i have the best husband in the world. we have four kids and i homeschool three of them. i love them to pieces and wouldn't trade this life in for any other. i am fortunate to have incredible perspective on this matter, having been in the workforce for nearly a decade, three of those years juggling job and kids.

i am happy. truly. happy.

i'm recovering from a long, exhausting - yet very fun - weekend. we went to chicago. porta graduated from kellog with his mba and we wouldn't have missed it. so we went. my weekend started on thursday. but let's back up to wednesday and the 12 loads of laundry i did because it had been a week since i had done any laundry and we needed clean clothes to take on our trip. have you ever done 12 loads of laundry in one day? do you even have enough clothes to do that? by 11 p.m. i was just so tired of doing laundry. i was so tired, period. the kind of tired where you just want to whimper and cry and then hide under the bed covers for a very long time. it was that kind of day.

we left thursday and came back monday night. we stayed at the courtyard marriott river north. it was so great to be right by everything in downtown chicago. i kind of wish we had another day to really enjoy it. but our long weekend was jam packed celebrating porta's graduation, meeting new babies, visiting family and reconnecting with good friends we haven't seen in a long time. and as a super bonus...chrissy was in chicago at the same time! yay for time with dinner buddy!

the boys were unbelievably good. they endured long lunches, an extended dinner in a fancy italian restaurant, a graduation ceremony in an un-airconditioned arena, torrential rain and thunderstorms and one room for all six of us with great attitudes and good behavior. well, they got a little loud in the hotel room and made me a little crazy, but i can't really blame them for wanting to let loose a little. they weren't even being bad, just noisy. it was more me being impatient and not wanting our hotel neighbors to hate us.

we shouldn't have been able to go on this trip. we still don't know how our finances are shaking out now that we are officially on one income. it's expensive to stay in chicago...yet somehow, god makes everything work. we actually only ended up paying the whopping $48/day parking fee at the hotel. the room was paid for with marriott points, courtesy of eric's mom. i coinstarred our change and it ended up paying for our tickets to the field museum and then some. i feel so fortunate to have such good friends and to be able to spend time with them in their own city. with 4 kids, it's tough to travel and everyone ends up having to come to us. it was nice for once to be able to visit them instead. plus i love taking the boys to new places.

i'm still dog tired, but i have my coffee and that always helps. next trip: the soo in two weeks!

a year ago i was getting ready to staff my very last relay. i was constantly anxious and stressed about work and i just couldn't shake it off. it's such a good cause, but, man, the work just beats you down. it was like a dark cloud looming around my shoulders, engulfing my head and not letting me out. my poor family never got all of me when i was with them. i'd be home, but my head would be consumed with the latest work drama kicking my ass.

needless to say, i don't miss work. (g, you were right!) i miss the people, but i don't miss the work. i miss talking to adults every day, but i don't miss it more than i love being home with my boys. i remember when isaiah was born and getting so upset at the thought of missing any of his "firsts." what if he said his first word when i wasn't there? what if he laughed and i missed it? what if he crawled for the first time and i couldn't cheer for him? of course, working full time makes you miss a lot in your babies' lives. i missed isaiah's very first day of school because i was out of town at a conference. he only goes to school for the first time once! - and i missed it. guilty was something i felt a lot and never got used to.

but not anymore...it is a HUGE blessing that i get to be home with my boys and that - finally - they get all of me. i feel so lucky that i get to drop off isaiah and ethan at school and attend their class parties. i have time and energy to play with them at the park and help them with their homework. i'm thrilled that i get to make dinner (almost) every night and have a clean house waiting for eric when he comes home. life has sloooooowed down, and i cherish it. it's definitely not easier...cutting out one income has forced us to simplify and be humble. the fruits of that struggle have been that we see our priorities as they should be and *really* put our trust in God to provide for us. (and he always does!) as rewarding as my last job was, it pales in comparison to being able to give my boys the love and security that they need from me that i wasn't giving them before.

the last nine months have gone by fast. i'm ridiculously in love with my family and will never regret the decision to quit work and stay home.

two days ago, i attended the funeral for a baby girl. she was born with down's syndrome and a weak heart and the Lord decided that it was too much for her to keep fighting...He took that precious, precious life into His arms at just 5 days old.

i cannot express the pain and sadness that i felt as i watched her 10 brothers and sisters weep over her tiny white coffin. uncle, father and 2 brothers were the pall bearers. my heart broke a hundred times and then once more as i could only imagine the pain her parents were feeling was mine a thousandfold. four grandparents watched as their children buried their granddaughter. it's something you never wish would happen...and something you never think you'd witness or experience.

briana aubrey reece, we never got to meet, but you have made a footprint in my heart. you remind me how precious each life is and have allowed your parents to witness about the capacity of our hearts to grow and grow with love for our children, no matter how many, without compromising the love that already exists. you remind me to count the blessing that each child is that is conceived into this world. you remind me to never take for granted isaiah, ethan, owen and xavier. and you remind me that even in the darkest times, our Lord Jesus always shines through with his loving arms to comfort us and draw us near. thank you, sweet baby girl, and may you rest in peace with our Father in Heaven.

p90x. day 18. i don't think i've ever worked out daily for this long in my life. not even during the dancing days of college. i think by far yoga is my favorite...i can hardly do the balance poses, but it's still fun to try. it feels more like a dance than a workout. i don't even care that it's 90 minutes. (i'll do yoga over plyometrics any day.) regardless, the post-workout soreness feels good.

i just need to stay committed.

it's exciting. for the first time in a long time i'm committing to taking care of myself physically. now that i'm not pregnant, i want to be able to run around with my boys and keep up with them. who knows, maybe i'll even be soccer fit. also, my snowboard beckons me. i don't know when i'll get to ride, but i want it to be soon.

baby agustin #4 is now online!

can it be that it has taken me this long to blog about my tiniest boy? eric did a really good job with the details again, so you can always visit his blog for a re-cap if you haven't already.

i'm not gonna lie. i'm ti-red. (it deserved two syllables - i'm that tired.) but life is good. i couldn't ask for more. i'm finally home with my boys and giving them more face time. that face time is slowly turning into quality time, which is the best thing i think i can give them. and xavier i just a teeny tiny baby that i love so much. i like to hold his cheek up to mine and give him eskimo kisses. he has such a tiny nose! i've also forgotten how much i love the smell of newborn baby's breath!

by the way, i've turned 30. entering a new decade definitely feels different. i had a fantastic birthday. kimmie and eric really put a lot of effort into making this birthday special despite my lack of desire to even celebrate at all. kimmie decorated the house with the boys (who also made me birthday cookies, complete with their frosted handprints on them) and made sure that we had breakfast with my mom, tito lito and ryan before eric and i headed out to palak and rudhir's wedding. friends sang happy birthday to me before dinner (and i got flowers!) and was surprised with my boys showing up after dinner at the reception. they looked so cute..my own little boy band.

the surprises didn't end there. i came home from donna and jeff's baby shower the next day to a houseful of great friends and family. i was so surprised, i actually cried. it was a good way to usher in my 30s. thank you everyone!!!!

a presumably uneventful week has become somewhat eventful. i think i received the most phone calls yesterday (monday) than i have in one day in a while...all dear friends checking on the status of baby xavier's arrival. he's still en womb...doesn't seem like he's in any hurry at all to get out.

then there was this morning. tuesday, 7/28, xavier's estimated due date. got a call from the senior executive director at my office letting me know that my position was being eliminated.

wow.

i expected this, but didn't expect this. laid off. the words echo differently when you say them out loud. it's not at all devastating news to me and eric. in fact, it's a much better situation than we had originally prepared ourselves for. it just feels a little icky that i've been laid off...as if there were something i could have done to prevent it (which there wasn't), even though it wasn't even the plan for me to return to work anyway. i was telling eric that it hurts initially because the selfish/prideful part of me thinks that it's just nice to feel that you were important enough to be saved from elimination. it isn't even like that though, because the layoffs were based on the organization's need for the position and not at all on performance. anyway, i'm over it after shedding a couple tears. i really loved where i worked, but i love my family so much more. owen was so so sweet afterwards and cuddled with me for a good hour as if to say, "remember, mama. this is why you're choosing to stay home with us. these moments that we'll never get back." i squeezed him so tightly and thanked God for making His plan for me so clear and obvious.

so here i am. officially unemployed and just waiting for xavier to come. if he's born tomorrow (the 29th) then the whole family will be paired by birth dates. owen and eric were both born on the 28th. isaiah and ethan were both born on the 20th. that leaves me and xavier for the 29th. we'll see! eric is holding out for august 1st so that xavier will be the oldest kid on his soccer team. i would rather xavier come out asap!

ethan's birthday has come and gone. i got my wish and did not spend his birthday at the hospital giving birth to his new baby brother. i would have been so sad if i couldn't spend ethan's birthday with him. eric and i took just ethan to mcdonald's for lunch and then went to chuck e. cheese with the rest of the fam. he asked me this morning if it was still his birthday. when i told him no he asked if it could be his birthday again. i think he had a good 3rd birthday.

