What Rhymes with Style . . . ?

. . . That's what little girls are made of! We are pleased to announce that we will be having another girl, due date probably March 20^th, but I’m measuring about a week behind, so maybe more like March 27^th. We are so excited about this coming addition to our family. We have attached a few of the ultrasound pictures. As was our experience last time, it was a thrill to see our baby, watch her wave her little arms and legs around, and see her heart beating.

Here's a profile of our little girl.

Here she is "sucking" her thumb :-)

These are two little legs with ankles crossed.

These are baby feet (you can even count 10 little toes!)

Included among the friends was Juliette's best little friend Mayumi. They're only about two months apart in age and get really excited about seeing each other. So we're posting a little video we made of the two girls trotting around a big meadow aptly name "Big Meadows." A little background to help it make more sense: Juliette currently has an obsession with rocks. When we go on walks she is constantly picking them up and then stopping and trading her current rock out for a new one. Her word for rock is "yock" (sometimes shouted at the top of her lungs). Also her name for Mayumi is "MMmmMMmm" or something like that. You'll hear her say it if you listen. Mayumi's name for Juliette is "Jeshuba." I'm pretty sure she says that somewhere in the video too. And yes, this is shameless baby promoting because we like our little girl a lot, and yes we are just posting family videos online - although I swear I cut it for time. Enjoy!

I had my first OB appointment on Thursday, at 13 weeks along, and we got a perfect strong heartbeat. So for any of you who don’t know . . . I’m pregnant!! I’m due March 20^th. So this next kiddo will arrive just shy of Juliette’s 2^nd birthday. We’re excited, and a little apprehensive, but mostly I am happy that I’m out of the 1^st trimester, feeling good again and ready to retackle my life with my mostly restored energy. I’m thankful that so far I have had fairly easy 1^st trimesters, but I still feel much relieved when I no longer have the daily nausea and the “hit by a truck” feeling of exhaustion. And luckily for me, at only 13 weeks I am already feeling much improved. (My sympathy goes out to those of you who have to endure the early pregnancy symptoms for many weeks longer than this).

So life is good, we’re doing well, I’m busy catching up with my work and Mark is back in the swing of things with school. Juliette is beautiful, learning and growing. Most recently, she’s taken to saying “no” back to me when I tell her not to do things. I usually say “no no” and wag my finger, and so now she looks at me, wags her finger and says “na na,” which is actually quite cute, even though it doesn’t keep her from doing the thing I have asked her not to do.

We took a trip about a month ago to the Shenandoah Mountains, and we’ve included some pictures of that trip. We also took a trip to the beach in Delaware to visit our friends Sarah and Rob, and we have 2 pictures from that trip. I’m also going to try to upload a little video of Juliette. We’ve gotten some random but fun footage of her in the last 2 or 3 weeks.

Ok, so now that school has started again it seems appropriate to make an accounting of our summer. The big event, of course was that we went to Oregon for three weeks to visit my parents, then spent a week in Montana/Idaho at a Lisle family reunion. Mary took some awesome pictures while we were there, but since this is our blog, the pictures will be somewhat “us” focused.

Mary and her kids, Annie, Brittany, Juliette and I went to Baumann Farms while we were in Oregon. It’s a fun place near Salem with a petting zoo of sorts and a farmer’s market. Juliette was excited to meet a real live sheep. I think she was a little shocked at the difference between the “Baa” we make when talking about sheep and the sound the sheep actually made. Also, we hit Oregon during peak strawberry season, so we bought fresh strawberries and rhubarb at the farmer’s market in downtown Salem and made a pie, and also made a run to Monmouth at 10:30 AM on July 1^st to make sure we got the last of Burgerville’s seasonal fresh strawberry milkshakes. We had called Burgerville the night before and were told they probably would be out of fresh strawberries by noon the next day. 10:30 in the morning is pretty early for a milkshake, but it was worth it. Another hour or so and we might have had to have – heaven forbid – fresh raspberry milkshakes, and that would have been a disaster. Anyway, we had a lot of fun eating fresh fruit, which is truly one of the best things about Oregon’s summers.

We also got to go to Honeyman State Park with my Dad and Annie. Juliette had fun, I think, and wore a cute hat. She also ate sand, which she thoroughly enjoyed.

The big event was going to Montana/Idaho. As this event has been covered more extensively in Mary’s blog, I won’t go into too many details. It was, however, a great learning experience for Brittany and I. For example, we learned that Juliette doesn’t sleep well in unfamiliar places, especially after she’s been in the car all day. We also learned a lot about the logistics of keeping kids (and parents) happy away from the comforts of home after watching my sisters deal with their kids. For example, more snacks. We definitely need more snacks.

All in all Montana was a good time. Juliette started walking for reals (not just the two or three step thing she was doing before), we saw some nudists at a hot springs, and I discovered I’m pretty awesome at sack racing. It was fun to spend time with family. Every time we get the whole family together we say that it will probably never happen again, but somehow it always does. I guess we’re lucky that way.

