Getting ready for the baby...

Time is flying by for our family and this little boy is going to be here before we even blink an eye. It's kind of interesting with having #3 on the way, I realize the "baby" things that we don't need and then I realize so much of what we really do need. We got rid of so much stuff between Avery and this baby, because to be quite honest, for a long time we thought we were "finished" having children. We got rid of the car seat, the crib, the swing (which we never really used anyway), bottles (which also never got used much since the girls never took a bottle of breastmilk until they were well over 10 or 11 months old!), the high chair, and a lot of baby toys. Our stroller is broken in some places and probably won't hold up for this 3rd baby.

So now, we find ourselves needing "big" things this time around, but then there is so much we do have...like baby boy clothes thanks to my sister, a dresser, lots of blankets, a bouncy seat, and some of the cloth diapers (though I think we might need a few more...we're not going to be putting this little boy in pink diapers like Avery wore!).

We've had some friends and family members asking us what we really need, so I finally got my act together and created a registry on Amazon.com, trying to keep it to things that we really need. And, okay, so there might be a few things that would be nice to have but we truely don't need them :-) ...like baby bedding :-)

Oh, and we are almost decided on a name, though it's not definite. We think we're going to name this little guy Zachary Christopher Davis and we'll call him Zach. Zachary means "the Lord has remembered". We love that...in so many different ways, that meaning speaks volumes to our lives and where we have been as a couple and as a family.

Some new pictures...

Here are some new and very overdue pictures of our family! A vintage carosel came to the downtown mall here in Charlottesville for a whole week to celebrate the coming of spring and rides were free! The girls loved riding on it! And here is me, almost 30 weeks pregnant...just about 3 more months to go!

Tell Me a Story...

Today, during homeschool time I asked the girls to tell me a story about their pet fish, Lily and Daisy. (Lily is Avery's fish, and Daisy is Kyla's pink fish) Here are their stories, word for word.

Avery (age 3.5)

"Lily was growing soon but she couldn't grow all the time. She had a dress on when she was a boy fish. In Charlotte, North Carolina we didn't have fish. Okay, she had socks on and cinderella on her dress. Isn't that really cool she had cinderella on her dress? So, she had eyes. Yeah, she had eyes. She had a tummy, she pooped a lot. This is going to be a really funny story."

Kyla (age 6)

"Once upon a time, Daisy used to have a planner. She planned a bunch of stuff and she finished it in one whole day. She finished her book. She lit a candle and then burned the book. Then she got near the radiator and broke it by accident. Then she got a bunch of presents because she broke the radiator. Then she had a dress and a headband and socks and leggings on. "

These stories really cracked me up...and Avery really suprised me with how much she "told" of her fish, Lily. Avery went first when I asked for the stories. I kind of thought if she went 2nd, then she would just copy Kyla's story. But she thought all of this up in her own little imaginative mind :-) I'm going to have to do this more often, it was so fun!

Snowy day sewing

With all of the snow we have been getting plus with most days not even reaching above freezing outside, we have been spending more and more time indoors. Trying to find ways to make the day a little more creative, a little more fun and interesting becomes more of a challenge with each day that approaches and the weather forcast reads, "Partly cloudy, high 30 degrees".

We're all itching to get outside and be able to stay outside for more than 20 minutes without feeling parts of our body go numb. :-) Thankfully, today we got one of those days! And yesterday we did as well! The high was 45 yesterday and today it is even higher!

Meanhwhile, here's a little of what has been keeping me busy indoors-- sewing some spring curtains to brighten up the girls' bedroom. Also, lots of reading, working on homework, breadbaking and cleaning and organizing. Kyla and Avery spend most of their time entertained with dolls, dollhouses, blocks and books,...also sitting on my lap to help me sew has become a favorite too. We've brought our trampoline inside on a number of occasions to get some much needed exercise inside! They've had fun with that too!

Here's to warmer weather soon! :-)

Thinking about names...

We found out we're adding a little boy to our family! We're so excited and the girls are really thrilled at the thought of having a little brother.

Names have been on my mind a lot...I have always had a really hard time coming up with boy names that I just LOVE. I have a long list of girl names that I'm in love with, but boy names just simply come harder to me. Pete and I are having fun thinking of names, letting the name "rest" on our minds a little, testing the name...just seeing if it "fits" our family. Here are some of our favorites so far (okay...and some of MY favorites):

Brayden
Harper
Cameron
Brennan
Dawson
Ezra (a favorite of mine)
Levi (a favorite of Pete)
Noah (a favorite of mine)
Austin (a favorite of Pete)

....And who knows what name will be next to pop up on the list!! What about you? Any favorite boy names that you would like to share with us (as long as you don't mind the thought of us using it? )

Snowing again!

