Hm.... this bedrest thing is a bit hard on the emotions at times! Trying to remember that God knew this would happen and doesn't expect me to be as 'present' a mother as I would be if I were able to move around freely. Now to modify my expectations of myself... :-) Bedrest has a unique way of reminding me that I'm not in control. Good thing this family is in the hands of the only One who is in control!

Mrs Andrea came to visit this week with L, E and baby A... we were hoping to play on the swings but alas it suddenly started to rain. So we sat downstairs in the lobby area and ate Mrs Hien's yummy pikelets and chatted.

Back on Bedrest

I'm back on partial bedrest, so life has shifted gears to an even slower pace :-) I'm allowed to be out of bed for 2 x 3hour blocks each day, so we still have time for fun things like going to the tennis court downstairs for Emily's walking practice, and visiting the swings down there also. Emily loves the slide! Yesterday little friends S and A came to play and everyone had a lovely time (especially Mum who got to have a wee bit of adult conversation!). Jon is being Super-Dad (and super-husband!) by waking early to shower and prepare breakfast, and then getting Emily up, feeding us both (!), and getting her onto the potty before Mrs Hien arrives and Jon leaves for a very busy day at work. (So while I'm going slower, Jon's going quite a bit faster!!)

HE IS RISEN!!!

Emily and Mum having a 'Yay! Jesus is alive!' hug over a secial celebratory breakfast.

Our new family heirloom, the 'Jesus is Risen' banner, makes its debut

HIF this morning was packed out again. It was a good time of celebrating! Then Em went down for a sleep while Jon and I had a special easter lunch with some American friends.

Resurrection Tree

Again inspired by Noel Piper, at the beginning of Lent we set up a Resurrection Tree (a dead, unwanted peach blossom tree scavenged for us from the side of the road by our beloved Mrs Hien) and started to hang from it items that symbolise Jesus' death and resurrection. It looks pretty sparse (!) and I'm looking forward to having another year to gather a few more objects that can help remind us of the story of what Jesus did for us in his dying and being raised. We kind of stopped taking Emily to the tree and explaining the significance of the various itmes, as she would just get upset that she couldn't break off bits of tree and eat them :-)

Putting Em Awaaaaaar

YAY for (very Very VERY) Good Friday!

As part of developing our family traditions (thanks to some thoughtful ideas from friends and a great little book called 'Treasuring God in our Traditions' , we have been reading through a few pages of this book since the beginning of Lent.

Today we read about how Jesus was killed on a cross. Yesterday we made a play dough 'Calvary' hill with a tomb and stone in the back of it. We baked it and painted it. This morning we used pipe cleaner people to act out the story.

Each Sunday from the beginning of Lent, we lit one less candle until today when we lit just one candle to symbolise the approaching of the dark day when Jesus was crucified.

Then we ate some hot buns with a cross on them that reminds us that Jesus died for us. (We're looking forward to celebrating the day he rose from the dead... but that's not until Sunday!)

Emily enjoyed the hot cross buns :-)

A GIRL!

We've been getting a few emails asking if we are sharing the gender of the new baby. Absolutely we are! We just forgot to put it on the blog :-) Its so exciting that Emily will have a baby sister. Yay! They'll be a little less than 20 months apart.

Another lovely, sunny, spring day today. We went walking around out building's grounds again this morning.

Emily is loving hiding things -- Emily (she loves to hide herself under sheets!), toys inside pencil cases, food inside board books (ugh), fruit under her hand (and then tries to tell us its all gone and she needs more!!)...

Yay for holidays!

Today is a public holiday, and even though the day is exactly the same for Emily, Mrs H and I, this morning Ms Lanh left after her shift to go and 'play' and I think I have absorbed some of her 'holiday' feel! I totally feel like I'm on holidays!! We baked bread, walked outside in the SUNSHINE (we haven't seen any of THAT here for a while!) by the pool, and Emily honed her watermelon-spearing skills at lunch -- she's getting quite deft with a fork now. Mrs Hien told us this week that there's been some baby stealing going on -- people stealing babies from poorer homes and selling them over the border! She was very nervous because a couple had come to her own house while she was here with us (and Ms Lanh was babysitting her son), claiming to be friends of the extended family and asking many questions about Mrs Hien's baby. It turns out this suspicious couple were complete strangers to the family. The incident left Mrs Hien rather disturbed!

Emily loves stairs!

Em is 16mo today and Jon is off to Manila

Jon left this morning for the Philippines. We had a wonderful 'family' weekend (complete with 'ride on toy' fun for Emily & her Dad!), and Jon is due back Friday, so we'll get next weekend together too - yay! Ms Lanh is back to do evening/morning/weekend shifts and Mrs Hien will be with us throughout the daytimes. Its no fun being prohibited from lifting Emily but we ALL love having these wonderful ladies around so often and feel VERY grateful for them.

It seems Emily, at 16 months today, might actually be getting ready to drop one of her two daytime sleeps (NOOOOoooooooo!!!!!). For two days now she has spent her entire afternoon sleeptime talking very animatedly to herself -- in her rather dark room! So today we will try putting a little light on and giving her some toys in her cot. Perhaps this is a good time to transition to 'room time' (a.k.a. 'time when Mum gets some sleep herself'!)

Emily with the giggles

Hard Drive Dramas

A frustration lately has been losing everything off the hard drive of my computer. One day, my screen just went black and when we re-started it, everything was gone. The experts haven't had any success retrieving it. While there was a lot of writing on there (letters, journals, planning, etc) the biggest blow has been losing many precious photos of our family. I had been preparing photo collage pages for printing to go in Emily's first photo album (her first year) and I lost all the work, plus the photos. Sob! We still have some photos on a backup drive, but not all of them. I guess this is a hard lesson to learn in backing stuff up properly!!

Off bedrest!

I am off the strict-ish bedrest schedule and under much more manageable 'take it easy' orders. I still lay down and sit a fair bit, but I now have more freedom in my playing with Emily and am managing the odd bit of tidying up around the place! The baby is kicking gently and quite active.

EMILY currently has a fascination with zippers and loves to open and close any zipper she can get her hands on. She even manages the stiff ones quite well! She's loving climbing the stairs via her bumshuffle technique (then sliding down on her bottom - ouch!) and is getting very good at pulling herself to standing in one swift motion. Today she walked (shuffled on her feet) a little ways along the floor, holding onto the couch for support. Go, Emily! Her morning nap time is starting later these days, which has come as quite a surprise because for so long she has napped from 8am - 9.30am -- we had gotten quite used to it!

JON is quite recovered from his jetlag and proving an excellent ally in helping me to take things easy -- doing all the things that I shouldn't and even many that I could do. (What a man!). He goes away on Sunday for a week in Manila. While he is gone, Ms Lanh will come and help us again in the evenings/early mornings when Mrs Hien doesn't work.

OUR FAMILY is loving our family dates, when we go somewhere for lunch or afternoon tea sometime on the weekend. And Jon and I continue to enjoy our Saturday morning brekky dates at a lovely hotel nearby.