now isaiah, ethan, owen and i are just hanging out at home...waiting for xavier's arrival!

i'm not sure that i've ever done this...blog at work (at this job). it's definitely an indication of the change that is about to come. things are winding down...

this morning i had a hard time getting out of bed. i've been so exhausted. i could blame it on the fact that i'm in my 9th month of pregnancy, but the reality is that i've been staying up way too late. (darn, bejeweled blitz! i could play that game for hours.) i lay in bed, considered calling in sick and watched isaiah sleep. he usually makes his way into our bed around 7 a.m. only to sleep a little bit more next to me. eric and isaiah were both wearing blue shorts and were sleeping in the exact same position. what a funny pair of daddy and son. i can't believe how big isaiah is. my first baby. he's going to be 5 years old next month and will start kindergarten the month after that. where did the time go? i love him SO much and get sad that the years have gone by so fast.

i told myself that i need to remember this feeling - the feeling of being so overwhelmed by how much i love the boys and how very important it is to devote quality time and attention to each one of them. i want them to know how loved they are. i think they know that we love them, but, at least for me, i know that i have fallen short of really letting them know *how much* i love them. work is a big part of that. i'm looking forward to july 10. i just need to remember this feeling.

t-minus one month and 2 days...

i have a relay in three days. for whatever reason, i have not been overcome by a wave of anxiety and panic. it could be that i don't care...that's probably only a tiny bit true. i think it's more that i can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

what do you name a 4th baby boy agustin????

if there was ever a time that i was getting my butt kicked, it was nothing compared to 2009.

we are six weeks into the new year, and i'm fried. physically, i can't find enough time in the day. emotionally, i can't divide myself into more pieces. the work-life balance is not so balanced. i'm feeling a lot of sadness because work pulls me away from eric and the boys a lot these days. i knew going to work at this organization that it would ask a lot of me, but we were prepared for that. with two kids, it wasn't asking too much. with three, it's a stretch (and it's hard!). with four...i don't know, man...

things are different. i would love to be that person that could do it all - have a great, challenging career that i love, have a great marriage, and raise four young children. but i'm realizing that you can't have it all - at least not with one or two of those things dropping. not as a woman, and not in my line of work. and i'm okay with that. i can't be that mom that misses huge chunks of her babies growing up because other people at/through work - people not as important to her as her own family - came first. i also can't be that wife that keeps asking her husband to cover for her part of the child rearing and is too exhausted to hang out or even have grown up conversations that don't revolve around child care.

if anyone ever figures out how to have it all, let me know.

one day, i will be able to leave work promptly at 5 p.m. (or earlier!) and not feel bad about leaving things unfinished. one day, i will work within 10 miles of my house. one day, i will be exhausted only because i spent the day running around the park with the boys. one day....soon?

i've been collecting the state quarters for 10 years. in just a couple weeks, all of the state quarters will have been issued. it's the only thing i've ever collected. i have them all (thanks to help from connie and donna who always kept me in mind whenever they got change)...except the non-contiguous states. i just need alaska and hawaii and my collection will be complete!

my scramble skills are deteriorating. i randomly played several games of scramble with one of my high school classmates. we weren't really friends in high school yet we were facebook scramble buddies. i ran into her at the finish line of our breast cancer walk last saturday. it's funny how much closer facebook makes people to one another.

the three-hour time difference between michigan and california makes it impossible to talk to my dinner buddy. has it been a month that we've been trading voicemails and text messages?

i found my halloween bowl over the weekend and decided to buy all kinds of chocolate to fill it up. hersheys, twix, kit kats. all gratifying when seeking a true chocolate fix. eric gave up chocolate and fried foods again. it was probably insensitive of me to not get any non-chocolate candy for the bowl. but who wants sweet-tart scented hershey bars? not me.

i've made the switch to diet cola. i can't do diet anything else yet. just the cola. other than red pop, i really only like coke anyway (and pepsi if coke is not available). when i was younger, i categorized myself as a pepsi drinker. part of me wanted to be supportive of tito henry's career (that would be jeff's dad who retired from pepsi). another part of me just like it more because that's what my dad always bought. i didn't think i could tell the difference until i took a taste test at the showcase cinema in ann arbor when i was in college.

such random thoughts tonight. i'm letting my brain veg because i've been thinking really hard lately at work. it needs a rest.

there is no time to blog. only time to play scramble.

i got the call this morning at 10 a.m. it was eric. "The United States' chances of winning gold in women's soccer at next month's Olympics were dealt a major blow Wednesday when striker Abby Wambach suffered a broken leg in a friendly against Brazil."

:O!!!!!!!!!!

i love love love the u.s. women's soccer teams so this news is so upsetting. wambach is out for at least 12 weeks...meaning she's missing the olympics. sad sad news. :(

summer is half over. it has been eventful so far...isaiah finishing his first year of school, road trip to jersey for a wedding, road trip to cheboygan to join the guevaras for their first weekend in their new home, relay after relay, ryan's surprise party (er, parties), new babies, plenty of hanging out - especially with rob, ellen, noah, and ellie....

the rest of the summer is going to fly by. we have trips to new york and connecticut (possibly virginia?) planned, a visit from nj cousins, ethan's birthday, isaiah's birthday...and all i can think about is when is the next chance we'll get to go back up to the wonderful land of cheboygan? the land where clean shallow lake water extends for days into the lake, where there are so many fireworks displays that you actually tire of watching them, where the clear night sky reveals more stars than you ever thought could exist, where big ice cream cones cost $1.35, where kites fly on their own and our toddlers can catch (many) fish by just dropping their lines into the river bank behind the guevaras' house. the wonderful land of cheboygan. :)

****

i am emotionally ready to get back to soccer fit. not that i was ever soccer fit, but at least to where i can run around enough to be a productive defensive player. eric thought he could get me to play mid. yeah right! the goal is to be soccer fit for outdoor 2009. stretch goal is for the indoor session right before outdoor starts. yikes! i haven't played since isaiah was 6 months old. four years. man. i'll have to be creative with how i can squeeze in the time. wish me luck!

i'm still recovering from our trip to new jersey last weekend. we drove. the 10 hour trip to new jersey turned into a 20 hour one because we decided to be smart and crash in a hotel instead of trying to drive through the night. the 10 hour trip home was really 11.5, thanks to angels and demons on audio book. i swear if i had to, i could drive across the country listening to that book. the suspense just does not stop! it feels like i'm at the end of the book, but there are still 2.5 hours left. these days, i don't mind traffic much. :)

we stayed with one of eric's cousins in new jersey. (thanks for housing us, nini!) she has three boys. his other cousin jeremy also stayed with us. he has two boys. all in all there were 8 boys 8 and under! i thought it would be so incredibly crazy, but it wasn't. the older boys kind of took care of the younger boys, and they all loved being around each other. besides, i think all of us parents have given into the madness and have accepted that boys will be boys. they will punch and kick and be loud and run around and fall off of stuff and wrestle. it's so different from the last time we were in jersey. there were only 5 boys at the time and isaiah was just 10 weeks old. eric and i were such different parents then. jumping up whenever the baby cried, worrying about all these little things. ahhh...the days of just one child. life was so simple then. oh, but the joys and love of having two more boys will never outweigh that simplicity.

8 boys 8 and under + emily and jd!

congratulations to omar and marilou! thanks for getting us out to new jersey. wishing you a lifetime of happiness!

so the day after my last post was probably the worst day of work that i have ever had. it was probably the most humbling as well, so i am thankful for it. i have been working my butt off with more focus and accomplishment ever since.

it has been a rough six weeks returning to work. these weeks have been hard. on me, on eric, on our family. and the laundry has piled up again. i swear it will take me six weeks to catch up.

the highs and lows of volunteer management are extreme. it seems ridiculous and greedy to keep asking for more...but the reality is that if you never ask, you'll never know what you can get. i have learned that people are waiting to *be* asked, for that opportunity to make a difference, and it is only fair to offer it to them. i have a hard time asking people for stuff, which is ironic because my whole job is about asking people for stuff. i really have no idea where i'm going with this post. i guess i'm just in awe of my volunteers. their capacity to give of themselves to the point where they are doing so much for us that it could be a second job to them is amazing to me. i appreciate them and am inspired by them.

if only you could hear the stories i have heard in the last six weeks...mothers fighting for their children, cancer survivors fighting for themselves and future survivors, sons fighting for their fathers, husbands fighting for their wives....mothers losing their children, sons losing their fathers, husbands losing their wives. an 8-year old student from one of my dearborn teams lost his battle the day of the dearborn relay. another 8-year old cancer survivor celebrated his birthday that same day. i cried for both of their mothers that day. can you imagine the incredible relief that you would have when your baby with cancer makes it through another year of life? what a gift life is! i come home to my boys and am so thankful that the worst we have had to deal with is a couple of viruses and my crazy work schedule.

my relays are done, so now i can actually focus on doing my job. even better, no more working late nights...i can come home and hang out with eric and the boys!

i am exhausted and overwhelmed. i hate to admit that i am either of these things because it makes me feel weak and incompetent, which i hate. i have been able to will myself to push through anything up until now.

the truth is that i am exhausted. i have run out of steam. my body just does not want to keep up with all the things my mind wants it to do. there are not enough hours in the day or enough of me to go around.

i feel myself sinking deeper and deeper into work. i need to take a break before it swallows me whole and won't let me out....

today was my last full day with my boys before heading back to work. my maternity leave officially ends tomorrow. after that, it's just another weekend.

we spent a few hours today getting our butts kicked by isaiah at wii sports. (yes, eric too!) isaiah actually mercied eric in baseball. isaiah hit 9 homeruns in the first inning and eric could not hang. ha. i think one of the reasons that isaiah loves wii sports so much is because he gets to see everyone (as mii's) when he plays. "hey, there's lola! that's my dad! it's alvin and the chipmunks!"

