Happy Birthday Shiloh...

This is my 7 year old boy! This pic was taken a couple of days ago after he lost his 8th tooth.




This was him fresh into the world, umbilical cord and all.





Shiloh, myself and my most wonderful doctor, Dr. Soundararajan (Dr. S for short).




Because I was a high-risk pregnancy, I had like 10 people in the room in case of an emergency. When everything turned out alright, a nurse volunteered to take my Mom's camera and take pictures. I thought that this one was so special.




My first and chunkiest monkey, at 6 months old.




He was 2 years old. I was pregnant with Abigail. It was Christmas Eve. About an hour after this picture was taken he puked all over Derrick's shoulder. Nothing says "Merry Christmas" like a virus.




Shiloh was 4 1/2 in this picture. We had just moved to Mexico. He and Abigail were getting ready to do a performance with their school.


I can't believe my boy is 7. And as the years go on I will still be in disbelief at every birthday for every child that we have. These past 7 years have been some of the most adventurous and wonderful years that a Mom could ever have. All thanks to this child that God chose to put in our care. What a miracle. The miracle of life and parenthood astounds me daily. I feel that I have so many things to say but I don't have enough time and my readers don't have the attention span for it.

I will end with this, not only is this day a celebration of Shiloh's life, it's a celebration of the day I pushed a 7 lb. 9 oz. baby out of my body all because the medicine forced me to, not because my body said it was time. That, my friends, is a miracle in and of itself. Happy Birthday to Shiloh and Happy Labor Day to me :-).

Today is the day!!!

It's only taken 2 years & 8 months for this day to happen and now here it is! My Anne is coming in town today. OK, so I guess I should mention that it's not just her it's Keith, Sarah & 4 of their 6 kids.



Flashback to Sarah & me at Green Gables on Prince Edward Island. We are becoming world travelers together :-).

As I am speaking canons &/or fireworks are going off. It's 11 a.m. Tuesday is Mexico's Independence Day and it is a huge celebration around here. Come late Monday night and early Tuesday morning I'm sure we will hear fireworks & canons every hour. There are Mexican flags flying every where and vendors are selling Mexican merchandise at every street corner. Yesterday I saw some cute red & green chili pepper toys with sombreros. I almost bought some but I hesitated.

I need to do some laundry, cleaning, lunch and whatever else to prepare for their arrival. I'm so excited that I will be working off of adrenaline seeing as I still got a crappy night's sleep. Even though Israel wakes me up at night I am full of love & joy as I hold him while he's falling back asleep. I will remember these moments for the rest of my life :-).

Mommy pic...

This is what I look like when our oldest doesn't obey. He was not obeying at the point that he took this picture.

Oh how I should be asleep right now...

I'm not because the baby is sleeping in his crib for the first time tonight! Right now his crib is in our oldest son's room. He is on this kick where he's wanting to sleep on his sister's top bunk. I don't really care just as long as they go to sleep and they don't play. Anyway, I am up just making sure that he stays asleep. Yeah, he's a night owl so he didn't go to sleep until about 2:30 a.m.

We had our Wednesday night hang out at Scott & Melody's tonight. The first cool thing was that I had a Mountain Dew! It was so yummy. Not too sure when the caffeine will kick in for the baby. The second cool thing is that Scott & Melody have a dish from the States through Dish Network. Don't ask how it works. It's a long, but legal, story. I watched a "Jon & Kate Plus 8" marathon at their house. I'm officially moving in with them and I'm going to watch TLC 24/7 to make up for lost time.

3 Books & "Get Smart"...

I am currently reading 3 books. I guess that makes one for each kid. I think that also equals that much less time to read each book because of the time that I spend with each kid. But somehow I am managing it.

Derrick's parents are here for a short visit. That means that we get to have a date night. We are going to see the movie "Get Smart" tonight and we are going to see it VIP. VIP costs about the same as a regular ticket in the States. It's stadium seating with leather recliners and a waiter to take your food order. The food is delicious and the seats are so comfortable. I'm looking forward to it!

Need I say more???

