Life in Jersey

Sometimes you need Red Wine while Potty Training

2011-11-17T11:56:00.006-09:00

I know it has been, oh say, 7 months since I last wrote something. So let's start with pictures.
This is Macy from this week... she has been sick so we have been killing time with baths.
Here are some Halloween pictures. Aunt Marie lives by us now so she came along for the Parade and Trick or Treating in Hoboken.

Here is one of the favorite costumes we saw. I have no idea who this guy is but I thought the pirate/parrot thing was cute. There are some more favorites below. They were all in the parade so I have no idea who any of the people are :) hope they don't mind.

Nana with the girls! She came to visit for Halloween/Birthday celebration. Aylah was tinkerbell and Macy was a bumblebee.

Another favorite costume. Annie with the dog, butler and nanny.

The man with the yellow hat and curious george!

She is getting so big! Collecting her loot.

Mommy and her little bee.

Josh and I went to Boston for my birthday gift from him... I might have just turned 30 but don't tell anyone.

A Family pic before Josh and I went out to eat on my birthday. We had the "appetizer" of a yummy chocolate cake so we could celebrate with the girls.

So we have had some incidents with our bathroom lately. Two weeks ago Aylah accidently dropped a jar of red nail polish on the floor of our tile bathroom. It got everywhere, rug, tile, grout. I salvaged the tile, the rug was a bust and the grout has a lovely red tint to it. Wonderful.

Last night Macy was using the bathroom (we are potty training- and doing pretty good but still not all the way there) and Macy in a flourish exited her spot from the potty and did a spin in her nightgown (she will basically only wear dresses for us or pants with her red pj tutu) and knocked over my glass of red wine on the counter I had just poured. And guess where it landed. Yup, all over the exact same spot the red nail polish had landed. This time the rug was in the garbage but it did get all over our clothes, tile, tub, and oh yeah the grout. So now we have some lovely colored grout... so I need to do some grouting. Already talked to my dad so I think I know what I need to do. But that will probably wait till the dead of winter when we are inside and bored.

Aylah is in school and loving it. She goes 5 days a week from 8:30-12:30. She is currently learning how to write her name in lowercase, printing numbers 1-10 and learning to read the color words. They are also working on their Winter (i.e. Christmas) Show. I know because she is singing Rockin Around the Christmas Tree incesantly. Oh and the Pledge of Allegiance. We are excited to go watch her on December 6!

So I signed up to take the New Jersey Praxis exam to become a certified teacher in NJ. My certificate expired this past June from Michigan. And I am beginning to try to figure out what I want to be when I grow up and stop being a stay-at-home mom. So I figured this is a good first step. So December 7 I am taking the Elementary Ed and Child Development Content Knowledge tests. Wish me luck.

Let's see, Macy next. She is a spitfire. She went through this super long phase, ok, her whole life, of being really whiny but the past week or two... something magical happened. She is slowly becoming much less whiny, lots less tears and breakdowns. It seems too good to be true but I am loving it! She really is a sweet little girl, waves to all strangers on the street, copies her big sister in everything from singing songs to playing school. I love spending one on one time with her while Aylah is in school. She is my little helper at the grocery store. She walks around with this gigantic backpack on and helps me "put things" (throw them) into the cart.

Josh is doing well. Super busy as usual but still likes his job at New City. They started a new site of the After School Center at Vroom St. EFC this Fall. It is actually the church we go to. It sounds like things are going pretty well there and they have a long waiting list for kids that want to attend.

Thanksgiving this year will be our little family and Aunt Marie. We have a great menu planned and I get to teach my big sister how to cook... should be fun! We love having Marie close by. She is super busy in grad school but we love to see her when it works out. She even watched the girls last weekend while Josh and I went to Boston.

And then it's just a few short weeks till Christmas and our 2 week vacation home.
So that's the life update... looking forward to seeing lots of you soon!

Is it Spring yet?

2011-04-11T04:20:00.003-08:00

The girls playing with their new kitchen and food toys from Nana and Papa and Grandma and Grandpa for Macy's birthday. Josh and I went on a date to Dylan's Candy Store in NYC. We came back with some large treats for the girls!

The smile tells it all!

Macy hates ponytails and screams every time I put them in but I think she looks so darn cute with them in.

Aylah about to dive into Cookie Monster :)

Cupcakes from Carlo's Bakery in Hoboken. (The cake shop on TLC's Cake boss) Elmo and Cookie Monster of pure sugar! Aylah, Macy and Mommy at a park playing.

This is actually the 2nd picture in the series. The first one is below... Macy reaching for some extra Swiper cake and then this one. Victorious!

Our Family on Macy's 2nd Birthday! I made the Swiper cake for her. Swiper is from Dora and is the villian but is her favorite.... go figure.

Just pictures this time...

Crazy Old

2010-12-30T06:39:00.003-09:00

Allison Jonker with Lina (13 months), Me with Aylah (3 1/2) and Macy (21 months), Allison Breuker with Emmett (13 months) Friends from childhood/high school/ and beyond :)

I felt crazy old this week as I sat on the couch at Allison's house and took this picture. How did we get 4 kids? Even though the kids look a little not too impressed in this photo, they did have a great time playing together.

Halloween in December

2010-12-06T09:46:00.001-09:00

I think this looks like my sister, Marie, when she was younger!

Okay, so I realize that it is December, but I forgot to post the lovely pictures of our very own Dora and Boots from Halloween. So here are a couple :) And some extras from this Fall too.

Enjoy!

Photos, pictures, snapshots

2010-12-03T06:19:00.000-09:00

Master bedroom Yes folks, this is actually my washer and dryer :)

Bathroom, obviously

Aylah and Macy in their room :) the guy was in there working on putting up shelves in their closet, hence the dusty floor

Hallway looking down to our front door. Standing in the living room. Storage closets on the right.

Our backyard space! So exciting. Looking down from our bedroom window. Kitchen looking at it from our living room/dining room.

Macy in our living room/dining room. The back windows look out over the outdoor space too.

Macy playing in the bedroom.

Celebrating my birthday with the girls :)

Hope you enjoy the pictures!

247

2010-11-15T08:20:00.000-09:00

That's how many pictures are on our camera.... and i didn't want to wait for all of them to load onto our computer so that I could pick a couple for here. So sorry, no pictures this time.

Our life is in a stand-still. We still have not moved. The bank is being a pain in our rears so who knows when our new move-in timeframe will be. It might be before Christmas or maybe not until after. But I went to a women's retreat last weekend and the topic was Expectations: Dealing with un-met expectations. Hmmm, quite fitting I thought.

So for now we are making the best of it and have one box packed...

My cousin Kirsten is visiting us this week, which is really fun because I don't ever get to spend time with my cousins and she is my only girl cousin. So she is exploring New York City and staying with us. I think she thinks we are old, boring people but I guess that's what 2 kids does to you.

Next week is Thanksgiving and Josh's parents are coming out for a week. We are very excited and the girls are also very excited to see them!

The girls are fairly easy right now... they love to play together and we only have to intervene when blood is involved. (Macy started crying last week and we came in the bedroom to find blood pooling out of her mouth! Poor girl! We think she hit her mouth on the bed frame)

Macy had her first injury a couple weeks ago. She was being crazy in the bathtub and hit her mouth on the side. She now has one chipped baby tooth. At least it's not a permanent one.

Aylah is almost out of diapers.... She wears pull-ups at night but is always dry. We told her that when she ran out of these pull-ups that she could only wear panties from then on. So she really doesn't need them, she's just addicted to them :) She has worn panties for a year now so it's about time....

Aylah has 2 new imaginary friends. Betsy and Bets. Betsy is the Mom, Bets is the daughter. So that makes 4 friends, inlcuding Creche and Dita. You'll have to ask her about the names- it's all from her imagination.

Macy is talking alot more but still hard to understand due to her scratchy, low voice. Her favorite phrases are "No Way!" "CD on please" "More toothpaste please" and "No, no, no, no, no I do." At least she's kind of polite.

Well, I don't have much else to say today. Maybe after we get our own computer I will be more faithful in blogging again.

Stay tuned to the next blog where I'll for sure have pictures of Aylah as Dora and Macy as Boots on Halloween :) Priceless to see Aylah in a wig!

Michigan Adventures

2010-09-18T13:54:00.000-08:00

As most of you know we were in Michigan for 3 weeks this August. It was wonderful! That's as best as I can describe it. It was relaxing, fun, and I could go on and on. The girls are at a great age to do fun things. Aylah got to see fireworks, roast marshmallows and make smores, go on a boat, and do lots of other "firsts." The pictures above are on the beach in Holland by my parent's house. We tried to take some much needed family pics and I think they didn't turn out half bad :) Thanks Dad for being our photographer!

So now we are back and in the swing of things. After-school center started this week at New City and Josh hired an assistant. He thinks she will be great, after an initial period of being overwhelmed by crazy New City life.

Our condo is almost done being built and there is a ribbon cutting ceremony on Oct. 12 so we should be able to walk through it for the first time. I, of course, am super excited and can't wait to see our new house. So we should be able to move at the end of October!

The girls are getting so big! Aylah is learning her letters right now and it makes her seem even older! She knows; a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,l,m,r,s, and y. We play games with them, make them out of playdough, play with them in the bathtub. She loves it and I do too. The teacher in me gets all excited. She is, as always talking a mile a minute. Her latest cute/funny things are as follows.

One day Josh asked her where she was in the pictures of Josh and I on our wedding day. She said, "Macy and I were in Mommy's tummy." pause "I was in the front and Macy was in the back." We laughed histarically.

One night this week Aylah and I were reading her Jesus Storybook Bible at bedtime and had read about Joshua and Jericho. We were talking about how our house on Earth is not permanent but God is preparing us one in Heaven. Aylah looked at me very concerned "Mommy, will there be snacks in heaven?" "Yes Aylah, very yummy ones." "Like goldfish crackers?" "Probably even yummier than goldfish crackers Aylah."

Macy is as fun as ever too. She has this deep raspy voice that cracks me up. Her favorite things to say are; nope, Dora, Boots, and Map. She has a little thing for Dora and we had to put her on Dora detox for a while. She loves to climb which freaks me out! She can be on top of the kitchen table in a matter of seconds. It scares me for when we have them both in the bunk beds. For now I am enjoying the safety of the crib. Macy, we found out, is allergic to mosquito bites. Her most recent bite was on the top of her foot, which made it swell to 3 times it's normal size, prompted a visit to the Dr. and a round of amoxicillan b/c the Dr. was nervous that all the other broken open mosquito bites on her leg were going to get infected due to the nearby swelling of her foot. It was gross, all red and black and blue and then she couldn't go anywhere for a few days b/c her shoe wouldn't even fit! That little girl has given us a run for our money several times in her short year and a half life!

As a whole we are all doing okay,except we each came down with a 2 day stomach virus and tore through our family with no remorse Labor Day weekend. Needless to say we are getting our flu shots next week. Oh, and Aylah and I go to the dentist next week too. Aylah is all excited b/c it's her first time and I bought her a Dora book to talk to her about everything she might see there.

Every day Aylah goes through a laundry list of things she wants to make sure we pack for our new house....

Mom!

Yes, Aylah.

Are we going to pack Macy's booster chair?

Yes, Aylah.

How bout the bibs?

Yes, Aylah.

Are we going to pack the animal crackers?

Well we will probably eat them all by the time we move but if any are left, then yes.

Mom!

Yes, Aylah.

We can't forget Macy's shoes.

Ok, Aylah.

and on and on and on we go..... have a wonderful day! We'll update I'm sure in another month or 2 :)

Making My Dreams Come True and "That's a trap!"

2010-07-10T10:53:00.000-08:00

We call Macy "Dr Macy" because she walks around with a stethescope around her neck all the time. Macy on the slip-n-slide in Holland in June.

Aylah and Mommy and the famous Dora birthday cake!

A game from Grandpa and Grandma!

I would first like to apologize on behalf of our blog site and Josh's computer. Even since it crashed the site and our computer have been in a fight and have not been allowing me to cut/paste or post videos. So in no particular order, here are our pictures. Sorry it's so confusing and not too cool looking.

Deborah and the birthday girl.Natalie and the birthday girl!

Opening a new toy from Papa and Nana.

Our little city girls walking home from Mom's Group on Aylah's birthday wearing their new outfits :)

Well it has been a while since I wrote an acutally decent blog entry with stories, pictures, etc. So sit down folks, well you probably already are, and sit back and relax cuz here we go...

The other day Josh was making coffee. He had just ground a huge amount of beans and was about to pour it into the coffee maker. But then he spilled it. All over. Huge mess. On the stove, counter, floor, and under the oven. So I suggested he just go and get our vacuum and suck it up with the attachment. Later that week I was vacuuming and realized that our rooms were slowly starting to all smell like coffee. Wonder why?..... I told Josh when he got home and said, "It has always been my fantasy to have our whole house smell like coffee." His response, "Just making your dreams come true one day at a time." :)

A few weeks ago we had a sit down with Aylah. Now that she's 3 we were explaining that her time outs would now be 3 minutes long. Her response instantly: "No! That's a trap!"

(Where does she learn this stuff?)

Somewhere along the way we missed posting about Aylah's 3rd birthday. It was great fun with a Dora theme and cake. Check out the cake I decorated for her! Only took 4 hours to frost but she loved it. Nana and Papa even came to celebrate and we had an end of the year Mom's Group bash so it was a full day. She got Candyland from Josh and I as her present and Hi-Ho Cherry-O also. I love board games and have been waiting for her to turn 3. She also got lots of cool markers/crayon/paints/books/clothes/toys. She didn't get a lack of presents lets just say.

Approximately a week after Aylah turned 3 I started hearing things like, "Hi poopyhead, peeface." and "You're a funny boy mommy."

Great! I really hated this part of being a teacher and I was really hoping that somehow our girls would magically skip the phase where bodily functions and calling people names was funny. Guess not.

Another funny Aylah thing. Her and I were sitting at the table eating lunch with Josh's old cell phone sitting on her placemat. We were having a wonderful, engaging conversation, probably talking about what we were going to do after naptime, when the low battery sound beeped. Aylah said to me, "Oop, somebody's calling me." And then preceeded to grab the phone and answer it and engage in a full out pretend conversation." I must say that this is the first time someone has interuppted a meal with me to answer a cell phone so rudely. I think we have to work on manners.

Last Aylah story. We were getting ready for bed and were talking about the book we had read, "Someone Special" I think was the title. It's the book about the wooden people, the Weemiks, that Eli carves. All day they go around putting yellow stars on the people they like and gray dots on the people they don't like. If you can do something special or are pretty, people give you a star. If you are ugly or mess up a lot, you get a gray dot. In the book there is one Weemik who doesn't have any stars or dots. As she explains to another Weemik it is because she goes to talk to Eli every day. So then I explained to Aylah that Eli is kind of like God. We can go and talk to him any time. She turned to me with a very sincere look on her face and said, "Mommy, I want you to drop me off so that I can talk with God and then you can pick me up when I'm done."

Talk about melting my heart. Of course I'm her Mom and so I got tears in my eyes and pulled her close to me. I love our little girl. She may talk non-stop, jump non-stop, and sing non-stop, but she is beautiful and fun and I'm so glad I get to spend every day with her.

On to Macy. What can I say. She's got attitude. When she isn't busy flinging everything off of her tray at mealtimes, she is following Aylah around copying everything she does or protecting her territory of the toy she is currently engaged in. I am waiting for the first drop down, drag out fight between the two. I am guessing it will be over a baby doll but we'll have to wait and see. So far there has just been hair pulling and pushing...

Macy has had a rough go as of yet. After 3 doctors visits and numerous prescriptions, we have figured out that she is allergic to mosquito bites. While we were in Michigan she kept on getting these mysterious huge welts all over her body. They turned red with a bump in the center. But then she started to itch them so they broke open and started to bleed. Then they healed over with scabby tops but she kept on itching them open again. Poor little girl. She was high maintenance for a while getting an oatmeal bath every day, then oatmeal lotion, then a combo of neosporin and cortizone cream mixed together on all of her bites. She is just finally starting to heal and they are starting to fade away. She still has a super itchy head so we are trying to figure that out... don't worry she doesn't have head lice, just really dry skin. Any advice??? we tried coal tar shampoo but it hasn't helped.

Macy has learned a ton of new words lately, which is really fun, and understands even more, which is also really fun. So now when I ask her to do something, I know she understands and I can't say, "oh, she's too little to know what I'm asking her to do." Sorry kiddo.

So it's the middle of July which means New City Summer Camp is under way. Josh works from 7 am to 6pm so he is exhausted, poor man. After 4 weeks of craziness we get to go to Michigan for 3 weeks! So chances are we will see lots of people while we are there, so hopefully that means all of you :)

July 31st is my 10 year high school reunion. It made me feel old... I'm not going. We will miss it by 2 days but I don't think I would go anyway. However Josh and I feel like if everyone from our classes were to film a 2 minute update on their life and someone compiled it onto a DVD to buy, we would totally buy it! Maybe cuz we are just nosy and want to know what everyone else is doing with their life.

Josh's birthday is coming up this week, July 14th! Fun stuff is planned but it's a surprise. He's turning 28.

Also our 5th Anniverary is July 23rd! Yea! Yes, we are still in love :) Lots has happened in 5 years, huh?

So I'm still spending my spare time going to kickboxing and also I love my Cooking Light magazine. Got to work out to burn off all the food I like to cook. But I try to cook pretty healthy stuff except for when the "Pizza issue" came out a few months ago. Might have gained a few pounds from those pizzas but it was well worth it! Yum!

Did you know that if you slice overripe bananas and put them on a jelly roll pan in the freezer, you can then put them in a blender and blend them into an ice cream type consistency. Then just eat it plain, or add peanut butter, or chocolate, or anything your heart desires. I like frozen raspberries.

Well, I think that is it for now. Enjoy the rest of your July and hopefully we'll see you soon!

Breakfast

2010-06-18T05:05:00.000-08:00

"Aylah what else do you want to eat?"
"Mmm. Probably some cold beans."
"Some what?"
"Cold beans."
"Green beans?"
"Yup."
"Ok."

That's the way our day started today. So I got up, found some cold green beans and served them to my veggie loving 3 year old for breakfast. The perfect combination, green beans and Kix. :)

Aylah, Macy and I went to Holland to visit my parents for a week. So far the girls have loved being outside every chance they get. We have taken multiple wagon rides around the neighborhood and Aylah is learning how to ride her bike. (She has trouble peddaling and steering) So I guess we more push her around than she rides, but she'll catch on. We have also been to the beach and played in the water and sand. Grandpa bought a slip-n-slide, which would have been a bigger hit but I think the water was a little too cold. We'll try again tomorrow. And we have a cool little sprinkler head that the girls like to spray each other with.

We also went to the Critter Barn yesterday. Macy liked the animals and was intrigued by them. Aylah, on the other hand, went into a room with lots of bunnies and freaked out! She said, "I don't want them by me mommy! I want to go home! I don't want to be by them!" So we exited quickly and found a nice sunny spot on the grass by the roosters and sheep. I thought it was a safe location but then the roosters started crowing, Aylah screamed, and we went over and stood by the car. Our little city girl.... I hope she isn't scared of animals forever!

Today my friend Katie is coming to visit and I think there is a trip to Captain Sundae in store! Yummmy! I will try and put up some pictures before we leave.

Josh is in the middle of a long week at work doing Job Fair. If you think of him, shoot him an email or something. This week is when they hire all of the teen staff for the summer and next school year. It's a huge event, takes lots of energy and lots of time. But I think he is starting to miss his ladies ;) even though he is working a lot.

One more update, Macy is picking up words left and right at a feverish pace! Lots more than what Aylah knew at this age. Some of her favorites of this week are: doggie, lunch, wagon, grandpa, grandma, beach, bubbles, and bike. She's getting so big...

Macy is Walking!

2010-05-10T07:50:00.000-08:00

Cheesy Aylah grin... Macy and Mommy and our matching pink rain coats.

Macy loves toilet paper and unrolled a brand new roll one day when I was laying Aylah down for her nap...

Macy telling me a very intense story about her baby doll and the car she is playing in...

Macy giving kisses.