9 weeks has gone be super fast. things i will miss very much when i go back to work:

• picking up isaiah from school
• isaiah and ethan finding their way into eric's and my room in the morning and sleeping in with all three boys
• just hanging out with the boys and watching them play together and make each other laugh
  
• play dates with noah and ellie
• having time to cook and clean
• having lunch with eric
• only filling up my gas tank twice in 9 weeks
• no night meetings
• mid-afternoon naps

next week will be a big adjustment for all of us. wish me luck!

less than two weeks left of maternity leave. the nice part is that isaiah is off of school all next week for spring break, so i will have to make sure that i take advantage of the rest of my time off with the boys.

owen is HUGE. at least compared to when he was born. i'm guessing he's pushing 9 pounds by now. 7 weeks old. how did 7 weeks go by already? he has to wear mittens because he scratches his face and aggravates his baby acne. his legs are getting stronger and i swear he wiggled himself across his floor gym last week.

ethan is rocking him right now and shushing him because he is crying. ethan is so incredibly sweet these days. more so than before. he copies everything isaiah does, including "mmm...pop!" awesome. if you pretend to be sleeping, ethan will give you a kiss to wake you up.

isaiah is so helpful and loves loves loooooves his baby brother. he also loves the color blue and playing Playground on the wii (yes! we finally have one!). noah is his best friend. they love playing Playground together. isaiah is "songer' and noah is "robot." songer is actually the kid with the headphones and robot is actually the kid in the glasses that does that robot as a victory dance.

i'm a little bit hooked on bizarre foods with andrew zimmerman and no reservations with anthony bourdain. they eat the grossest things, and i can't help tuning in tuning in to see the latest gross thing they are brave enough to stomach. (gosh, i wish i had something more intelligent to offer.)

let it be known that today i am officially caught up with the laundry!!!

i met eric in 1995. i was 15 and a sophomore and he was 17 on the verge of turning 18 and a senior. he invited me to his birthday party at his house where i knew exactly 1 person: him. my brother came with me since he was also friends with eric...it also happened that a couple of his friends (that i didn't know) were also at the party.

i don't remember remember having much fun at the party because:
1. eric didn't introduce me to anyone. no one. keep in mind that i was a lowly sophomore at a senior party. i was also too shy to start making friends that night.
2. eric put on a wig and made fun of me. "look at me! i'm anna!" awesome. i love being laughed at by a room full of people that i don't know. (*note the sarcasm.)

apparently, eric was charming enough to win me over because here we are, 13 years later, married, 3 kids, and still in love.

happy birthday, babe! just a few more years and you'll have known me for most of your life.

my three sons

i have this thing for pop. i love drinking it. most pop is caffeinated, so giving it up during pregnancy is pretty tough (i'm not the biggest fan of sprite/sierra mist).

faygo red pop is one of my favorite drinks and happens to be caffeine free. :) my meijer store stocks it at the end of the pop aisle. one day, it was not in its usual spot - it was more towards the middle of the pop aisle, which i thought was strange, but whatever, someone stocked the red pop in the wrong place. i picked up the red box and put it in my cart.

when i got home, i was enjoying my red pop. mmm, red pop. yummy! later, i was pouring out a couple unfinished cans of red pop and noticed that the red pop was no longer obnoxiously red, but a more reddish brown. huh. they must have gone with more natural ingredients and nixed the crazy red dye. so i took a look at the box of red pop. that's weird. why is there a cherry on the box? red pop is strawberry soda. i blinked a few times. does that box say 'cherry cola'????

so i had purchased faygo cherry cola instead of red pop. (in my defense, the boxes were both red and had a picture of red fruit on it.) in my eagerness to enjoy one of my favorite drinks, i didn't even notice that it wasn't red pop. i drank a whole can of cherry cola thinking it was red pop and didn't even realize that the red pop tasted a lot like cherry cola because it was cherry cola.

i recounted my experience to my siblings, who of course will never let me live it down. whenever either of them take a sip of cherry coke, cola, pepsi, etc. in front of me, it's immediately followed by a "mmm..red pop!" in fact, why not spread the fun?

isaiah as he takes a sip of his chai: "look at me mom! mmm....red pop!"

isaiah as he takes a sip of his juice: "look mama! mmm...red pop!"

isaiah talking to me: "hey mama, do you remember when i took a sip of my drink and said 'mmm...red pop!'"??

isaiah after i asked him who taught him that: "tito ryan!"

haha. soooo funny. :|

13 days old.

introducing owen.

i think this past week of lack of sleep has shortened my patience by about 40%. i don't like being cranky. it is probably good timing with lent starting today.

the bet:

players - me and kimmie
the stakes - achatz pie
the terms - owen comes after feb. 2, i win. owen comes before feb. 2, kimmie wins.

on the way home from the hospital on tuesday, eric and i stopped by achatz to pick up a banana split pie for kimmie.

i don't think that you should be allowed to go into labor when you have the flu. it was like the second my fever broke and my headache subsided, the real contractions began. thankfully, it was a quick labor and semi-quick delivery.

i love epidurals. i think i would have cried if i missed my chance to have one.

we got to the hospital at 10:30 p.m. and owen ambrosio agustin was born just four hours later. (see eric's blog for a more detailed account.) he is just so tiny and precious and i love him so much!

i would post pictures except i haven't gotten around to downloading them yet. soon. stay tuned...

also, the entire family is sick so we're kind of keeping the boys away from owen. hopefully we'll get to take a family picture sometime soon...

thanks for the prayers and good thoughts sent our way!

wow. first post of 2008. i'm surprised it has taken me this long.

it was great having a lazy two and a half weeks at home. it wasn't really lazy because it's hard to be lazy when hanging out with two toddlers. but it was nice to just all be home together. especially since 2008 came around and proceeded to kick my butt up until tuesday. and now i'm coasting through to the end of the month when my maternity leave starts...

all of my co-workers were so certain i would go into labor the morning of the conference that i was in charge of. i was (and still am) absolutely certain this baby will arrive one week late, just like his brothers.

...isaiah beckons me to play go fish...more later....

...and i'm done working for 2007.

today was a long day. i told eric i would be working late because i had to wrap a lot of things up. i told him at 5pm that i would probably work until 6pm. i finally left the office at 8:30 pm. i hate that i told eric that i'd be an extra hour at work and ended up being an extra three and a half. he was wonderfully understanding, so i am thankful for that. i am sad, though that isaiah and ethan were already asleep when i got home. i hate that a day can go by without me seeing them. the good news is that we have the next two weeks together...eric and i are both off until after the new year.

i still can't get over how strange (and great) it is to wake up and want to go to work. even stranger is when your bosses understand that having a life outside of work is just as important to your productivity as is the time you spend actually working. i appreciate that. my quality of life is increased.

we spent last weekend helping gary out with a retreat for his high-schoolers at bethany house. the topic: theology of the body - heavy stuff. gary and the other youth director did a great job presenting the content on a level that the kids could understand. free total faithful fruitful. they gave us silicon bracelets with those words printed on it. it reminds me that that is the kind of love we are meant to give and to receive. we helped out at this high school retreat last year, too...i love that we ended the year serving together as a bible study.

just like that...2007 is just about gone.

there is LOTS to do before the holidays. i'm hoping to be able to take off the last two weeks in December because i have 9 vacation days to burn before the year ends. i'm not really sure when i'm going to be able to take them. i've never had this problem before. it's an odd feeling. i'm going to have to bust my ass to get everything done because i really really really don't want to have to work when eric is off.