So thankful for Kyla

This past weekend is one of those weekend that I would rather not remember. It was definitely one of those weekends that makes you look at your precious children and thank God for their smiles, laughter, silliness, and yes...even their strong wills and arguing. Kyla is the type of kid that never seems to stop moving or talking. She talks almost non-stop all day long and tries to do handstands and gymnastics around the house most of the day.

Well, on Thursday night she woke up in the middle of the night and threw up several times. On Friday morning, simply because it was Friday, and I didn't want her to not be able to see a doctor over the weekend, I took her in to be seen. They ran a strep test and the doctor told us it was just a stomach virus. She threw up for another 48 hours, so on Sunday I called the doctor on call who told us we might want to pay a visit to the ER. Kyla was getting weaker, had not eaten in over 48 hours, and even worse, had not been able to keep down very many liquids in that amount of time. She stopped bouncing around and talking much and just wanted to lay on the couch. Sunday evening, Pete had to carry her to the ER...she couldn't walk. The doctor told us she was not dehydrated, but the doctor also didn't run any tests on her to make her statement official. No urine or blood tests were done to test for dehydration. She gave kyla a popsicle, (which she did not want to eat) and sent us on our way.

Sunday night was Kyla's 4th night of throwing up. She threw up about 5 times that night. The next morning I took one look at her and new something was seriously wrong. She was so pale, so thin...I could see almost all of her little bones. She couldn't hold her head up and wouldn't talk to us. We had to carry her everywhere. I managed to get her to eat 1 pedialyte popsicle and then eat 2 pinches of a banana which she (thankfully) kept down. We went at 10am monday morning to her doctor's office.

The doctor and nurses were surprised by our ER visit and lack of attention Kyla received there. Her doctor ran blood and urine tests that showed she was severely dehydrated. They gave her 1 liter of IV fluids, which she screamed on Peter for 1.5 hours through the 3 hour process. Then she fell into a nice deep sleep while the IV finished. I entertained Avery in the waiting room for those several hours because poor Avery was upset from hearing Kyla scream like that. The doctor told us she needed more fluids (probably another half liter) because she did not really perk up that much after the 1 liter that she received and it took her 1 full liter of fluids before she even needed to pee.

At 2:00pm after the IV was finished, the doctor told us that he wanted to admit her to the hospital, but if we were able to have her drink about a half liter of fluids before 8pm then she could stay home as long as she didn't vomit anymore. He prescribed Zofran to settle her stomach too.

We took her home, she drank and drank whatever we forced upon her...and it really did seem like forcing! She also ate 4 saltine crackers that day and little bits of banana here and there and I gave here several teaspoons of honey to keep her blood sugar up. She didn't throw up anymore on her own, and we gave her Zofran that night just in case. She woke up the next morning walking out of the bedroom with a smile on her face saying, "Mama, I feel better" and gave me a huge hug. It was so great to see her smiling and walking and talking again!

It's Thursday now, 1 week from when this all started. Kyla is back to herself eating pretty much anything. I'm having fun giving her foods to fatten her up again, as she is still really skinny. She lost almost 4lbs in 4 days. And, if you know Kyla, she doesn't really have much weight to loose!

She was trying to argue with me today about not wanting to clean up toys because she was still playing and I was honestly thankful that she was feeling good enough to try and argue :-) Today is also the first day that she had a bit of bounce back in her step and talked a lot most of the day. Sometimes, the non-stop talking gets a little tiring for me...but today I was simply thankful for who Kyla is: my sweet, and very bubbly almost 6 year old!

I was thinking through all of this how so many children in so many countries suffer from dehydration on a daily basis and how life-threatening it really is. I saw a little of this while I was in the Philippines last summer. I am so incredibly grateful that our children are healthy on a normal basis. I'm also so thankful that God healed Kyla before she had to go to the hospital!

In the pictures above, the first two are of Kyla celebrating her birthday a month early with her friends in Charlotte, NC. The last 2 pictures are about 2 days after Kyla started feeling better from her illness. In between the time...Kyla got a haircut too!

Blizzard of '09

These days, blogging has unfortunately become last place. I love blogging and would love to do it daily or even weekly, but somehow there are so many other things that have taken priority. Homeschooling, teaching childbirth classes, being a wife, a mommy, a doula and trying to keep the house running at a somewhat smooth pace all seems to preceed blogging. Add on top of that being pregnant again and beginning to start midwifery school, things can get a little crazy around here!

We have really been enjoying our new home in Charlottesville. Recently, we especially enjoyed the 24 inches of snow in December that the blizzard of 2009 brought to our little town. It was so beautiful and it was so much fun being snowed in for a whole week!

I hope you created wonderful holiday memories with your family and had a wonderful new year :-) We're looking forward to what 2010 will bring!

Pumpkins and Headstands

Happy Fall everyone! Oh, how I love this time of year. The leaves in Charlottesville are simply beautiful. Kyla has become quite found recently of learning all she can about trees and can probably recognize, name and remember more trees than Pete and I put together.