Aylah and Macy playing together in the "car" box. (Nana, notice the birthday party clubhouse :)

So Macy started walking this past week! She is quite proud of herself. She walks about half the time and the other half she walks around on her knees. We don't really know why but one day I think she got sick of crawling. (but please excuse me in the background in my pj's, I'm minorly embarrased but it shows macy's first steps so it's a keeper)

I am not too sure what else has happened since I last posted. My mind is in a million directions right now. So I figure why not just put up some recent pictures and call it good this time.

The Amazing Race

2010-04-12T08:20:00.000-08:00

So for almost a year now Josh and I have been debating going on the show "The Amazing Race." We think that we would be great contestants for a number of reasons

1. Josh is just plain lucky... things work out for him. So when we would need to get the earliest flight out of , oh say, Tokyo, I'm sure we would get it.

2. I'm good with directions.

3. Josh is great with flying by the seat of his pants

4. We would be really funny to watch in an argument

5. Josh doesn't really get stressed out and I do so the arguments would be more like him trying to calm me down and me telling him we should really be more worried than we are.

6. I kind of know how to drive a stick and Josh doesn't

7. We are both scared of heights but will do something up high to win a million dollars.

8. And maybe lots of other things... like we might make fun of other teams...

We only have 2 reasons why we wouldn't do it.

1. Aylah

2. Macy

However we were offered an incredible offer by our friend Deborah last night to watch our girls for the month we were on the show. So we told her that if we won we would pay for her Graduate Degree to Columbia University she is about to start. Sounds pretty fair.

So all of this is half joking half serious... what do you think? Amazing Race bound? or not?

Besides the amazing race discussion... we have had Josh's Mom, Nana, out to visit and my Dad, Grandpa. Josh also took 10 teenagers on a college tour that he planned and Macy took her first couple steps! How exciting!

I took some pictures on Easter but when it was all said and done I realized that I only got one video of Macy and the rest were of Aylah. The 2nd born always gets the shaft huh? But we will put her back in her cute dress and take some more pictures :) To be fair Macy did take 2 naps and was sleeping during the egg hunt...

And as we speak I am working on getting our picture gallery downloaded and up and working again on Josh's computer. I know it had been a while since it crashed but we have had lots of visitors and I figured a clean house and food to eat was more important.

So it's getting super nice out here and we bought a pail and shovels and a soccer ball for Aylah for the park. She is learning how to kick... I was appalled the other day when she was playing with a friends' ball and acted all confused when I told her to kick it to me. I know my child development books tell me that kicking skills are just starting around this age but still... we're working on it. The other night she kicked too hard and wound up on her back in the living room. So we've got some work to do. She'll get it!

Macy is a 24 pounds now and 30 inches tall. She had a growth spurt that rocketed her to the top of the charts again. She is saying ma-ma, da-da, daddy, hi, bye, and the newest is uh-oh accompanied by a bottle or cheerios sailing off of her booster chair tray. She is very proud of that one!

One of my friends moved away during the past few weeks. She was a great woman that I really admired who I met at my mom's group. They moved to Colorado. I figured that when we first moved out here that I probably wouldn't develop close relationships with people that I would be sad to leave... and that we would probably be the first ones to move away. But look at us now, 2 1/2 years into it and buying a condo. It made me sad to say goodbye but I'm trying to get over it.

Well, that's about it for now. Happy April!

Macy is 1!

2010-03-15T12:58:00.000-08:00

Macy and our friends' daughter Lillian.

I wrote a big blog at home but it is refusing to let me copy and paste it. So all you get for now are some First Birthday pictures of Macy. Enjoy!

Stop Singing My Business!

2010-02-15T07:25:00.000-09:00

Josh walked through Aylah's room this past week and started to sing along to Aylah's cd. Aylah turned around and in her most authoritative bossy voice said, "Stop singing my business!" We both burst out laughing and I said, "She's all yours, Josh."

Aylah and Macy and I were on our way out the door to go to Mom's group when I asked Josh if he could move the pack n play into our bedroom so that I wouldn't have to when we returned home and the girls were crabby and hungry. (It's my new naptime plan, which is working out famously) I then said that it would be a big help. Fast forward 15 mins. when we were actually walking out the door and down the stairs Aylah turned around, walked back up the stairs and said to Josh who was watching us leave, "Daddy, you put pack and play in bedroom. That be big help to me." and turned around and walked back down the stairs. We both burst out laughing and Josh said, "She's all yours, Andrea."

So our daughter is getting to be quite the comedic relief for us.

Although life in those paragraphs seems funny and peachy... it has been quite otherwise.

Our girls both got colds right after we returned from Michigan and passed it to me... and the day I got the cold Aylah woke up that night vomiting in bed. And then the diarrhea started... the dreaded flu! Aylah passed it on to Macy within 2 days and Macy passed it on to Josh. The day after Josh got it we admitted Macy to the hospital for dehydration. I spent an awful night in the ER/ Peds unit in Hoboken having to pin Macy down so they could draw blood and put in an IV four times. And then they put her in one of those metal cribs to sleep the rest of the night in. She kept on waking up and slamming her head against the bars and crying. I was "sleeping" on a pull our chair and so then she would see me and get even more upset. The nurses also had to wake her up every 2 hours for vitals and she kept on pinching her IV so her machine would start beeping. Needless to say, she got hydrated again and was allowed home. But somewhere in there we had the two girls and Josh with the flu and me with a bad cold, that I have yet to kick.

I thought things were getting better when Aylah got another cold and passed it back to Macy. Macy was running high fevers for a few nights and not really sleeping that well.

So here we are 4 weeks later and there are still coughing, snotty nosed girls at our house. I have high hopes that it can't get worse.

And along with that drama, Josh sprained his ankle in a yearly snow football game with the teenagers and his computer crashed and wouldn't start... we felt like we were being attacked on all sides. Oh and the brakes and muffler went on our car.

There is also a lot of health issues going on with the staff and their families at New City and some struggling marriages.

Josh and I were talking a few days ago about how we don't usually talk or think about spiritual warfare. But in the case of the past 4 weeks it is very evident to us that Satan is up to something. We have felt drained physically, spiritually, and emotionally. The attack was a valiant effort which overwhelmed us but we can honestly say that God has been so good to us. We have felt taken care of by numerous people on a number of occasions and know that God's grace and faithfulness will prevail. We know that God is trying to do some good things with New City right now, especially in the lives of some of the teenagers and Satan is trying to stop it from happening. So if you could pray for us and the ministry at New City. Pray for healing for our family and for josh's foot and staff members. And pray for the teens at New City, those that are feeling a tug on their heart from God and being challenged but are not too sure if they want to jump in. Thank you!

On a much brighter note, Josh and I became an Uncle and Aunt again! Esme Rose was born on February 10! She is a cutie! Jonah and Elizabeth have Doug and Dawn out to help them right now and we wish we could be there too! We can't wait to meet the new addition to the family!

Well, that is about it for now. Enjoy the rest of February and watch some Olympics to cheer on the U.S. :)

Winter Cold

2010-01-23T14:25:00.000-09:00

Something magical happened…

It was around 7 in the morning. Josh was watching the news and I was cleaning the kitchen when we realized that both girls were playing together quietly in their room! It was something we’ve been waiting for for Macy’s whole life (10 months), which may not seem like a long time, but it was for us. So we went and peeked at them. Aylah was reading an Elmo book and Macy was sucking on a cup from a tea set. Perfect. Wonderful. Peaceful. Quiet. This can only be good news for our future.

This morning as I was changing Macy’s poopy diaper Aylah came in and stood at the end of the dresser and said, “Pee-you Macy!” pause “This is awesome.” I just looked at her and she smirked and walked away.

Macy attempted standing on her own yesterday. She let go of my leg and stood for 5 seconds…. And so it begins. She is also crawling all over the house from one end to the other and is picking up speed every day. She is also still sleeping like a champ. 6:30pm to 7:00am.

Aylah just walked through the living room with 3 winter hats on her head…. What? Oh and this pair of mittens on a string my grandma knit for Macy. Make that 4 hats.

I walked into the kitchen last night and turned on the light and scared the heck out of a little baby mouse that was on our counter top. It scared me too but I just screamed “mouse!” and watched it run for cover, sliding across the counter with it’s butt coming incredibly close to the edge before it disappeared behind the stove with one flying leap. Hence why I was cleaning the kitchen at 7 in the morning.

I also had another run in with a mouse and a pan of brownies... his little tail was sticking out from under the tinfoil. I was so mad! Little bugger. We got him last night... revenge.

It was been super cold here for a long time. It is kind of unusual for where we live. Last week I stayed inside with the girls for 4 days. On the 4th day I took them to a huge indoor mall. When I let Aylah out of the stroller after we walked in from the parking lot she started running and didn’t stop until she had gone the whole length of the mall. I was just following laughing. I guess she needed to get out. We do go to the park every day in the summer so I’m sure she needed some exercise.

And here are some recent pictures. Some promised long ago from Christmas and some candids of the girls in no particular order. Enjoy and Happy January!

Going Home

2009-12-31T14:36:00.000-09:00

Well, tomorrow we are going home to New Jersey. We had a wonderful time in Michigan. We've been to Traverse City, Muskegon, Holland, and Lansing. We got to see lots of people we love and lots of friends we haven't seen in while. One of our favorite days was in Lansing, with no kids. We got to see Kevin and Rachel McAlvey, Brian and Chick Bieber, and Justin and Marguerite Sellers, plus all of their kids. It was great to see them but wished we could have our kids there too (only for about a half hour and then have them magically transported back to their grandparents!)

Here are 2 pics that I'm pulling off of my parent's computer from the time in Holland. Aylah got new pj's from her Nana and Papa and a new vest from her Grandpa and Grandma. The next is me sledding with Aylah. I forgot how much fun it can be. I think part of it is seeing everything new for the first time again as I see the joy in Aylah's face. I think she would have stayed outside all day if we would had let her.

Macy is moving all over now! Crawling, pulling up, and sometimes brave enough to let go of the couch. She is scaring me that she is going to be more mobile now. She even crawled over to the stairs and started crawling up all by herself. Yikes! Good thing we don't have stairs at our house.

I promise to write more once we are back for a week and settled. Right now I'm on Aylah bedtime duty... Happy New Year!

Christmas Days 4-1

2009-12-27T07:04:00.001-09:00

On the 4th day of Christmas Santa brought to us...
An oil change, new wiper blades and air filter for the Saturn. (Hadn't been done in a looooong time!)

On the 3rd day of Christmas Santa brought to us...
5 trips down the driveway on the sled.

On the 2nd day of Christmas Santa brought to us...
Skype Christmas with the Dornbos' in California!

On the 1st day of Christmas Santa brought to us...
Nana, Papa, Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Marie, Great Grandma and Grandpa Schlukebir, Cousins Evan, April, Elliot, Laura, Courtney, Molly, Betsy, Jordan, Rachel, Taylor, Mitchell, Uncles Jim, Bob, Mike, and Aunts Jodi, Susan, and Sheila! (lots of people that love us!) ( I hope I remembered everyone)

Merry Christmas!

Kinda Tricky

2009-12-22T10:52:00.000-09:00

Aylah to Nana and I yesterday when I approached the car after Dawn tried to get Aylah buckled into her car seat... my help was requested to finish the job

"Kinda tricky for Nana, Mommy."

We both laughed hysterically.

Macy finally got her wish for Christmas... her 2 front teeth!

12 Days of Christmas

2009-12-21T17:40:00.000-09:00

Here are days 12 through 5 from our 12 days before Christmas.

On the 12th day of Christmas Santa brought to us...
6 firetrucks and 40 firemen outside our apartment. (It's okay, it didn't burn down)

On the 11th day of Christmas Santa brought to us...
1 broken nativity scene sheep leg

On the 10th day of Christmas Santa brought to us...
no gas, heat, hot water, for 24 hours. (We survived)

On the 9th day of Christmas Santa brought to us...
1 croup cough and lots of diarrhea diapers and underwear.

On the 8th day of Christmas Santa brought to us...
29 teens at a late-night Christmas party.

On the 7th day of Christmas Santa brought to us...
10 inches of lovely winter snow.

On the 6th day of Christmas Santa brought to us...
a 14 hour late-night drive from Jersey to Traverse City.

On the 5th day of Christmas Santa brought to us...
a day off courtesy of Nana and Papa!

Days 4-1 coming soon.

Have a wonderful Christmas and celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior!

Mommy, Baby Peter sick. I wan go see him.

2009-11-08T15:29:00.000-09:00

Macy, want nukie?
Shhh, it’s all right Macy.
Macy sad!
Macy happy!
I need a nack (snack).
I want go Mom group. See baby Owen, baby Anna, Katie.
I big!
Daddy go work. See Webwa (Deborah), Nalee, (Natalie) Jackie, G?

These are all popular phrases of Aylah lately. She has been talking our ear off and sometimes I try to bribe her to be quiet for 5 minutes. :)

Since I last wrote we have been to the apple orchard, the Pocono Mountains, been visited by my parents and Josh’s parents, celebrated my 28th birthday on 2 nights; once at Phantom of the Opera on Broadway and Josh and I went to dinner at a yummy fondue restaurant. Also, Macy learned to army crawl and had her first cheerio, Josh went to Michigan for cousin Jordan’s wedding, our car was rejected at it’s 2 year inspection for the state of New Jersey, did the whole Halloween scene, bought a condo, and we combined the girls so they now sleep in one bedroom! So we have been a little busy lately.

The apple orchard was a big hit. Aylah wanted to ride the ponies but the loooong line prompted us to make the excuse that she wasn’t quite big enough yet, maybe next year. (In our defense, she probably was too little). We let her pick out any pumpkin she could carry out of the pumpkin patch. This year was quite cold compared to last year. Aylah wasn’t too impressed with the corn maze, and neither was I. But we had fun and Macy fell asleep in the stroller.

We went to the Pocono Mountains and met some friends of ours, Matt Hodgson and his wife Elizabeth and daughter Lydia. It was in celebration of Matt’s birthday that we were invited to come. It was fun and great to be in nature and see some beautiful fall colors and deer.

My parents drove out and came for 3 days. It was lots of fun to have them here again, even though it rained most days. Aylah counted down the days for them to come and when they got here she went crazy jumping up and down and running around showing them her new big bed and house.

Josh’s parents came this weekend and we will go to Atlantic City to see them again tomorrow. They are there for a conference this week. Aylah was just as excited to see her Nana and Papa and was wound up doing her jumping and talking a mile a minute when they arrived.

Like I said, Macy astonishes us with her physical abilities. She is doing some army crawling and trying to pull up on things with not much success yet, but she gets an A for effort. She also had her first Cheerio and loves to eat those little Gerber puffs. The girls are also doing pretty well being in the same room. A few nights have been touch and go so we keep the pack and play out for use should we need it in the middle of the night.

Josh and I went to The Melting Pot for my birthday. It was a really fun night! We did fondue dipping for all our courses, with chocolate of course for dessert. Then we wandered along the shore of the Hudson River and looked at the Manhattan skyline all lit up. My birthday present was to see Phantom of the Opera this past weekend with Josh, Doug and Dawn. It was so fun! Nothing beats Broadway and I had never seen Phantom before so it was even more fun to see it for the first time. I have such a nice husband!

Aylah's birthday gift for me was a chocolate cake! She sure does know her Mommy!Josh and I at The Melting Pot on my birthday.

As far as our rejected car… and the big red sticker they slapped on our windshield…the only thing needed fixing was our horn, which has been broken for a while. But still, a bummer that we are required to get it fixed and take it back for another inspection.

For Halloween this year Aylah was a bumblebee and Macy was a flower. They were both very cute, Aylah in her costume bought by her Grandma (Thanks Mom!) and Macy in a funny flower petal thing that I created and had to change at the last minute because Deborah told me it looked too much like a turkey. (it did) Aylah kept on talking about Toweleen the few weeks before the actual date so if you listen carefully, you'll hear her in the video.

If you caught my little line in there about a condo, it's true. But I can devot another blog about that later.... we aren't moving into it for another year, which will obviously take some explaining, so stay tuned.

In a total change of gears we have some close friends of ours, Kevin and Rachel McAlvey who had their 3rd son a week ago. Peter was born 3 or so weeks early. They were aware of some concerns with his development before he was born and knew that he would have to have brain surgery soon after his birth. Doctors put a shunt in his head and he is in the NICU in Chicago right now. They are getting various diagnoses and are not too sure what sort of long term issues they will have to deal with. The last news we received was that Peter was missing parts of his brain. Needless to say we have been very concerned, worried, and prayerful for our friends. When we heard about his birth both Josh and I broke down in tears. It is so easy to take for granted our little girls that God blessed us with. We were concerned for our friends... and then Aylah became concerned that both her parents were crying. We explained to her that baby Peter was very sick and now she frequently talks about him and asks how he is doing. Would you keep their family in your prayers? As you can probably imagine their life is full of ups and downs right now. Pray for their other 2 boys, James 3 and Isaac 1, too.

In the next month we have 4 friends due to have babies. Two are my 2 Allison friends, each with their first kids. We are excited to welcome so many new babies with our friends. It makes me realize just how blessed we are and pray even more for Kevin and Rachel.

As a last note, we have entered the world of “fake owies”. Aylah will make up owies on her wrist so she can put on a Dora band-aid like a watch. She likes to roll up her sleeve and look at it throughout the day. Crazy little girl.

Macy's 2nd Cheerio... it was so funny the first time I needed a video of the 2nd one. (Notice all the drool)

Well, this is long enough. Hope you enjoyed the videos and pictures.

Middle Names

2009-11-03T17:14:00.000-09:00

I promise we are still alive and kickin here in Jersey. I'll write more soon, we have just had some busy and full weekends.

Last night as I was getting the girls ready for bed Aylah and I were talking about middle names. I asked her what her name was and she didn't know so I said, "Aylah remember when mommy sometimes says, "Aylah Grace?" and not skipping a beat she lowered her head and her voice and said sternly, "You come here!"

I almost peed my pants....

Drunk Gospel and a World of WIC

2009-10-09T05:12:00.000-08:00

Josh and Aylah were leaving the house the other day to go for a walk. As they were walking out the door Aylah leaned back in and said, “Have fun my house.” I started laughing. Everything these days belongs to Aylah; my house, my car, my chair… I was also walking out the door this morning to go move our car for the street sweeper and she said, “Bye kids.” I laughed again. She’s funny these days and has been making us laugh with all of her crazy things she says.

October is here already. I love October for many reasons, the Fall weather, Halloween candy, the Halloween parade in Hoboken, and most importantly the apple orchard. We plan on going in about a week. I’m sure Aylah will be even more fun this year in the corn maze, apple orchard, and pumpkin patch!

Macy has been sitting up like a pro lately. She only topples over occasionally, and then only when Aylah comes plummeting full throttle into her space. She is also babbling mama, dada, baba and squeals very loud when we tickle her. She is getting to be more fun in our interactions. Yesterday she was on her stomach and trying to get a toy out of reach. She was doing the butt up in the air, full body extension reach. Crawling can only be right around the corner. She is also on an amazing sleep schedule that I have tried for 7 months to finally attain. She eats at 7:00 pm and then goes to sleep for the night until 6:30am! MMM, a night of peace and quiet again.

We have this neighbor named Charles. We are pretty sure that he is drunk a large percentage of his life. There is another guy, Lowell, who is the building super. He is drunk a larger portion of his life then Charles. They are both harmless but minorly annoying. Charles doesn’t work but lives off some sort of government support. So I see him around during the day pretty frequently. He is also proud to announce he is a deacon at his church. Charles is notable in one certain area… he likes to sing drunk gospel on his front porch. He props up his radio in the front window of his apartment, which happens to overhang the front patio/walkup of the apartment building. And then he either sits in a chair he brings out or stands up and belts it out. A couple days ago I came home from a kickboxing class to find him out there at 6 pm singing at the top of his lungs and then started singing to me. Soon after Josh came home with the girls in the stroller and Aylah, who loves music, ran over to join Charles. I came outside to find a hilarious scene. So it is not infrequent in our house to hear, “Charles is out singing drunk gospel again.”