30 weeks and counting. owen will be here before we know it.

i want to say that 85% of our christmas shopping is done. all those presents are wrapped and under the tree. i have never before been this prepared with christmas gifts. all i know is that i accept that i am one of those crazy people that shops at 4am on black friday. however, i am not one of those mean and crazy people. there's a difference. i played the pregnant card to this woman who was being particularly nasty to me about not being able to get by in the aisle i was in at the super packed kohls. i never do that. but she was NOT nice at all, and i was not in the mood to deal with someone so rude and incosiderate at 4am. especially someone that was trying to push me over into a bunch of people. anyway.

hope everyone had a great thanksgiving!

it has been 4 days since alvin and jenny got married.

gorgeous. elegant. lovely.

all the things that alvin and jenny are...their wedding echoed them. i'm not even going to try to describe it. i'll just say this: what. a kick ass. party. :D (oh, and i think i'm still full from all of the food i ate over the weekend.)

i couldn't help thinking when i saw alvin walk down the aisle, that this was really it...we were really letting him go. this was basically the last thing he's doing in michigan before heading off to the east coast. i mean, he's been in d.c. for almost a year now, but now he and jenny are married. one. starting a brand new life together. to me, it was like the wedding made his move official. i'm so excited for everything they have ahead of them. i love how perfect they are together, and i love how well they compliment each other and how much they love each other. i miss my friend being in michigan, but more than that i am thrilled that he and his perfect mate get to be together forever! it sounds so corny, but a relationship like theirs really has to be celebrated these days.

so congratulations, alvin and jenny! i love you both to a million pieces! muah!

i'm so overwhelmed. work is so so so so so so so so busy. life is so so so so so busy. i couldn't possibly fit anything more into my days. i worked until 9pm last night and started my day today at 5:15am. the good part is that the work madness just lights a fire under me and makes me want to work really hard so that i can get home. i feel that if this was any other job, i would just want to crawl back into bed and hide under the covers.

i need to find time to clean out the office closet so we can clean out the guest bedroom closet so kimmie can start moving her stuff in.

i need to find time to hang out with my mom. i haven't spent quality time with her since she got back from the philippines last friday. i miss my mom.

i need to find time to go with my mom to pick out her wedding flowers and look at her wedding dress.

i can't believe my mom is getting married next week.

i can't believe alvin and jenny are finally getting married this week. my mom wasn't able to get them barongs in the philippines (they ran out). so tuxedo t-shirts for isaiah and matthew it is!

i need to find time to play with isaiah and ethan. i need to be able to spend some quality one on one time with them. it breaks my heart when isaiah asks me to read to him and i have to tell him no because i have to go to work. i can't tell you how many times i've been late to work because ethan and isaiah pop awake and just want to play and cuddle.

i dare say that i am 95% caught up with laundry. laundry is the constant dark cloud lingering over my head (and pile sitting in the basement) reminding me that i suck at housework.

24 weeks and 2 days along...more than halfway there. february 6th is coming fast!

dot is my car. i think porta named her. she has been through a lot with me. i love my car. she's so fun to drive. so much fun, that i think that i will forever favor manual cars.

when i bought dot, i threw all practicality out the window. she wasn't the most affordable. she wasn't going to be able to fit a ton of people in her comfortably. she wasn't the safest. she wasn't going to drive well in the snow. she wasn't domestic. i think the only thing that she had going for her was her gas mileage. i think the only thing i cared about was 1) if i liked how it looked and how it drove and 2) if my snowboard would fit inside. i knew that this was probably going to be the last fun car i owned before kids and family dictated my vehicle. i knew that after this car, i'd probably be buying gm. gm - the auto maker that makes cars that look like they were made for older men. but how could i - in good conscience - not buy gm with eric working so hard for them?

i was right. the time is now. in preparation for the third baby boy agustin, eric and i have no choice but to both get new cars. my car is here. despite having to give up my very fun and cute car, i am pretty excited about the new one. the saturn outlook. in cocoa. lots of fun extras. i'm thrilled that there is a gm car out there that i can be happy to own. in fact, we both like the car so much that we're his and hers outlooks. awww.

i think it's time to get behind gm...so i am. if i can do it, so can anyone. so just do it. eric and connie work really hard. it's fun to support them. and they can get you a discount. buy gm. yay!

labor day weekend brain dump:

it started on my birthday, which was spent mostly in a meeting at our headquarters in lansing. fast forward to a quick stop home to finish packing and then to my mom's. she's so cute. she tried calling me several times that day, and when she finally got a hold of me, she asked if i was going to eat pancit. (it's tradition to eat pancit or long noodles on your birthday....the long noodles translate into a long life apparently.) i told her no, so she told me she'd make me some. thanks, mommy! it was really important to her that i ate pancit on my birthday. i think it makes my mom happy that she can still take care of me in that way.

8/29/07, 10pm - leave for chicago, 3 hrs later than the planned time of departure.

the boys were so good the entire weekend. i thought they would be a little crazy from being in the car for so long. turns out leaving around their bedtime was pure genius on our part. they weren't thrown off their schedule one bit.

* * *

got to spend time with donna - a lot of that time was just attempting to go to the shedd aquarium. for future reference: do not attempt to go to shedd aquarium the day of a chicago bears tailgate/game unless you want to pay $40 to park. we didn't, so we went to navy pier and the children't museum. i missed out on lazo's tacos because i was celebrating kelly's bachelorette-hood on the chicago odyssey. great food, fun times, gorgeous view...and the best part: entirely free!

* * *

construction traffic in chicago is terrible. i really hate traffic, and i kind of turn into an angry monster when i have to sit in it for a very long time. it is just ridiculous when it takes an hour to move a mile.

* * *

kelly and ariel's wedding was wonderful. the church was beautiful, kelly and ariel looked beautiful, the trolley was a fun time. i love weddings...especially now that i'm married. there's something so awesome about uniting one's life with another and making that vow to constantly choose to love someone with one's whole self. it's so hard, but so worth it a thousand times over.

for the most part, i was able to control the tears...except for when kelly asked me to lead the prayer right before she walked down the aisle. and except for when they were signing their marriage license. i was thinking how cool it was that they signed their license during the ceremony, and i heard the choir singing.

wherever you go, i will go
wherever you live, i'll be with you
wherever you lie, i'll be there beside you
wherever you go, i'll be there...

so beautiful. how could you not cry? so congrats (again), ariel and kelly! SO excited that you'll be in michigan together!!

* * *

we spent some time with steen and phil on sunday. i love them (and their little dog, yoshi, who might be the best dog in the whole world - and that says a lot, being that i am so not a dog person). i really miss spending time with steen...we used to be inseperable before college. and then we both kind of did our own thing for a few years. it's nice to be able to reconnect after all that time. our 10-year high school reunion is at the end of the month...should be very interesting.

* * *

completely unrelated to labor day weekend: my mom is having me and my brother give her away at her wedding in october. doesn't that make you want to cry?

for the first time ever, i am taking a sick day that i don't want to take. i figured that my co-workers would not appreciate me coughing all over them and infecting them with my germs. i'm so mad at myself for not taking my computer home with me.

these are exciting times...

congrats to dinner buddy on finishing your thesis and having a stellar defense. from now on, you will be known as master chrissy.

new job, same organization. promotion and management responsibilities (i get my own admin assistant!)...all because God has a plan to take care of my family. i could write pages of how things have *just happened* to have fallen into place. instead, you should ask me. it's a good story, i promise.

speaking of family, stay tuned for baby agustin #3 in february 2008! let's hope ethan and isaiah get a baby sister!

i brought the new harry potter book into the office today.

my co-worker reserved the large board room for lunch so a bunch of us could have a quiet place to read.

i am a useless employee today.

i am spoiled by air conditioning.

in 2005, my whole family, including my mom's brothers and sister and spouses, went to boracay on vacation. we had an awesome time. except for the ride in the van on the way back to the airport. we were wet to our hips from having to wade to shore from the boat. it was hot. like 100 degrees hot. it was humid. we were stuffed in a van with no a/c. we were cranky. very cranky.

i had a scare on sunday and thought the a/c in my car busted. thankfully, i turned my car on monday morning and my a/c was working perfectly. there's just something about driving with the windows down on the freeway and walking into the office smelling like the outside that's not very appealing to me.

on a completely separate note: ethan is going to be one in 9 days. he was supposed to be born one year ago today.

yay! benda and rosie are married! congrats!

highlights:

• eric and i getting to spend an evening as a young hip couple (sans parental duties)
• boogie-ing with my mom (that woman can lead a mean boogie!)
• the grapes
• lyrical dancing by ryan and...phil pompa (??!!) - this statement does absolutely no justice to what actually transpired
• ryan and phil on the cordless mics

i think that all of the moths in michigan got together last week and decided to bombard my garage and driveway, and then follow me to the state capitol building in lansing.

now i know that moths aren't dangerous and that i shouldn't be afraid of them. however, i have a problem with 4-inch bugs constantly flying at my head. i have a HUGE problem with 4-inch bugs flying at my head while i'm in the car. *shudder* yuck! i hate bugs!

even worse, i'm driving in my car and i hear this *click click click* on my sunroof. *click click click. click click click* an enormous (yes, enormous! the legs were 2-inches long!) RED spider is on the inside of my sunroof! EWWW!! getoutgetoutgetoutgetoutgetout, i said, as i openeed up my sunroof so the spider could exit without falling into my car (read: on ME). eeeee. it looks like the red hardy spider. google it. it's scary looking.

but no worries, i am safe (because i know that you're worried. you are definitely not thinking that my fear of bugs is totally ridiculous). i didn't get in any crazy car accidents despite bugs basically attacking ;) me in transit.

my co-worker had to make a call today to a company called "athletic support."

heh heh.

