyle to write about that sometime in the next day or 2 :)

Baby pictures plus the other cutie

 Sorry some of these are kind of blurry...I was too lazy to hook up the scanner so I took a picture of them instead.

Reading library books in her "classroom"

"Hello, bippa?  Happy birthday!"