"I'm a Peacock, Captain, You Gotta Let Me Fly!"

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Lucy @2 years & 3 months
  - is way too smart
  - VERY possessive of me. When Tommy hugs me, she says, "Daddy, don't do that to Mommy!"
  - loves Aleena
  - is amazingly patient&loving with BabySister. If Aleena pulls her hair, she'll call for us to help. She has never hit at, bitten, or hurt BabySister intentionally. She's a great Ate.
  - Thinks Chewbacca is a monkey.

Aleena @6 months
  - starting to sit up on her own.
  - is a FATTY! She can down 6oz and a tub of apple sauce, then be hungry in 2 hrs!
  - thinks AteLucy is the FUNNIEST person ever! She ONLY laughs at Lucy.
  - Sleeps 10hrs straight through the night

It really sounds cliche, but I really can't believe that another year has come and gone! I remember when I was younger, I thought, "Man, people in college are so old!" and it's been 3 years since I've graduated! God has been really gracious to me and my little family. He has not left us wanting for anything He hasn't provided. I'm really excited about what 2013 will hold for us. 

I'm so happy and blessed with my two girls, and I wish I could say we'd be done, but Tommy wants a "hunting partner." Hopefully he'll just forget about it haha. Maybe Lucy or Aleena would want to go hunting with him when they get older instead. 

The first (& ONLY) time I went hunting, Tommy took me through the thickest and the most THORNIEST tall-grass ever. He was walking in front of me "blazing a trail" for me to follow but I just kept getting smacked in the face with the branches he was pushing out the way for himself. hahahah! I laugh at the experience now, but after a couple yards I just stopped and started crying. Then he took me  back to the car, and I just went on facebook until he got done. Ugh, never again! 

Anyways, we'll see, maybe in two years. I've been diligently going to the gym 2-3 days a week. I started at 133lbs, and after 4 weeks, I'm down to 122lbs! It doesn't seem like a lot, but I'm proud of myself for starting this around the Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years festivities. I just want to loose enough weight, so that if we do have another baby, the pounds just don't keep on piling on. 

  

GANGNAM STYLE!

Good Morning, Sunshine! Aleena Baby is almost 5 months old!

Sunday Morning.

Hair- by Mommy, compliments of Pinterest
Dress- from Lola (Target)

Sunday mornings we get Tim Bits for Lucy. She thinks that if
 she takes a bite from each one it'll stop Mommy from taking some of them. haha

...aaaaannd this is why i LOVE my Mom!

"Jen, do you know what gangnam style is?"
HAHAHAHA

I miss my family so much. There's times when I just wish that I lived closer to my mama. Like today, today would be one of those days. This morning a skunk got caught in our trash can outside and the smell has permeated my house. -_- and I can't even describe to you how disgusting my entire house smells... and even tastes, yes i can taste the smell in my mouth. However much you think it's disgusting, it's 10x worse. I really don't know whether to laugh or cry because of how ridiculous it is! Hopefully we can get the smell out soon cause it's what is making our plans Friday night tentative.

Since my last post:

Lucy:
   - watches Mulan 3x a day
   - loves Lion King, but only the beginning so she can name all the animals she sees
   - drinks strawberry milk ALL THE TIME

Aleena:
   - rolls over, but only every once in awhile
   - has slept 8 hrs!!
   - has started eating rice cereal 

Anyways, God is always good. He always seems to provide when we need it the most. I'm so thankful for friends, old and new. I'm thankful for fellowship, especially Christian fellowship. I'm just more blessed than I deserve. I just have to remind myself of that daily. =]

That's the power of Pine-Sol, Baby!

This post is gonna be pretty random, there have been so much going on that even I can't focus on one particular thing to blog about.

...
My Lucy is 2! Lucy was born on the 9th anniversary of 9/11 at 9:11AM. We celebrated her birthday in California, where we were able to spend a 4 week vacation with my fam. Needless to say there was a lot of eating!! It was so fun to be back in SD again. We went to Sea World about 20 times and Lucy LOVED it! My Momma took Aleena every night for that month so I could get some rest, and it was the first time in 2 months I got to sleep more than 3 hrs straight!!