So, in the last three months, I finished neurology, finished the first year of medical school, went to Oregon for two weeks to visit my family, went to Montana/Idaho for another week to visit more family, came back to Virginia, started doing research, went to a Family Medicine conference in Kansas City, MO, and updated the family blog. All in all, it's been a busy and fun three months (sometimes at the same time). I promise to include more details about some of these things, like the family visits and the conference, later.

Just for the record: we did this all with the software that came with our computer, and it wasn't that hard (thanks Mac!).  Also, for family members/people who live close enough to come over to our house, we do have a higher resolution version of this that you can see.

Well we have been remiss in updating our blog….so a lot has happened since we last wrote.   Much is the same in the lives of Mark and I, but watching Juliette grow is like watching the sun rise; She seems to change that fast, and if I look away for a minute I will miss something.  With the advent of crawling, Juliette has been susceptible to new dangers.    About a month ago she fell off the bed.  This was traumatizing…I think much more for me than for her in the end.   Luckily, there was no permanent damage…just a bump on the forehead and a black eye.  In the picture above she’s letting us know she is A-Okay.  

Now she is pulling herself to a stand and crawling up the stairs.  (A now much more cautious mother however, is making sure she does not take a tumble down those).  The other day I discovered that she is making strides in her word comprehension.  Just as an experiment I asked her where something was, and to my surprise she went and got it for me.   Now we play a game where I ask her the whereabouts of a number of objects, and she can identify them for me.  Here is a little replay:

 

“Juliette, where is the clock?”  (Juliette looks up at the clock and waves at it).

“Juliette, where is your book?” (Juliette crawls over, picks one up, and holds it up to me).

“Juliette, where is mommy’s purse?” (Crawls over, hands me the purse.)

 

You get the idea.    She does this with her toy car, shoes, etc.  My personal favorite, however, is when she wakes up in the morning, pops her binky out of her mouth and hands it to me.  I guess she knows that binkies are for bedtime.   Sometimes at night when she’s feeling sassy, and doesn’t want to go to sleep, she pulls it out of her mouth and tries to stick it in my mouth.  Little stinker.

She has started saying “Hi” although it comes out more like “Hehhhyy” with a wave.  Basically, she is amazing to me.  I can’t believe how fast babies learn, and how much more they interact every day.   

One notable experience for Mark and I has been teaching the CTR 7 class in primary.  This has been quite a learning experience as we have a good healthy rambunctious set of kids.   I will just highlight a couple of our favorite moments.  Names have been changed for the children’s protection and confidentiality, of course. 

Brittany: “In Satan’s plan, we would not be able to make any of our own choices.”

Primary Child A: “Sort of like Obama…with the government!”

Brittany: “Why do we want to keep Heavenly Father’s commandments?”

Primary Child B: (after a pause , shrugs and says) “I got nothing.”

 

I feel like I’m really getting through to them.   

So we are still alive . . . after more than a month of not writing, surely you must have doubted.  It has been a busy more-than-a-month.  We had a great Christmas with all of Brittany’s family, got to see some old friends, visited some of the sites that DC is famous for but no one who lives near DC ever goes to see, and, when we weren’t throwing up, ate lots of good food.  Actually, we weren’t throwing up THAT much, but we were visited by a nasty bout of the 24-hour stomach flu, starting with me on Christmas Eve.  Our New Years Eve was low-key but fun, and since January 5^th we’ve been back in the swing of things.  So, without further ado, we’ll move on to our picture montage . . .

(This first picture is our “Christmas Card Picture” . . . the picture is nice, but as of yet, no Christmas card has materialized . . .)

Brittany and I both got exciting new things to wear . . . here’s Brittany in her dazzling new pea coat (over stunning pink pajamas) and Mark in a bathrobe.

Juliette enjoyed the wrapping paper thoroughly, but with a little help also enjoyed what was inside it.

On the whole, it was a good haul for her.

We got to see friends we haven’t seen in a while, including Rob, Sarah and baby Ainsley who drove down from Delaware, and Stacey, Jeff, and Jacob who were visiting from Michigan.  We went to the National Air and Space Museum extension at Dulles Airport with Stacey and Jeff.  The second picture is of Brittany and Stacey in front of an F-16 or an F-18 or something, dreaming about Top Gun and Tom Cruise.  The last picture is Britt and I in front of the space shuttle Enterprise.

Not pictured: Ryan, Sarah, and Cora, who were visiting from Idaho.  Brittany, Sarah, and Stacey had a roommate reunion of sorts, but somehow we left all of the picture taking to other people.  We’ll get some pictures soon . . .

As our break was wearing to a close we went down to the Capital Mall to visit the Smithsonian.  We popped into the American History Museum and the Museum of Natural History so Juliette could see the dinosaurs . . . or so her dad could see the dinosaurs.

This picture is of Juliette and I in front of a very cool statue of George Washington after getting out of the bath.  

We had a rough time at the natural history museum.  First, Jules and I almost got trampled by an elephant, then Brittany was attacked by a little cat-like thing and an antelope, or an ibex, or something.  And then, to top it all off, our picture of us and the T-rex didn’t turn out very well.