It's been quite awhile since my last entry. September and October have been months full of blessings and also full of weddings for our family. In September I found out that we are expecting baby Davis # 3 due sometime in June! We are very thankful...and I am trying to keep the attitude of gratitude throughout the 1st trimester nausea and sleepiness. In October, we have had a wedding to shoot every Saturday, including one this Saturday on Halloween. We did have one weekend with a "break" from shooting weddings to attending Dave and Amy Casler's wedding in Northern Virginia. It was a wonderful time seeing friends that we had not seen in a long time! It was also a much needed get-a-way with just the two of us!

An October entry could not be complete without pumpkin patch pictures and also, I had to throw a picture in of what Kyla spends most of her days and evenings doing....standing on her head. She really loves gymnastics. A lot :-)

Till next time!

What are the needs of Five Year Olds?

An article that I have found helpful in homeschooling our five year old, based on child development and academic readiness.

Avery's first day of preschool

Avery had her first day of preschool last Tuesday and today was her first full day of preschool. (The first week preschool was only a half day.) She was apprehensive at first, but today she did really well and when I picked her up she had a huge smile on her face because they had just finished playing a game with the parachute!

Avery goes to Mollie Michie preschool, a co-op preschool, so I was actually in her classroom for her first day helping, and then Emili Hays was co-oping on the 2nd day of preschool and she knows Emili really well, so that really helped ease her into preschool life :-) It's nice Emili's little boy, Oliver, is in her class. Today she ran over to Ollie and gave him a hug and said, "Goodbye, Ollie!".

Kyla and I enjoyed a full day of homeschooling today while Avery was at preschool. She practiced writing her numbers 6 through 10 in her Handwriting without Tears book. Then we baked a pumpkin raisin cake to kick off the beginning of September. Pete taught Kyla measurements this weekend and she was able to hand me the 1/3 cup when I asked and would tell me how many scoops I needed to make 1 cup. She's a fast learner, for sure. After baking, she was off to catch crickets from the backyard in put them in her bug catcher. To finish off the morning, she knitted on her knitting tower and I almost finished knitting a pink scarf for her to wear this fall. This afternoon was Kyla's first day of gymnastics class and she loved learning cartwheels and handstands and swinging on the uneven bar. She met some other little girls her age, one of which lives just down the street from us.

What a blessing of a day. I cannot stop thanking God for my wonderful family. I love my husband and girls to pieces, and though we're only at the beginning, we're loving homeschooling. I love being able to be the one to listen to Kyla read her first sentence..what a blessing to be able to stay at home and teach our girls. I've also been thanking the Lord over and over for how wonderful Avery's skin has been since our move to Charlottesville. We feel like we have a big piece of our family back. Everyday life became very difficult and stressful when her eczema was bad in Charlotte and here she spends most of her days just like other little girls: playing, laughing, singing songs, dancing, doing crafts, etc. She spends less and less time scratching. Life is so much better. Thanks for praying for her and for our move.

Carter's Mountain

Carter's Mountain is just about 3 minutes away from our home, and so the other day after Pete got home from work, we packed a picnic dinner and went to the mountain to pick the first apples of the season! We've enjoyed baking apple crisp and eating lots and lots of very tasty apples. The girls LOVED picking the apples off the tree and playing peek-a-boo in the apple orchard. I became a little obsessed with getting the prettiest, reddest apples which happened to all be at the very top of the trees, of course. So, Kyla was our main apple picker and climbed up on daddy's shoulders to get the best apples of the bunch! I attempted to climb some of the trees and managed to get one or two from the top...it was a very fun day with temperatures being a very pleasant 70 degrees! Then on Tuesday (baking day), Kyla helped chop the apples for our apple crisp. I think eating it was her favorite part, though :-)

Nature walk collection

This past Friday, on our "nature day", we went on a long walk around the neighborhood. Kyla has been really loving the themes to our days. On our walk Kyla collected a bunch of favorite things she saw along the way. I thought she was going to draw them, but she had other ideas, like making 3-D art. :-)

Nature Study: Butterflies

Kyla and Avery have had a lot of "catching up" to do since we've moved into our new house. We lived in an apartment until Kyla was 3 1/2 in Los Angeles and so running around outside all day in her barefeet didn't happen very much unless we were at the park. We were in Charlotte until Kyla was 5 and Avery was almost 3, and even though they were outside more, our small little backyard wasn't very "exciting" for them...not much to explore. Just a patch of grass. Adding to that, Avery's outdoor allergies, we spend a lot of time inside.

Well, Kyla has been spending about 70% of her days outside in our big backyard catching butterflies all day long. She's also caught a praying mantis, and other little bugs that roam around. Then, she comes inside and draws them in her nature journal and this is the science portion of her homeschooling for kindergarten this year: observation. Simply soaking in and absorbing all of the nature around her and then drawing pictures of what she sees. She loves every minute of this and I do too!