What kind of a mother am I?

My daughter caught on to a little habit of mine. I keep a think of chocolate icing in the refridgerator. When I am in need of a chocolate fix, I get a spoonful. I also do the same thing with peanut butter. My daughter refers to it as "chocolate on a spoon". She asks for it every morning. And every morning I tell her that she can't have chocolate for breakfast. Well this morning I tried to get her to eat something else. She had a banana for breakfast (BTW, my kids are NOT breakfast eaters. I've tried & it's a waste of food b/c they don't eat it). And then I caved and gave her chocolate on a spoon. I feel like Lorelai Gilmore with eating habits I have passed on to my daughter.

The baby is doing well. When he was a few days old he slept through a feeding for the first time. That gave us about 5 hours of straight sleep. Last night we slept about 6 1/2 hours! It was nice, but my body is still very deprived. I've hit the point where I live with a headache because I am so tired. I had it with my daughter, too. I didn't have headaches with our oldest because he was my only child & I would sleep when he slept. Anyway, enough of my sleep-deprivation ramblings.

It's officially rainy season. Our neighbor told us that it was to begin on May 15th, and sure enough, May 15th we had our first storm. We had another one yesterday. And the ironic thing is that Derrick had the car washed yesterday. It always happens that way, doesn't it?

It's not too often that there are pictures of me, since I'm usually behind the camera. I love this picture of me & my baby!

Big sis loving on little bro!

Taking a few minutes...

I have a few minutes, so I thought that I would give a slimmed-down version of the birth story.

Sunday morning, May 4th, I woke up at 7 a.m. with what I thought was gas, but it was contractions. They were 4 minutes apart. We waited about an hour to call the doctor. By the time we called him, the contractions were 1 1/2 minutes apart. We went to the hospital. Thank God it was a Sunday morning b/c there was no traffic. When we arrived I was triaged and I was 5 cm. They took me to my suite to get me ready to go to the labor & delivery room. By the time I got in the L&D room, I was 7 cm. I received my epidural pretty much immediately...THANK GOD! They had me lying flat on my back on the L&D bed, so I was not able to handle the contractions very well. Also, b/c of being on my back I about passed out. Not sure what it is about pregnant women here, but they must be able to lay on their backs...I couldn't. ANYWAY, about 15 minutes later I was ready to push. I felt a ton of pressure. But they thought that he was high and they were telling me not to push and just to let him come down a little. I was trying to breath through it, but my body was naturally pushing...I COULD NOT HELP IT! I'm yelling at them that I need to push, but they're all telling me "NO". Needless to say, when it came time to push, I pushed for a few minutes. It was about 3 sets of pushes. Out he came at 10:38 a.m. Because this is Mexico & a little bit more old fashioned, they took him straight to the nursery to bathe him & dress him. I did not see him for 3 hours. It was very difficult, but I finally got him and I haven't let him go since :-). That's the speedy version. I'm not sure if I'll publically tell the detailed version...it's not gross, it's just a lot of culture stuff that's different & hard to explain.

Blessings!

Proud Mommy....

We love having dinner at the dinner table...all 4 of us love it! There's no TV & no video games. It's just us at the table, talking and having family time. A lot of times we'll watch a family movie after dinner, too. And that was a "tradition" started by the kids, not us.

Anyway, last night we were setting the table for dinner. We were casually talking to the kids about how much we love spending time with them. My little girl pipes up and says, "Jesus gave us to you. And Jesus also gave you to us." It was so sweet and right from the depth of her heart! It was precious.

Then my son blessed my heart this morning. I was putting a movie in for them to watch. He said, "Mommy, last night I talked to Jesus about when Israel comes, that you won't have any pain." Right from the heart of a son who loves his Mommy & doesn't want to see her in pain. You may ask, "how does he know that there is pain in childbirth?" I have to admit that my kids have sat in with me many times while I have watched "Maternity Ward". I flip it to the menu screen if it gets too graphic, but they can still hear the sound. He knows that there is pain and he doesn't want his Mommy to have any. I am in total agreement with his prayer :-)!