...
I've always wondered what babies dreamed about. Sometimes when Aleena is sleeping, she'll cry for a half second and then start smiling so big. It's so funny. Lucy did that too, she still does that actually. A couple months ago, we were driving in the car and Lucy fell asleep. She started to cry intermittently and next thing, Tommy and I hear her scream, "JUICE! JUICE! NO!" haha. it was pretty funny.

...
I was reading a blog the other day and came upon this story. If you are in need of a laugh, READ IT NOW! I made the mistake of reading it out loud to Tommy in bed while Aleena was sleeping in the pack-n-play next to us... ughhh it was a long night, but the laughs we got out of it were worth it. It's good to laugh, Amen?

...
And now to leave you all with a video... That's the power of Pine-Sol, Baby!

FINALLY!

FINALLY! After 2 months of being here already. I might have just enough time to blog about Aleena's birth story!

Pregnancy, although it's a long 9 months of being uncomfortable, is not what I was scared of. My labor & delivery with Lucy was TRAUMATIC. It sounds bad I know, but the moment I found out I was pregnant again, my happiness was short lived when I thought about going into labor again.

I started contracting all day on Thursday, and by 9PM my contractions were about 3-5 min apart. I went to the hospital, but ended up getting sent home by the DR on-call that night. I was completely bummed because I thought I knew for sure that I was in labor. I had a scheduled appointment with my OB in the morning and when I went in, my OB told me to go home and get some rest because I would be having this baby later today or early morning! She even said that the hospital DR should not have sent me home.

So I went home, showered, rested, .... and went to the hospital. No, i'm joking. I really didn't go to the hospital. There was a family BBQ planned for this day and I convinced myself that if Aleena was not crowning, I would be eating my share of BBQ & desserts! Haha. And the smore's cookies that my cousin-in-law made were WORTH IT! I still have dreams about them! I knew that once I went into the hospital, I would be on an ice-chip only diet, so I definitely ate my body weight in food that late afternoon! =]

We left the BBQ around 8. I hate leaving fam parties early because Lucy loves to play with all her cousins, and I really do not like seeing her sad face when she has to be the first one to leave.

After getting home, we put Lucy down to sleep and Tommy took me to the hospital while my sister stayed with Lucy.

Once at the hospital, my labor progressed so fast. Although the nurses had to call the anesthesiologist to stick an IV in me because the 6x they tried they failed, that really was the hardest part of labor! I went in at 4cm dilated and only 3 hours later, I was a 10 and pushing!

Aleena was born only after 15 minutes of easy pushing! It was a very good and easy labor. Tommy, my sister, and my MIL were in the room with me. My Nanay was able to be Facetime right when Aleena was born. Nanay saw Aleena when she was placed on me. I'm so thankful for technology! (BTW Lucy ended up getting picked up by Dave to stay the night being watched by her Gpa)

Lucy met us the next morning.

MISfortune Cookies

So the other day, after Tommy's softball game, we went out to get some food. We ended up at a random Chinese restaurant and I got this fortune. Now if i did believe in these, this would be the fortune that would make me never believe in them again. There is no room for relaxation for a mama with a toddler and a newborn! And for a few days?! forget about it.

It was like this fortune was teasing me. Maybe one day, I'll invest in making MISfortune cookies. Some with taglines like "You're not pregnant, why did you down food like you were eating for two?"or "You really don't need this cookie after everything you just ate." haha... misfortune cookies. It's an idea =] haha

I have yet to write the story of Aleena's birth. Maybe it'll be my next post. I have really been so busy lately. It's almost midnight, and both kids are sleeping, but all the fireworks going off outside are keeping me awake. I'm just glad my babies can sleep through anything. 

Anyways, here are some baby updates

Lucy:

- Has a new-found love for Dora.

- Is going to be in her 2nd wedding as a flowergirl this month. 

- Cries for Grandma & Grandpa after she gets disciplined by me or Tommy! haha

Aleena:

- Is now 9lbs 2oz!!

- Is down to only 1 bottle of formula a day. Tommy gives her a bottle around 6 am so I can have a solid 4 hrs of sleep before starting my day. 