My Mom’s group recently “multiplied.” We split into two groups; one staying in Hoboken and the other starting a new group in Jersey City. So the girls and I have been going on Tuesdays now instead of Wednesdays. I really love our new group. It is much smaller, 6 instead of 20, and there are some new moms that are younger that I am excited to get to know better and hopefully spend some more time with. It has also been amazing to me how the feeling of the group has changed. The Hoboken moms, in general, are very high strung, worried about every little detail (organic vs. regular) (classes (like ballet, music) for your 2 year old or no classes), and the list goes on and on. I always felt it but couldn’t identify the anxiety that I sensed from the women in the group. It was palpable. But since going to our new group, the anxiety is gone and I can now see just how intense it used to be. We are also reading a great new book called, “Good and Angry.” It is very convicting and I would recommend reading it.
Our last memorable thing is that we are thinking about buying a house and have been looking at some condos. They will be brand new, they are haven’t been built yet but they are scheduled to be finished in Summer 2010. We have been thinking about it a lot and have applied and been accepted for a loan. We are still praying about it a lot and just asking for wisdom during this process. We are both hesitant about feeling trapped once we buy it. We talk a lot about how we don’t have any idea of how long we will be here. So even though we don’t have an end time in mind, it still makes us feel a little controlled as to how long we will stay here.

Yesterday I was in Walgreens with the girls buying some formula and milk. When I got up to the cash register the cashier said, “I don’t mean to pry, but aren’t you on WIC? You can get this for free on WIC.” (WIC is Women, Infants, Children; they provide you with a certain amount of free food of certain brands. You have to be under a certain income bracket in order to qualify) I looked at her and said, “Umm, we don’t qualify for WIC.” She looked at me with a dumb-struck face, continued checking us out, and we left. As I was talking to Josh about it last night he said, “That girl lives a world where everyone is on WIC.” How true that must be. We live in a community where the majority of people aren’t making it on their own. Some take advantage of the system, like maybe Charles who is fully capable of working somewhere but doesn’t, and some need it to survive, like a family we know who just had a baby boy 2 weeks ago. The live in a 500 sq. foot efficiency apt. and neither the mom nor dad can find jobs right now. They can get formula and diapers through WIC along with milk, bread, etc. But either way, we are an abnormality in the world around us. I’m reminded every single day of this when I leave our house, but some days it’s more in my face than others. Who knows what today might bring… we’ll just have to wait and see.

Giggles

2009-09-22T04:55:00.000-08:00

I bravely left Macy unattended in her exersaucer yesterday to go into the kitchen and get our picnic lunch ready. As I was peanut buttering a sandwich I heard an explosion of laughter from both girls. I grabbed the camera and turned it on as I started walking toward the bedroom, unsure of what I would find.

Here's what all the commotion was all about.

Dangerous things await us in our future I think.... girls girls girls

Aylah got excited about my kickboxing hand wraps and decided she needed to try them on

Anyone in the World...

2009-09-15T10:49:00.000-08:00

So today at breakfast Aylah was asking about a long list of family and friends (she wants to know what people are doing right now, if they're a boy or a girl, if they're coming etc.) Her list of inquiries has gotten very long since our recent visit to MI.

I thought I would see who she loved the most so I asked her "Aylah out of anyone in the world who would you most want to come visit us?"

She looked at me kind of inquisitively and I wasn't 100% sure that she had understood my question. Then she cocked her head to the side and said "Dora". We laughed....but she was serious.

The Guy With the Pink Backpack

2009-09-10T04:47:00.000-08:00

Josh and the girls and I were walking home last weekend from the park and we came across a stumbling man who promptly decided to pee in the weeds next to a building. "Nuuummmmber 9!" I said with exasperation in my voice to Josh. Josh just laughed. Nine is the number of men I have seen peeing in public since we moved here. And yes that is an acurate account. The thing about this guy, though, was that he was unique! He had a bright pink backpack with him, which Josh pointed out was the first peeing guy to be toting that around. About 2 hours later I went to go pick up a friend to babysit our girls and as we pulled up in front of our house who should we see? The pink backpack guy! He had meandered his way down the street to our house and was slowly lowering himself to the ground by a light post. He then lay down on the sidewalk, fully stretched out. And that's where he stayed for a while. I was very excited to tell Josh who had come to visit us :)

And then there was Thomasina. Thomasina seemed nice.... but then again they all do. It quickly became clear to us that she was a little off her rocker when she started talking to us about how her mom got hit in the head by an apple in the projects and that she would "F" us up if our kids did that..... Thomasina had origianlly stopped Josh and I to ask us about our stroller. We get stopped almost every time we walk outside by comments on our stroller. So we offered her the name and that it's cheaper to buy used... and then she got a little wierd. She wanted our address and phone number so that she could come over and we could "help her get one of these buggies." We politely shrugged off the suggestion and somehow escaped with Aylah only hearing about 10 swear words. Someday that little girl and I are going to have a long talk about swear words and I have a feeling it will be sooner rather than later. I memorized what Thomasina looks like so when I see "Miss Tommy from the projects" as she likes to call herself, I can stear our family in the opposite direction.

Today is the first day of school here. I felt mildly sad as I drove back from my 7 am kickboxing class and patiently waited for all of the kids and the crossing guards guiding the students to school. I saw the new backpacks and the school uniforms and new shoes and I'm sure lots of new school supplies in the backpacks... it made me think of my own classroom with the gleaming clean floors and shiny folders and fresh markers and name tags on the desks (soon to be picked off but they look good for a day :) and I felt sad that I wasn't a teacher today. And then I thought of Aylah and sending her off to her first day of Kindergarten. I almost got tears in my eyes thinking about it. Good thing I don't have to say goodbye today and that she's waiting for me at home to go play at the park this morning. Maybe I'll be ready in 3 more years...

Our family is doing pretty well. Josh is gearing up for the new school year with SAT prep class starting this Saturday, 32ish new teen employees and lots of colleges to apply to with 11 Seniors. I have started my kickboxing class again and am doing my crazy diet thing to loose all of my baby weight. I'm only 1 week into the 10 week diet so we'll see how it goes.

Our girls and I went to my Mom's group yesterday for the beginning day. I am going to look forward to Wednesdays! 2 hours of a mid-week break!

I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but Aylah loves to sing "God is So Good." Mostly at random times, like in Target and in the stroller and during lunchtime. But I have to say that it has been really good for me to hear her sing that. Because some days can be long and hard with the girls and I forget about our heavenly Father and the blessings the girls are to us and how it's sooooo nice that I don't have to work and that I can stay home with them. So when Aylah starts to sing, "God is so good, God is so good, God is so good He's so good to me!" it has helped me refocus and change my attitude and remember that God HAS been so good to our little family! And then she usually launches into, "God answers prayers...." and quickly followed by "Happy Birthday" sung for anyone whose birthday it has been in the past few months.... Nana, Deborah, Daddy, cousin Ella, Grandma, Uncle Jonah.... She's crazy that little girl. I even call her "Hey Crazies, come here." and she responds :)

Well, thats about it for now. I'm going to head home and take a shower and spend the day with our girls and Josh is going to work.... the usual but something that I am very thankful for.

Mmmm Peas!

2009-08-27T17:09:00.000-08:00

Macy vs. Peas.... the peas won!

August has been a great month for us. It went by fast! We took our trip to Michigan to visit family and friends and saw lots of people. Overall we think that it was our best trip back since we moved. We have surpassed our 2 year mark of moving to New Jersey. When we were on vacation we had a lot of people ask us when we were going to be done and move back. We haven’t wanted to limit ourselves to a certain time period and we are still not ready to make a time commitment. So let’s just say anywhere from 3 to 20 more years… We feel that if we state a time, that it might limit what God’s will is for us here.

Here are some pictures of our trip to Michigan. After getting home we realized that most of our pictures were from Holland and not Traverse City. Usually it’s the opposite, but Aylah was so fun to take pictures of on the beach.

Aylah loved the lake so much! She played in the water for so long that her lips would turn blue and would tell my mom, “No go see Mommy. More water!” She was so much fun to play with and even “helped” Josh build lots of sand castles :)

In Traverse City Jonah, Elizabeth, Ella, and the four of us all stayed in Josh’s parents house. It was great to all be together, even though it was a little squishy.

Josh and I also got 2 nights away together without children. We felt so free and I loved it... by the 2nd night away I wasn't even sad to leave them. Is that bad?

Macy was baptized when we were visiting our church, University Reformed, in East Lansing. It was great to be back and see all of our friends and share with the church about New City. We also got to stay with our friends Jon and Vanessa and their little girl Lillian. Aylah and Lillian loved playing together. They are about 10 months apart and Aylah has asked about her nonstop since getting home. She asked to go see her last night :( So sad. We said, "maybe we'll see her again soon."

I made playdough for Aylah. It's "edible" but Aylah refused to play with it anymore after she stuck a big glob in her mouth (after much warning from me not to).

Well, that's all I got in me tonight. I'll post more later, hopefully with some good stories of life here!

July!

2009-07-12T13:52:00.000-08:00

July has been a busy month for us, but lots of fun! I can’t even remember everything that has happened since my last post. Not having internet at our house has delayed my blogging a lot. So now I’m writing in Word and cutting and pasting posts when I get the chance to get to Josh’s work without the girls to use the internet. Let’s start in chronological order.

Dawn came to visit in June for almost a week (well, a whole week after she missed her flight back home :( It was great having her here as always. We were adventurous and took the girls to the Central Park Zoo. What a trip! We were troopers, lugging the double stroller up and down the stairs of the Subway. It is a great zoo… just big enough to do in one trip and still have enough energy (barely) to make the 1 ½ hour trip back home on public transportation. Here are some pictures we took at the zoo. We didn’t get a ton because someone was always holding Macy and the other running around after Aylah. Aylah liked the zoo but wasn’t too enthralled with it. She was more interested in climbing in and out of her stroller. Her favorite was the cow… go figure. I told her we’d show her lots of cows when we go to Michigan next month. Aylah watching the turtles swim around.

There was a group of people from our old church in Lansing that came for a week-long mission trip. It was good to see people. We only knew about 4 people in the group. It was really strange to see people that we knew in “our world.” We have this whole life that none of them knew. I think they had a good time here. We ended up having dinner with them a couple nights.

I’m not sure if some of you saw the news last week… Jersey City was on the national news. There was this huge shooting that happened only 1 block from New City (our old apartment). 5 officers were shot, one has died and it looks like the others will survive. The police were tracking 2 people who were involved in stealing a car and a shooting a month earlier. They got a tip that the people came outside early in the morning to move the stolen car for the street sweeper. So they got there early to set up a perimeter, but the people came out earlier than expected.. The 2 suspects pulled up their clothes to expose assault rifles and shots were exchanged (in the green grass area across the street from New City where I would always see the old men peeing) and then they ran back into their building. Next the police evacuated the buildings on the street and about an hour later went into the building to get the suspects. Their door was broken down, more shots fired around 7 AM and the 2 suspects were shot and killed. Deborah was on her way to New City since summer camp starts so early. She hit the police barrier and couldn’t go any further. She said that she heard the last round of shots fired. How scary! The streets were shut down for a long time, there was police tape everywhere and little evidence markers all over the street. The street, Reed St., is known for its drug dealing, etc. and has the name Smack Alley. I walked down the street to use it as a shortcut a couple times when we first moved here but got a weird vibe from it and didn’t feel safe so I have avoided it since. So that was a crazy part of our week.

Josh’s best friend Ryan and his wife Heather and 2 girls Ivy and Auburn came to visit for a week. 8 people in our apartment for a week… woah! But we did it and it wasn’t near as squishy with all those people as we thought it would feel. Our girls loved playing together. We had 4 girls ages 4 and under. We went into the city with them on Sunday and went to Central Park. The girls played on the playground, we had a picnic, and then went to the Zoo again. Aylah was still more enthralled with her stroller, but spent quite a bit of time looking at the polar bear. She’s crazy, that girl :) We’ll go back to the zoo maybe in a year and she’ll probably like it more.

A picnic in Central Park with the Schuts!

Shaded up and ready for the sun.Aylah loves playgrounds with tunnels, especially the ones at Liberty State Park.Aylah and IvyAylah and Mommy on the Hudson River at Liberty State Park.Josh and Ryan at the park. Rub a dub dub, three girly girls in a tub.

July 14th was Josh’s 27th Birthday! We celebrated the weekend before. We went into Manhattan and walked the Brooklyn Bridge over to Brooklyn. We went to a very yummy pizza place and then to the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory and walked back across the bridge. By then it was dark out and we got to see the skyline all lit up. It was so much fun to go without any kids and it was very pretty! Sometimes Josh and I forget how much we like to spend time alone with each other since the girls are always with us… we need to get out more without them. Here are some pictures from our night. The Brooklyn Bridge was so cool. I would definitely recommend it if you come to New York! The view from the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory.I made this delicious chocolate cheesecake for Josh on his actual birthday! MMMM!! Allison Dowell I thought of you :) I'll have to make it again soon. I put some strawberries and kiwi and shaved white chocolate on top!

July 23rd was our 4th Anniversary. Josh and I were talking and we both agreed that it seems like a whole lot longer than just 4 years ago that we got married. Probably because in that time we’ve had 2 kids, moved across the country, Josh got his Masters, and I worked for 2 years teaching. We had a good night at home with some Chinese food, a bottle of wine and some strawberries I dipped in chocolate… yummy! We are going to do our big celebration when we go to Michigan. My mom and dad are going to watch the girls for a night so that we can go back to our Bed and Breakfast we stayed at the night of our wedding. It should be great to be kidless! It will be only our 2nd night away from the girls in 2 years. Like I said, we need to get out more!

Here is a girl update:

Aylah is talking a ton lately and comes up with new things every day. She is now exactly 3 feet tall and weighs 33 pounds. She is in the 90th + percentile for her age. Her friend Ruth is only 3 months younger than her and Aylah is a whole head taller than her. Aylah still loves music! She has recently learned her ABC’s and busts out singing her ABC’s at the most random moments: in the car, when she is getting her diaper changed, while she is playing, in the stroller, at dinner time, in the bathtub. She also does this thing where she sings along to every song, even if she doesn’t know it. She’ll mumble along through the words and then when the end of a verse comes and a note is held she will listen to the word and say it and hold the note in an off-key voice. It’s funny! She is still in love with Macy. Yesterday she came in to the room after she got up and said, “Macy wake?” I said, “Yup.” “I go see her.” And she turned around and ran off. I laughed. This morning we were eating breakfast and Aylah said, “Mmmm, fowers!” “Yea! Aren’t they pretty? Daddy got those for Mommy.” “So nice!” Aylah responded. I laughed again.

Macy is the most smiley baby ever. She rarely cries and is very laid back. She is sleeping from 9:30PM to 6:30AM, which makes me feel like a more normal person again. She is 16 ½ pounds and is the size of a 6 month old. The doctor said we just have tall genes in our family. She is rolling over one way and has almost figured out how to roll the other way. I lay her down to sleep and by the time she wakes up she is on the opposite side of the crib b/c she moves around so much. She loves her exersaucer and Bumbo seat that helps her sit up. Here are some pictures and videos of our girls from the the past month.

Macy loving her stroller ride.
Aylah on the swings at Central Park.This girl loves to smile! She smiles the biggest for her Mommy.
It has been a while since we posted some Aylah dance moves. We just wanted you to know that shes still got skill!

No children are hurt in this video. I know, it seems like someone will but I've just learned to go with it. Macy loves Aylah and I'm all about the girls playing together.... with supervision of course.

I’ve been feeling a little sad the past couple days because one of my good friends that I’ve known for a long time, Allison, (she was in our wedding) lost her Mom to cancer this past week. It is really hard to know that she is in Michigan and that I can’t be there for the funeral, etc. It is one of the hard realities we have had to face numerous times over since moving. When it happens I always question us being here. It is hard to be away from family and friends, but in the end I have to remind myself that God has us here for a reason and that I know if we moved it would be against His will for us. Keep Allison and her family in your prayers, please.

Well, that was super long but I hope you enjoyed the pics. and update. We will be in Michigan from August 5th-August 17th. We are doing our drive through the night again with both girls. Should be interesting how they both do. We haven’t been to Michigan since Christmas and the last time we drove through the night with Aylah was last October. Our little Saturn is going to be packed to the limit! I’m thinking that its life is limited before we will need a bigger vehicle.

If you made it this far, you can consider yourself a committed Dornbos update blogger :)

Piggies

2009-07-04T12:46:00.001-08:00

Aylah's hair is finally long enough to put into pigtails. She tolerates them on most days. Here's a picture of her I took a few weeks ago.

I promise I'll write more later :)

Chachee

2009-06-21T15:26:00.000-08:00

Our Big 3 Month old!

I was walking into the bathroom today to take a shower and Aylah, playing in the kitchen said, "bye, Mommy. See you later, Mommy." pause "Mommy, chachee?" I said, "Yup Aylah, I've got my coffee. Love you." How bad is that? Everytime I leave to go somewhere Aylah is quick to ask if I have my coffee with me. Am I that addicted? I only drink one cup every morning but I guess it's such a habit now that it's Aylah's habit to remind me about my habit.

I snapped these 2 pics of Aylah reading to Macy. She loves her so much and Macy now smiles a huge grin whenever she sees Aylah. She does, however, tense up when she hears her voice because Aylah is a little aggressive, lets say, in her play.

I saw the drag queen again the other day. This time he/she was wearing a gorgeous green gown with a red hat. There weren't any police accompanying her this time :)

Well our little girl turned 2! I've had several moments when I just can't believe that I'm the mom of 2 kids, one of those being 2 years old. I have some pictures of the occasion that I'll put up. We finally got a family picture taken. Better late than never. So I made it our new website picture so you should take a look over to the right. Aylah was so fun on her birthday. She went around saying, "Hap birday!" and then saying "I two. I two old." I thought, yup, you sure are getting too old! She got to talk to her grandpa and grandma on our new web cam on her birthday. Thanks grandpa and grandma! I'm sure we'll use it a lot. She also received some great presents. A couple favorite are her new shoes from Deborah, Dora the video from grandpa and grandma, and 2 new cars and flip flop pajamas from Nana and Papa! And of course a purse complete with a credit card and phone from Uncle Jonah and Aunt Elizabeth and Ella (who by the way are expecting cousin #2 in February for our girls to play with)!!!

Aylah talking to her peeps.... she is getting to be a pro on the phone, if you can decifer toddler speak.

I finally got a few pics of our new house. These are just a few. I will put up more after this week once we purchase Aylah's bunk beds and move some furniture around in the bedrooms.

kitchenliving roomhallway looking into the kitchen from the living room

Our bedroom, which I hope to paint a different color someday. this is the color the whole apartment was when we moved in... till I got my hands on it. Poor Josh, I just love to paint too much.

Last weekend my good friend and roommate from college, Katie, got married in Georgia. Macy and I flew down so that I could be in the wedding. My sister flew over from Texas to help me take care of Macy while I did my bridesmaid duties. It was the first time she met Macy! I was sooooo happy she could meet her and it was great to see her again. I know that she was feeling homesick since she hasn't seen anyone from our fam since Christmas.

Here is Katie and I :)

Marie with Macy at the wedding.

A couple of Macy with mommy. Great job doing my hair sister!

While Macy and I were away, David came to visit Josh in NJ. Some of you may know David. He is in college now and plays football and runs track at Olivet! He is getting so old! I feel like his mom sometimes. We met him when he was only 14 years old. It was great having David stay for a while. He loved NYC when Josh took him. I think they were in Central Park in this photo.

Well, our summer is busy, as you can see. Josh just finished the job fair and is exhausted from a very very very long week at work. But I think he is happy with the new kids he hired for Summer camp and for next school year. Dawn is coming this weekend again and we plan on going to the Zoo in Central Park with the girls. I am super excited and feel blessed that she can come and visit again. Well, that's all for now.

Have You Ever...

2009-05-23T17:51:00.000-08:00

Have you ever been detoured on your way to church by a drag queen?

We have this past Sunday. He/She was wearing a very beautiful dark purple dress with some bright yellow beads and also one (only one) matching bright yellow rubber glove (the kind you wear to wash dishes with. He/She was talking with some police, who had stopped their car in the middle of a road we usually take to get to church. Guess we should have taken public transportation instead J

I went for a walk with Aylah earlier today and passed a dead cat, lying in a box on the sidewalk. I almost threw up. It looked as if only the skin was left and that something had eaten its insides. I told Josh and he told me he saw it this past Sat. in the same spot but that it looked like it still had its insides. Gross! Later today I saw animal control come and pick it up, thank goodness! It was on the sidewalk that the elementary kids walk on to get to New City.

