Flash back

It's that time! The time to start pulling out maternity clothes. As I was pulling out the tub I stored some in I had a flash back. When I was a little further along in my pregnancy with Leah, August 2008, Levin and I took a trip to Cameroon with our friend Diana.
We did A LOT of walking and A LOT of hiking. I don't know what I was thinking agreeing to this. And we thought I'd just take it easy, but the tour agency guy said that if I stopped half way then they couldn't leave me alone so then no one would be able to go the rest of the way.

So here I am climbing up to this old light house. My legs were soooo sore! This tourism agency was a non-profit that "gives back to the villagers." So every place we went our guide Fernando would hire a local villager to be our tour guide. Then when they took us to the waterfall or whatever Fernando would pay them out of the money we'd paid Fernando. One particular time he gave a guy a bottle of whiskey to take to the chief which isn't our way of doing things, but whatever. The village lifted up his shirt to wipe his face and low and behold . . he was wearing maternity pants!! Levin and I looked at each other and said, is that dude wearing maternity pants?? Diana who will soon experience the joys of maternity pants, had not yet at that time and was like how can you tell?? Well, we had experience.

He wasn't wearing the extended panel, just maybe the full panel ones. Frankly I don't know how he kept them up. I am currently struggling because maternity pants are still a little too loose, but my regular pants are too tight. But this guy managed just fine to keep his pants up.

We also saw a six-fingered man on that trip. Of course we didn't get his picture. So I was googling an image to make this post more interesting and what do you know they had a picture of a baby with six fingers. I got scared that my fascination of the six-fingered man will cause my baby to come out with six fingers so I'm not posting a picture.

As I am closing this post, I am thinking it is maybe one of those had to be there kind of things. Oh well.

Breakfast Challenge

Every morning Leah and I have a race during breakfast time. I eat my breakfast while checking my email, Facebook, etc. I try to finish before she is done eating breakfast and wants down because once she's down she tugs on my arms shouting UP! Unfortunately, Leah usually wins the race. On a related subject, I love watching Leah eat. She finds such joy in it! In the video below she is eating Cheerios and you might mistake her happy smiles for the fact that they're the yogurt ones. However, she makes the same face when she's eating carrots.

Leah's Word

Leah has one word - ah bote. She says it for everything! She says it when she's happy and laughs herself silly. She says it when she's mad and she cries it and sometimes whispers it softly on her way to sleep. Technically, she can say "up" now when she wants me to pick her up or she wants to go upstairs, etc. Sometimes though she's naughty and says "up" and then when I pick her up sneaks in a bote at the end. I took a video of her crying it, but felt bad posting it. She was saying it a few days ago so I tried to video it but of course she wouldn't say it until right when I hit the stop recording button. SO . . in this video she is prompted by me to say it, but just know she says it at least 100 times a day unprompted.

Women of the Old Testament

I started a book that I really like. My mother-in-law gave it to me for my birthday. Then we did so much travelling I kind of forgot about it, but I started it this week and I really like it. I had a mission companion that loved the Old Testament and I thought she was out of her mind. But then I taught it in Sunday School and I really learned to like it. The one thing I like about it is that it teaches us that life is just plain hard and/or unfair sometimes.
So far, I recommend the book. I took a gamble and got it for my mom for Christmas even though I hadn't read it yet. Hopefully she likes it too.

It's a Boy

This is old news, but maybe for friends not on Facebook it's not. We found out 2 weeks ago that we are having a boy. The bad news, we don't get to use Leah's hand-me-downs. The good news, I get to go shopping!!

I have a problem. We already decided on the name of the baby. I had to agree to the name of our first son before Levin would marry me (or something like that) so we've known for a long time what our boy's name would be. The problem is that I am kind of superstitious and to me calling the baby by his/her name a long time before they are born is like buying your wedding gown before you've been proposed to. However, I still refer to Leah as "baby" sometimes so when I refer to baby boy I don't know what to call him. I guess the solution woul be to stop calling Leah baby. Hmm . .

I'd post a picture of the ultra-sound, but the only picture the doctor printed for us is the one showing the gender and somehow that seems like fetal pornography or something.

Easy to Make My Day

Saturday I gave Leah a bite of no-bake cookie and she made this exact same face. All day long she made this "I'm so pleased face." She also overcame her bathtub anxiety that night and was nice and clean in this picture! After a terrifying New Year's dip in the pool she screamed at the bath tub for over a week but Saturday was back to her normal I-love-to splash self.

These potatoes pictured here may have made me as happy as anything else last week. The potatoes on the right are the potatoes I bought the previous week and about the size of what I normally get. The tennis ball is just for size reference. The potatoes on the left (the normal American size) are the ones I found at a new road side stand I went to. You may not understand my thrill, but potatoes (especially mashed) are my favorite food! And can you imagine peeling enough of those teeny tiny potatoes to make a good batch of mashed potatoes? Believe me, I've done it, but it's not fun. And those tiny ones are really waxy and they don't mash well anyway. I bought 2 kilos and as soon as I got home realized my mistake of not buying more. The next day I went back for another 2 kilos. Those teeny potatoes went straight to the garbage and I made mashed potato casserole - yummy yummy!

PS. I used my KitchenAid to mash the potatoes and it was beautiful. I just love that thing and try to plan my menus around any opportunity to use it. We ordered the "slicer" attachment for it and I am just hoping it arrives soon so I can use it to slice beautiful potatoes for scalloped potatoes.

Leah Learning to Walk

I have been trying to get this to post for days! Our internet has been so frustrating. Anyway, Leah is learning how to walk! The day we recorded this she and I were practicing earlier and when she stood with no hands I impressied said, "ooooooh!" Leah somehow thought that was a fun game. She kept saying "ooooooh" every time she did something impressive to herself. I don't know that I've ever seen her laugh so hard as she did as we said oooh every time she stood without suppoert. So here in this video that is why she stops walking in order to say oooooh for herself - it has replaced clapping for herself. If she hadn't said it she would have walked further - oh well. She's getting pretty good, but still uses crawling as her mode of transport.