*EXHALE*

it is really important to have an insanely supportive husband when working 30 days straight (including three 30+ hour shifts). eric's the bomb. he watched our two very active boys for three weekends in a row and did not complain once.

wanna know the count for my three events?

• dollars raised: $184,000+
• # participants: 890
• # luminaria lit to honor/remember a loved one who has faced cancer: 1,578
• # survivors celebrated: 111
• # times cried in the last three weekend: countless
• total hours slept in the last three saturdays: 4.5
• being completely done with all of my events: priceless

i cannot even say how much it meant to me if you came out to my event (or were part of a team - hi, j, kelly and ariel!). i loooooved seeing my friends and family. real people i didn't have to please or coddle. plus it's just nice that the people you love can see what the heck you've been doing that you had to be away from them for so many nights.

it goes without saying that i'm exhausted. physically, mentally, emotionally. i think my heart broke a thousand times because of all of the personal accounts that have been shared with me as to why someone participates in Relay For Life. at my first event, i glanced over at the survivor registration area and saw two small kids in purple survivor t-shirts. turns out, they are brother and sister and both under the age of six. i hate cancer. i hate that those kids have to go through cancer. i hate that their mother has to watch her kids suffer. one of my oxford team captains died 8 days before my last relay. he had been diagnosed with brain cancer not 3 weeks ago. his family still came to the relay with t-shirts that said "laps for luke." another woman came to the oxford relay to buy a luminaria bag for her husband that had died the day before. i am continually amazed at what Relay For Life does for people. it gives people hope and a place to be emotionally vulnerable with others in the same situation.

anyway...we're working really hard for you (yes, you!) so that you won't get cancer, and if you do get cancer, we're working really hard to make the cancer experience as comfortable and short as possible. so please: practice sun safety. quit smoking. get your cancer screenings. practice early detection methods. i don't ever want to have to light a luminaria bag for you.

hell week. it's what we called the week before the high school play. crunch time before the big show. a series of hell weeks are about to commence for me. i'd love it if you'd send up a prayer or send some good thoughts my way. i'm stressed, mildly scared, very excited. i have been very blessed to have so many great (and not so great) volunteers to help me make these events happen.

it made me happy to see so many of my friends yesterday. soccer & grilling on a perfect spring day. awesome. it's like my gift before i fall off the face of the earth....

right...

now.

2 (looong) meetings with volunteers
+ 3 hours in starbucks
+ 2 big coffees
+ 1 iced tea
+ 0 meals
good idea
jittery and sick to my stomach

i've been to three pistons game this season:

1.17.07 chris webber debuts as a piston. lose to utah. strike one.

2.14.07 get stomped by the spurs. that sucked. strike two.

3.20.07 eric gets free tickets to the denver game. score. we take the boys.

1.5 seconds left in the game. down 95-98. we don't have the ball. all of a sudden, i just see the ball sailing across the court and bank in. AAAHHHH!!!!! a lucky shot leads to a victory in overtime.

the point of my blog: it is SO not my fault that the pistons lose when i attend home games. let me tell ya, it's a relief!

been up since 4am packing. accidentally fell asleep when putting isaiah to sleep. drive to lansing. go to training. drive home. pack up car. drive to connie's. drive to dtw. go go go...

park city, here we come!

points points points.

points for wearing sweats. more points if they match. even more points if they are not name brand. even more if they cuff at the ankle. super star points for wearing hyper color. points for beating ariel at eating white castle. points for every shot in le club de centuree. points for knowing more pop culture/celebrity gossip than lorie. points for beating eric at two-minute chess. points for hugging isaiah and ethan. points for catching the spy.

96 candles on an 8" birthday cake was not enough. happy 30ish birthday party to you, ariel, eric, j, and lorie! thanks for giving us a reason to party like it was 1999!

head on. i've heard the commercials are obnoxious. i've never seen them. all i know is that it works freakishly well. i don't really care to know how...all i know is that my headache disappears when i use it.

i've never been a headache person. i never understood people that constantly had a headache. how could you ALWAYS have a headache? i never got them (except when i had the flu), so i couldn't understand it.

i have a fun job. most of the time. (we'll focus on the positive.) i get to have meetings with volunteers to talk about what we need to do next to plan our big event. i get to meet some remarkable people. i get to meet corporate execs and township officials to tell them that my organization can provide your company free health and wellness programs to reduce your health care costs and improve productivity. i get to share with people that 1 in 3 americans will be diagnosed with cancer and how it doesn't have to be that way...that 2/3 of all cancers are preventable and that there are things you can do so that you and your children and their children won't have to die from cancer. but all the planning and the deadlines have created this incredible amount of stress that i have never before experienced. i don't let myself get super stressed out. i may actually be super stressed out, but that never manifests itself into anything more than me forgetting to eat lunch or go to the bathroom. this whole new level of stress from my job is crazy. i may or may not want to cry because of all the work that needs to be done in one of my communities. this crazy stress...it gives me headaches. the kind that sit right at the bottom of your forehead making your eyes feel like they will fall out of your head. yuck. which brings me back to head on. use it. love it. i do.

TGIF!

i miss being able to randomly im people during the work day. sometimes it's the only time you get to catch up with people.

if i could have im'ed you last week i would have told you that every time someone asks me how my boys are doing, they reciprocate with stories about their dogs. my co-workers love their dogs. none of them have children.

if i could have im'ed this week i would have told you that relay for life events with an elvis impersonator are 20% more likely to reach their goals. random.

if i could have im'ed you yesterday, i would have shared my excitement at being able to see chris webber's pistons debut. too bad we lost - it was the first pistons game that i have attended in 4 years that we lost. i blame alvin's absence. just kidding. well, half kidding.

there is a teeny tiny possibility that i could get sick of drinking coffee all the time. we'll see how that goes...

two weeks into 2007 already. happy new year, everybody!

i started off the new year in florida. spent new years day at discovery cove in the water all day. isaiah looked very cool in a wetsuit. ethan was so cute in the little swimming vest. we swam with a ridiculous number of fish and ENORMOUS manta rays. i like swimming with the fish, but i don't like getting swarmed by them. i'd rather just look and say "ooh" and "ahh" - no need to be touched by the fish, thank you very much. my favorite part of that day was eric and the shark tank. "is there glass???!" that day ended sucky because of the horrible michigan performance in the rose bowl. ugh.

i signed up for the discovery health national body challenge. it's an 8-week program to help you start better eating and exercising habits. at work, we offer free health and wellness programs to worksites to promote the same thing. those programs are 10 weeks because studies have shown that that's how long it takes to form a habit. does that mean that the national body challenge won't work? i guess we shall see....

two more days until florida! hope everyone had a merry christmas and has a happy new year!!

i am behind. the day i accepted this job, i was already behind. the good part about my job is that i blink, and half of my work day has gone by. the bad part is that i blink and half of my work day has gone by and my "to do" list just keeps getting longer. i decided to opt for the paper planner rather than use my pda. i like writing stuff down and crossing stuff off. there's something about the sound of the pen or pencil scratching the paper that is so satisfying. the problem with crossing stuff off of my "to do" list is that crossing one thing off means adding three follow up items.

*sigh*

who thought that one day i would have a job that would keep me so busy that i couldn't chat at my leisure or check blogs 10 times a day? crazy.

eric and i had some time off of work yesterday and spent 90 percent of that time finishing the last couple dvds of season 2 of grey's anatomy. we spent the other 10 percent looking for christmas lights at target.

it's supposed to snow up to 3 inches tomorrow. i'm fully anticipating crazy driving (not from me, of course) and lots of traffic. one would think that i would go to bed earlier so that i could wake up earlier in order to give myself a little more commute time. but no. i've been up late a lot lately. i've also been getting bad sleep. i think that bad sleep is worse than not enough sleep.

i'm totally getting my ass kicked at work, but am loving it. i worked until 9pm the other night...but instead of slaving away over a never-ending and boring report like i used to at my old job, i was sitting in a room of 12 passionate volunteers brainstorming a kick off event for our signature fundraiser. i get to write on giant post-it paper in pretty colored markers and get paid for it. sweet.

can you name the capital of iowa?
now can you name two more cities in iowa?
repeat with each of the remaining 49 states.
fun times, right?!!
*note: maximize fun by doing this with a friend!

thanksgiving is next week, which means that christmas is just around the corner. where did the fall go?

by the way - did anyone catch extreme makeover: home edition last night? that's a big part of my job. relay for life. fyi.

i wish i had a camera. i have sparkly confetti on my desk. streamers strewn over my head with foil spirals and stars hanging from my ceiling. i have a window. a window! and living flowers. those might not last, but it's the thought that counts. i also have a really cute pumpkin basket with healthy treats from my new boss.

ahhh....i love it here!