I have a new best friend. It’s name is Oxi Clean. Since one of my love languages is quality time, we get along great. We usually spend some quality time together every evening around 8:00. So if you call and I don’t answer, I’m probably just hanging out with my new BFF.

We can see the New York City skyline from our kitchen window. I was admiring it last night as I stood on our fire escape and grilled some salmon…the sun was glinting off the windows of the skyscrapers and I thought it looked really pretty. So I took some pictures for your enjoyment as well. The 2nd one is of the Empire State Building. And yes we do have our grill on the fire escape but we can still get out and there is no one who lives above us so technically it’s not in anyones way. I’m waiting to get in trouble before we move it.
Macy went to the Dr. this past week for her ears and for her 2 month appointment. She is now 12 pounds, 7 ounces and 24 inches long. She gained 2 ½ pounds and grew 2 inches since last month. I’m about ready to cut off her middle of the night feeding. She is obviously thriving! She is above the 100th percentile in height and is in the 80th for weight. Her hearing is also fine. We had to get it checked since she was born with little holes in her ears where her sinuses didn’t close up all the way. They aren’t a big deal. I have them, my cousin Kirsten has them, and Aylah has them. Sometimes they get infected and you have to have surgery to close them, like I did. But most of the time they pose no problem. So we’ll just wait and see how our girls’ holes are.

Life for the girls is pretty good. They both love to smile; Macy for Josh and I and Aylah a cheesy one for the camera.

They also both like to sleep; Aylah still asks to go night-night after lunch and dinner :) Don't ask how we managed that one because we don't know.

Aylah still enjoys being silly. Spinning and jumping are her current favorites. Here she is early one morning in her pj's showing me her stuff. You can kind of see our living room in this video. I'll put up some apartment pictures soon.

June is shaping up to be a busy month with a possible visit from our friend David from Lansing, Macy and I are traveling to Atlanta so I can be a bridesmaid in my friend Katie's wedding, Josh has the job fair and a staff camping retreat, Aylah's birthday is the 9th..... lots of fun stuff to look forward to!

Macy's hair is what she is known for around here. I can get it to lay down, like in the pic. of her smiling, if I brush right after her bath. Otherwise is sticks straight up and curls. It reminds me of when I first knew Josh and was in love with his brown curls:)

Well, that's long enought for now. Enjoy and I'll write more next weekend.

Moved In!

2009-05-09T16:10:00.000-08:00

We are officially moved into our new apartment! Yeah! Josh and I love it. I love that I got to paint it fun new colors and decorate it. I'll eventually put up pictures when it is in decent order enough for you to see it. Right now we have lots of boxes stacked up in corners. And actually our whole 3rd bedroom is basically boxes. Josh's Mom was out to visit and help with the move (which we definitely couldn't have done without her help... she carried Macy around in the Baby Bjorn for like 8 hours on Sunday) and she was joking that we should just get a really long tension rod and curtain and make our whole 3rd bedroom a closet. It will be a miracle if all of our stuff fits in the closets. We'll have to make use of the very tall ceilings and just stack stuff to the top.

So this past week we bought a refrigerator.

Our refrigerator was delivered and couldn't fit through the front door... or back door. Oops.

Aylah is just so freakin cute right now. She is so fun to be with and I wish that I could spend more one on one time with her. She is learning how to count. She can go from 1 to 9 but sometimes says 1, 2, 3, pause, 8, niiiiiiine. She loves to say 9. She also still loves Macy. She is very, very excited to see her after every night and naptime. She says "Hi Macy!" kind of like it's the first time she has ever seen her. And she still runs over and gives her a hug and kiss.

Our new apartment might be more in the "hood" than our last place was, if that is possible. Our neighborhood is also very different too. Our old place had lots of diversity but our new place is all African Americans, oh and these weird 4 new white people who just moved in..... "are you lost ma'am?" "Um, nope, just going for a walk with my kids."

Macy is kind of high needs right now. I'm about to venture into letting her cry herself to sleep. I hate this part of the game but understand how important it is in the long run. Wish us luck. Crying at night can be just a little more irritating than it is during the day.

Dawn and I spent 3 hours in Ikea shopping for apartment furnishings when she was here. She was super helpful and I think we did pretty well considering we had both girls with us.

Here is a video of Macy I took today. I was trying to catch her smiling so it's a little "slow" to watch if you know what I mean but I mainly took it for my sister, Marie, because she won't be able to meet Macy until August and I know that she wishes she could see her sooner! There is also a video of Aylah with Macy... Macy makes lots of grunts and squeals, Aylah never made near the amount of sounds as Macy does :)

In a stroke of luck...

2009-04-30T10:55:00.000-08:00

Josh was able to upload photos. Here are 5 to keep you company until after our move.

The 2 above are of Aylah on Easter in her pretty dress.Macy and Aylah relaxing together.Macy has been smiling at Josh and Aylah and I for about 2 weeks now. I tried to catch one smile yesterday with her in one hand and the camera in the other.

A Life In Chaos

2009-04-24T10:17:00.000-08:00

Well, unfortunately we can't get our camera to upload pictures to our computer. So sorry, but you will have to wait a while to view some recent pictures and videos.

Our life seems like it is in utter chaos right now. Aylah is finally recovered from croup, Macy has the sniffles, and Josh has a cold that hasn't gone away for 2 weeks. He's pretty bad and I'm thinking he has a sinus infection.

Tonight is the Sara Groves/New City Fundraiser concert so Josh is off pushing himself to his physical limits and probably won't return home till well after midnight. Macy and I are going to attend but Aylah is staying home with a friend of mine since the concert starts past her bedtime.

Next weekend is our move in date. Our apartment is a shamble of boxes stacked tall along the walls. We are hoping to paint sometime this next week before we move in. I think I might have found some painters to help us (i.e. the New City interns). And I think we are going to have the teens help us move.

Oh, and did I mention we have a newborn baby.... No it really isn't as bad as it sounds. We are just busy and collapse into bed at the end of the day.

We won't have internet at our new apartment probably for a while so don't worry if we don't update this anytime soon. It will just take us a while to get our act together.

So until a later time... wish us well with the move and for Josh to have a speedy recovery!

How You Do Day

2009-04-17T17:43:00.001-08:00

Aylah greets Macy every morning with a personal conversation that goes something like this, "Hiiiii, Wacy (typo on purpose) "How you do day?" (How are you doing today). "Ni-Ni" (she was sleeping) "Nuki?" (she used her pacifier)" Ooohhhh! Wankie?" (blanket) "Oooohhhh! Tickle Wacy, aahhhh. Hold? Hold, Mommy?" (She wants to hold Macy) And then it ends with a kiss and hug. It's really quite hilarious and I'll try to get it on video soon.

I meant to add some pics/videos but Josh took our camera with him on the college tour so I'll have to wait til he brings it back home.

Macy went to the doctor this week. She is 10 pounds exactly and 22 inches long.... 75th percentile for both... we grow them big :) It is encouraging that she is growing so well since I am always wondering exactly how much she is getting to eat.

Aylah and I also went to the doctor today... Me for my 6 week appointment and Aylah for being sick. Aylah woke up in the middle of the night screaming/gasping for breath, shaking, and crying. She has a horrible seal cough so we went to the doctor and found out that she has croup. Her voice is hoarse and she was very clingy and tired today. I loved cuddling with her b/c she is usually up and down and all over the place. But I do wish that she was better. I'm bracing myself for a long night... it supposedly gets worse at night. She is on some antibiotics for 3 days and then I'm supposed to call and report how she's doing. My appointment was great. Everything looks normal and my scar is healing nicely and I don't have to go back for 6 months.

So I was talking to Deborah today about "The Kiss." The kiss is something that I never experienced until moving here. It is what I call it when males and females hug you and "kiss" the air next to your face. I was familiar with this before but only within the context of other countries/cultures. But since we moved here this has happened to me several times. The first I was rather taken aback and didn't know what to do. I mention this now because my OB (who is a male) gave me a hug/air kiss when he said goodbye to me today and wished me a Happy Mothers Day. Deborah was at the office with me watching Macy while I was in seeing the doctor. So is this an east coast thing? How about an "upper class" thing? I also laughed after it happened because Josh and I have had a couple conversations about my OB who is in his early to mid 30's, is married and has kids. Josh asked me what he was like one time and I told him and he asked what he looked like and I said that he was good looking.... which opened the door for jokes being thrown my way about thinking my OB was cute. So I just laughed in my head and told myself to tell Josh what happened. "Shady. Hitting on my wife." Is probably what Josh will say :)

Josh gets back tomorrow from being gone all week. He is exhausted and hasn't gotten much sleep... so I feel bad that he is coming back to a wife who is just as exhausted and a very sick little girl. Once he recovers we have to start packing and figuring out how we are going to paint our apartment... move in day is May 1!!!! I'm so excited I could burst. I'm so happy to move and put some distance between us and New City. It's time to have our own space.

That's all for now. It's 10:00 and I've got a little peanut to feed.

Mystery Gift

2009-04-09T16:08:00.000-08:00

We received a package in the mail about 2 weeks ago with 2 picture frames in it. One was "baby's first year" and the other was a school year frame.... I assumed it came from the same family that had bought Aylah her First Year frame when she was born and sent a thank you note. Ha ha, how embarrasing when that family called and said thanks for the note but the gift wasn't from us. :) Anybody out there want to claim the wonderful gift?

I have been bad at putting up new pictures so in the next day or so I will put up some pictures and videos of what Josh and I have started calling our "dynamic duo."

Aylah fell out of the bathtub tonight. I was sitting on the floor next to the tub with the tub on my left side changing Macy's diaper, who was lying in her bouncy seat. Next thing I know I hear this thud behind me and I turn to see Aylah with this stunned look on her face pulling herself up off the tile floor. She just stood there in the nude and looked at me with this shocked look on her face and then came over and sat on my lap. I have no idea what she was doing/thinking but bathtime was quickly over and she requested her pj's be put on. She was fine and didn't even shed a tear. Random story of the night.

Josh is going to sign our apartment lease tomorrow morning and hopefully convincing the company to paint the apartment with our selected paint colors. They will have to paint it anyway before we move in and so if they are going to paint it, why not help us out a little bit... Wish him luck.

Sleep Anyone?

2009-03-28T17:05:00.000-08:00

I'm glad that my memory is bad... because otherwise this whole sleep deprivation thing might have just ruled out my desire to have a 2nd baby. Is it really fair for me to be mad at a 2 week old when it's 4 in the morning and I just nursed her at 3 and she is still awake grunting in her crib in our bedroom? Probably not, I know.... but I was last night.

And am I going crazy when I wake myself up from a dead sleep because I hear myself say "shhh shhh shh" in my sleep because it's 2 in the morning and for some reason Macy is crying in our room and I can hear Aylah across the apartment crying in her room...? Nope, just sleep deprived.

Here are some quick updates:

We put in an application for an apartment less than a mile from New City. We can most likely move in May 1st. We are in the middle of submitting all of the necessary paperwork but we did already pick out the apartment we want as ours. It is on the 3rd floor and is currently being renovated so it is basically brand new. It has an awesome view of the Manhattan skyline and the Statue of Liberty from our big kitchen windows. It has 3 bedrooms so the girls can share one and we can have people visit (like you). And it has a large master bedroom so we won't feel like we sleep in a small box anymore :)

Josh is preparing to take the teens on the College Tour again in about 2 weeks. My parents are coming back out to stay with me during the week that he is gone... praise the lord! because I couldn't make it by myself for that long.

Our parents have all left for now and I just survived my 2nd day all by myself with the girls. I feel like at any moment they could both have a breakdown and I'll find myself in the fetal position in the corner. But for now I just take one day at a time.

Today Aylah plopped down on the couch next to me with her baby doll, lifted her shirt up and said "Milk?" I laughed out loud. It was bound to happen one of these days, right?

Aylah really likes to hit lately... not so good for her sister or for the amount of time she is spending in time outs.

If you know of anyone who is going to have a baby girl around June/July... we have an excessive amount of baby clothes from Aylah and from other people who have recently given us a lot of hand-me-downs for Macy. Needless to say we aren't planning on having any more children in the near future and are interested on pairing down quite a bit! We have onesies, pants, bibs, sleepers, and enough hats to clothe half of New York City.

That's about all I can think of for now. I'm feeling quite sleepy...

10,000 Days Old!

2009-03-19T17:54:00.000-08:00

I would just like to share that I am 10,000 days old today! I would never know this kind of information if it wasn't for the wonderful Allan Knapp.... a numbers fanatic. I didn't know this until halfway through the day so I'll have to do something tomorrow to celebrate this accomplishment. Maybe I'll go buy some shirts that aren't pregnancy shirts. I miss regular clothes.

I'll write an actual update soon, but just so you know things are going well except for the extreme sleep deprivation Josh and I are going through. We love our girls so much!

Macy Edelle's life in photos

2009-03-15T12:58:00.000-08:00

Macy and I came home Saturday morning and we are very blessed that my parents came on Saturday night. In just a few short hours Josh and I had trashed our apartment and were feeling very overwhelmed about taking care of our 2 little girls. Since I had a c-section I can't really move that well and can't lift Aylah... which poses lots of problems. Having help come so soon was amazing!!!! I can't even express in words right now. I'm healing more and more each day and Macy is doing incredibly well. We feel so blessed to not have the additional stress of a NICU stay with this little girl and felt so fortunate to be able to go home from the hospital at the same time. I would love prayers for nursing Macy. We ended up bottle feeding Aylah and so I'm really hoping that this time nursing is succesfull. So pray for a decrease in pain.... thank you!

Aylah LOVES Macy and points to her all the time, says "baby" and then tries to tickle her. She loves to hold her, be by her, push her in the swing.... anywhere Macy is, Aylah wants to be. She is doing much better today emotionally than yesterday. By the time I got home Aylah had been without her mom for 4 days and we could tell she was pretty out of sorts. Just too much of a change from her ordinary life. But..... Deborah, our wonderful friend, took care of Aylah basically the whole time I was in the hospital and left on Saturday saying that she thought Aylah was so cute.... what an amazing person to still be loving our daughter after several days of one-on-one care and a crazy, random schedule. We were very blessed to have her help us!

So here are the pictures. I will be able to write more later about other random things but I know that pictures are what people really want to see :)

Macy Edelle

2009-03-11T21:35:00.000-08:00

3/11/09 11:06am 7 lbs 11oz 20.5 inches

I'm sure Andrea will have a much more lengthy description of our little girl's arrival into the world and it will be a better one than I could give so consider this just a picture preview :) Thanks for loving us! -Josh

When doorways aren't big enough...

2009-03-03T16:55:00.000-09:00

Aylah was very excited about helping me gather all of my outdoor things to leave this morning. She brought me my shoes and coat and was going back for my hat. She gets very excited about leaving and especially excited when it involves hats. She was walking quickly across the kitchen floor to go get it and talking to me over her shoulder. She missed the doorway completely and ran smack into the wall, bounced off, and found herself flat on her back on the tile kitchen floor. I couldn't help myself. I burst out laughing, of course after I did a quick assessment and knew that there would be no tears. Aylah got up, continued on her path to retrieve the hat and brought it back to me. What a crazy little girl.

Our newest baby update is this: The doctor can not induce me due to the fact that I am not dialated at all and the drugs would be too dangerous to use (based on that I had a previous c-section). Therefore, if the baby doesn't come on its own before next week Wed, we have a 6 am appointment at the hospital on March 11th for a scheduled c-section. So hopefully the baby will come on her own, but if not, the end is in sight.

Ticking

2009-02-24T16:34:00.001-09:00

I feel like a ticking time bomb.... that I'm about ready to burst but no one knows when :) We went for our last ultrasound today and everything looks great. There is enough fluid, the baby was given the approximate weight of 7 pounds 3 ounces, and my placenta is not in the way anymore so I can have a natural birth and not be forced to have a c-section. So now we just wait. The doctors are giving me a high percentage of success for my attempt at a natural birth, since last time I had a c-section with Aylah. So hopefully everything will go smoothly.

We are still apartment searching and came across 2 that we went to see yesterday. One was almost funny that it was listed as a 2 bedroom, as it really could have been listed as a studio. The realtor was saying things like, "Oh, you can hang up a curtain here and make it into a 2nd bedroom..." Josh and I were appalled. The other one, though, is a definite possibility. We even printed off an application and filled it out but are taking a few days to think it over. But we really liked it. It is 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, with a living room and kitchen. It is newly refurbished and we would be the first people to live in it. So we'll keep you updated as to what we decide. Either way, we probably wouldn't move until May sometime so we still have time on our side.

That's my quick update. We'll keep you posted as to when the baby decides to show her pretty face in this world!

Always Been Faithful

2009-02-14T03:38:00.000-09:00

We hope you all had a good Valentines Day spending it with people you love. Josh and I got the chance to go see a movie and go out for dinner and Aylah was loving watched by a friend. It was the "last time out" before our life drastically changes for a while so we enjoyed it to the fullest :)

Here is a video of Aylah from this past week right after she woke up from a nap. She's talking so much now! It blows my mind sometimes.

At church this morning we sang a song by Sara Groves. It struck me because Josh and I have been talking lately about how faithful God has been to us, especially this past year, and how blessed we feel. Here are the lyrics. I think the title is "He's Always Been Faithful."

"Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.

Morning by morning I wake up to find
The power and comfort of God's hand in mine
Season by season I watch Him, amazed
In awe of the mystery of His perfect ways
All I have need of, His hand will provide
He's always been faithful to me.
I can't remember a trial or a pain
He did not recycle to bring me gain
I can't remember one single regret
In serving God only, and trusting His hand
All I have need of, His hand will provide
He's always been faithful to me.
This is my anthem, this is my song
The theme of the stories I've heard for so long
God has been faithful, He will be again
His loving compassion, it knows no end
All I have need of, His hand will provide
He's always been faithful, He's always been faithful
He's always been faithful to me."

February is so close to March...

2009-02-02T14:43:00.000-09:00

For those of you who were/are interested, the Feb 1 date has come and gone and all of my grad things are submitted. It was a rush at the end because one of my letters of recommendation backed out but I had a very thoughtful and kind person who stepped in and did one last minute. So now I'll just wait to hear from Rutgers and then if I'm accepted, decide if I want to start school this Fall or Fall 2010.

Another update is that one of the women who lived in the other apartment across the hall from us passed away. She has had a lot of health problems and has been in and out of the hospital. So the other woman moved out and so we have an empty apartment upstairs with us. I think the plan is to "spruce it up" a bit and have interns live there. Right now New City has to find individual placements for interns and I think it has been a bit of a struggle to find housing for everyone. So once we move in May, they will have 2 apartments. I think they would love to have one for girls and one for boys. Makes sense to me. I hope the girls get our apartment because they will appreciate the lovely paint on the walls :)

We recently purchased a double stroller off of Craig's List. We had a lot of family members give us money as a gift for Christmas for the purchase of the stroller. So I figured it deserved a picture or two. Aylah is sitting in the bottom seat. (I couldn't get her out after I took the pictures. She just wanted to sit in there for almost a half hour... go figure) The top seat is where the car seat will be able to snap in for the baby and then eventually either girl can use the top or bottom seat once we don't need the car seat anymore. It also has this crazy thing that folds down all the way for the baby to lay in and then the bottom seat that Aylah is sitting in in the photos snaps in above it in the front. Somebody spent a long time thinking up the design of this..... I'm very excited about it, hence the mention in the blog. Josh on the other hand is not too interested in it but I've come to accept that. I'm excited that it takes the bumps so well on all of the crazy sidewalks around here. I think it will be great come spring!

Here is a quick video of Aylah too on a regular ol day.

Aylah has been experimenting with her potty seat lately. Here are a couple pictures of her trying to figure it out.

Organic

2009-01-23T17:05:00.000-09:00

I was driving the other day in Hoboken and stopped at a stoplight. I noticed on the corner a neon sign lit up at a dry cleaners that said "organic washing machine." What? I laughed out loud and a mimic laugh resounded from the back seat along with an "it's poop" comment. Which made me laugh even more.

