Baby Arrives

Introducing . . .




Anna Juliet
7lbs 9oz
20.5 in
born on December 26, 2009 at 5:27am

My first glance of Juliet. My water broke at around 1:15am and she was born in 4 hours. I was very fortunate this time around to make it to the hospital in time for some pain relief. I was very nervous about that and in fact was scheduled to be induced at 9:00 that very morning. I was worried about all the circumstances around getting to the hospital quickly with a lot of holiday traffic and making sure the kids were settled and cared for. All said and done, it worked out perfectly and was a decent labor and delivery compared to some of my other children. Juliet was very calm in the delivery room and hardly made a sound.

On the scale shortly after birth.

I must admit that she kind of looks like Ella here, but really she has a unique look of her own. I think she might look more like a Larsen than my other kids. She has really long narrow feet, a much smaller head than the other 4, and long legs with a shorter torso. Sounds an awful like my side.

A brief explanation of her name: During the summer months when I was in my first trimester, I was reading a book about the prophets' mothers. I noticed that in the early 19th century it was common to name a daughter after the mother, and she was often called a different nickname to distinguish. I just thought it was interesting and didn't think about it much until I found out we were having a girl. We liked the name Juliet and it is tradition in our family to give the girls a name that is from my side of the family. I couldn't find anything I wanted to go with Juliet and then I thought of that book I read and of my own name, Anna. Juliet Anna didn't sound right, but Anna Juliet did. This also led me to investigate the history of my own name. I knew I was named after my father's family and so I pulled out the journals and searched online. It was very fascinating to find this line of Anna's and read about them: Anna Maria, who joined the church and came to the US from Sweden. She named her daughter Anna Charlotte (who married John Anderson) and they named their daughter Anna Charlotte (dad's grandma Charlotte who married Rube Larsen). She in turn named her daughter Anna Bernice. I became excited about carrying on this tradition and naming my daughter Anna and passing on a rich family history.

Joseph came with the children after church on Sunday to see their new sister. Here is our first family photo. I wish I could smile, but I was having a bad lip day (I've had some really bizarre cycle with my lips where they crack, get blood blisters and then chap with pretty bad peeling.) The skin was so chapped that I literally couldn't smile without breaking the skin open. Joseph and feel like we have a pretty full nest at the moment, but we couldn't feel happier or more blessed during this holiday season.

The kids all love their new sister. Ella was too busy running around the room and getting in to everything to sit still and hold Juliet. She mostly pays attention when the baby cries.

More Christmas

I have to back track here and post some pictures of our Christmas. We had another great Christmas, although I was really trying to be careful not to do too much and end up having a baby on Christmas Eve or Christmas day. Christmas Eve actually began with a trip to the doctor. He informed me that I was very close to having the baby and offered to induce me that day, commenting that I would not make it to my previous inducement date of Dec. 28, the following Monday. I said I would have to chance it because I really wanted to avoid the 24th and 25th. He wished me luck, offered Dec. 26 as an alternative to be induced (which I quickly agreed to) and that was that. I was really nervous though and tense so that made it hard to enjoy the holiday as much. I did as little as possible and that meant compromising a little bit on the details of our family traditions. And the kids were also prepped on what plan B was in case I ended up having the baby (that is Christmas would still happen, just maybe a few days late.) But, as the end of the story is already posted, after about 9:00pm on Christmas night I was able to breathe a little easier. We made it. I not only wanted the new baby to have her own day for a birthday, but I wanted the kids to have Christmas and all the excitement together as a family. It all turned out well, and for that I am truly grateful.

Here are some pictures of our Christmas Eve dinner. We started the tradition last year to have a journey to Bethlehem themed evening where the kids dress up and we stop at an "inn" to have our lamb dinner, flatbread, hummus, grapes, olives, goat cheese, dried fruit and nuts, etc. The kids were so excited again for the lamb. Maggie had 5 helpings, whereas I managed to eat almost 1. Maybe in time, especially as this tradition continues, I will come to like lamb. After dinner we went to the "grassy hillside" to learn about the birth of the Savior. We read the story from Luke, alternating the narrative with Christmas hymns and primary songs. Xander decided he wanted to change into a sheep.

After our dinner and program, the kids opened one present, as is also tradition. (Joseph grew up opening all his presents on Christmas Eve, which comes from his parents' tradition, which is custom in Sweden and Norway where is ancestors come from.) Usually I get them new PJs, but being in Singapore and noting that the girls needed new swimwear (it gets worn out fast here with all the swimming we do year round,) they got new swimsuits this year. Of course they wanted to try them on, and then since they had on swimsuits, why not jump in the pool . . . well, one thing led to another and it turned out that the rest of the evening was a swim party.

