Big News

Guess What?

The new little one at 11 weeks.

Yes, baby #4 will be (soon enough) joining our family! I am 11 weeks along, and due the end of May 2010. Never a dull moment around these parts! We finally broke the news to the kids tonight. I'm one of those rather old fashioned types that really likes to wait until the first trimester is over (or nearly over in this case). Being that my girls are bigger and in school, I knew telling them would equate into telling everyone, so we held off. It was hard to keep the secret from them for this long! Emily is ecstatic. Hannah is about as excited about it as she gets about these things. Maddie, of course, is pretty clueless she is about to be dethroned as my baby. Emily wants a boy, Hannah a girl, and as cliche as it is, I will take whatever we are given! We celebrated by adding to our paper gratitude chain, and having carmel apples.

I've already seen the doctor a handful of times here and had just as many ultrasounds. Medical care here is super technologically advanced- no measuring tapes to check the baby's size here, they do ultrasounds at every appointment! I must say, it spoils you! I love looking forward to seeing the baby at every appointment. They found the heartbeat 4 weeks ago, and today I watched the tiny baby moving around, waving it's arms, moving it's legs. All at 4 cm in length. Pretty awesome! No matter what number pregnancy it is, this part doesn't get old.

To answer the normal array of questions, yes I will have the baby here. The medical care is really top notch, which is not to say identical to the US. Of course there are cultural differences, but at the end of the day I trust the doctors and medicine here completely. I was pretty sick the first trimester, about the same as always for me. I even lost weight! No real food cravings or aversions (except aversions to food period). No clue, no inkling, no sense if it is a boy or girl. I've slipped and said she a number of times, but given our history, no big shock!

So that's our big news. It's going to be a crazy summer, but then again it seems that every summer is!

Yongdusan Park

The girls had the day off of school for a Professional Development Day, so Tyler took the day off and we spent the morning exploring one of the corners of Busan we had yet to spend much time in. Yongdusan Park is in the center of what used to be central Busan. Back in the day it was really the heart of the city- near the piers, the train station, all the important stuff. Busan has spread considerably over the years, and though this part of town is still bustling, it's not quite the center as it once was.

At the very top of Yongdusan Park is the Busan Tower, which offers 360 degree views of the city. It's really a beautiful view, especially on a clear day.

Busan Tower

Typical City View

Old Busan Port

More Port

The Asian looking building in the center is the Commodore Hotel, once THE place to stay in Busan. Now most of the THE places to stay are right on the beach (thank you land reclamation!).

Cool dragon statue.

The character "Yong" means dragon. When we lived in Seoul we lived in Yongsan, or Dragon Mountain.

Madeline enjoying the age old tradition of pigeon chasing.

Obviously way too domesticated. They were eating right out of the girls hands. If you are not a bird person, just go ahead and stop right here before we totally horrify you with what we let our kids do. . . .

Landing right on her.

This one surprised her a bit.

A double landing! A third landed, too. Then they all fell off.

Another view of the tower.

Most of the family.

Long Day

This was taken at 4:00 PM. Apparently it had been a long, long day! It's pretty hard work to be a pre-Kindergartner. She had been watching Dora and I noticed it had grown eerily quiet. I went to investigate and found this. Incidentally, upon taking this picture I realized just *how ugly* my couches are!

Halloween Fun

Well I'm still horribly behind on all my blogging, but in lieu of stressing so much over catching up before posting new stuff, I decided to keep backdating old posts, but still update with current ones. I'm sure the old ones are old news, but it's my best form of record keeping at present!

We had a lot of fun this Halloween season. The two oldest girls are really old enough to be excited about the holiday, to plan their costumes, and anticipate trick or treating. Sticking with age old traditions, we kicked off the season by carving our pumpkin. Emily carefully planned the face, and then insisted we put a bow on the stem. Yes, it is a household of girls around here!

Trying her hand at scooping the goop.

Hannah supervising.

The girls and their "Gracie-o-Lantern"

Hannah decided about halfway through the summer that she wanted to be a bumble bee for Halloween. If you know Hannah, you know she is not wishy washy and luke warm about stuff. When she decides on something, she commits 100%. So we picked up a bumble bee costume back in August, and it's been the talk ever since! She was so excited to finally put it on.

Emily wanted to be a black cat. A ballerina black cat to be specific. And specific she was! The cat ears had to have pink in them. The skirt had to be a tutu. She had to have a tail attached, with a bow on the end. She was super cute.

And sweet little Madeline was a ladybug for trick of treating. In a super warm fleece get up. But she fell in love with dressing up in Hannah's old butterfly costume (from last year mind you. This girl is big!). So for the warm weather at the school carnival, Maddie was a butterfly. She loved every minute of it! Incidentally, I would never have even bought the ladybug had I any idea she would fit in the butterfly. . . . . but I somehow didn't anticipate the 3T costume fitting my little one so well!

Friday the girls had a school Halloween party. The elementary teachers all worked together to plan half a dozen stations the kids rotated through, and they loved it!

The girls at school.

Emily Ballerina Cat

Cutest little bumblebee ever!

