Life this Week

Thank you to those of you who have been praying for me this week.  I’ve had some good days and some bad days.  The days have definitely been long for the most part.  A friend in CA put it well by saying that sometimes a day seems like a year when your husband is gone. 

Our team leader and his wife brought dinner over on Thursday.  Ethan loved having the company (and so did I).  Ethan’s nose has continued to run all week, so he still hasn’t been able to get together with friends his age.  A couple of his friends got a runny nose last week too, so they were going to come over on Friday, but then the Mom called and said that one of them had a fever.  Sadly, I had already told Ethan that they were coming over.  Before that we had planned to go to a friend’s house, and she cancelled that morning.  I had also told Ethan about that, so, the rest of the day, Ethan went around saying, “Someone’s house.”  He was thrilled when some “big kids” came over yesterday and he got to play with them.  We didn’t get to go to church today between him still having a runny nose and me not being able to nurse Sienna/hold her and keep Ethan until children are dismissed for Sunday School. 

Emily came over for dinner tonight, and once again Ethan was excited.  He wanted Emily to brush his teeth and orszivo him.  When it was time for him to go to bed, I told him to go upstairs to pick out a book to read.  He wanted to read the book to Emily.  So, when I went in the bedroom, Ethan was reading a book to Emily, and wanted me to go back downstairs.  Of course, she had to put him in the bed too.  Then after I prayed with him he wanted Emily to pray too.

Here are some pictures since Gary’s been gone.  Gary, I can’t remember if I told you about this lawnmower and scooter or not.These 2 pictures were taken at the house of one of the Hungarian women in my exercise class.  Ethan hasn’t ever seen a riding lawnmower before.  I still don’t think he really understands that it mows the yard like our push lawnmower, but he had a blast “driving'” each of these.Ethan wanted to wear his sunglasses when we went outside to play later in the day.  I think Ethan looks like a little cool dude here. :-)  Ethan pointed to the guitars on this t-shirt while it was on the drying rack today and said, “Acoustic.”  (Gary has taught him the difference in acoustic and bass guitars.)          Here’s a picture from when some of the “big kids” came over yesterday.  Carina seemed especially happy to hold Sienna.  Her mom joked about how our car is a Toyota Carina, and they would like to have a Toyota Sienna van.

I have another blog that was actually ready to post before Gary left, so hopefully I can get it posted soon.  I just wanted to get some new pictures on here for Gary to see while he was away and to let those who have been praying know how it was going.  3 more days to go!

Pray Request

Please pray for me and Ethan over the next 9 days.  Gary left for Macedonia this morning, and this is the first time that he has traveled since I had Sienna.  Ethan and I are both extroverted so definitely need to socialize.  Ethan got a runny nose on Sunday, so that means that he won’t be able to play with any other kids while he has the runny nose.  This will seclude all 3 of us possibly until Gary returns.

One of my friends has never cared if Ethan had a cold; she would bring her son over anyway.  When her son was over last month he got a cold from Ethan.  After that his dad didn’t want her to bring him over if Ethan was sick.  I understand and don’t blame them.  I just can’t believe that out of all of the times he has been around Ethan with a cold, he just got it recently, thus isn’t able to come now while Gary is gone.  Such a bummer!

So, please pray for Ethan’s nose to stop running ASAP and for God to give me wisdom and creativity with things to do with him in the meantime with it just being us together all day and evening.  I have some toys that my mom brought over and that we bought off of people moving back to the States hidden from him.  I plan to pull them out during this time, but had planned to do that in addition to getting together with people.  Hopefully the toys will be more entertaining than I expect. I took this picture before Gary left this morning.  Ethan will enjoy looking at it later today.

Sienna’s Dedication

We had Sienna’s dedication at church today.  Two years ago we walked into church and sat behind the pastor on Mother’s Day, and the pastor turned around and asked us if we wanted to dedicate Ethan that day.  He told Gary to share something from up front about it, so Gary had about 10 minutes to decide what to say for Ethan’s dedication.  This time we asked about dedicating her, so Gary knew ahead of time that he would be speaking.  He said that he wanted Mary, the mother of Jesus, to be her model-- that she would be the Lord’s servant and trust in Him and that God would fulfill His purposes for her (based on Luke 1:38).       Here’s a more up close picture of Sienna that we took after church.

Dr. Carson

The team that we are on with CCC offers a seminary class in Budapest each semester and brings in seminary professors to teach.  The course is this week, and Dr. D.A. Carson is the professor who is teaching.  For those of you who don’t know who he is, he is a professor of the New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.  He is the author/editor of over 60 books, and is one of the top evangelical scholars in the world today.  He preached at our church on Sunday and Gary thought it was the best sermon that he’s heard in a long time.  Sadly, I didn’t really hear it all.  We do have speakers in the nursing mothers room, but I’m very visual and have never been able to listen to preachers on the radio or books on tape, etc.  When Gary preached a few weeks ago, I just sat in the back of the church because I really didn’t want to miss what he said, and I knew I would if I couldn’t see him (and I still didn’t catch it all due to nursing [keep in mind, I can’t even talk and cook at the same time]).  So, it won’t even work for me to go online and listen to Dr. Carson.

He came over for dinner on Monday night.  It was amazing how well rounded he is and how many things he actually does.  He was a chemistry major in his undergraduate degree, he writes poetry and hymns as well as plays the piano.  I just find it interesting for a “science” type person to do these other types of things as well.  He is also a pilot and rides a motorcycle.

I was able to go for part of a day to hear Dr. Carson teach.  I was glad but once again had a difficult time paying attention while sitting in the back and holding or nursing Sienna.  I was able to focus in while she slept, but sadly a window blew shut and knocked a glass in the floor which woke her up. Sienna did not pay much attention to what Dr. Carson had to say.  As you see she enjoyed some snoozes.