Christmas morning came early. Joseph and I didn't set anything up because we weren't sure if we would have to leave suddenly in the middle of the night. So we scrambled out of bed and quickly got everything set up while we told the kids to wait and minute while we checked if Santa really came. We had it all ready in closets from the night before, so luckily it didn't take too long. Abigail and Maggie got the trunks for their dolls. Abigail also got this piggy bank that she absolutely adores. Xander is obsessed with monsters and dinosaurs lately and wanted a monster that can move. The closest thing Santa came up with was a robotic T-Rex thing. It has a remote control and can roam around by itself--a little advanced for him, but he loves it. Ella was in candy cane heaven, finding and opening every candy cane she came across--most of them not hers. Of course she got some presents (a set of tents with a tunnel connecting them), but this Christmas for her was about the candy.

Christmas Fun

Each year at Christmastime, the main shopping area downtown, known as Orchard Road, is elaborately decorated and lit up every night. It is always fantastic to see and the pictures never do it justice. It has become a tradition to go see the lights and get ice cream. I didn't go this year as it is too hard for me to walk around that much. And Joseph didn't feel comfortable taking all 4 himself into the throngs of people, so I stayed home with Ella. And there are always crowds of people like at no other time as well. (I saw the decorations in the day though as all our doctors are on or near Orchard Road.) The kids wanted to take the metro because, believe it or not, we have never been on the metro here. We recently moved right next to a metro stop (another
good reason to come visit us) and so it is really slick to ride the metro downtown now. It takes
about 15min on the metro or by car (without traffic) to get to the heart of the city.

Another tradition is the live nativity at the church. Our stake puts together a nativity where they convert the 4th floor of our building into a journey to Bethlehem. There are guides dressed in costume to take you down lit hallways to see Isaiah and hear his prophesy, into to rooms with angels heralding Christ's birth, wise men, shepherds, King Herod, and finally into a stable with Joseph and Mary. Then the guide leads you into an active marketplace complete with people behind stalls selling meat, grains, rugs, vegetables, etc. where you receive refreshment. It is all quite elaborate with the actors, costumes and sets. Our ward was in charge of the marketplace and Joseph and Abigail helped set it up and then he and the girls had an opportunity to "sell vegetables" to the guests. We went through it as a family on Friday night and they participated Saturday night. Again, if I wasn't so huge with child, I would have also gone dressed up with the kids--I did go through it on Friday with my camping chair (because I can't stand for long). It is kind of a bummer to miss out on so much this year . . .

After the marketplace there is a room full of nativity sets from around the world. I donated 3 to display and I was told that my California beach nativity I put together years ago was the most talked about and photographed. Here it is pictured, however I changed the pieces a little when I saw it Friday. I turned baby Jesus so his head was at the top and moved Mary and Joseph closer to the manger.

Ella turns 2!

On November 30, Ella turned 2 years old. We celebrated on Sunday so we could enjoy the day with her and not be rushed on a Monday night. She will never have Thanksgiving on her birthday, but I can't guarantee that she'll never have leftovers for her birthday dinner. I could have stuck candles in the leftover pies, but that would have been too cruel. Instead, Abigail and I had fun making this horse cake. She is crazy about horses--I think it is genetic in our girls or something. Almost all day long, she is carrying around plastic horses or stuffed horses. Anyway, it was a labor of love as I was still recovering from Thanksgiving and it is hard for me to be on my feet with vein problems, but all worth it because she was so fascinated with the cake. Abigail did all of the mane.

She also loves dogs. She sleeps on this dog in her new bedroom. We moved her a couple weeks ago to get ready for the baby.

Abigail and Maggie putting Ella to bed. They are reading her a book of pictures they made for her birthday.

Tired of Thanksgiving Leftovers?

After eating Thanksgiving one day, then a casserole made out of leftovers the next day, and the casserole again the next day and the next, I had enough. It didn't help that the kids were complaining and Joseph was out of town to help us eat it all. So I found this recipe online that was so good, simple, and completely different than Thanksgiving fare, I thought I wanted to share it.