i am...exhausted.

leaving a job is hard work. i can finally exhale without having this dark linger cloud of report-writing stress hanging over me.

can i just say that my manager didn't know today was my last day?

goodbye consulting! hello acs!

i like that starbucks will give you a coupon for a free drink if they think you've waited too long. "too long" is pretty subjective, but in my experience, i've found "too long" to be more than 3 minutes. i would like all food service establishments to adopt this practice. today, i just want einsteins bagels to adopt it. or at least give me a sincere apology when you've just made me wait 10 minutes in an empty store for a simple bagel and cream cheese. whatever happened to good customer service?

that's it. i'm doing it. switching careers. no longer an engineer.

can you believe it?

i have wanted to be an engineer for as long as i can remember knowing what that an engineer had to be good at math and science. math? check. LOVED math (still do). science? check. okay, i kind of sucked at physics, but i think that was because i didn't apply myself. and then i graduated from umich, armed with my chemE degree...only to find out that i didnt' want to be a chemE. so i decided to try consulting. the environmental kind. i liked that for a little bit and then realized where that path was leading...right to the pit of unhappy where i would wake up every morning asking myself if i should call in "not feeling well."

so here i am. 12:05am, busting my ass for the last time for this company that has employed me for the last (almost) five years. it's so sweet to be writing these reports for the last time. that's probably what's keeping me going at this hour...the LAST time. wheee!!

the timing seems right. my manager recently quit to go to another consulting firm. i really liked working for her. had she not quit, i would have had a slightly harder time leaving the company. i really wouldn't want to work for anyone else in my office. aaand...whaddyaknow. right before i take a job with a non-profit, eric gets a raise and a promotion - something that has been absent in his career for the last few years. pretty lucky *wink wink*.

thanks for all your prayers. God is so faithful. He really just lined everything up for me. all i had to do was follow.

this is pretty funny to me.

i seriously considered buying it. isaiah and ethan like to fall asleep in the crook of your arm. sometimes they snuggle right up into your armpit. one time ethan spent the night with his forehead in eric's armpit. i was pretty grossed out when i picked up ethan the next morning and gave him a big kiss on his armpit-smelling forehead. blech!

*twiddle twiddle twiddle*

last interview down. now all i have to do is wait.

*twiddle twiddle twiddle*

three interviews down. one more to go...

i went to starbucks three times yesterday. i think i'm still running on the caffeine.

malan is creepy creepy creepy. that laugh...*shudder*
vincent is also creepy creepy creepy.
holy cow, lane is pregnant!

my office is participating in ymca's america on the move week program. with my low-tech pedometer, i have already logged almost 400 steps in just a half hour! it takes 34 steps just to get to the printer from my desk. it's fun to walk around the office when you have a means of tracking your progress. now onto getting some progress with the pile of work on my desk...

p.s. third interview happens this week. woohoo! i have to give a presentation that's basically like running a mass meeting at umich. sweet.

confession: i cheated and looked online at the photos from the project runway show at olympus fashion week. eric will probably be mad at me for skipping to the end, so to speak. my impatience got the best of me. in my defense, they make it so that you can't tell who the final three are. i'm pulling for michael. he's cool. uli is cool, too, but her dresses all look the same. i used the think that laura and jeffrey were just biatches, but both have turned out to be surprisingly endearing. anyway...back to work...

my last full week of maternity leave is over. i go back to work on thursday. i get to spend my first day back in vehicle safety training. my office manager made it a point to tell my manager that i should take that training. =\ i hope it's because i spend a lot of time traveling for my job and not because he thinks i'm a bad driver for putting a dent in the company truck (oops).

september 1. where did the summer go? i officially go back to work on the 14th. boo. =( i wish we had the same maternity leave policy as the canadians. i would love a year of paid time off after i had a baby. i'm not ready to leave ethan for a whole day yet. the longest so far has been 4 hours while eric and i went to a movie and then dinner. that was quite long enough. with isaiah, i hated leaving him with someone else all day. i didn't want to miss any "first" with him. the thought of missing a first word or a first step made me so sad (and jealous of whoever got to witness it). but what can you do? in the end, i'm just happy that isaiah is excited to see me when i pick him up/come home.

new topic.

i scored non-stop first class tickets to orlando for new years for $277. this is super exciting considering that it was impossible to find a non-stop flight for less than $400 a week ago. this is super exciting considering we'll be flying with two kids.

i also scored a face-to-face interview for a new job after passing the unexpected phone interview. can people do that? just call you out of the blue with no warning and interview you? i guess i answered my own question. anyway...yay! for second interview!

so i'm not planning on returning to my job after maternity leave. no one at work knows this, although my manager might be expecting it. the plan is to get a new job while on maternity leave just in time to give them my two weeks without having to actually go back to work. i've decided that my career is steering itself down the event planning path. it took a while to come to this realization, and now that i have, i can really start job searching. i have prospects with a couple non-profits, and i'm pretty excited about them. please pray for me!

there are times when i look at ethan and think i'm looking at an infant isaiah. he's sleeping right now - whew. he was crying before - fighting sleep and from isaiah knocking him on the head (accidentally) with his sippy cup. isaiah was crying at the same time - wanting to drive his blue car outside mixed with hunger and over-tiredness. he's playing in the basement with kimmie right now - whew.

it's a helpless feeling when you're outnumbered 2 on 1 and the 2 are crying their eyes out at the same time. sigh. thank God for kimmie. she rocks.

we're gonna make a trip out to dodge park to cheer j on as he takes on the breast cancer 3-day for the second year in a row. go j, go!!

the "t" key is sticking right now, which is incredibly annoying. more later...

update: 9 days postpartum. tired, but happy. recovering well. i think i'm functioning on adrenaline. relieved to no longer be pregnant.

i was supposed to be induced last thursday (7/20). i started having contractions at about 3:30am and went into the hospital at 7:00am to be induced. i was worried that because i seemed to be going into labor on my own they would send me home and tell me to wait until the contractions got closer together. fortunately, they just admitted me and got me ready to be induced. it turned out that my doctor really wanted to deliver ethan, but he had patients to see in the office all morning. long story short, i didn't get induced, they broke my water around 2:00pm, and ethan was born at 7:24pm.

let me talk about labor. if you're a female and suffer from menstrual cramps, labor is like that. except when labor really starts to kick in, it's like having your worse menstrual cramps ever multiplied by 10 and occurring every few minutes for a minute at a time. if you're a male, there is simply no way for you to know what it would be like to have menstrual cramps, so just be satisfied knowing that women are built with a much higher pain threshold than you.* i was strapped to a monitor that measured the intensity of my contractions from 0 to 100. i asked for an epidural almost immediately after a felt them getting really bad. the intensity of those contractions was 50. by the time i was fully dilated, the contractions were measuring off the charts at 120 and were right on top of each other. i don't say this to scare anyone from having children. i say this to confirm how GREAT and effective epidurals can be. so many women are afraid of the pain of childbirth. um, can you say "no pain" with the epidural? i think i would have been blinded by the pain of those last contractions. i have no idea how women do this without drugs. anyway, after a relatively easy labor (thanks to a fabulous epidural) and 10 minutes of pushing, our second baby boy was born healthy with a full head of hair. 7lb. 8oz. 20" long. ethan looks a lot like isaiah as a newborn:


it's much easier taking care of a newborn the second time around. after having to run around after isaiah all the time, taking care of a baby that just sleeps and eats and soils his diaper from time to time is a piece of cake. the feeding schedule kind of kills us on sleep, but it's not so bad since i can nap during the day (isaiah-willing!). eric and i are definitely more relaxed since we're not jumping up every time ethan makes a little noise to make sure he's okay. anyway, thanks for all the thoughts and prayers! they definitely worked, seeing how everything went and continues to go smoothly.


