One year ago

One year ago today we were saying goodbye to our family and heading across the globe! Can you believe it's already been a year? It is so crazy that it is already here. So much has happened and who would have guessed we would be in a different country waiting for our second child to get here! God is good and we are so thankful that He has brought us here. I wonder where we will be one year from now.... :)

update...

Hello my fellow blogging friends! I just wanted to update you all and let you know that Jackson should be here on January 3rd! :) They decided to move the date up a few days and so...we should be seeing this sweet baby boy in just a few days. I was anticipating a few more days of sleeping at least 8 hours a night but oh no, Sadie has changed all of that. For some reason she has decided that sleeping in her bed wasn't really an option. There has been so much change for her in the past few weeks that maybe that is the cause, but how can she sleep in her bed during nap time but yet not bed time?? That is our question that we have no answer to! And two nights ago, we tried to let her cry it out only to go in and find a goose egg on her forehead and scratches on her face where she was hitting the pac and play with her head. We just can't let her hurt her self so we put her in bed with us :( So...I know I am really in for it once Jack comes....I don't know exactly what we will do. Does any of my great mom friends have any advice this time? You all have always come through for me everytime... :) I am just counting on the fact that once we get back to China and she is in her own bed everything will be okay but that isn't for another month...it could be a long month.
Anyway, other than that, things are going well. My mom arrives tomorrow night. We have been keeping ourselves busy, I got my hair cut and new glasses! :) That always makes me happy.
Well, I should go for now, just wanted to keep you guys in the loop!

"ish"

Well, today is another day in Bangkok!! We ventured out to the aquarium today and had a great time. Sadie loved seeing the "ish". She squealed and waved at them and even blew them kisses. It was precious! It was actually a pretty nice place, not too crowded and Sadie got to run around. And the best part...they had a play ground!!! YAY for a play ground that Sadie could actually play on! We used our Christmas money from my grandmother to go, I sure wish that we could go to that play area everyday, Sadie loved it. We might just have to go at least one more time while we are here. Enjoy a few pictures below: Oh and yes, I am sad that we have no family pictures together, there just never seemed to a person who could take our picture :(





This is Sadie's very first Burger King crown! There were dogs on the crown itself so she was a little too distracted with the dogs to wear the crown! Oh her love of cats and dogs...its crazy!

I hope that you all are having a great Christmas holiday...we are planning a small feast for our little family of three on Saturday. Did I tell you what we were having? You know, I can't remember, if I did, I am sorry, but I will repeat it again :) We are having a small turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole and strawberry salad. We are super excited and I can't wait to eat and then have left overs :)

Oh yeah, my doctor appointment went fine yesterday. I am having contractions but nothing has gotten worse so we are still on stand still. Next week he will check to see if there is any progress. And if that little booger decides to stay in, we are still planning on January 5th!

Have a wonderful Christmas and may you truly focus on the reason and not get caught up in all the busyness of the season!

How we spend our days...

I am sure you are wondering how we are spending our days here in Bangkok (and even if you aren't really wondering...I am going to tell you anyway, ha ha!) We are trying to fill our days with small activities for Sadie's sake and small for my sake. I can't do a whole lot but we try to do at least one thing in the morning or afternoon. Poor Sadie hates being cooped up inside so we try to take her out and about. We have been to the mall several times (and boy I wish I had a ton energy because there are places to shop everywhere, it's probably better that I don't have the energy anyway!) But we found this fantastic toy area, they have all kinds of toys! I bought Sadie a Mr. Potato Head (to be from her great grandmother) the other day and then a Leap Frog that can go on the fridge (from her grandparents) thanks to the recommendation of my friend Erica. She said that her kids would play with this Leap Frog thing and it teaches them the ABC's and she is able to cook dinner. What could be better?? :) Now to teach Sadie to keep it on the fridge and not take it off to play with it, there always seems to be something. Anyway...back to the original reason for the post...taking Sadie to the play area. We took her there thinking that it would be great fun, turns out she is too young. So we settled for letting her ride a few rides. To her, it was just as much fun, she knew no different! So, here is a few pictures of her riding some fun rides....




To update you on me and baby Jack...we are still doing pretty good! :) I go tomorrow for my 37 week check up. I have been having a lot of Braxton Hicks contractions this week but they aren't getting harder or worse. Just having a lot of them. I am keeping my eye on them and will talk to the doctor tomorrow. I will keep you guys updated! I am hoping that this little one will keep cooking till January 5th but as I said with Sadie, God already knows his birthday so if he comes early, it is all in His Timing!