Pasta Trinidad

1 box angel hair pasta
1 pkg. bacon
olive oil
1 onion
2 garlic cloves
carrots sliced into thin coins
1 red pepper
salt & pepper to taste
parmesan Cheese

Fry bacon, cool, drain, crumble, set aside. Start salted, boiling water for angel hair. (I think angel hair really makes this dish good.) Heat olive oil. Saute onion, thin sliced baby carrots, red pepper and fresh garlic clove. Drain pasta. Toss all ingredients together, add more olive oil, salt, fresh ground pepper and be very generous with parmesan cheese. Serve with a fresh green salad and garlic bread.

So simple and so yummy.

Happy Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving here which we celebrated on the Saturday after the official holiday. Thanksgiving is a school holiday but not a work holiday in Singapore. Joseph can take work off but it is hard to coordinate a dinner with friends with everyone's different work schedules. We had 23 people total at the table(s) and it was a huge success and a lot of fun. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, that being people of different backgrounds and cultures getting together to celebrate, we had a colleague of Joseph's from Pakistan, a new convert in our ward from China, some ward members from Taiwan originally but met in America and are from there now, a family Joseph home teaches, and another from the ward with teenage sons and a father Joseph works with in Young Men at church. It was loud at times with all the children and certainly lots of food and laughter--all the right ingredients for Thanksgiving. Oh, and we had turkey, stuffing, gravy, pies . . . all of which I cheated a little and had catered. Being as pregnant as I am, I would never attempt to host something like this any other way. That is one of the beauties of Singapore. I made 3 simple dishes and everything else just appeared on the table. I wish we took a picture of the whole group seated, but the camera came out after the feast.

I don't usually take or pose for pictures when I am pregnant, but Joseph's colleague went around snapping shots and so here I am. I guess I like to forget the discomfort of it all. The baby will come in 3.5 weeks (hopefully sooner).

Happy Halloween

The pumpkin patch--Singapore version. Each year the school ships in a container of pumpkins from the states as you can't get these kind of pumpkins here. They are expensive so we only get small/medium size ones (the large pumpkins cost US$45 a pumpkin for example). The kids have just as much fun picking the perfect pumpkin to carve. We also get a few gourds and Indian corn for fun.
























We don't carve the pumpkins until Halloween day as they mold very quickly here.




















The finished products. From left to right: Abigail's, Xander's with 4 eyes, and Maggie's friendly pumpkin.
























The costumes. Xander insisted on being a ghost this year and I left it up to Joseph to figure out his costume. Finding good costumes here is tricky because it is so hot when you go out trick-or-treating. Anyway, Joseph came up with the brilliant idea of putting one of his white shirts on Xander then covering him with mosquito netting. It is was cool enough and kept him for getting bitten, which was a factor as dusk set in. Ella came home with 3 bites on her legs. I cut out "Boo" in black felt and pinned it to his back--just to make sure he didn't look like an angel.


Maggie wanted to be a gypsy. With all the things Joseph brings home from around the world, we have some great things to work with. She is wearing an outfit he brought back from India with a crystal ball from China hanging around her neck. Abigail is a wizard/enchantress with her skirt again being from India. We had to pin Ella down to get that witch dress on her. She screamed "no" the entire time. I turned a movie on quickly and she was distracted and eventually forgot about the apparent torture. We go up to the Woodlands, aka "Little America," the neighborhood right by the school. It is a crazy trick-or-treating experience as the streets get almost too crowded to walk. Word has spread throughout the island of free candy up there. Halloween is definitely not exclusive to Americans anymore here.

Eating and Breathing Soccer

Abigail, as I mentioned before, is playing soccer again this year. This week, however takes the cake for the most soccer we've had to date in our family. Currently she plays on the American community soccer (SACAC), the typical thing where you sign up and dads volunteer to coach. She has had a fun time doing this here the last two years (and 2 years in Minnesota). Last week she tried out for a select soccer team--a team of 9 to 10 year old girls from the international American school she attends here that will be part of the sports league that organizes competition between other international schools on the island (i.e., the Australian school, the British school, etc.) The coaches for this team are hired from an international soccer academy and there will be busing to away games. She wanted to get better at soccer and try something a little more competitive, but this was still quite a bold step for her reserved nature. We didn't push it at all; in fact, with the baby coming throughout all this new soccer stuff, I was a little bit worried about being able to handle all the scheduling and support. Practices and games are during the week in the afternoons and Joseph will do what he can, of course. In any event, she is on the team and we are excited for her. This week is the "double" week with 2 practices for this select team, 1 last SACAC practice and final game on Saturday. Joseph is out of town so I will be the ultimate soccer mom this week.