Aylah's favorite current subject is poop. She is convinced that her baby doll has pooped all the time and even requested a diaper be put on her. So Cabbage Patch doll Mertyl Emma received the first size newborn diaper instead of our actual little baby. She also walks around and snatches diapers from the basket on her changing table and then kicks it into high gear and heads for the farthest reaches of the house giggling and doing her little funny side kick run. When I catch up she gets a very serious look on her face and says, "it's poop." Crazy little girl and crazy that my life revolves around conversations on poop right now.

I went to a friend's birthday dinner last night. I was driving again through Hoboken down the main street and it was crazy busy! People and cars everywhere and my first reaction was, what are all these people doing out?! It is so late! I then looked at the time and remembered that it was only 8:00pm and yes, other people in the world have lives that involve them leaving the house after 7:00pm. Hmm.... I don't really quite remember what that's like anymore. All of the lights of the city sure did look pretty and I enjoyed sitting in the "leather lounge" at some swanky place along the Hudson river. Kind of crazy that we live only like 2 miles from where the plane crashed last week. I guess it's docked only a mile away from here getting looked over by investigators.

Josh got a new office at work! He was super excited and picked out a sage green color for the walls. It goes well with the MSU office chair he has. We went searching for pictures for the walls at IKEA last week and now we just have to hang them up. Josh has been working a lot and is actually gone this weekend on a teen retreat. I don't envy that part but I'm not looking forward to being alone all weekend with Aylah.

I'm still busy praying our baby comes a few weeks early and counting my numerous practice contractions that I get all day. I got out some baby stuff today; baby Nuks, baby bottles, a swaddle blanket... Aylah just kept watch from a nearby spot on the floor with a look of confusion and distrust in her face. She's in for a rude awakening.

Oh I have a clumsy story to tell. So I trip over things all the time now and even fell going up the stairs the other day.... no harm done except to my knee. When we got home over Christmas Aylah's pile of toys turned into an avalanche and I decided we needed to donate some old ones and get a big plastic tub for the new ones. So as I was wading through her tornado of a room with a newly purchased tub, I tripped over all of the toys and fell on her new plastic baby doll stroller. I heard a snap and looked down in fear and sure enough, I had broken off one of her wheels. I felt horrible but not too bad since she was still pushing it around after that and didn't notice that she was 3 wheeling it. But later on that day she noticed me holding the 4th wheel at which point she took it from me, knelt down and was trying her hardest, complete with grunts, to put it back on. I then decided it was time for some hot glue. So I took out the gun and hot glued it back on. Well, my hot glue job lasted all of 2 hours and then I was helping Aylah push it downstairs and the wheel broke again. I was having a bad mommy day. So I waited for our superhero to get home. The superhero said we would just have to throw it away. I threw a pillow at him and told him it wasn't an option. So superhero then took the hot glue gun and when he was finished the wheel was back on and the stroller operational. No more incidents since then and Aylah is happily pushing it around our apt. every day. Phew.

Josh's Mom and our sister-in-law Elizabeth and niece, Ella, came to visit last week. We took a little video of the girls playing with blocks. I'm sure that only our family members who know the 2 girls will appreciate this... but here it is. Ella introduced Aylah to the idea of putting things on shelves and Aylah liked to walk around behind Ella going "shhh" because Ella loves to test out the acoustics in every room of the house :)

And lastly here are a couple pics. from bathtime in January. Aylah loves the water when it comes out of the spout! and as you can see in the 2nd picture she is still working hard on growing her mullet :) We have to take bath pictures in black and white because the tub and tile are both pink and so combined with the flash the picture turns out an orangy color.

Countdown

2009-01-11T15:16:00.000-09:00

People have been asking lately how I'm doing. I tell them that I've been on a countdown since day 2.... so if you're wondering I have 7 weeks and a couple days left. But I might have purchsed a package of Newborn diapers this past week in not-so-secret hopes of our little girl coming a little early. I also have brand new Nuks and a can of formula (in case this girl decides not to nurse like Aylah did) So now I'm just waiting. Not really sitting on the couch and watching the time tick by... but excited when another week passes. My doctor says that everything looks great. I've gained 20 pounds so far and am enjoying eating lots of food for the time being! We have to wait until the last 2 weeks or so to have our ultrasound that will determine if my placenta is too low or not. If it is then I'll have to have another c-section but I'm hoping it moved up and I can have a natural birth.

We had a great time in Michigan for vacation. Three weeks was just a little too much time to be gone for Aylah and I. At the end we were both wishing for our own beds and the solitude of our home. Even our extroverted daughter had had enough of people. And Aylah was also teething the last week we were there... 2 new ones on the bottom, complete with sleepless nights and lots of drool and a crabby attitude. Too bad Josh missed out on it ;) But we loved being there nonetheless.

Josh and Aylah and I saw lots of friends and spent time in both Traverse City and Holland. We took some fun Christmas photos that I'll put up along with a video of Aylah sledding with her Nana.

Aylah and I playing dress-up one morning, keeping warm inside from the cold, rainy day outside. (hence the ladybug rainhat and sunglasses.)

Aylah helping her mommy pack.
Aylah Christmas morning in Holland.

Aylah loves trucks and was very excited about the dumptruck her Aunt Marie gave her.

Aylah playing with a new bathtoy from her Grandpa and Grandma. She has played with it every night since she got it. She loves it because it sings and she can dance to it.

Aylah got a huge bag of blocks from her Uncle Jonah, Aunt Liz, and Cousin Ella. She was so excited and dumped them all out. It didn't take long for her to start building and for her Daddy and Papa to join in on the building.
Papa and Aylah opening gifts in Traverse City
Aylah and her Daddy.
The building continued...

Aylah and Auburn, her new Traverse City friend. (Daughter of Josh's best friend, Ryan) Their Daddy's were outside trying to get a car unstuck from the driveway...

Aylah loved playing in the snow! She loved sledding the most!

Aylah and her Papa getting ready to sled down the driveway in T.C.

Aylah and her Nana on the way up the driveway... and on the way back down.

It's a....

2008-12-26T07:37:00.000-09:00

GIRL!!! For those who were wondering, we did open our envelope Christmas morning and found out we are having a little girl in March. (Or as Andrea hopes, late February)

We are very excited that we will outnumber Josh 3 to 1 :)

Taking a Break

2008-12-17T09:19:00.000-09:00

This is just our official family notification that the Dornbos' will be taking a break from our blogsite until after the New Year. Andrea and Aylah flew into MI on Monday the 15th. Josh will be joining them hopefully the 20th. Then we will hop around the state to such exotic places as Lansing, Holland, Traverse City, Muskegon, Grand Haven.... and probably more. So if you would like to catch us, give us a call and we'll hopefully be able to arrange a time to see you. Josh will return to NJ on the 1st and Andrea and Aylah on the 5th. Then I'm sure there will be some fun Holiday photos to post.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Thanksgiving!

2008-12-02T13:19:00.001-09:00

We had a great Thanksgiving this year. Justin and Marguerite Sellers, friends from MI, drove all the way out to see us. Marguerite and I managed to create a pretty yummy feast. This was my first turkey and I was very nervous. It was 19 pounds! I know, a little excessive for only 4 people, but I could pick out any turkey for free up to 21 pounds, so why not!

Here is a pic. of Marguerite and I (and 27 week old baby). We were quite proud.
Aylah ready to chow down and eat. (We only have 4 chairs so she was relegated to the floor) Our Thanksgiving Feast before we ate.

MMMM, yummy turkey. Not quite done yet but I got excited to take a picture.

So we basically ate lots of food, took a few walks to show the Sellers around our neighborhood and city and spent a day in New York City. We had a great time and were glad we could spend the holiday with people we loved. I wasn't feeling any homesickness, I think because we had such great company. I am excited to head to MI on the 15th, though, to spend some extra time with my family and see a certain very great friend of mine who I haven't seen since August 2007!

Yesterday Aylah walked into the living room and handed Josh a diaper and said "It's poop." Josh just laughed and was like "yeah right." But then I walked in and noticed that she really did smell. So this was the first time Aylah announced to us she needed a diaper change. She also has a new favorite word "NO." Josh likes to ask her things like "Do you want a cookie?" "Do you want money?" "Do you want a car?" "Do you want a boyfriend?" And she always answers, "No." He jokes that he needs to get all of it down in writing.

I Don't Belong

2008-11-21T04:27:00.000-09:00

Yesterday I felt like I didn't belong anywhere. I stood in our apartment and watched a lady stand in the middle of the road to wait for the bus. Cars flew by her within inches and honked and she didn't budge. There was something wrong with the woman, obviously. She looked homeless. This seemed normal to me but at the same time crazy. There were other people at the busstop who didn't flinch as this was going on. This situation was "more normal" to them than it was to me. I don't quite fit here.

Then last night I went out for dinner/drinks with some moms from my Mom's Group. We all live in Jersey City and when we break up for prayer at our meeting, the Jersey City moms always group together. There were 5 of us. We went to a fun place downtown which everyone knew but me and ordered things off the menu that were their "favorites." I was just in awe of #1 being outside at night and looking at the lights of the tall condos and office buildings and #2 Watching the people walk around with no sense of danger. Both things we don't have in the part of Jersey City where we live. The moms talked about visiting museums in the city with their kids, feeling too tired to take the subways and taking taxis instead, and a mess of other things. To which all of them I just listened and thought, "I don't belong in their world. I don't live in a skycraper condo on the waterfront overlooking Manhattan. My husband doesn't work in the city and make tons of money. I can't afford to do crazy things every week in the city with Aylah...... I couldn't relate. Sometimes I find it easier to relate to the moms in Jersey City and Hoboken, but last night I didn't. I just don't belong.

So as I was pondering my feelings and trying to figure them out as I came home last night, I realized I felt stuck between 2 worlds. I zipped my way through the streets of "inner-city" Jersey City, taking all the shortcuts, and pulled up outside New City feeling like I had just been transported to a new world in a matter of 2 miles. As I lay in bed later I figured out just what my feelings were; I don't belong.

Maybe I will feel that way the whole time we're here, or maybe I'll figure out ways to transition better from one to another but still feel like myself. Whatever I do, maybe it's good that I have that feeling that I don't belong. Maybe that's how God wants it to be? He wants me to not hold too tightly to this world and not feel like any part of it is my "home." But instead desire for his home more than anything else in this world.

Climbing

2008-11-18T02:42:00.000-09:00

Aylah learned how to climb up on the couch this week, as well as take off her shirt and diaper... could be trouble on the horizon. I'm surprised she lasted this long. Her younger cousin has been scaling beds for months now.

I took my GRE test yesterday... my head hurt for the rest of the day. I forgot what school was like. But I definitely passed and got the score I needed in order for Rutgers University to look at my application for their Masters program in Educational Administration. So now I just have to turn in my stuff and wait for an answer. I'm so glad the GRE is done! I feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I might burn my flashcards.

Other than that we have been pretty good. Not too many exciting events going on. I'll write some more later. We are getting very excited for Thanksgiving break with friends coming and lots of good food. I'll let you know how my first turkey goes...

New words from Aylah: bye-bye, night-night, okay, alright, no, wow, brrrrr, yeah

My latest addiction: International Delight coffee creamer flavored Amaretto or Chocolate Mint Truffle. Yummy!

Halloween and a Birthday

2008-11-04T07:04:00.000-09:00

Our smiley girl getting ready for bed in her new pj's (the kind with the feet) I'm sure you all remember those...

This past week has been pretty eventful. Josh has been busy at work. New City's foyer area is under some intense construction to expand the area and turn it into 2 offices (hopefully), one for Josh and one for Deborah! A door with a lock on it... finally! And Aylah has been busy brushing up on her dance moves and expanding to different music genres. Josh and I have found ourselves in a little bit of slump lately. We're not too sure what to blame it on but are looking forward to our friends Justin and Marguerite visiting over Thanksgiving!

For Halloween Aylah was a ballerina. A last minute effort on my part to throw together a costume resulted in a not too bad tutu and pink ensemble. I'm glad I didn't put too much effort or money into it because Aylah ended up "losing it" in one of her temper tantrums (she's working on getting better at those too) in the middle of the Halloween Parade in Hoboken we were marching in. Resulting in me pulling her onto the sidewalk and heading for home earlier than expected. But besides the minor breakdown Aylah had a great time going door to door at the stores with her large plastic pumpkin and gathering candy for her parents to eat. We then found a friend from Mom's group and watched part of the parade with them before joining the parade for our grand total of 3 blocks before Aylah's episode ;) So my pictures this year were diminished in number due to our short time at the festivities. Aylah was still a little confused about why people kept putting things in her pumpkin and wanted to sit down in the middle of the crowded sidewalk to figure out just exactly which candy it was that had been added. Maybe next year will be her golden year...

Watching the parade. Aylah loved the Elvis float because Elvis was shaking his hips like she does when she dances.

Saturday was my birthday- I'm 27 now- which ended better than it started. Aylah is teething again and has been in a very, let's just say, fragile mood lately. She has been running a fever, is cranky, is refusing to eat or drink anything, and is waking up several times a night. She has improved over the past couple days so we hope the worst is over. So Saturday was her first rough day. Josh got me some pretty pink and red roses and the DVD's of Alias ;) Then we went out to dinner and a movie. Which may seem simple but it was just what I wanted to do. While we were waiting for the movie to start I realized my last time in a theater was the month before Aylah was born. I've got to get out more ;)

This weekend I'm going on a Women's retreat with our chruch. It's my first time to leave Aylah for the weekend and the first time to leave her alone with Josh for more than 5-6 hours or so. He said that he's scared he's going to forget to feed her, but I'm sure he'll be fine! We noticed that on weekends that Moms go away and leave the kids with dads that moms express hesitation and doubt as to whether the men can handle it. Josh asked what that was about and I told him that being a woman, and a mom, that I have a pretty good perspective. I think that moms express their feelings of doubt because they really want their husbands to appreciate what they do as moms and want to prove, in some sort of way, that what they do is worthwhile and that men couldn't live without their wives.

Here is the day before Halloween with Aylah dancing to a little Dixie Chicks. I realized that all of our videos lately are of her dancing... probably because every day she comes up with new moves. So below is another video of her dancing to a music card that Josh's parents sent me for my birthday. (Sorry they are both sideways. I'm not going to promise I'll ever figure out how to rotate them :(

And finally a list of words that Aylah can say that some people have been asking for. Mind you they might not sound exactly like the actual word to others, but to me, I know exactly what she is trying to say :)

"ma-ma" "da-da" "hi" "banana" "shoes" "sock" "cracker" "milk" "more" "all done" and my favorite from last weekend that was so clear and easy to understand I about fell off the couch
"I want more." How's that for ya?

She still, however, makes the monkey sound for all animals that she sees; dogs, birds, horses.... we'll have to work on that :)

What Does it Mean?

2008-11-04T05:45:00.000-09:00

What does it mean when your daughter no longer is frightened by the loud car alarms outside your house but, instead, dances to their music?

Don't forget to vote today! Aylah voted 2 times, once with her Daddy and once with her Mommy. (I used her as my spy to tell me how her Daddy voted.)

A Long Week

2008-10-27T15:05:00.000-08:00

Last week Monday Josh's Grandma Dornbos passed away. She had complications from her heart bypass surgery. So we yet again loaded into the Saturn and headed off to Michigan. It was a long week but we were glad that we could be there for Josh's parents. We got back at 6:30 this morning and are attempting to recover from our drive through the night.

While we were there we heard lots of political conversations about the election and decided that it was all a little too much for us... too many John McCain supporters for our liking ;)

We were also around plenty of older people who felt it was their place to make several comments on the weight of our daughter. It is a touchy subject with Josh and I. Probably because I have struggled with a poor body image my whole life. We have talked a lot about how important it is to me and him to not pass this down to Aylah and our other children because of how hurtful it has been to me. It has been a generational thing in my family and I want to stop that. So when several people make comments about Aylah's weight at the age of 16 months... it is frustrating to us. Comments were made about her stomach that she must be drinking too much milk and that she looks big for her age and that she is "solid." We talked about how all of those comments came from an older generation of 70 years+ and we were wondering if that is a common thing for that generation. We were also wondering if it is not considered rude for that generation and kind of expected... like commenting on the weather. No matter what, though, it made me sad to think that so many had to comment on the weight of a 16 month old. It just made me feel that much stronger about working to give my daughter a positive body image. just some thoughts from Andrea.

We also had our 20 week ultrasound last week Monday. Everything looked great except that my placenta is low. They are having me go back in 8 weeks to do another ultrasound to check to see if it is moving upward. I'm not really worried because the doctor wasn't very worried.
The baby is starting to do sumersaults which feels real funny!

We'll write more later and hopefully put up a couple pictures from the ultrasound.

The Psychic Hairdresser

2008-10-14T15:20:00.000-08:00

Last week I got my hair cut at a place in Hoboken. I have been there before, but have never had the same person. I went wearing a hoodie, that is important because you couldn't really tell that I was pregnant. The lady who cut my hair was a little hard to understand when she talked, like I may have only caught about 30% of what she said. So needless to say we kept our talking to a minimum and only to what I wanted my hair cut like. Halfway through the haircut she stepped back, looked at me and said something along the lines of "He told me (some words I didn't understand) you pregnant?!" I just stared back at her because I wasn't too sure what she had said and I was trying to figure out who "he" was. So then I just said "yes, I'm pregnant." At which she responded, "Oh, it's a boy I'm pretty sure and he's healthy." I wanted to get up and bolt but my hair was half cut and it was 5 weeks past due for getting a cut as well. So I had to stay in the psychic hairdressers care until she was finished cutting, drying and styling.

So if anyone would like to know we are having a boy and he's healthy. (According to the hairdresser) Mind you this in NOT true necessarily and you and Josh and I will all just have to wait until March 6ish to find out if the psychic was true.

This was also my first psychic experience and I don't believe I will be intentionally seeking out another "reading." ;)

Switching gears, Josh and Aylah and I went to an apple orchard to pick our own apples and pumpkins on Monday. We had a great time; came home tired with a car full of apples and cider donuts. Yummy! Oh, and a very cute little pumpkin that we let Aylah pick out. In the picture of Aylah and I that's part of an apple sticking out of her mouth, not a tooth... although she does have 10 teeth now.

Our last update is that Aylah has finally figured out how to turn doorknobs and open doors.... better watch out!

Spiderman!

2008-10-05T08:51:00.001-08:00

Justin and Marguerite... this one is for you :) Take a look at Aylah's feet....

I've been desiring that Fall festive feeling I get this time of year. It's hard to aquire it when our trees don't change colors, it's gray and blah, and no one decorates with fall type things like pumpkins and leaves and Halloween stuff.

Josh and Aylah and I are going to an apple orchard in the next week or two to pick our own apples, eat donuts and cider, and go on a hayride to a pumpkin patch. I think Fall might be tied for my favorite season with Summer (at least when I'm in Michigan) In Jersey I think my favorite season is Spring because it is not unbearably hot yet. Maybe that will get me into the Fall mood.

Here are a few quick pictures from the past week or two. I will write more later but I'm currently battling a yucky cold and don't really feel like typing but sleeping instead.

Our child has the cleanest teeth on the block ;) She loved wearing her new winter coat from Grandma and Grandpa!

Yes, we did secretly go to Michigan for 3 days. Evan, Josh's cousin, got married to April and we also spoke at a church in Grand Haven that supports us financially. Here are the cousins... well minus Betsy because she left early and Jonah because he is in Afghanistan. Don't we look cute?

Before we left for the wedding my Mom took a family picture of us :) Aylah didn't come because the wedding wasn't until 7 and that's her bedtime. So she explored downtown Holland with my Mom and Marie and made lots of new friends.

Don't Forget to Brush Your Teeth

2008-09-24T15:37:00.000-08:00

Aylah loves to brush her teeth. We taught her this song that goes along with it. She loves the noise you make in the song :)

We have had some exciting days lately. We caught a mouse in a sticky mouse trap but it got away! We were gone for the night at a friends' house and so when we came home we only saw the evidence of the sticky trap being moved across the kitchen floor with mouse fur in it. Oh, and that yucky mouse poop on the counter. We'll get him next time.

