Hurricane Hurricane Go Away...

The Millans are gearing up for their first hurricane experience here in Charleston. We are hoping that it stays at the tropical depression level and doesn't pick up too much steam when it hits the Atlantic again. When it comes to hurricane preparedness, we both have a lot to learn. However, Alex and I make a great team. Our brains think so differently, surely all the bases will be covered between the both of us. He's thinking survival. I'm thinking get the floor vaccumed and essential clothes laundered before we lose electricity. He's thinking bottled water and a full tank of gas. I'm thinking take a shower now before it's too late. Were both thinking diapers and wipes. Yes, we should be fine, but please still pray for us as the storm passes by.

American Girl

Wonderful Resource!

I don't know if any of you have this CD or have ever heard of it, but it is WONDERFUL! Olivia's face lights up as soon as she hears the first song. Sing the Bible with Mr. E is 30+ Scripture verses set to music. Mystery Ministries publishes this CD, and their website is www.mysteryministries.net This is a great resource!

Challenge of the Day

I learned a good lesson today. When you take a big carseat completely apart for a major cleaning, you better take good notes as to how the thing goes back together. This morning, I sat on the floor with straps and buckles and little white plastic things surrounding me... it was a mess. Caution: This story is a little gross Let me try to briefly set up the scene for this morning's family crisis. Yesterday, on the way home from Wal-Mart, Olivia started to cough violently. Needless to say, the conjestion she has been experiencing was loosening up and her nose started running. Only minutes from home, I calmly reached for the roll of toilet paper (yes, we exhausted all the tissues in our house) I had stashed in my purse and proceded to tear off a wad of it to wipe my poor child's nose all the while steering the vehicle onward down the lane. Just as I reached my arm back to take a semi-blind swipe at her face, I heard the inevidable. Yes, Olivia threw up like she had never thrown up before in her 15 1/2 months here on earth. I thought to myself: "I'm going to need a little more tissue than this." Well, I pulled into our apartment complex and parked. After quickly evaluating the soggy state of little Olivia, I decided to unbuckle the whole seat and just carry her in the carseat up to our third floor apartment. My loving husband appeared at the scene at that very moment (my hero!!). He asked me what was wrong (I set off the car alarm to get his attention since I forgot my cell phone and I couldn't leave Olivia in the car to run upstairs and ask him to come down and help me)-- then he saw the whole mess.... everything needed to be cleaned-- and I mean CLEANED! This was not a spot-job. Since Olivia has never had a major "blowout" in any form in her carseat, we have never had to take the whole thing apart for a deep cleaning. Surely, I am not the first who has ever attempted this! Those things are a doozie to reassemble even if you do pay attention to how you took it apart! Well, I am glad to report that it came back together after about an hour of figuring it out. We took a quick trip out to where our house is being built, and Olivia threw up again on the way home.

Note to Grandma: No, Olivia is not going to church tomorrow, and No, I will not take the child out of the house again until she has experienced at least a whole day of perfect health :)

Our Little Sickie

Olivia has been under the weather these past few days. She was a sight to behold the other night when she woke up coughing and crying and her hair was stuck to her face. We brought her in our room to settle down and sip on her Chuck E Cheese cup for a little while. She perked up and started driving us nuts, so we put her back in her bed.

AJ's Room

We have finally agreed upon the "decor" for the baby's room. In the midst of first-born bliss, we threw practicality to the wind and went with "all girl". Duuh. Now, in the process of gearing up for AJ, definite opinions have surfaced as to the decor of our son's room. I liked animals, and Alex liked transportation. I liked brown, green and cream. Alex liked red, blue, and khaki brown. Just as I was ready to begin gathering all the planes and trains together, I found the A to Z collection from Pottery Barn Kids! Talk about a compromise! We both like it. It has ALL the colors, and it has BOTH animals AND planes and trains :) (not to mention the ABC'S for a good literary start in life). Score! I hope the bumper, bedskirt, and quilt show up on ebay soon :)

Big Decisions

For the past several months, I've had to wrestle with a big decision that I didn't want to make. Olivia (our little acrobat) was breech, so she had to come into this world via c-section. Granted, a c-section isn't ideal, but it wasn't as bad as I had imagined it to be. With baby #2 on the way, I have the choice to go with another C-section or VBAC (ye old fashioned way). This decision still weighs heavily on my mind. Once you have a C-section, it sounds like it's risky to go either way. Today I opted for a VBAC, but still agreed to have the C-section if I don't go into labor by a certain day (since being induced is out of the question as it will greatly increase all those risks). Bottom line-- the Lord knows all those factors I can't see. We have weighed what we have been given to weigh, and the rest we have no choice but to leave in His sovereign hands. "Thou God seest me"!

Calling All Opinions!

I would like to reach out to my little blogging community and ask for some advice regarding some needed baby gear.

1.) Would you recommend a tandem stroller or a side by side stroller for little ones that will be 18 mo apart.

2.) Did any of you use a soft carrier? What brand/kind? Did you like it? Is it worth the $$?

If you are browsing my blog, and you could possibly contribute a little say-so, please do!

10 weeks and counting :)

Chuch E Cheese

Yes, having a baby changes everything. It's Friday night, the sun is beginning to set on the great city of Charleston, we are young and have about $25 of fun money burning a hole in our pocket-- so what do we do?? We took Olivia to Chuck E Cheese for the first time, of course!! How things have changed since I was a kid! You no longer have to lay out all your tickets on the glass counter in strips of ten-- now they have these fancy ticket counters that suck up your tickets and give you a little receipt that tells you how many tickets you have! Some things never change, though. You still need a ba-jillion tickets for a little plastic spider ring, and those kids that obnoxiously cut in front of you or threw your ski-balls up another lane are standing by while their kids are doing the same thing to you. All in all, it was so much fun! This was one of those times where things are fun all over again just because you can enjoy them with your kids.

Pictures

Hello! This "picture" post has been created for all our loved ones who think that we have fallen off the face of the earth and to prove to you that such a thing has not happened to us.
I was soooo proud of my big pot of beans!! We had a Spanish fellowship and I was in charge of the beans of all things. These beans stressed me out all week. First of all, I was making 8 lbs of them. It took me just about the whole day before just to sort through all those babies. Also, I just wanted to prove that I could make beans like the hermanas in Phoenix (and they made really good beans). Yeah! I didn't burn the beans!






We are PRAYING that our house is completed by the end of September. The original closing date given was end of October, but that was also factoring in hurricane season. The weather has been great this summer, so the builders are way ahead of schedule. We would really like to be settled in before the baby arrives. Not having 3 flights of stairs to climb to get to our front door will be a nice change too :)


Mommy's little helper!

Our little book worm in action!
Ready to go swimming!!

This is a funny one. Olivia is terrified of the vaccum cleaner. Whenever I bring it out, she runs screaming in the opposite direction. Well, we just had to have "Vaccums are our Friends Day" where I rolled out the vaccum and let it stand by her toys all day. We "pet" the vaccum, we turned it on and off, we even vaccumed with the vaccum-- and it never killed us!! She's still not too sure of this big contraption called a vaccum, but I think that she's warming up to it.

She's Baaak!

This past Friday evening, our darling Olivia was returned to us from Grandma Camp! She had a great time, and even had a few scabs to prove it! Thanks Grandma!!