*when we took childbirth classes a couple years ago, the instructor suggested a means to simulate the pain of contractions to help us practice our breathing during labor: take an ice cube and squeeze it in your hand for a minute to a minute and a half. personally, i don't think it comes near the pain of what a serious contraction feels like, but it does hurt. eric - the dear sweet loving husband that he is - grabbed some ice chips at the hospital while i was in labor so he could empathize with my labor pains. 10 seconds later: "all i can think about is the pain!"

update: 41 weeks. STILL pregnant.

if it doesn't happen tonight or tomorrow, it's happening on thursday for sure. prayers and thoughts are much appreciated!!

update: still pregnant. still. 40 weeks plus 5 days.

i've run every errand and organized and cleaned everything i have the strength to organize or clean. eric just put up new shelves for me to organize my stamping stuff. i could do that, except i just made a big mess of it making little disney puppets for isaiah. at first, i just made little einstein puppets. those were quickly shredded after just one hour of play. i have learned my lesson and have laminated the new puppets to make them tear-resistant. yup. laminated 10 little puppets on popsicle sticks with packing tape because i have that kind of time. sigh.

if anything, this is a test of patience. so i will wait patiently. i'm constantly having contractions, but nothing regular and definitely not labor. did you know there are three stages of labor, and the first stage averages 8 to 12 hours for a first-time mom?

update: still pregnant. 40 weeks plus 3 days.

ethan, don't you want to meet us?

update: still pregnant. 40 weeks plus one day.

t minus four days until ethan is due. eric thought he would have been here by now. me, i think he's going to be late just like his brother. regardless, i've been a little apprehensive about going somewhere by myself and having to drive while in labor. my doctor keeps telling me that this one is going to go really fast. i don't know what "really fast" means to him, but to me, it sounds like a few hours (which is not a lot of time for what needs to happen in those few hours). i've been running errands, all within a 5-mile radius of my house. that way, if i do end up going into labor, at least i won't have to drive far. eric and i spent thursday afternoon in detroit. i met up with lunch buddy while eric got his gambling fix at motor city casino. we took his car even though the air conditioning doesn't work. my reasoning: 1) my gas tank has been on E for the last week, and 2) i felt chrissy would have been more comfortable not driving stick in the event that labor did happen.

i have to go grocery shopping in the morning. it's probably time to get gas. i've been kind of waiting for the prices to go down a bit. it's depressing to drive by the gas stations and see that regular gas is $3.05. i'm sure it's like $4 for regular in california, but you're talking to a girl that still reminisces of the days when $0.89 for regular was expensive. ahhh...to fill up the tank on less than ten bucks!

eric goes back to work on monday. =( it's been nice being home with him all last week. we were definitely productive (he, more so than i). so next week, it'll be me and isaiah waiting around for ethan's arrival...

i just found my nkotb "hanging tough" tape. whoa.

i also found a bunch of mix tapes from college. was college so long ago that i still made mix tapes instead of cds?

did i mention that i saw wicked for the second time a couple weeks ago?

i LOVE wicked. i loved it from when i first heard "the wizard and i" on launchcast. i loved it even more when eric got me the cd. and when i finally got to see it in chicago on mother's day last year, it was everything i wanted it to be and more. even after reading a detailed synopsis and knowing the cd cold, the musical still had some surprises for me.

when eric and i heard that the wicked tour was going to include a stop in detroit in june 2006, we decided that we were getting the best tickets that we could get, even if it would cost a ton of money. thanks to a heads up from a dinner buddy about pre-sale tickets, 3 hours of diligent online searching, and the most accomodating ticket master employee EVER, we scored three awesome tickets for the very last detroit show for a mere $80/ticket. the catch: we weren't sitting together. the tickets were somewhere in the middle in the 3rd, 4th, and 6th rows. whatever, it was in the middle and in the front, and everyone that would be sitting around us would have paid three times what we paid. suckers. plus, the only point of sitting next to people you know is to talk to them, and why would you be talking during the show? exactly.

fast forward to us entering masonic temple to see the show. eric and kimmie went ahead of me since i had to use the bathroom. i get to my seat 10 minutes later. eric is sitting directly behind me, two rows back. i am sitting directly behind kimmie. kimmie is sitting directly behind the orchestra pit. PEOPLE! (as eric would say.) can you say 1st, 2nd and 4th row, dead center for wicked? kimmie actually dropped her ticket and it fell into the pit. the piano dude had to pick it up for her. cool. we could see the actors sweat and spit. we could see that their microphones were affixed to their foreheads. we could see that the tape holding down the microphone for the tall chorus girl on stage right was coming off near her ear. we could see all the fun percussion instruments being used. heck, we could read the orchestra's music. it was awesome. and since we caught the last show in detroit, i believe that the actors gave us an extra effort in their performance. i loved it. all of it. wicked rocks.

bye bye work!! see you in september.

-2 station. 50% effacement.

i'm off on maternity leave starting june 28. sweet!! i can't wait. eric will be off at least the first week of july for gm shut down, so it will be nice to have time off of work together at home. we're both totally nesting...cleaning everything in sight, finally getting the laundry out of the way, putting up a new tv in the kitchen so i won't be all alone on the main floor while i'm cooking, ripping up the deck...i still feel like there's so much to do before ethan arrives. we still have to pack our hospital bag. :\

the new season of project runway airs on july 12 - ethan's due date. perfect! eric and i will also both be home to watch the world cup wrap up. too bad the u.s. went out to ghana today. from the matchtracker, it didn't look like they played great anyway. argghh.

9 more days of work until i'm off until september.

currently listening: natural vibe live, gypsy cafe, 4.16.00.

this is by far my favorite vibe performance ever. it wasn't their last, but it might as well have been. they weren't perfect, but the joy that came from singing and jamming with good friends exuded. it was a gorgeous sunny sunday, close friends and fans crammed into the back of a coffee shop in kerry town. it was intimate and fun. there was the added bonus of having matrix media on the cameras, ryan on the sound board, j on the drums, dave fessler on the bass, and rexy on the guitar/keys. plus guest appearances by chris lum, lynn chen, and steve kang. that's some talent. we were all so much cooler for knowing natural vibe. man...that was another lifetime ago...

they are fixing the roof of my office building, and it sounds like there is an airplane constantly flying overhead. it makes it kind of difficult to get any work done. (it's also a little difficult to get any work done when you don't really have any work to do.) regardless, the noise from the roofers is pretty annoying.

friday night was pretty disappointing. i hate the heat. i hope the mavs demolish them. i'm still proud of my pistons. that's all i'm going to say about that.

we spent the rest of the weekend outside at relay for life (it's a 24-hour event that raises money for the american cancer society). the weather was weird...bouts of gorgeous sunshine and 80 degree weather, episodes (sometimes really long episodes) of torrential downpour in the cold, some hail, etc...we got it all. poor kimmie was doing her laps in the torrential downpour when the weather dropped to 50 degrees at 4am. despite some nasty weather, it was a fun time. my cousins are so fun to hang out with. they're so silly and immature sometimes that it's hard to believe that they're all parents and a whole decade (give or take a few years) older. it's really nice to be able to participate in an event like this with family...it's been almost 9 years since my dad passed away and more than 6 years since my aunt passed away. doing relay for life was a nice way to remember them and honor their lives and their struggle.

ethan has dropped a little. this is good because it means that his arrival is soon. this is bad because the extra pressure from having 20 extra pounds pushing more on your bladder makes you have to go to the bathroom every time you walk more than 20 feet.

phew! a crazy weekend came and went just like that. two wedding rehearsals, two weddings, out of town guests, bbq, foosball, x3, no sleep, tons of fun, lots of dancing, lots of eating....

...and now i'm back at work. yuck. thank God everyone loves isaiah (and that isaiah loves them right back). it would have been infinitely harder to take care of him during the weekend festivities if we didn't have like 10 other people watching out for him, too. (thanks, guys!) i'm still exhausted, but it was well worth it. i wish (as usual) that there had been more time to just sit and chit chat with everyone from out of town. visits and vacations are getting harder and harder to plan with the family growing, so we need to take advantage of everyone we get!

congrats, paolo and mandy! congrats, connie and pat!!

i just scored a bag of gardettos with tons of rye chips. yesss.

i've been staring blankly at word and excel documents all day while listening to the da vinci code audio book. it's impossible to get any work done while listening to this story...

tomorrow. 7pm ET. assume game time positions.

you know that work is slow when you've just spent a good part of your morning deleting almost 800 messages from your inbox and sent mail folder.

i have the best message on my work voicemail. it's isaiah saying "hi mama" and "love you" and "later!"

i had pizza house chicken tenders and fries for lunch. it's okay to be jealous.

nba playoffs, round 2, game 2 tonight: GO PISTONS!!

.

just in time for my materinity leave.

i was on my way to work this morning when i realize that i left my computer and all of the paper work i would need for the day at home. after a quick call to my manager, i turned my car around and headed home to "work" for the day. i actually need to get a lot of stuff done, but i'm not very motivated. therefore, i blog.

eric just finished 8 weeks of hard core work hell that ended yesterday. he stopped by the dunkin donuts on 12 and dequindre to buy donuts for all the people that helped him over the last couple months. (aww, so nice, right?) it just so happened that i was passing by the dunkin donuts just as he was getting into his car. ring ring! "look out your window and wave to your wife!" he waved. yay! seeing people you know while driving is fun. he had to turn left into a lot of traffic, my light was about to turn green, and i was in a perfect position to let him in. so i did. cool!! (well, i thought so.)

random: on my way home yesterday there was a car in front of me with a license plate that read "tea tee." i laughed like the immature filipino girl that i am.

is it not the best when work buys you ice cream because it's a nice day?