Sweet little butterfly. . . too distracted to pose.

Hannah and her two American classmates, Madison and Jake (and Madeline).

Hannah's teacher Ms. Newton did some amazing face painting. She's an artist, and it showed!

Emily and her best friend Tuscany. Both cats, by coincidence.

Hannah playing the find the bones on the playground game.

Trick or treating at the snack shack. These high school girls tried to scare Hannah by showing her a very realistic stuffed mouse. Didn't scare her a bit, she wanted to pet it. Yup, that's my Hannah!

Some monster dance moves.

Pinata action. Note Emily's cute tail

Relay races.

Awesome bee face paint.

Busan Foreign School Pre-Kindergarten Class

Busan Foreign School First Grade

On Halloween we loaded up the girls and took our friends the Jollys up to Daegu to go trick or treating on base. Trick or treating on base is a real treat. . . it's just like being back in the US. Kids are running everywhere, lights are on, candy is flying. It was a lot of fun. The older two charged ahead immediately, knowing exactly what to do. I think it took Madeline all of one house before she was pushing ahead with the rest in search of more candy.

Maddie's first trick or treat.

My cute ladybug!

Hannah and her buddy Macyn.

Lots of girls! McKenna, Macyn, Hannah, Emily, and Madeline

As you can see, we had a great Halloween. I think holidays get better the older our kids get. It's really fun to share some of our favorite childhood memories and traditions with them!

Texas Pool Fun

If you added up all the time we spent on various activities in Texas, and put it into a pie chart, the largest slice, by far, would be time spent in the pool. The kids wake up asking to swim, and usually have to be lured out of the pool by a popsicle for bed. It becomes as natural to ask for a swim as it does to ask for a drink. We are so glad Tyler's parents opted for a house with a pool in the back yard. Thank you Mama Bear and Papa Bear!

Linus and Pippi

Hannah- stylin' as ever

Our little fish

Learning the ring dive game

Emily, Tyler, Ryan, and Izzie

This little cutie started out luke warm about the pool. By the end of the trip she was literally throwing herself off the pool deck into the water. It looks like the fish in her was awakened!

Simon

Some serious goggle action

Emily and Izzie

On To Texas!

After a week and a half in California, it was time to move the fun deep into the heart of Texas. Texas is somewhere we have to come to love, and somewhere we love to visit. It's great to feel like you have so many homes!

We ate killer BBQ (salmon, steak, hamburgers), swam in the pool, visited the zoo and the children's museum, shopped, ate our weight in berries and fruit, enjoyed some good ol' Blue Bell ice cream, loved playing with our cousins, swam in the pool, and swam in the pool! We loved spending time with Tyler's parents, his brother Kit and his family, and his sister Ryan and her family. There is nothing better than spending time with family.

Texas will be a few posts, but this is just a post with a few of my favorite random pictures from Texas.

My sweet little girl got some serious little curls in all the humidity.

Hannah and Izzie. They were best little buds when we lived together in Barbados. It was nice to see even after a year apart, they are still best little buddies.

Jasper. I just love this kid.

Madeline enjoying a Sunday afternoon walk.

Sly Park Lake Camping Trip

By far, the highlight of our time in California was our family camping trip. For our first camping trip (with kids in tow), we opted for an old childhood standby of mine, Sly Park Lake. This beautiful lake is only 15 minutes from my parents house, which made it perfect for a first campout. If nothing else, we knew we could load up at midnight and drive home if it was a fiasco! But it wasn't.

Sly Park Lake holds so many memories for me a child. For years I attended Girl Scout Day camps there. As a family we would picnic, swim, and canoe on the lake. As a college student home on summer break, I would meet friends for a swim across the (narrow part) of the lake. I was excited to take my girls there and start forming their memories of this beautiful lake.

We loaded up, set up camp, swam, canoed, kayaked, played in the woods, chased ducks, ate camping food, make smores, sat around a campfire, slept in a tent, woke up way too early with the sun, and just had a fantastic time spending time with our family. Our girls are already asking for the next trip.

Our littlest camper.

Our nature girl.

All the dirt on these kids was already coating them at about an hour into the trip. That's quality camping!

First campfire smore. Sure we had done BBQ smores, but really they are not even in the same class.

Alden approves, too.

Ruthie and Hannah, the self-proclaimed "3 Year Old Blondie Girls." Funniest line from these two was in the truck driving to the lake. Hannah said, "Roofie what are you doing?" Ruth responded with, "Just picking my nose." Hannah said, "Wow. I like to do that too!! It must be because we are both 3 year old blondie girls." Yup, that's my girl!

Grandpa teaching Hannah the art of whittling.

Mad LOVED this boat floatie thing.

Lake fun.

I love this picture of my dad.

A little kayak action.

The 5 kiddos in front of my parents VW westie. This westie takes them on camping adventures all over the place!

The 3 year olds practicing driving the westie.

Sweet Mad at the end of the trip.

So tired. . . . about a minute after I took this she had a massive blow out. In her last diaper. We wrapped her in a towel and headed home. What a messy way to end a quality campout!