Our kitchen also flooded Sat. night due to a poor decision to run our dishwasher overnight (the kind you hook up to the sink) oops. I'm taking blame for that one.

We also had an incident with Aylah, a container of yogurt, and our living room furniture. I knew it was way too quiet in our apartment. I should have known better :)

Baby #2 is doing great. It's kicking a lot and we get to see him/her in 2 weeks for our 20 week ultrasound. I don't think we are going to find out the gender.

I have been addicted to my new Swiffer Wet Jet lately. No more crawling around on the floor 3+ times a days cleaning up after Aylah after she eats.

Josh and I caved to social pressure and got a combined facebook page. We think that the whole idea is crazy, but whatever. It is kinda fun to see people we haven't seen in years.

Here are some pictures and a video from last week Monday (Josh's day off) We headed out to the suburbs and found some nature trails to hike. Aylah loved it!

Aylah loves to give kisses :) Here she is giving herself some.

Bank Smashing

2008-09-13T09:46:00.001-08:00

In the course of one week Aylah managed to smash and break both of her banks with money in them.
Bank #1: was a porcelin bank that was small and square and said, "My First Bank." It was very cute. But in one fell swoop she grabbed it off of a shelf by her changing table that she was standing up on while I pulled her pants up and chucked it over the edge. It hit some toys on the floor and shattered. One down, one to go.

Bank #2: was a large glass jug filled half-way with coins from Josh and I. It was our feble attempt at saving some money for Aylah for college. It was actually a jug that Josh's grandma had given him to save money for college. It still had the total amount of money he saved for college in coins... somewhere around $450 if that gives you an idea as to its size. So this time I was changing Aylah again and she was playing with a small plastic cube. She decided she didn't want it anymore, threw it the length of her body, it bounced off the top of the jug and I heard a cracking and shattering sound. Now this one baffles Josh and I the most. This heavy-duty jug, lugged from dorm room to dorm room to apartment to apartment to Jersey City, decides to give up the fight with a small infant plastic cube. Go figure.

We laughed and said that Aylah must have received her Mom's knack for saving ;) and rolled up the coins to donate to the "Josh and Andrea have lots of debt from college fund."

Onto other random news:

Aylah babbles/talks to me nonstop all day. Sometimes she looks at me with a look like she is about to give me an evaluation on my job skills as her mom and says "Mama" and raises and lowers her eyebrows while she does it. I just chuckle and look back and say, "Yes, Aylah." Then she bursts out laughing, everytime. I haven't the slightest clue what she is saying.

Aylah went to the doctor for some more shots. I swear she has gotten at least 25 since she was born. This time she was feisty and it took 3 adults to hold her down while the doctor gave her 3 shots. She weighed 25 pounds 2 ounces. Is 31 1/2 inches tall. Her head is 19 inches. So in percentiles that is 80%, 75%, and above 95% (gotta love the big head :)

I signed up to take the GRE test. The first in many steps in attempting to go back to get my Masters in Educational Administration and to keep my teaching certificate valid.

Baby #2 kicks pretty frequently and really seems to like the peanut butter and chocolate bars I made. It has eaten almost a whole pan in 4 days (with it's Daddy's help of course.)

Josh loves his teenage staff this year. A couple that he says he'll have to "keep his eye on" but he is impressed with their work skills after the first week.

Josh has now gone back to his school year schedule where he works Tuesday-Saturday and gets Sunday and Monday off.

There are 3 new interns at New City (one will be moving out at the end of the month). They are all from Michigan and are straight out of college and are all white. Josh and I have had some pretty interesting talks lately about how this changes the dynamic amoungst New City staff and about how we are perceiving things to change with more white people on staff that black people. It has caused us to be more intentional in some ways in our interactions. We are still sorting through our ideas and opinions on all of this. We think that New City should go to Urbana (the Missions conference) and have a booth there to attract a wide variety of applicants.... just one pondering of our many. The interns that are here are doing a wonderful job so far and I think Josh is excited for some extra help with tutoring the high school students.

I haven't forgotten about the cockroach story... I'll get to telling that one of these days.

We saw a mouse a couple nights ago on our stove and then it ran in our room. We chased it out and couldn't find it after that. The battle begins again.

Two Blue Lights

2008-09-11T16:36:00.000-08:00

I'm standing in our bedroom right now (or actually sitting since now I'm typing) and I'm looking out our windows. I can see very clearly 2 amazing beams of blue light shooting way up into the black night sky and piercing the clouds overhead. They are the lights from the World Trade Center site at Ground Zero. We saw these last year but it still blows my mind that for one, we can see them from our bedroom window, two that we have been here a year, and three that the world still goes on. There are kids screaming and playing outside, planes flying overhead that I can see, Josh and I are watching a presidential forum on TV.... and all the while these stately blue lights are shining up into the sky. It just made me pause to think tonight. Hope it does the same for you.

New Post Down Below

2008-09-04T17:10:00.000-08:00

So I have this great new post that I made but saved to add to it.... and now it's showing up in order of the dates I did them. So if you scroll down under the Baby Dornbos post you will see lots of fun pictures of our apartment and neighborhood.

Enjoy!

Baby Dornbos at 12 weeks

2008-08-29T10:13:00.000-08:00

Here are our 2 ultrasound pictures of the baby at 12 weeks. They are both basically the same view and a little fuzzy but hey, what do you expect at only 12 weeks. We were able to hear the heartbeat which I always love. It was 165 beats per minute. Normal is 120-180 so we're told. Aylah's was fast too so we can't necessarily follow the old tale that fast heartrates equal boys! The tech said that the baby was measuring perfect with how old he/she is. We'll go again at 20 weeks. As of right now I think we are going to be surprised as far as the gender goes. And you'll just have to wait on those names too. I know, we're mean. But that's part of the fun when the baby is born. We loved telling people that Aylah was a girl and what her name was :)

The first picture is a profile with the head on the left. You can see the jaw, mouth, nose, etc. and then the stomach and legs sticking straight up. This little person was moving around a lot the tech said:) It reminded us of Aylah.

The second picture is basically the same thing but this one the arms are pulled up and the white fuzzy thing about the head is a hand.

Here are some pictures of Aylah after a bath the other night. Can't get enough of those books.

The next post I'm pretty sure will be apartment/neighborhood pictures and the one after that my cockroach/flying bug in my bed story. The cockroach story might be hilarious in, oh say a couple weeks, but since it happened last night when Josh was gone.... I'm still a little too traumatized to talk about it jokingly ;)

Where We Live

2008-08-22T09:32:00.000-08:00

Here are the pictures that lots of you requested of where we live. The first ones are of our apartment that is above New City and after that are the street and neighborhood around us.

I'd like to start us off with the crown jewel of the place, our pink bathroom. I took 3 so that you could really appreciate the floor to ceiling tile and of course the all pink tub. MMM makes you think Pepto Bismol right?

Next is our hallway. All rooms, except for our bedroom, have doors to the hallway. The bathroom is on the right and then the kitchen. The closet at the end is the death closet where we have captured and killed 2 mice. Then the doors on the left are the living room and then Aylah's room. Next is a picture of the living room and then Aylah's room. Aylah's room used to be our room, hence the muted colors, but we switched with her since her old room has a door out onto the rooftop where we grill after she goes to bed. It is also the bigger bedroom, which will be nice when the baby comes so that we can maybe have room to cram in a toddler bed. Otherwise our friends the Ehrlichs gave us the idea of putting the newborn in the bathroom... hmmm. We'll see how it goes.Next is our kitchen with our bedroom off the back. Too bad we can't just magically swap our bright blue room and Aylah's room color to the way it used to be. The blue is a little intense for me some mornings.

And finally the door to the rooftop is to the right when you walk into our bedroom. These are pictures of the roof and the "view" we have. You'll notice the bars on the windows. We have those on all of the windows that meet up with the roof. We also have some lovely barbed wire fencing along 1 side of the roof. The back is open into people's backyards so we can't exactly let Aylah have the run of the joint. Plus it gets really hot up there in the summer! So there you have it, our apartment. All 750 square feet of it.

If you look to the left out our front door you see this view with car body shops down the street around the curve. Next door is an old school turned into an apartment complex.

If you look to the right you will see the corner New City is on. The dome type thing is a laundromat with apartments on top. Down the street further are a couple barber shops, Women Rising, and then on the next corner our fruit/veggie market. There is a big empty parking lot on the opposite corner where some semi-trucks park sometimes.

This is the corner by our apt./New City. This is looking to the right. There is a Mexican/American restaurant down on the left and on the right is a basketball court. There is this weird guy who sits in a folding chair on the sidewalk on the right in the mornings. He frequently proposes to Deborah and I. Also one block down is our corner store that is the cleanest, doesn't have a cat pee smell, and doesn't try to sell us 2 day old copies of newspapers :)

Looking to the left at the same corner is down Monticello. It's a pretty long straight shot of weird guys that wander around, homeless people, barber shops, corner stores, etc. I avoid this stretch of the road because I usually get approached by random people. On the right you can see a yellow awning of "Deli Fresh Grocery." There is nothing fresh about this store, it smells like cat pee, and they sold someone at New City a pack of gum with a cockroach in it. Yummy.

This is New City's front door/our parking lot/Aylah's playground.

This is the New City building to the right of the parking lot. Our apartment is the first 3 windows on top. The other apartment are the other windows. We go in the green front door under the New City sign to get into our apartment.

One Year

2008-08-22T09:14:00.000-08:00

Yesterday as I walked to the post office to mail a package and then go to the park with Aylah and then back up the street to a birthday party for a girl Aylah is friends with I realized.... One year ago today I flew out of Grand Rapids and into Newark to start our new life in Jersey City. Aylah was 2 1/2 months old, I had never seen the place where I was going to live, and I was scared out of my mind. I remember very vividly hugging Katie Middlestead goodbye at the airport, too afraid to bring my parents in fear that I would break down and cry and not get on the plane. And then I remember getting delayed in Detroit for 3 hours, getting on the plane and then having to get back off again, a sick joke by the airline. And I finally remember seeing Josh at 11:30 PM that night waiting patiently at the baggage claim and thinking that I was finally "home." So much has happened since then it is almost too hard to remember it all. But this is not meant to be a sentimental post... maybe another day. So on to some other stuff.

Aylah and I had a very busy day yesterday. It ended with her sitting in some spilled pop at the birthday party, falling into mud, and then while she was in the bathtub... she stood up and peed and pooped right into the water. Josh was laughing I didn't think it was that funny considering I was the one that had to clean it up. I mean, how DO you get runny poop out of a tub of water. I'll spare the details.

Yesterday Aylah also surprised me by something she did. Here's the video to prove that those little people are always watching you.

I realized when we got home from vacation that I stink at taking pictures on vacations. I only took some on one day when we were in Traverse City and headed to the beach with Uncle Jonah, Aunt Elizabeth, Cousin Ella, and Grandma (Dornbos that is). So here are a few of Aylah enjoying the windy, cold day and mucky water. :) And one with her Aunt E, Uncle J, and Ella.

March 6, 2009

2008-08-19T15:50:00.000-08:00

Did you see our new ticker at the top? That's right, Baby #2 is on the way. We were able to tell lots of people in person on our trip to Michigan. So if you didn't get a face-to-face telling, then here it is :) I'll write a longer post in a few days; we are still in the unpacking phase and getting back to normal life. But we just wanted everyone to know how excited we are. We are going for an ultrasound next week I think so maybe we'll be able to get a picture of the new little squirt up. Aylah and the new baby will be 21 months apart. So not quite 2 years. Some people just look at me and say, mmm, you'll be busy. But I'm very excited, maybe a little hesitant about the whole pregnancy thing again since those aches and pains are still a little to familiar in my mind, but excited none the less.

Also to come: while we were on vacation numerous people asked about pictures of our apartment and also of the street/surrounding area where we live. So I'll get to work on those too.

Happy Anniversary

2008-07-28T18:08:00.000-08:00

This past Saturday my anniversary surprise was to go on a dinner cruise along the Hudson River overlooking the Manhattan skyline and other notable sights such as the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges and some gorgeous waterfalls and the Statue of Liberty all lit up at night. It was so much fun!! It was probably the best thing we've done involving the surrounding area since we moved, except for maybe going to see The Lion King on Broadway for my birthday. Deborah so graciously babysat Aylah for us. Here are a few pictures of the sights we saw. Most are kind of blurry due to the fact that 1. our camera isn't really meant for nighttime pictures and 2. the boat was always bobbing and moving and the camera said "steady camera for best results" Sure thing Mr.Camera. So anyway, here they are.

This first picture was taken right when we left the dock around 8:00. You can see the Empire State Building and the New Yorker building pretty clearly. Pretty cool.

The next 2 pictures were taken along the East side of Manhattan. There are 2 bridges, the Brooklyn Bridge in the foreground and the Manhattan Bridge in the background. You can also see waterfalls under the bridge. There were probably a total of 5 that we saw. The city of New York just completed building them. They range in size and are located at different spots around the city. They spent 18 million building them. They are meant to be tourist attractions. They were beautiful all lit up in the night. The best one was the one flowing right under the Brooklyn Bridge.

This 4th picture is of the Brooklyn Bridge looking at Manhattan.

The next one is Lower Manhattan, around the business district.

The last 2 pictures are these 2 people we don't know but they insisted they get their picture taken for some anniversary book their very sweet aunt gave them for a wedding gift... ;) and also The Lady all lit up. She was quite stunning but I got the giggles because the DJ on the boat played 2 patriotic songs right in a row while we were passing her ;)

So there you have it folks. Thanks for viewing the Dornbos Family Vacation Slideshow. You can all go home now.

On a sidenote, no more posts till we get back from MI around Aug. 16th. We hope to see lots of you very soon!!!

Bob that Head!

2008-07-21T11:40:00.002-08:00

Here are some quick things that have happened, with some pictures, since the last time we posted.

Josh turned the ripe old age of 26 on July 14th. Here is a picture of the 2 of us on Pier A park in Hoboken celebrating with a picnic (minus one child :) You can kind of see the Manhattan skyline in the back. We stayed out past 7:00 (gasp!)

Our 3rd year Anniversary is July 23rd. Josh has something up his sleeve, as usual, but we are going to wait until this Saturday to celebrate because he says that it will be more fun if we wait until then. Instead we will be enjoying some Lemon Chicken on our actual anniversary. The Lemon Chicken is a funny story. I'll tell it real quick. On our 2nd date, Valentines Day, Josh made dinner for me. I was quite impressed by his culinary skills. He had salad, bread, Lemon Chicken, and pre-made cookie dough for chocolate cookies. A few months later we were walking around Meijer, bickering about something as we usually did in Meijer (I used to hate that store but now I miss it a lot) One of Josh's comebacks was, "Yeah well you know what. That Lemon Chicken I made for you on Valentines Day...." He then held up a lovely box from Campbells that said "Lemon Chicken" and told me, "it came out of a box!" and stormed off down the aisle. I was pretty ticked off at the time, for numerous reasons now. But later and still today we laugh about it. And so boxed Lemon Chicken is sometimes how we celebrate big events in our family :) Here's a little visual...

I'm getting kind of worried about Aylah's vocabulary. Her only words are hi, mama, and dada. I don't know yet if my worries are founded on anything in particular, but I'm sure I'll be searching online soon. She seems behind other kids her same age. I'm sure she'll be fine but the teacher in me is kicking in.

Aylah is still really cute though.... to prove it, here she is enjoying her first Peach not cut up into pieces.

It has been over 90 for 5 days in a row. Our mattress has a permanent location in our living room where the window air conditioner is. Don't worry about Aylah. She's rolling in the best room in the house. Her room has the other window air conditioner and is the most efficient one we have.

We had one massive cockroach in our kitchen around 6:00AM one morning. I screamed for Josh and he came out of the bedroom and saved the day. Take that Mr. Cockamaroach.

My sister, Marie, came and we went for a week vacation in the Pocono Mountains. I managed a whole hour long hike with Aylah's 24 pound frame on my back. If anyone is interested in inventing a new kiddie hiking backpack with cushier straps, I'd pay big money.

Aylah knows a lot. She knows that she shouldn't be touching the books on the shelf or the DVD's on the DVD towers. She knows it so well that she crawls right over, grabs one off, looks us in the eye and shakes her head no. Then we come after her and she runs squealing across the room looking for a place to escape. She also knows that she shouldn't throw her food off her tray onto the floor. She knows it so well that she will hang her arm over the edge, look us in the eye, shake her head no, and then drop it without taking her eyes off of us. Aahhh. Looks like we've got a live one on our hands.

We are leaving for Michigan in exactly 11 days! We are so excited but still have no clue where we will be when. We'll work on that and let you know. I'm pretty sure that we'll be at URC on Sunday, August 10th for a Dornbos Mission Extravaganza (that's what Josh and I called it after Tom Stark from church told us all the stuff he would like us to do) We are excited to see everyone again!

Now the last for the best. We love the Knapp Family.... they are great. They sent us the new Rascal Flatts CD and dedicated the song "Bob That Head" to Aylah. So here she is jamming out to it. Enjoy!

Nukies

2008-07-09T09:12:00.000-08:00

The frustration of my existence lately has been Aylah's Nuks (pacifiers). For some reason I have been on a streak where I lose one almost every time I leave the house. My brain has been a little non-functioning lately and I have been forgetting her Nuk clip so that it attaches to her clothes. Here are some places I've lost them (and sometimes found them again) lately:

Pathmark shopping for groceries: found after an announcement over the intercom

The Mall: not found

The Car: Thrown out the window by the princess herself. Note to self, don't roll down Aylah's window so that she can reach out

New City Summer Camp: found and returned just today

So I thought we were down to 3 but then one magically appeared under Aylah's crib and so we're back up to 4. My hope is that they will all just eventually get lost and then we won't have them anymore. Otherwise they are just going to be "given to another baby" sometime in the near future. But for now, Aylah is contentedly sucking away while taking an afternoon snooze.

New City Summer Camp started on Monday. So far it seems like everything is running very smoothly. Josh is getting used to being at work at 7:30. I'm getting used to getting up every morning at 5:30 with Aylah and we are both liking the fact that Josh gets done around 4 or 5 now instead of the usual 7 or 8 during the school year. Summer camp runs for 3 more weeks and then we are heading to Michigan for 2 weeks. I am beyond excited!

My sister Marie is coming this Friday and her and Aylah and I are going to the Poconos Mountains for a week to stay in a cabin/condo thing. I am so excited! The sad part is that Josh won't be with us during the week since he has to work. Speaking of Josh...

Josh's birthday is coming up on July 14th! The big 26. I told him it's not so bad. Since Marie will be here, I am going to come back to Jersey City and spend the night here with Josh on Sunday the 13th. Marie gets to watch Aylah overnight. It's her first time away from both of us. I'm sure she'll be fine. But I am very excited to not have Aylah so that Josh and I can stay out later and do fun things for his birthday. I'm working on some good plans :)

Other than that, that's about it right now. We are just enjoying the summer, taking lots of walks, playing in the kiddie pool, and having play dates with my Mom's group people. Aylah's record is about 12 steps as of last night.

Here is a Aylah stuck in a corner exploring the living room on the 4th of July, playing around with her shades from her cousin, and a PB and J face from yesterday's lunch.

Walking and Teeth

2008-06-29T13:15:00.000-08:00

Aylah has taken 6 steps on her own so far. We have "walking time" several times a day to try to boost her productivity. Ha. I've got too much time on my hands. Anyway. Here is a video from this weekend of a few steps Aylah took.

We also realized today while flipping her upside down that she has another tooth coming in on top on her left, bringing the grand total up to 5 teeth. No wonder why she has been not fun to be around for the past 1-2 weeks. I'd be crabby too.

Here are a couple pictures of Aylah and her Daddy from yesterday relaxing in her kiddie pool on our rooftop :) In the 2nd one you can kind of see her top 2 front teeth.

Dornbos Trivia and Cell Phone Pics

2008-06-26T02:33:00.000-08:00

Our internet at New City has been down for a week and a half. I felt like I was detached from the world. But now it's back.

Here are some quick facts about the last 2 weeks in the Dornbos' life plus a funny story.

Aylah has 2 teeth finally on the top. For a week she just had one and we called it her fang.