(of course, not as nice as giving us the afternoon off...but it'll do.)

what a great weekend. not really wanting to go into work tomorrow (as if that's different from most days).

had a great weekend hanging out with family. definitely ate too much saturday, yesterday, and today. with ethan growing so fast in addition to eating too much, my stomach feels like it's going to explode. i'm definitely a waddling pregnant lady right now. i can't believe that i was barely showing a month ago.

we took isaiah to his first pistons game. isaiah is the coolest. he's definitely our kid, because he loves the pistons. he spent the first half on his feet shouting "yeah!" and "go!" and "pistons!" his cousins taught him how to shake his butt on saturday, so he was shaking away whenever music played at the palace. we played the knicks minus larry brown, steve francis, and jalen rose...so one would think that the game would not be so great. but it was because 1) the pistons won; 2) the tickets were free (compliments of my work); 3) it was the 64th win of the season setting a franchise record; and 4) it was the first game that eric and i got to go to together this season. oh, and we got there super early, so we sat near the floor during warm ups and got to gawk and ooh and ahh at all the nba players close up. even got autographs from flip saunders and george blaha. it would have been better to get the starting five to sign our hard hat, but whatever. it was cool! go pistons!!

it's amazing. two weeks ago i was in over my head with work work work. the kind of work where you wake up in the middle of the night thinking about it. and now here i am.

with. nothing. to. do.

this is a rare occasion that must be remembered. we get friday off. i'm taking monday off. i have no pressing deadlines. this is great! now what to do, what to do....

this might only be funny to me:

setting - dinner time, monday night

me: babe, can you go get isaiah some milk?
eric: yeah, yeah. sure.

(eric gets up and goes to the kitchen. sits back down at the table a minute later eating a brownie. i stare at him. eric has no idea why i would stare at him in that way.)

me: i'll go get isaiah some milk.
eric: did you just ask me to get isaiah milk and i came back with a brownie and no milk?

maurice evans is really nice. he didn't have to chit chat with us after he signed my pistons hard hat and after he took a picture with us. but he did. and he now has the agustins cheering for him every game he plays. yeah!

(thanks, benda, for letting us into your poker tournament so we could meet mo. you're the man.)

i'm tired.

kimmie and i spent 3+ hours last night cleaning up a half-gallon of red latex paint off the carpet.

thank God for kimmie and eHow.com and lowe's being open until 10pm.

note to self: never leave half-full paint cans at the top of the stairs (even if you think you've closed them securely). isaiah will surely find it and throw it down the stairs for fun.

yesterday at 11:15am, i got a call from one of our more "demanding" clients:

client: i have some questions regarding so and so project for your manager.
me: is it something i can help you with? she's out all today and won't be back until tomorrow.
client: no. i need to speak with your manager. i know she's at a funeral today, but do you expect her to call in today to check in on things?
me (in total disbelief): no i do not expect her to call to check in while she's at a funeral.
client: do you know if she's checking her email?
me: (??!!!!) i have no idea. i wouldn't expect her to be checking her email since she's at a funeral.
client: could you just shoot her an email and let her know that i need to speak with her as soon as possible?

who does this guy think he is??? i mean, i know there's an approaching deadline (which we would have hit already if he would make up his mind about some irrelevant language - he's a lawyer*)..but how can someone be SO inconsiderate?? i found out this morning that my manager spent nearly FOUR hours talking to him on the phone while she was attending the funeral. he kept calling her! it got to the point where she had to interrupt him to say, "i am at the cemetery, i will have to call you back." i don't know how she kept her composure with him.

sheesh. i had to vent. the other guy in my group and i kept getting more and more steamed the more our manager kept talking about it. it's unbelievable how selfish and cold-hearted that client was/is and how he could expect her to put her work above a family tragedy (in the midst of the funeral, no less). people like that make me so sad.

*disclaimer: nothing against you who are lawyers. (hi, steen! hi, amit!) i love you guys.

we painted our living room and our dining room. it feels like we have a new house. finally, our house has color! i love that we have a big window in our living room looking out into the park. it's like a big picture that changes with the weather...kind of like the ceiling at hogwarts, except that it's not magical. one of the best parts about the window is this barely noticeable digital thermometer between the window glass and the window screen that eric installed. it's nice to know the temperature outside when you look out the window. you can say stuff like "how is it snowing when it's 45 degrees outiside?" and "it's deceptively beautiful outside with the sun shining and blue sky, but it's 15 degrees, so i'll stay inside/bundle up when i go outside."

it's important to remember when painting that if the previous homeowners did a sucky job at putting in the baseboards that you should just rip them out and put in new ones. it will save you the agony of painstakingly taping them off only to not get a nice clean line. this will also spare you two hours of laying on the floor doing touch-ups trying to get that nice clean line (but to no avail). also, semi-gloss shows every imperfection in the wall, but is necessary if you plan on having little kids running around getting everything from crayon and pen to peanut butter and jelly on the wall. it'll save you from having to re-paint every time you clean off a mess.

lesson of the day: myanmar is the largest country in mainland southeast asia. it sits west of thailand and was formerly known as burma.

i have a non-stop soundtrack of the wiggles songs running through my head. i wish it would stop. it makes me think of isaiah dancing to those ridiculous songs, so at least it makes me smile.

eric and i have totally been getting our asses kicked at work. i had to go to sacramento for work for a day, so eric had to take care of isaiah all by himself. that means picking up and dropping him off at my cousin's house for two days. picking up isaiah limits your whole schedule - especially if work is being exceptionally grueling. you have to leave earlier to get to work (or in my case, get to work later) or leave work earlier to pick him up in time. our house is a mess. there are dirty dishes in the sink and on the table. there are loads and loads of laundry to be done. we're both exhausted. it's going to be crazy when ethan comes along.

yesterday marked the 11th year that eric and i have been together. we were supposed to go on a date, but opted to postpone it since i had just been gone for two days and being apart from isaiah for any longer would have been hard. (plus, isaiah had a rough day. his cousin accidentally knocked him over on the ice, and now isaiah's left cheek is all scratched up. it looks much worse than it is.)

11 years. only four more years, and i'll have been with eric for half my life. time goes by so fast! it reminds me that quality time is so valuable. with all the housework and work work that needs to get done, i'll choose quality time over those things any day. i felt like i spent hardly any time with isaiah last week because of work. taking work home absolutely sucks. kimmie would tell me all the new things isaiah would do, and i would just feel bad because i could have witnessed those things instead of working so much. to me, housework and work can always wait. isaiah growing up waits for nobody. i don't want to wake up one day only to realize that i missed hundreds of important little moments in isaiah's life because i had to work late or i was too busy keeping the house clean. i can't wait to find a job closer to home.

there's too much to do. =( i just want to crawl under the covers and go to sleep.

take your pick:

• prime rib: grilled to perfection served with mushrooms and a marsala wine glaze.
• chicken northern woods: breaded boneless breast of chicken stuffed with wild rice, dried michigan cherries, pecans, and chevre cheese, topped with a raspberry demiglace.

this saturday is my office's annual formal party. for the last three years, i have been charged with the responsibility of planning it. it should be fun. i've hired a casino company to come in and set up, well, a casino. complete with tiffany lamps, dealers, craps, poker, blackjack, etc. they even bring in a dj.

but the food. oh the food. i always get nervous when it comes to the food choices. well, the beef option wasn't really that difficult. i love prime rib, therefore, the choice is prime rib. but chicken...man. so many chicken dishes to choose from. you can't get chicken with proscuitto, because that would disappoint the people that chose chicken solely for the purpose of avoiding red meat. and then there are nut allergies, aversions to mushrooms, cheese likes and dislikes. sigh. and it's not like you can choose chicken picatta or chicken dijon, which will look so plain and sad next to a huge piece of prime rib. so chicken northern woods it is. i've consulted with a few select co-workers, and that is the consensus. i think that the chicken dish will generally go over well. i'm just afraid of the people that it will disappoint, because i sure don't want to be on the receiving end of their *opinion* (to put it nicely).

it scares the crap out of me when i'm walking down a city street, and this person that has been walking two feet in front of me, in the same direction as me, for over a block suddenly turns to me and asks for money. dude. if you're going to ask me for money, at least approach me. don't turn around and be all unexpected like that.

i never know what to do when people on the street ask me for money. they say they're asking for money for food, but what if you just gave them money to feed their drug addiction? that would do them no good. if i had food on me, i would totally give it to them. i must have been asked at least 5 times for money on the 2-block walk to my car from city hall, and every time, i said no or ignored them. but then i think of Matthew 24: 37-40 and wonder if i just passed Jesus and left him hanging...

i dont' know how people live the "go go go" kind of work life. always super busy, always barely making deadlines, people always wanting stuff from you. when work gets that crazy, i go to sleep thinking about work, have nightmares about work, wake up and immediately think about work...i can only take so much of it before i feel my head falling off. i guess that's what you're supposed to do when you're young? work your ass off while you can before you have a priority other than yourself? i feel that my office manager expects us younger engineers to have that mentality. i don't think i'll ever buy into it. there are way too many things more important than advancing my place in a stupid company. maybe i just have small ambitions. all i want to do is go home to hang out with eric and isaiah. anyway...if you want to check out the latest on everything isaiah, you can.

the drive into work was more excruciating than usual this morning. it took me nearly an hour and a half. but all has been made right with the delivery of...girl scout cookies! thin mints anyone?

p.s. on a completely different note: how sad is it that michelle kwan has withdrawn from the olympics?