Making Her Presence Known

The expectant mom was expecting to be bigger by this point (exactly five months along), but at least I know she's in there. Today the junior high band came and put on a mini-concert to hopefully recruit some of our students in the near future. Little Gracie (the name is actually growing on her dad) was clearly very aware of her surroundings. When the percussion started thumping and the horns started blaring and the rest of the band started doing their thing, I got a kick out of feeling my little girl rock and reel inside. I was disappointed when it was over!

The Tentative Plan

Before we were even married, Danilo talked about having our children grow up speaking both Spanish and English. It sounded great to me at the time. As our family is beginning to materialize before our eyes, I have become ever so less excited about the idea. If you give me a minute to explain, hopefully I will come off not sounding so selfish. Danilo's original proposal was to speak pure Spanish in the home because they would get exposed to English everywhere else they went. I had my reservations about that because though I love the Spanish language, it's not my first language and not the one I fall into speaking naturally. While raising my children, I don't want to have to hope that I'm conveying the right message. When I'm putting my baby to sleep, I want the words I speak to her to be genuinely mine. So we compromised when we found out a baby was on the way to me speaking English when I'm at home with the baby, speaking Spanish as a family when Danilo got home, and Danilo always speaking Spanish. While it was a compromise, I still wasn't embracing the idea. I think when you begin raising a family, at least in my experience, I have craved going back to my roots. I want my children to have similar experiences to what I had growing up, and speaking a different language when we're all together is so foreign from the experience I had as a child. Yet at the same time we will be joining two cultures, and because I love both Danilo and his Chilean background, and because he had a childhood that was different from mine, I realize it's important that we represent both. So the idea occurred to me the other day to balance both by having weeks. We can have a Spanish week where I get good Spanish practice as the whole family speaks Spanish. We talk in Spanish, say our blessing on the food in Spanish, eat dinner in Spanish, say our family prayers in Spanish, have family home evening in Spanish. And when the next Sunday morning comes along, it's English week, and we do it all over again in English. I took the idea up with Danilo, told him why it was important to me, and he was agreeable. The idea might still receive a little tweaking, but it feels pretty good.

The Ever Important 20 Weeks!

Last Thursday Danilo and I had an appointment with an ultra sound tech to see our baby again at the 20 week mark. I hadn't felt a lot of movement inside and so was very excited to see we have a very active baby!! The tech flattered us by telling us how DARLING our baby was and by the end of the appointment was almost absolutely certain that we've got a little girl on the way.

Sweet baby foot!

So what does this mean for the name debate? I love the name Grace. To me it's timeless and classic. It won't be too big for her when she's born and it will grow up with her. I love the thought of calling her Gracie, and she can decide which she'd rather go by. When I think of Grace, I think of, well, grace, and poise and beautiful things, as well as the grace of God. Danilo likes it somedays, and not so much on others. His main argument is that people will call her "Crazy Gracie," since almost anyone who speaks Spanish knows the word "crazy" in English and a Spanish "z" sounds more like an s. Then it sounds more like "Crasy Gracie." Yeah, it rhymes. At this point in the conversation (we've had it many times) I tell him you can do that with any name, and tell him about my mom's cousin Danny who would lovingly refer to me as Brat-ney. We'll keep you posted on this one, too!

Cute Enough to Eat

These stinking cute puppies are at my favorite stage right now. They belong to Danilo's family and are a Shitzu-Maltese mix. They're for sale!! And they're bilingual! Well...they come from a bilingual home. :)

It'll Be So Cool Babe!

I don't know to what I should attribute my silly face in this picture. But I do want you to take a good look at Danilo's plate. This was a night out at Chuck-A-Rama where Danilo feels a solemn obligation to eat his money's worth. He's reaching the end of his meal here with a smathering of everything at the dessert bar. Inevitably after an evening at such a buffet I will hear, "I ATE SO MUCH! That's it babe, that's it. From now on, Perfect Diet." And the next morning as he gets ready in the bathroom I answer questions like, "Do you think I'm still in as good of shape as when you married me?" Danilo has begun the Perfect Diet approximately 124 times since we were married (that's an average of once a week). However, it's taken on a new twist. Danilo had this great idea when he found out he was going to be a dad that HE AND I COULD WEIGH THE SAME when I reach my heaviest point of pregnancy. For some reason, that's been the motivation he's needed to only have one helping at dinner, get up the first time the alarm rings to go to the gym, and thank me for keeping the treats in the pantry limited. He's averaged losing a pound a week. I'm planning on gaining quite a few once the baby starts to weigh pounds and not ounces in the next few months. He told me, "It'll be so cool, babe! We'll weigh the same!" Hmph. We'll see. I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, Happy Perfect Diet Sweetheart!!"

Good Thing I'm Not an Astronaut

Last weekend before real life started back up again, our friends James and Amy invited us to the Woody family's cabin in the Uintahs. I learned to more fully appreciate husbands as the girls put dinner together while the men hauled all the stuff from the car up to the cabin on snowmobile. The next morning we went snowmobiling. We layered up since it was somewhere between 10 and 20 degrees outside. I didn't expect to have a minor anxiety attack when I put my helmet on. Apparently I am slightly claustrophobic. I was okay as I sat, made sure I was breathing and told myself helmets are to protect you, not to suffocate you. I told my mom about the experience and she said it's probably a good thing I'm not an astronaut. Once the wind and snow started flying by, I was glad we had them on. Good grief, we had a good time.













If you were looking at the ultra sound picture from the last post and now are looking at the snowmobile pictures and feeling a little concerned, know that when the expectant mom was on the snowmobile, just as jumps were approaching we slowed WAY down. Unlike everyone else, I never caught any air.

Our Beautiful Baby!

Friday afternoon we had our first ultra sound appointment. There truly is a baby inside me! Morning sickness had been a powerful indicator, but seeing our little person moving around on the screen was a sweet experience like nothing I'd ever felt before! We were grateful to find out that our baby is good sized and has a healthy heart beat.