Aylah has taken 3 steps on her own and is standing up without holding onto things. We gave her a pep talk since her cousin (2 months younger) is already beyond her. She doesn't like to be embarrassed around Ella :)

Aylah knows these words: mama, dada, hi (accompanied by a hearty wave), and of course the monkey sound and a bee sound. We are working on "book" since she reads by herself in her room all the time.

Two weeks ago Josh and I saw a semi-truck do a U-turn on a 3 lane road. Only in Jersey City.

One of our window air conditioners started leaking yesterday and we didn't notice until it had saturated our couch, which is right under the air conditioner. We put it outside to "dry out" and hope that it doesn't get moldy.

89 teenagers came to the job fair at New City to try and get a job for Summer Camp and/or After School Center '08- '09. The fair was 3 days long. 34 kids got hired. Josh fielded calls all day on Tuesday talking to disgruntled teenagers who had gotten letters saying they weren't hired.

We are pretty sure we found the hole where the mice were getting in last Winter. Josh plugged it up. Take that mice!

Our dishwasher that was given to us is hooked up and my life now no longer consists of doing dishes for an hour every day :) !!!!

Aylah has 3 "boyfriends" Sam, Luke, and Evit. They are all from Mom's group and boys that Aylah and I have been hanging out with lately. Each of their moms have told me that their sons talk about Aylah all the time. They are all 2 1/2 years old. Aylah likes "older men." :)

Last week Aylah and I were at the park and I looked up the see a red-headed, fair skinned, green eyed woman with a 10 month old son. The first thought that crossed my mind was, "Is she lost?" and then "Does she know that this neighborhood isn't safe?" After those moments I introduced myself to my twin and we exchanged numbers.

Everyone around here goes to the park. Everyone. Nobody has a backyard to play in so the norm is going to the park. My Mom's group friends usually go 2 times a day. One in the morning and one in the afternoon. So that's where all the moms hang out and talk and let their kids play. Our nearest park is a 10-15 min. walk away and is called Lincoln Park. Aylah and I go a couple times a week. It has a water portion in it with metal things that squirt water all over. So Aylah and I are going to go try it out next week.

Aylah is getting tested for lead this Friday because we found out that the New City building used to be a battery factory. (eeeek)

And now for the story. About a month ago Josh took the teenagers on a professional visit to the Walgreens Pharmacy. The teenagers were allowed to count out pills and fill some prescriptions while they were there. (I was glad we didn't have any prescriptions there!) Josh was waiting out in the lobby area with a little girl whose cousin was a teenager on the trip (random I know). This woman sat down next to Josh and started to engage in what is a pretty typical Jersey City conversation, telling Josh lots of things he didn't need to know. She told him that she had a flower arranging business and then took out her cell phone to show Josh pictures of the arrangements that she had done. (Still pretty normal for Jersey City). Then she said that her favorite arrangement that she did was for her husband's funeral. Josh was kind and gave his sympathies but then before he knew what was happening the lady flipped to a picture of her dead husband with flowers ON HER CELL PHONE! Who stands over their dead husband and snaps a picture with their cell phone?

All right that's all...we'll get some pics up later this week.

Happy Fathers Day!

2008-06-15T03:22:00.000-08:00

Aylah Eyes and I are making breakfast in bed for Daddy this morning. Well, really Aylah is crawling around on the floor dragging her books all over the kitchen and Mommy is making pancakes. But Aylah is sure to get all the credit ;)

Happy Fathers Day to all of you Dads out there, especially Josh, Grandpa Dornbos, and Grandpa Howard!

Happy Birthday Aylah! (June 9)

2008-06-10T06:25:00.000-08:00

Our little girl is 1 years old! It is very hard to believe! She seems to have changed so much in just the past 2 weeks. She is more like a little person and less like a baby now in my mind. She has been such a joy lately. Giggling and laughing, making her monkey noise, following me around the house crawling, usually dragging some toy along with her, babbling to me as she goes. This morning I was watching her carefully place 2 of her new toys up on the coffee table, accidently knock one off, bend down to put it back on, and then stand up to admire her work. Then with one fell swoop she swished them off onto the floor, looked down at her accomplishment and then started giggling uncontrollably. In my mind, that is toddler-hood at it's best. She's my little toddler now and I love her so much!

Doug and Dawn visited this weekend. We had such a great time with them and the weekend went super fast. At lunch time we had a party for her, which grew greatly in numbers when the adults invited brought all of their kids because school had been cancelled. School cancelled in June you ask??? Well, when the heat index for the past 3 days is at 103 degrees, I guess that's what they do.

So Aylah's party was fun. She got lots of presents from relatives and very nice friends that we opened on Sunday when Doug and Dawn were here. Let's just say we've used 12 AA batteries in the past 2 days to supply all of her new toys with power. You may have to call and check on me in a week or two to make sure I'm not going insane!

Here are a few picture of the excitement and a video of people singing Happy Birthday to her and a video of her eating her first piece of cake!

I got to go sailing today in the Hudson Bay with a few other people. It was very hot and sunny but very fun! Sometimes I ask who I am to be sailing by the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island on a random Wednesday. I'm not sure but I like it. New City has a City Sail program they offer during their summer program. The mission of the program is to "Open the New York City waterways to the young people of Jersey City through the power of sailing, help them develop teamwork and valuable life skills." Lots of the kids live so close to water but never get the opportunity to go on it or in it. They aren't privileged enough to experience it. Even today we went on the sailboat with a 19 year old who had never been on a boat before. Totally opposite from my life living on Lake Michigan.

We've had some interesting Jersey City stories lately... we'll tell them soon. They include a dead husband, an interesting U-turn, and much more.

Just an average day

2008-06-04T14:53:00.000-08:00

We are doing pretty darn good right now. Aylah, besides being a little grouchy today, has been increasingly fun to be around. She loves to be chased across the floor while she's crawling. She usually stops and turns around to check to make sure you're still chasing her and then continues on her way. Still no steps on her own. She is still too hesitant to venture out on her own.

My sister requested a vertical picture of Aylah for some reason so here are a couple I took today while Aylah and I were lounging on the couch.

I just thought the last one was too cute to not put up :)

Aylah turns 1 on June 9th!!! It seems like forever ago that she was born and we can't remember what our life was like without her. We are having a little party for her on Monday when Josh's parents will be here. I'll make sure I take some good ones of her eating her first piece of cake. And I'm seeing what I can do about a little crown or birthday hat.

There are 2 more days of New City's After School Center. Josh is gearing up for the Job Fair in the middle of June. I guess more than 100 teenagers come to try to get hired to work during the Summer Camp and during next year's After School program.

A little Jersey City story..... earlier this week I was walking down the sidewalk to our car to go to my kickboxing class. These 2 guys across the street stopped walking, pointed, and laughed at me. I was a little taken aback. I figured that there could have been numerous reasons why and here they are: 1. I was wearing hot pink workout shorts 2. My legs are pasty white 3. I have red hair 4. I look like a girl from Holland, MI But did they really think that I could have been lost? If I was lost I think that I probably would have looked panicked and would have been running towards the nearest police officer.

So I haven't made any real conclusions except for the fact that I felt like it was the first day of middle school again and I was standing in line to get my picture taken and Tanya Almanza told me that I looked like Crusty the Clown. I have no idea what could have given her that idea (Maybe it could have been my glasses, bangs, multi-colored striped vest, orange jeans, and turquoise and orange bands on my braces) Jury's still out.

I may not wear my hot pink shorts walking to our car again.

Just for Katie Middle

2008-05-22T17:10:00.000-08:00

My rockin' cool friend Katie Middlestead is working with Food for the Hungry in the Philippines. She hasn't seen Aylah since she was 2 1/2 months old. So when I was talking to her the other day on the phone she was surprised at how much she could do. So I took this video just for her :) (Again, sorry it's sideways. I'm computer deficient)

Here is also a video of Aylah from yesterday. She loves to dance when she hears music. Yesterday this commercial came on. It's one of those really annoying companies who always have these commercials with jingles that get stuck in your head. I was about to change it but looked up and witnessed this....

At random points during the day if Aylah thinks she hears anything remotely close to music, she will stop and start shaking her bootie. Go figure that she loved the annoying commercial the best.

Our life has returned to normal again after all of our travels. Josh has had some interesting conversations/experiences with the New City boys lately. You'll have to call him to get some updates since they are not very suitable for blogging. I think he has been disappointed by some of the decisions they have made lately. We are sticking around for the Memorial Day weekend and just relaxing with some friends.

Let's see... Oh, Doug and Dawn are coming out in 2 weeks on Aylah's birthday. That should be really fun! Josh hasn't seen Doug since Christmas and the last time Doug was here was when he drove out here with Josh and the moving truck. Our apartment looks a little different now :) Aylah's first birthday party is going to be a cookout on our rooftop with Josh's co-workers. Nothing big at all. More for her Mom than for anyone else. I'm going to attempt to make a very fun cake with Wendy's help. Wendy works with Josh. She explained the whole fondant thing to me... still don't completely understand it but we'll see how it goes. Aylah doesn't really watch TV or have favorite characters so I picked out the colors pink, brown, lime green, and white. I found matching invitations and plates and cups and stuff. As you can see I'm into it a lot more than anyone else in the family. It's her first birthday and I'm excited!

In Aylah news, she says hi to everyone and waves at them. It's very cute. We are also going sneaky style on her with the whole milk. She hasn't been into it lately so I'm mixing different percentages of formula and whole milk gradually until it's all whole milk. Then hopefully we can stop buying a can of formula every week for $20 and instead a gallon of milk for the bargain price of $4.50 here in New Jersey.

That's all. Enjoy the Memorial Day weekend!

Chewing Milk

2008-05-17T10:12:00.000-08:00

Some days I just laugh about being the mother of a small child and today is one of those days. I am currently sitting next to Aylah who is eating lunch in her booster seat. We have been giving her whole vitamin D milk. Some days she drinks it all but not today. She is staring at me with this nasty face and trying to chew the milk in her mouth. It is obviously a thicker consistency than her formula... but does it seriously require "chewing" through? I wish she could talk and that you too could see the hilarity occurring in our kitchen. More to come later...

Happy Mothers Day

2008-05-11T07:44:00.000-08:00

Happy Mothers Day to all of you Moms out there! My day started with my daughter sleeping until 9:00 AM... a gift that she didn't even know she was giving :) Then Josh made me coffee and waffles (each with his own secret recipe.... I didn't ask) and now I'm relaxing on the couch while he cleans up the kitchen. Pretty good day so far. We would have gone to church but since the alarm clock that I birthed didn't go off until 30 mins. before we were supposed to leave, we just skipped. I'm not sure what the rest of the day will entail but I'm going back to my kickboxing class today for the first time since all of our vacations... I'm expecting it to kick my butt but we'll see.

So we are back from California. Jonah finally got to meet his little niece for the first time! We had such a great time visiting Jonah, Elizabeth and Ella! Here is a picture of all of us. It only took one shot to get. Aren't we all just so photogenic ;)

We got to walk along the ocean, swim in our hotel pool, and the girls loved playing together. Ella is a little speed-racer crawler and was always moving! The girls would squeal when they saw each other every day and whenever one woke up from a nap. It was really cute. While we were there Aylah ditched her army crawl and is doing all hands and knees crawling. I think she was a little embarrassed that her little cousin was lapping her in the crawling department. Her top 2 teeth aren't coming in yet but we can still feel 2 perfect little teeth right under the gums. Ella got her top 2 teeth while we were there. Maybe Aylah will feel some pressure now that her cousin is starting to catch up. Here are some pictures from our trip.... enjoy.

Josh, Jonah, Aylah and Ella

The girls loved to be by each other and crawl around after each other.

Aylah and I in the pool. Aylah loved the water so much! She would kick her legs so fast that she would start spinning in a circle in her floaty toy.

Our little fish

Aylah loves bathtime!

Our family on the beach. This day we saw a harbor seal that was washed up on the beach get rescued by the Sea World Stranded Animals unit. (I thought of you Molly :))

Teethers

2008-04-29T07:04:00.000-08:00

I'm going to make this a quick one because Aylah is currently chewing on the corner of the keyboard pullout on the computer desk at my parent's house. Which makes it slide in and out and particularly difficult to type. Aylah is finally getting more teeth. Either 1 or 2 on the top. But she is doing great and no nasty smelling stuff is coming from her lower region this time around. (yes!) We are flying back to Jersey today and I am super excited to see Josh. Sometime around Saturday I reached a point when I decided that I would hate being a single mom. I lasted about 1 week on my own. It makes me feel very thankful right now for Josh!

Michigan was absolutely great! Traverse City was very relaxing and I always love spending time with Josh's parents. Seeing nature again and living in the woods for a few days was just what I needed! Holland was beautiful too. I didn't really see any friends in Holland but got to spend lots of time with Marie and my Dad and Mom. I think the best part was going to Lansing. We saw lots of friends that I missed a lot (and found out that our close friends Kevin and Rachel are moving to Chicago in July :( Being at University Reformed on Sunday was so fun. I saw lots of friends and got lots of hugs and saw lots of babies that have been born since we left. It was uplifting to be there, encouraging, and so many things that it's hard to describe. I got a little teary eyed when I was driving back to Holland on Sunday night. It's hard to describe how much I loved living in Lansing and value our friendships there so much. Aylah and I stayed with the Knapps when we were there, too. I love that family :)

So tonight we get to see Josh :) and then we leave on Friday for California. Sorry no pictures this time. Josh took the camera with him on his college tour. But we'll take lots when we are in Cali! Oh, I got my hair chopped too. It's the shortest I've ever had it. I really like it and I hope Josh does too. ;)

That's all for now. I need to go find Aylah as she disapeared around the corner after giving up on pulling the alarm clock off the desk. She might be pulling all of the diapers out of the box... thats what she does when I notice she gets quiet.

Oh Martha!

2008-04-15T10:54:00.000-08:00

Oh Martha! That is a phrase that echoes in my mind from 9 years ago when I was on the Varsity Tennis Team. Our coach would scream "Oh, Martha" whenever she was demonstrating a drill and ended up hitting a bad shot. She got the phrase from a not-so-lovely mom of one of the JV players. The mom's name was Martha and she was kind of a, well, interesting person. She was always complaining about how her daughter didn't get enough playing time and was very deeply involved in everything regarding her daughter. So after many bad confrontations with this woman, our Coach decided to yell "Oh Martha." We on the Varsity team knew what it meant and would giggle every time she said it.

But this Oh Martha isn't about Coach Page (even though she was a great coach!) or about Martha Urbin. This is about Martha Stewart. Deborah and I got tickets to a taping of the show and we are going this Thursday morning. I don't know who will be on it or when it will aire, but when I do, I'll let you know. Then you can look for me in the studio audience. :) Here in NJ our Martha show is on from 1:00-2:00. But I don't know about other parts of the country. So Martha wasn't my first choice but Deborah really wanted to go and told me you get lots of free things. So I agreed to go if we could also go to Regis and Kelly one day. I love that show.

Switching gears, the spring production at New City was last weekend. For the most part it went off without a hitch and they raised lots of money to help support New City. So things are a little less crazy this weekend and staff is in a gearing down mode because Spring Break is next week and there won't be any kids around.

Next week is also when Josh takes his 8 teenagers on the college tour up and down the East Coast. I think he gets to spend some free time in Miami! Next week is also when Aylah and I will be in Michigan. So I probably won't post for a while. But after we get back I'll try to get a few pictures up before we leave for California. If I don't, just be patient. I'll only have 2 days to do laundry and re-pack before we leave again.

So life in general is pretty good. Aylah is becoming more "toddler-like" every day. She knows how to high-five and almost has "How big is Aylah?" "So Big!" down pat. She tends to stick her arms out to the side instead of up in the air :) She loves going for walks in our neighborhood and looking at all of the people. We are something out of the ordinary so most people just stare as we walk by. Aylah loves it. She throws one leg up on the front bar and hangs one arm over the side of the stroller and just chills. Josh and I took her to a nearby park on Sat. when it was really warm and pushed her in a baby swing. She giggled for part of it and then decided that people watching was more fun. Go figure. We think that she is going to be a daydreamer just like her mom and dad were when they were little ;)

I'm only 12 years postpartum

2008-04-09T11:39:00.000-08:00

I'm finding little hilarities in my life lately. I was talking to this woman at the church we go to and she was referring to the fact that she had been doing Pilates but couldn't do some of the moves. Her doctor told her that she was only 2 years postpartum and not to worry about it, that she would get those stomach muscles back someday. It made me laugh later on that day because I was thinking about a teacher I worked with in Charlotte. When I was pregnant she always told me not to worry about losing my baby weight. She would say "I've still got baby weight on me. I'm only 12 years postpartum." I would tell Josh and swear up and down that with every child I'd be back to normal by 1 year. So my question is: How long can you use the excuse, "I'm only _____ years postpartum?" I'm beginning to think that it's as long as you feel like it's still a viable excuse. I do have some pity and understand what moms are saying. I had a c-section and so they sliced through my stomach muscles and it was hard to even sit down, breath, cough, and laugh at first. But I'm pretty darn sure that 10 months later I'm pretty much back to normal. So those are my baby thoughts for now.

Oh, Aylah also went to her 1o month doctor appointment. She is 20 pounds 3 ounces and 28 3/4 inches long and some huge number for her head cirumference. Her head is above the 95th percentile. The doctor told us it was fine and my mom and mother-in-law said that she just has lots of brains.... that girl better have a 150 IQ. I'm totally just kidding;) I don't think her head looks big, so I'm not too worried about the percentile.

This weekend is the Spring Production at New City. It's the biggest fundraiser of the year. They do skits, music, drama, poetry, rap..... lots of stuff for the teens to show off their talents. Everyone is stressed out and I think Josh will be glad when this weekend is over.

Then Josh is taking 8 kids from New City on a college tour up and down the East coast. I'll be heading to Michigan for that with Aylah. I'll be in Traverse City from April 18th-22nd, Holland from April 22nd-25th, then hopefully Lansing the 25th at night through the 27th and then who knows. But I leave on Tuesday, April 29th in the evening. So give me a call because I'd love to see anybody and everybody.

After Aylah and I get back, all 3 of us will head out to California to see Jonah, Elizabeth, and Ella on May 2nd! We are so excited because Jonah has still not met Aylah and we haven't seen Jonah since they got married in Feb. of 2007. So it should be fun to hang out there for a week in sunny southern CA.

What else. Oh, our oven has been broken for about 3 months now. But George the building manager told me this morning that after the Spring Production is done that he will go and buy us one. I told him I'd appreciate that. I have to literally sit by the stove to make sure that things don't get too crispy or not done at all. I don't mind too much. At least it still bakes stuff (on most days). This couple from our church told us that they are moving into a new place probably and they will have an extra dishwasher with a counter attached on top. I call it an Occupational Bonus! I told them we'd take it! Who cares where in the kitchen it will fit. I'll get rid of the dining room table if I have to in order to fit the dishwasher in there:)

So that's basically our life right now. Looking forward to visiting and seeing people and feeling like God is blessing us with stoves and dishwashers. Well, I'm pretty sure that Josh isn't nearly as excited about those appliances as I am, but no big deal.

Heading out to the corner fruit stand to find some rhubarb. I'm thinking rhubarb pie sounds good.....MMMMM

Sometimes You Just Have to Giggle and Clap

2008-04-05T06:25:00.000-08:00

Aylah learned how to clap. Here she is showing off her stuff. :)

Sorry I couldn't figure out how to flip it again... someday I'll get it right.

Aylah and Mommy tickling.

Happy Anniversary

2008-03-30T07:23:00.000-08:00

It's my parents' 34th Anniversary today. If you know them, you should call and tell them "Happy Anniversary!" It's made me think about Josh and I. We've only been married 2 1/2 years. Imagine 34. Geez, they must be old. Just kidding. That's a lot of life to go through together. My hope is that Josh and I are just as in love at 34 years as we are now.

Love you Mom and Dad!

Aylah In a Week

2008-03-26T07:12:00.001-08:00

Here is what Aylah has been up to this past week...

She refused to take naps one day but was so exhausted! We realized that it was finally quiet in her room so we creeped in to see if she was sleeping. Well, she was, but we had to wake her up since it wasn't safe. :(

On the same day as her nap protest she also got a new car seat since she outgrew her other one. Here she is loving it! It was the only time she smiled that day. Go figure.