At some point, another woman was holding Sienna.  Sienna started making some noises, so Gary went over to get her.  When Gary picked up her, Dr. Carson interrupted himself and said not to take Sienna out of the room if she is making a little noise.  He said that if she gets up to 140 decibels then we can take her out, but that he would like Gary and me both to be able to stay in there, and if Sienna leaves that means that one of us has to leave.  Then he told the singles that if they didn’t like it to suck it up.  I thought that was very gracious of him (on our part).  Thankfully, she did very well and wasn’t fussy like she can be at times.

3 Months Old

Sienna is now 3 months old.  The time seems to be going by faster than it did with Ethan.  She is a lot smaller than Ethan was at this age (12 pounds compared to his 15), so it’s hard for me to believe that she is already 3 months old.  I remember that Gary and I thought things got a lot better with Ethan at 3 months.  I think some of it is because he went to a 4 hour nursing schedule then.  That won’t be happening with her. :-)  She basically nurses every 3 hours during the day, and I don’t see her moving to a 4 hour schedule anytime soon (at least not for every feeding).

She still sleeps well at night.  We put her down for bed around 8:30 or 9:00 and then have still been waking her for the late night feeding (between 10 and 11).  She eats a little and then goes back to bed, so we will probably start working on getting rid of that feeding before too long.  She typically wakes up between 7:30 and 8:30, though, I tend to wake her a couple of days a week if she’s not awake by a certain time.

Her naps are getting better which is nice.  I was afraid that they were going to be like Ethan’s, which were short.  This still may happen, but it seems not. We love her big blue eyes. It’s so hard to believe that Ethan’s hands were once the size of hers.  And just 2 years ago!  I enjoy watching her respond to Ethan’s voice.  Sometimes I think she responds more to his voice than mine or Gary’s. As you can see Ethan is doing well too.  William came over last Saturday and managed to stay a bit more clean than Ethan. It took quite a while to get all of the dirt out of Ethan’s eyes.  I think he looks like a raccoon here.

Resurrection Day

I hope you all had a wonderful Resurrection Day.  I love it that there is a holiday where we celebrate Jesus rising from the dead!  I was glad that Sienna slept through the music at church.  We had a choir (which I don’t think we ever have had before), and sang some great songs such as the Hallelujah Chorus.  Gary thought it was the best church service that our church has had.

One tradition in Hungary is that the boys spray the girls with water on Easter Monday, which is a holiday here.  I’ve never seen this happen, but Gary actually saw some guys doing it to a teenage girl who lives a few houses down from us.Michelle got Sienna this 0-3 month dress, but it’s been too big for her till now.  So I was glad she was able to finally wear it.  Kristen got her this onesie which happened to match perfectly.

Our teammates, the Beattys, invited us to their place for a cookout and potluck, and for the kids to hunt for eggs.  There were 2 other families and 2 single girls who joined us.Ethan didn’t understand the concept of looking for eggs at all.  He walked right over the first one.  So Gary gave him some help in seeing the eggs.  He just pointed to the next one (in the picture above).  Later he came back to it and touched it but didn’t want to pick it up.   He finally picked one up and put it in the bag with much encouraging from us.But he quickly went on to other things that were more fun such as carrying the trailer around.

We love his expressions in the next 2 pictures.It’s really hard to get a decent family picture now with 2 little ones.  This was the best we could do without taking forever to do it.

Two Months Old

We went for Sienna’s two-month check-up last week, and she is doing well.  She gained 2 pounds since her one-month check-up.  She seems a lot bigger, and we’re realizing that a lot of pictures that we wanted to do with her don’t work now because she is too big.  When Ethan was 2 months old, he weighed 2 pounds more than her, so she is still small compared to him at this age.

If you don’t want to read details about how she is getting along then you can skip the next 3 paragraphs and just go to the pictures below. :-)

Her hair is auburn now and it looks like blonde is growing underneath.  After we give her a bath her hair is curly.  So, we’ll see what happens with the color and curls.  I just hope that her hair doesn’t all fall out because I like it that she has long hair.

She doesn’t take a pacifier and doesn’t seem to take a bottle.  We practiced giving her a bottle a few days before a women’s meeting that I had last month.  She took the bottle fine, but while I was at the women’s meeting she didn’t take it well and then spit up what she did take.  Thankfully, my meeting was a block down the street, so Gary was able to just bring her to me so I could nurse her.  We tried twice over the weekend in anticipation for a women’s meeting that is this week, but she hasn’t taken it either time.  I will probably just take her with me since it is the last one of the school year.  We only gave Ethan a bottle 5 times, so I can’t imagine that it will be a big deal if she doesn’t ever take it.  Someone has let me borrow a great cover with a hoop type thing that goes around your neck so you can see the baby while she nurses, so I can use that anywhere.  I do love it that nursing in public is not a big deal over here.

Lots of people ask us how she is sleeping.  That seems to be the second or third question I get asked.  So, in case any of you are wondering…  She has slept well (waking once in the night) most of the time since her 2nd week (when we quit waking her to feed her).  Sometimes she wakes between 4 and 5 and then goes back to bed after nursing until around 8:30.  Sometimes she has been sleeping through the night and waking between 6 and 7.  We are not morning people, so I nurse her on one side and put her back to bed.  Then either she wakes up or we get her up around 8:30.  So, either way, we are getting up once (even though technically one of those times is considered time to get up:-)). 

She will be 10 weeks old tomorrow, but here are a couple of pictures from when she was 8 weeks old.One of the Hungarian women from my Body & Soul exercise class gave me this wrap.  She used it with her daughter all the time (including during the exercise class when she was fussy).  She taught me how to use it and showed me a video online to watch.  The wrap is quite long and neat with the different ways it can be used.