- Is currently waking up, so I better go!

Even More Of A Blessing

Aleena Joy
6.9.12
@416AM
6lbs 8oz
20.5in 

Proud parents!

Thankful for my little blessing.

It was a very easy labor! (In comparison to Lucy's)

We don't look too bad for 4AM. 

Proud Tita!

Sisters!!!

She's not too happy about giving up her swing.

Tatay and Lola got to come visit from SD!

Daddy and his girls =] 

Lucy's a little jealous. [You can see our new flooring that we put in! Yay for no more carpet!]

Lucy in her traditional Indian dress. Tommy works with a lot of people from India and they
sent this for her along with some clothes for Aleena. 

I can't remember why she was so upset. I think it's cause we made her stay still for two seconds
to take this picture.

Well the last two weeks have been crazy. I feel like my house has officially turned into a ZOO. I'll just have to elaborate later because I NEED sleep. So here are some pictures & a bit of captions for updates. For now, I am going to bed. Maybe i'll find time to update in a week, or the next month... maybe. Two kids are definitely a handful, but even more of a blessing. I love my babies.

Ready, Set, GO!

My baby is getting so big! She LOVES putting on socks. Sometimes she'll put up to 3 pairs on each foot.

"Where's Lucy?"

My LucyBear is getting HUGE! She just had her 18 month check up today. She is already 21 months, so we are a little behind. Poor girl got two shots, but got stuck three times because the needle came out accidentally when she flinched. I always try and schedule her appointments about an hour before nap time so that when she gets home, she can sleep it off.

I cannot wait for Aleena to get here. I'm am definitely more uncomfortable now than ever. My feet swell, I cannot sleep at night, and getting up from laying down or sitting is only done on an emergency basis. It really does help for me to get up and going though. The other day I played softball. YES, softball! It was so fun. We used a foam bat and ball so it didn't go too far. We played with some of Tommy's family, mostly the little kids and a couple adults. It was mainly for the kids. I had my cousin-in-law and my sister (YES! my sister is here visiting for a whole month!) run the bases for me, and then just sat on a lawn chair as "catcher" haha. Tommy and his cousin's handi-cap was to hold their toddlers while playing. It was sooo funny to see them try and run bases with a kid.

Ok, so I've really been on a DIY spree lately. I really don't even know what to call this one, but I thought it was really awesome. J <3 T. Obviously for Jen <3 Tom, but the cool thing about this is that the J has a map of SD on it (where I'm from), the T has a map of Dearborn (where Tommy is from), and the <3 has the city of Pensacola (where we met, started dating, and got engaged). I LOVE IT! I have not  yet framed it in a shadow box, but I already got the update from my Michael's App that shadow box frames are 40% off this week! I'm so excited! Just in case anyone is interested, here's my tutorial. 

Supplies:

- Wooden Letters (Michael's for $1.99 each)

- Wooden Heart (Michael's 99c)

- Sheet of Wax Paper

- Printed Maps (I used GoogleMaps, but you can use an old Atlas if you have one)

- Mod Podge

- Sponge Brush

- Scissors

- Pencil

Put the wax paper over your wooden letters and heart. Trace around the edge with your finger.

If you don't have wax paper, you can use regular printer paper and a pencil. I just used wax paper because I wanted to see through it in order to know what part of the map I was going to cut out later. 

Place your wax paper over your letter and see if you need to make any corrections.

Lucy is my personal helper =] It's a little hard to see, but I here I have both letters and the heart traced out in wax paper. 

Now get out your maps! Pick which part of the map that you want to trace out and trace it out with your pencil. After you trace it out, use your scissors to cut it out. 

MOD PODGE! Dip your sponge brush in some Mod podge and put a thin layer all over your wood letters and shapes. 

Carefully place your map cut-outs on one at a time. Make sure you let it dry, it shouldn't take too long. I waited about 10 minutes. 

Once dry, put another layer of mod podge on top of the paper and let this dry. It's okay if you see streaks of mod podge, it will dry clear. 

TADA! I thought about painting the letters first before I started, but I decided against it. I think i like that the wood grain shows a little bit. I can't wait to get this project framed!