Here is Aylah on Easter Sunday. I was so excited to have an excuse to dye easter eggs this year. I let Aylah play with them in her Easter dress and she ended up with permanently dyed orange/red lips for the rest of the day :)

This is what happens when you give Aylah a container of her favorite food, Cheerios.

I sure love these Cheerios, Mom!

Your Time Cards Are in the Freezer

2008-03-20T14:08:00.000-08:00

So here is a funny New City story to add to the already great day that it is (NCAA basketball Tournament kick-off day)

This story happened maybe 2-3 weeks ago but I think that it's really funny still so I'll share it. One morning Deborah, the After School Center Director (who also just graduated from Calvin College) came in to find a melted box of ice cream bars on her desk in the front foyer. Yummy huh? So she of course cleaned it up and mentioned it to Josh. Josh, however, had been in the building the night before and knew who had done it. Apparantly some teenage boys found the ice cream bars in the freezer and were very excited about eating them. But when they opened them up, they realized that they had gone bad. So they must have left them on Deborah's desk, not paying attention to what they were doing.

So Josh asked Deborah where she had put the melted ice cream. He went and fished the box out of the garbage and took out 2 ice cream bars and slit them open on the end. Then he took the 2 teenage culprits' time cards that they use to clock into work every day, stuffed them a little ways into the ice cream bars and put them back in the freezer. He then left a note on the time clock saying "A and G, your time cards are in the freezer. Don't leave melting ice cream on Deborah's desk." So when the boys came in they had to fish their time cards, that were now frozen into the ice cream bars, out of the freezer.

HE HE I laughed histarically when he came up for lunch and told me this. Maybe it's funnier to me since I know the boys who did it, but hopefully you will find some entertainment in this story as well.

Happy Easter to everyone! We are planning on taking some cute pictures of Aylah in her Easter dress with some eggs and stuffed animal bunnies. We'll post some pics soon.

Look Out!

2008-03-17T08:57:00.000-08:00

Aylah is crawling. She's funny. It's more of an army crawl, but still gets her where she wants to go. Every day she gets faster and every day we put more things out of her reach. She is also getting pretty fast at going from her stomach to sitting to standing. She is pulling herself up and we have had to relocate our coffee table due to it's sharp edges that gave her 2 bumps above her eyebrow yesterday. Here's a video of her crawling this morning. She usually doesn't pause halfway through but her Daddy was in the room and distracting her from her final destination (usually the book shelf or DVD towers)

All of our guests have left and our apartment seems big. Josh asked me what I was going to do this week and I don't really know but don't really care. Just rest and stay home with Aylah. We had so much fun with people here. We went into the city a lot and spent time exploring areas that we had never been before. (And found lots of new places to go when the weather gets warmer)

Aylah got invited to her first birthday party this week Friday for her friend Sam. He's turning 2. An older man, I know. We'll have to have a little chat before we go.

So we have to buy Aylah a new convertible car seat. Any suggestions fellow Moms out there?

That's all for now. I'm going to call some people back I have neglected in the past few weeks.

Two

2008-03-10T11:07:00.000-08:00

Aylah now has 2 teeth. Both on the bottom. We found out about the 2nd one when she took a bite into my Dad's hand when they were here visiting and he pulled out a finger with 2 teeth marks. I was surprised. At least we didn't have the horrible experience with the 2nd one as we did with the first. She is also crawling army style across the floor. Sometimes she gets a knee under her, but mostly it's army style crawling. I've been experimenting with her. If I put a toy out in front of her, she won't crawl for it. If I put my cell phone out in front of her, she is half-way motivated. If we put a bottle out in front of her, she'll get there no matter how far she has to crawl. Interesting.... or maybe just a little mean. We are about a 1/2 inch from having Aylah grow out of her car sear in the height restrictions. So we should be out looking for a new one in the next little bit. Anybody have one that they love that isn't pink or leapard?

We have 2 more visitors during our final visiting push. Josh's cousins Laura and Courtney are coming this Wed. and leaving Sunday I think. I hope they don't mind exploring NYC a little on their own. It's such a big thing to get Aylah all put together and into her stroller and onto the PATH train and subway. I feel like we take half of our house with us. If she still didn't take 3-4 naps a day, it might be easier too. But she just loves to sleep so much that she misses a couple naps whenever we go into the city.

Last Friday my parents and I went into the city to go to the Empire State Building and see Times Square for my Mom. We had fun. I had never been to the top of the Empire State Building before. It was a little bit chilly and windy up there but still very fun to see everything. And even more interesting since I could pick out landmarks, such as where Josh and I live, where some friends live, Hoboken, Central Park, different bridges, and other fun things. I think that I'm gaining at least some knowledge about the area. Before I didn't even know how many buroughs of NYC there were.

Oh, for those of you who would like to know, Aylah and I are going to be in Michigan; Holland, probably Traverse City, and Lansing during the last full week of April. And most likely at URC that last Sunday in April. We're looking forward to seeing people:)

Visitors

2008-03-06T09:35:00.000-09:00

Well, we are busy with visitors this week. My parents have been here since Sat. and are headed home this coming Sat. I think they have loved being here and playing with Aylah and being tourists in NYC. We all went to Central Park on Monday, when it was 60 degrees, and wandered around the park for most of the day. It was great! We found lots of fun spots that we will be able to take Aylah in coming years... the carousel, the zoo, Alice in Wonderland Statue, the Dairy store.... it made me excited for Aylah to get older and be able to enjoy those types of things. Tomorrow we are headed to the Empire State Building for the $20 ride to the top to see all of Manhattan. Supposedly you can also see into Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland from the top. I think that it would be very cool to go at night and see the skyline lit up.

Speaking of the skyline, I went to a Mom's Night Out this past Friday. I got lost on the way there but when I stopped to call Josh to help on mapquest, I stopped in a park up on a ridge that overlooked all of Manhattan. It was a breathtaking view because the night was so clear. The lights just seemed to go on forever. Not near as beautiful as a mountain overlook, but the metro version of that. If I knew where I had been I would go back again sometime to show Josh. I'm sure I'll get lost again in the near future ;)

I think that I had talked about Aylah eating lasagna for the first time. Here are those pictures and soon I'll get some up from the past few days.

I'm taking my mom to my kickboxing class tonight for her first time. I'm curious to see how it will go. I've spent a little time today trying to teach her all of the punches and kicks. I'm sure she will do great... maybe just be a little sore tomorrow.

The Fanny Pack Phenomena

2008-02-26T13:22:00.000-09:00

So there is this phenomena in Jersey City and, from what I've heard, other inner-city areas. The teenagers wear fanny packs on their booties. And it's cool. It's actually considered cool. And it's 2008, not 1992. I mean, not that I really ever considered fanny packs cool, but the teenagers here do. There are a couple stipulations from what we've figured out. #1 They have to be the brand "North Face." and #2 You have to get the correct gender fanny pack. The boy fanny packs are one pouch with a zipper and the girl fanny packs have one pouch with a zipper and a mesh outside pocket. So they wear them on their booties, not off to one side or in the front. I first noticed it because it drew attention to their butts. At first I thought that this was the main reason for them, to draw attention to their butts. But then I saw boys with them. And since I figure that boys don't really want to necessarily draw attention to their butts, then I figured that it may not be the real reason.

So, there it is. I'll let you know if we have any new insights about the fanny pack phenomena.

$272 Round Trip to Paradise

2008-02-20T08:03:00.000-09:00

I get these airfare emails a couple times a week. This weekend Josh and I could fly from Newark to St. Maartan (Our honeymoon destination.... aaaaa.. let's just take a moment to remember the warm Caribbean island........) okay, so for $272 round trip we could fly there. I was very tempted to book 2 tickets and surprise Josh because it just darn well sounded great! But then I remembered that Josh's Mom is coming to visit tomorrow and even though we have money to cover that in our savings account, I'm sure I'd get a lecture on how that money is for emergencies, student loans, and a down payment on a house (someday far in the future) So now I'm just sitting here dreaming of going to La Vie en Rose again overlooking the ocean. hmmmm. Maybe the next weekend ;) Or maybe I can find tickets to Bora Bora............

On a side note, those of you who live in Lansing can fly to see us from Lansing to Newark for something like $178. Not too shabby. (We just might be missing our friends right now.)

Oh. On the homefront news, Aylah got her first tooth yesterday. Finally! I lost track of how long it took after 3 months of "teething symptoms."

Well, I'm off to clean our apartment. My mother-in-law is coming tomorrow you know;)

Fun Present

2008-02-18T13:35:00.000-09:00

My friends Justin and Marguerite sent me a package with this cutie new headband, lots of cute clothes and a very weird picture book ;) My Mommy and Daddy let me keep the headband and clothes but not the book.

A Dornbos Valentines Day

2008-02-15T11:03:00.000-09:00

Last night as I lay on our couch after watching a movie with Josh, I told him that this Valentines Day was nothing like my last, nor one that I could have imagined.

Last year I was 5 months pregnant and laying on the couch, exhausted after our classroom Valentines Day party. (One of the most dreaded days of the year for a teacher.... third in line to #2 Halloween (all those costumes to put on! and sugar!) and #1 Christmas party (still more sugar and the fact that they will be out of school for 2 weeks and getting spoiled.)

This year was completely different. It started out with a short 1 mile drive to Staples to copy our update letter to send out. Oh but wait, we live in the city and it took me no shorter than 30 minutes to go that mile. Oh and I also had to drive back. So 30 mins there, 5 mins. in Staples, and 30 minutes back. Fun.

Second thing was Josh and I were introduced to the ever popular USB stick. Facing the loss of all previous important documents from College and beyond saved on floppy disks, I spent an hour on the only computer at New City (the ancient one as it's called) transferring our files. So have no fear... Josh's MSW files are saved as is our budget spreadsheet (Josh was most happy about the 2nd ;)

Third thing I did was make about 50 PB&J sandwichs for 30 inner city kids. It came to my attention in the Fall that the schools dismiss for a half day at 12:45 without lunch. Then they come to New City and have a snack of something like BBQ soy crisps and are expected to work on homework and such until 3:00. What! The Mom and Teacher in me was livid. So now on all half days we make a little trip to the store and come back and make PB&J's with apple slices. I feel better at least. And my PB&J's are now famous amoungst the kids and teenagers.

During my PB&J making Josh snuck upstairs and left some red roses for me to find :) How sweet!

In the afternoon Aylah and I went downstairs to watch a movie with the elementary school kids on the big screen (special treat for Valentines Day). But that was short lived when she puked all over herself. So back upstairs for a bath.

Our night ended great. Josh wouldn't tell me what we were doing until he got home.
We went out to eat at a Vietnamese Restaurant about 2 block from our apartment. He had been there before but not me. It was great. I thought it was fun because last year the only thing within walking distance of our apartment was more houses. Aylah went with us and was very content relaxing in the stroller and staring at her dashing reflection in the mirror on the wall.

On our way home from the restaurant... mind you 2 blocks away.... THIS WAS WHERE THE FUN BEGAN :) Josh and I were walking behind this guy who was kind of, okay not kind of, but really stumbling down the sidewalk. I was keeping a good distance because it was dark, but only 8:00. So this guy pauses, stops, turns toward the ally next to the Women Rising building and starts peeing. HA HA. Josh and I made our way around this fine gentleman and continued down the sidewalk. But not just 10 steps further I look up and this other guy is weaving down the sidewalk towards us. I made Josh switch sides so that he would be closest to him and we passed this guy without any further peeing incidents. So 2 blocks home, 2 drunk guys, 8:00 at night. Gotta love Jersey City.

Once home we put Aylah Eyes to bed and made some Peanut Butter brownie goodness, ate it with some ice cream ( a very special treat since we haven't bought any since we moved) and settled down to watch the movie Josh special ordered just for me from Netflix. Sense and Sensibility... ahhh. What a great girly movie. Josh rated it a 2/3 for all you guys out there. But I gave it a 4 :)

So, as I lay reflecting on how different our life is now, I realized that I love it and wouldn't change it for the world.

Oh, and it finally snowed here! but it's all gone... too much rain.

I'll put up some pictures soon of Aylah's first taste of lasagna. There might have been some dry heaving and gagging going on.

Teething

2008-02-10T16:21:00.001-09:00

Mom and Aylah are both irritable but only one of

us is actually teething.... can you tell by the
picture?

I think I have decided that I am going to grow my hair out for Locks for Love. It has to be at least 10 inches. So then I can have my long hair for awhile but then still have a purpose to cut it short. I like it short but sometimes am a little skiddish to cut it really short.

Just so all of you know... Jersey City has had 0 inches of snow in January and February and pretty much for all of December. Oh, and it's about 35 out right now :) So sorry to all of you in -25 degree weather right now.

So here's a little love story for all of you on this wintery night. We told this to Aylah before she went to bed tonight. 4 years ago there was a mommy and daddy going to college at MSU in East Lansing, MI. They were watching the Grammy's together because the mommy had invited the daddy over to the house where she was house sitting. After the Grammy's were over, during which the mommy was also "studying" for her Communications exam in the morning, the daddy told the mommy that he kinda liked her. Okay not just kinda but really really liked her. And so he wanted to take her out on a date. So the mommy said okay and they went and got some drinks at Damons that next Tuesday. Their 2nd date was Valentines Day. The daddy made the mommy dinner and gave her a dozen red roses. The rest is history and 4 years later the Mommy and Daddy are sitting here telling you this story... married, with a little girl named Aylah Grace, living in Jersey City.

Our little girl got some formula sent to her in the mail this week. She was more interested in the box and popping things. Go figure. This is also a picture of Aylah Eyes and her Mommy from last night. Her little cheeks have been pink for the past few days during her teething phase. We'll let you know when the little buggers finally pop through.

"Giants gonna party like it's your birthday"

2008-02-05T06:07:00.000-09:00

Like all good citizens of New Jersey and New York, we watched the superbowl on Sunday. We went over to one of Josh's co-workers' house and had a great time watching the Giants win. After we drove back to our apartment and were getting out of the car a drunk Jersey City citizen was briskly walking past singing, "Giants gonna party like it's your birthday." Josh and I got the giggles.

Life has been busy but good. We had a speaker visit my Mom's Group last week Wed. and it was just what I needed. The speaker's voice was so calming that it put my racing mind at ease and I felt like I was able to be refreshed and poured into in a way that I haven't been in a long time. I need times like that.

Here are a couple videos of Aylah. They are mainly for her loving grandparents who have been asking for some Aylah videos. Sorry for all the whining... but there are some fun babbles tucked in there:) Enjoy!

Aylah has been entertaining us with her astounding array of babbles that she has seemingly pulled out of nowhere. Her favorites are 'ba-ba' 'da-da' and 'fa-fa.' I'm working on 'ma-ma.'

Aylah is currently experiencing what we think is a little constipation. I'll spare all the details. So today Aylah is enjoying as much apple juice as she will drink, as well as some Karo corn syrup in her formula. Yummy huh? Don't knock it, cuz it's working. You know something's up when Aylah refuses to eat. Usually she steals other kid's bottles and cups in the nursery and tries to drink them.

So that's just a little update. We'll post more later.

Hanging out time with Mommy

2008-01-29T14:14:00.000-09:00

I had heard rumors that you could put videos on a blog site so I figured I'd give it a try. It may take a second to start after you push play... be patient. Also, sorry it's sideways. I couldn't figure out how to turn it. This one is 2 minutes and it's of Aylah standing up and playing by the couch. And I promise that at the end when she falls she doesn't get hurt and that she is actually very excited to get back up and try it again :) We aren't bad parents;) Enjoy!

Music To My Ears

2008-01-29T07:28:00.000-09:00

We now have a laptop that we can use in our apartment and it gets wireless... bonus. So Aylah and I are currently jamming to B93 online, the country station from Michigan that we love and have missed so much. Yes, Aylah has missed it too. She did listen to it every day in utero for about 45 mintues on the way to and from her mommies' work :) Got to start them early.

This week Aylah has 2 play dates! She is a little nervous that she'll spit up on her new friends but I told her she'd be fine. First is Emma and her daughter Lola that we met in the neighborhood on our walk last week. They are coming over on Thursday before we go and teach kickboxing downstairs. Then on Friday morning Luke and Ruth are coming over to play with their mom, Mary. We went over to their house a couple weeks ago. Aylah likes Ruth the best because she is a girl but a little young still (4 months). Luke (2 years old) likes to 'be a boy' and Aylah gets a little scared when he growls in her ear. I guess I would too;) But we are very excited about our new friends.

Also we found out yesterday that my Mom and Dad are coming out to visit during the first week of March. Yea! We are very excited they are coming! We will show them around our neck of the woods and take them to NY city. Aylah is working on her walking/cruising skills to show off when they come.

No teeth yet for Ms. Aylah. Just lots of drool. She is also enjoying a wide variety of food; veggies, fruits, chicken, unsalted rice cakes (not really her favorite), and she got her first taste of chocolate from her Daddy this past weekend. Mom wasn't on her usual lookout. She licked her lips for 30 mins straight. A girl after her mom's heart :) I knew she would be a chocolate lover. I ate so much when I was pregnant she just had to love it! Here's a pic of the evidence on her lips.

As far as New City updates... Deborah, the new After School Coordinator is doing great. She is settling in and we are trying to have her over for dinner pretty frequently. Everybody loves a home cooked meal and friends right?
Josh is doing well. He is working on getting professional visits set up to bring the kids to. Kind of hard when you don't really have any connections in the city. This week Friday he is doing a nutrition class with the teenagers. They are required to attend so many classes each year. This is an option. I think he did a money/credit card class earlier in the year. I'm still helping with the women's group. Last time I led it and talked about how our bodies are temples and what that means in their life. We talked a lot about body image as well. It's so hard to watch the girls struggle so much with this, especially since it is something that consumed my thoughts when I was their age. One of the teenagers asked Josh if we were going to be here during the summer. Josh was a little schocked but then realized that the 2 other poeple that had his job left after only 1 year so the kids aren't used to people sticking around. Some times the kids also ask how long we are going to stay here. We usually don't say a certain time because we don't really know either. It could be 2 years or 22. The kids also ask if we are going to send Aylah to the afterschool program. Josh and I laughed that we would but only if Aylah isn't a sensitive one... otherwise she might come home crying every day.

Well, that's about it for now. We are gearing up for the Lost Season premiere on Thursday! and the Superbowl of course. (Patriots are cheaters!)

Oh, I had a request for some pictures of where we live. Our apt. and the neighborhood where we live. I'll work on getting those and posting some soon.

Birdies

2008-01-23T09:48:00.000-09:00

Aylah has been hard at work learning how to stand up and do some side-stepping along the couch. She was playing this past weekend with her birds and birdhouse. I decided she needed some little birdies in her overalls pockets. And then she melted her mommies' heart with how cute she was so I snapped a few pictures.

Aylah got her first injury today. At Mom's group she tipped over when she was sitting on the floor and smashed her head against a hard plastic toy shark next to her. I heard she didn't really cry too hard but has a doozy of a red bump on the side of her head. Poor girl. I almost started to cry when I saw her. I was a little mad that the caretakers didn't come upstairs to get me when it happened. I left early and went home so I could get over it. I know that she'll get lots more bumps and bruises but since it was the first one I was sad. I know, I know, can't protect her her whole life....

Other than that we are good. I'm going to start teaching a kickboxing class on Mondays during the afterschool program. I'm excited. Maybe it will fulfill my current longing to be back in the classroom with elementary school kids again? I'll let you know how it goes. I'm a little curious how the kids will do. Me in a room with 8 kids with punching gloves on is a little intimidating ;)

Here is Aylah's 7 month old picture for her picture frame.

Double Whammy

2008-01-18T10:45:00.001-09:00

Victory is ours! Last night I was in the kitchen cleaning up Aylah's stuff that was all over the floor. I bent down and glanced behind the stove and saw a mouse on a sticky trap. It wasn't making any noise at all! I screamed, went running into the other room where Josh was and sent in my calvary. I hid in Aylah's room. Then I heard Josh say, "Oh my gosh, there are two mice stuck on here." They were all squised together on top of each other or something. Yuck.

All that I know is that we got 2 in one fell swoop. HA HA little mice. I dare you to come back tonight!!