Christmas Decorations

This Christmas looks so different than others in the past. In fact, last year, I thought was hard enough, not having a home and not being able to really have those Christmas traditions that I desired. We were in between homes and packing for China, visiting family one last time. Packing was in full swing and Christmas decorations were already put in storage. Last year, I kept saying, next year, it will be different. We will be settled into our home in China and we will begin to make those traditions as a family together and truly be able to focus on Jesus' birth. Well...who knew that we wouldn't be in China, we wouldn't have those traditions, but we would be in Bangkok where it is 95 degrees outside and truly doesn't even feel like the Christmas season at all. I honestly wouldn't even realize it was Christmas if it weren't for Facebook statuses :) So, today, Clark went and bought us a tree. We decorated it with lights and tinsel and put it on the desk here in the main room and now as I look it, I realize that Christmas isn't about decorations but about focusing on Him. But yet, I will admit, this 36 week pregnant, hormonal woman wishes that we could have a "normal" Christmas. Well..there is always next year! :) Enjoy a few pictures that I took of us putting our tree up! Notice the last picture with palm trees in the background...something is just wrong with that, we need the snow that we had in China! :)





Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Update on Baby Jackson

I went to the doctor today for my first visit here in Bangkok. I really like the doctor, he is nice and was very informative and answered all my questions. Things seem to be looking good for Jackson and the hospital is super nice! Right now we have a scheduled c-section for January 5th. We actually got to choose the day, so weird that we got to choose Jackson's birthday. We are excited about it though because it's Clark's mom's birthday. So, we know that it will be a special day for them both now! Of course all of this to say, Jackson must stay inside and not decide to come out early! So...three weeks from today our newest little one will be here!! AAHH...trying to get all my sleep now and relish sleeping 8 hours in a row...

Our Computer

I am not sure how many of you know but we have been having computer problems since September. We finally took it to a place in Bangkok today and the bad news is our hard drive is fried :( Good News is they are going to replace it, so hopefully in a week or so we will have a computer that is like new!

What I need from you is your email address! I lost my address book so I am not able to send out our family updates about our life in Asia. If you will leave me a comment (I won't post it) with your email address, I can update our address book and start sending out updates again!

Thanks so much!

Hong Kong

We had a great week in Hong Kong. We had to head down to get our Thai Visas so that we could stay in Thailand more than 30 days. We figured while we were there we would relax and enjoy the city. I have been there many times and it is one of my favorite cities and because I talked about it so much, Clark wanted to see Hong Kong too. And his conclusion is the same as mine..he loved it too! While we were there we went to Hong Kong Disney Land. Sadie is a little too young for it but we thought we just couldn't pass up the opportunity because we didn't know when we would get back to Hong Kong again. Sadie did enjoy her time there and even got to ride two rides. We wanted to take some pictures with Disney characters while we were there and chose the "gou gou" (dog) because we knew that Sadie would like them even better than Mickey and Minnie (and it helped that the line was shorter!) and she did love it until she got close up then she held on to me tight!
Here Sadie is on her very first amusement park ride. I got to ride this one with Clark and Sadie and then the second ride they got to ride without me. It was a small car and Clark said Sadie loved it! We then went to see the Lion King show and Sadie loved it even though she fell asleep close to the end. We stayed about 4 hours and had a good time, we are so glad we went!

Here we are in Tarazan's Tree House

We went to the Peak one night. The Peak is a famous place in Hong Kong where you can see the whole city. We were a bit disappointed because it was cloudy but we still had a good time riding the tram up to the top and eating dinner at Bubba Gumps and at least being able to take a few pictures.

We took Sadie to the park one day to let her play because she never really gets to play on playgrounds in China. The one in our apartment complex is just so dirty and really not toddler friendly. She had a great time and even made new friends!

And here we are standing in Kowloon looking back over Hong Kong Island.
Overall, we had a wonderful time! It was hard on all of us because Sadie's schedule was so off. But worth it :) Sadie is used to going down at 6:15 each night and sleeping until 7:30 the next morning. It was near impossible to do that while we were doing so much. And then she had to be in the same room with us and that was so hard on her because if she woke up she would see us. Anyway, I digress, she is off on her schedule! Pray that after a few days here in Bangkok, she will be back to normal. Poor child has slept in so many different places, it gets hard!

We arrived here yesterday and spent today settling in. We are staying in a guest house facility where others are staying. It has been nice to meet new people. We have a 2 bedroom, 2 bath apartment. It's nice and big and it has been fun for Sadie to run around. Today we went over to the hospital to check it out and it is super nice! Way nicer than our hospital in America. I head to the doc on Tuesday, so I will give you an update on baby Jackson then. I am 36 weeks now, so we should be meeting him pretty soon!!

Sorry this post is random, just wanted to catch you guys up on our travels and add a few pictures for the family!!

We love you!

The Past Month

The past month has become one big blur...hence the reason that you all haven't heard from me! We found a new apartment, had it re done, packed up our old house, moved in, and now we are packing for Thailand. (We leave on Sunday). Not to mention in the midst of this I came down with a really bad cold and the whole diabetes issue...wow, stressful to say the least. You might be asking, why in the world are you going to Thailand? Well...that will be the birth place of baby Jackson. (And yes, he will be a U.S. citizen!) We leave on Sunday to go to Hong Kong for a week and then to Thailand to wait and best of all relax before his birth. We aren't sure at this point when he will be born, I do know that I will have a c-section and will know the date of that once we get there. We will have computer access and I will be keeping you guys updated and adding pictures once he gets here. I just wanted to send this out really quick to let you know that yes, we are alive and yes, we are stressed. But, it's almost over and we will have a new little one very soon!!