Final Reflections

Since I already started this theme, call it "reflections of a mother" or "children sketches," I need to finish up with Abigail so I leave no one out.

When she was a baby, she had features that seemed too big for her face--her huge eyes and wide mouth. I would get comments all the time from strangers, and I remember one such in Walmart when a lady stopped and looked at Abigail and said something like, "look at those eyes--that's no fair!" Well, I am happy to see that she has grown into these said features and is not to far from turning the corner into young womanhood. It is a scary prospect for me because it is unknown territory. Unfortunate for Abigail, everything about raising her has been unknown territory being our first child and considering how young and inexperienced we were when we had her. Despite all our inadequacies and deficiencies, she is turning out to be an amazing girl and we couldn't ask for a better eldest child.

Abigail is also getting quite accomplished at the piano. I currently teach her and I think I can only finish 4th grade (through level 5 of her piano course) and then I need to final another arrangement. Again, I've never taught piano and she has been somewhat of an experiment for me. It has all turned out better than expected and I am very pleased with her effort and progress. And even more important, she loves to be at the piano and I think finds great satisfaction and confidence in what she has accomplished. She has learned at an early age that effort and practice pay big returns. I try to tell her it is the same with soccer. She likes soccer and wants to be good at it as well. Right now she practices once a week with games on Saturday--still very much a recreational sport for her and we are happy to see her branch out of her comfort zone and get some good exercise too.

Abigail loves anything creative from writing to drawing and even, as you see pictured, origami. She works hard at everything she does in school and at home. She has a pretty hard core, brilliant teacher who is preparing her for about 8th grade I think. She has 1+ hours of homework every night, researching on the Internet, doing power points, share points, math, handwriting, word studies, book group prep, and on and on. I think it has been more of an adjustment for me as I have to help her manage it all and I seem to complain more than she does. If nothing else, he is making sure these 4th graders are well prepared for the years ahead. Joseph thinks it is fantastic.

Abigail doesn't have a mean bone in her body and is careful to include everyone, even a little brother who can be annoying on occasion. She is also rather shy and reserved--at least with people or in situations she doesn't feel comfortable. That used to be most situations outside the home but is now less. Lately, she has really taken to reading and is currently reading Chronicles of Narnia. She loves fantasy and adventure books, the Series of Unfortunate Events being another one of her favorites. She has never been interested in a lot of the things girls her age like, i.e., HS Musical, Hannah Montana, pop music, and things of that sort. You will rarely find her in front of the TV--never has been and it will be interesting to see if she ever cares about TV.

We recently took the kids to the Botanic Gardens here in Singapore to try and get some good photos of them. Not everyone would cooperate, starting from the beginning when I tried to dress them all in their matching "tropical" clothes I bought at Gymboree last summer in the states. We were in such a rush to get to church anyway with hair done and shoes on. In any case, here are some of the results of the group pictures.

Magdalene

As intriguing as her name. Her name is unusual and does get noticed by school officials, doctors, etc. Quietly defiant, internal and what some people might call and introvert (however I don't like that label) we always have interesting conversations with her teachers at school. She seems to come into conflict with authority in some way or another. I remember suppressing laughter when I took her to a hearing screening years ago when she was 4. She wouldn't agree with the nurse about what to label the sound that she heard and consequently only partially finished the screening with a very frustrated lady. I wanted to laugh because I realized for the first time it wasn't just me she challenged constantly. This year in 2nd grade, her teacher told us she has learned with Maggie she has to pick her battles which include anything from neatness, organization or following directions.

She is also very bright. They have an "open response" optional section after every math unit assessment and she nails them every time (when sometimes only 3 others get it right.) She also sees things differently. On a math worksheet, she had to write a word problem using a picture of lions. There were various lions--male, female, large and small as the focus of the sketch. She chose to use the small trees in the distance to use for her word problem. I didn't even notice them until I looked over her work. I thought it was so interesting that she looked past the obvious but still did something valid. This is a classic photo I pulled up--one of Joseph's favorites taken when Maggie was 3. We lived in Belgium at the time and went up to the Netherlands to see the tulip fields. There were rows of tulips as far as the eye could see in every variety. It was spectacular. We went down to get a closer look and let the girls run through the tulips. On the way down, Maggie found this yellow dandelion growing by itself and she was absolutely taken with it. She carried it around with her almost oblivious to the millions of tulips surrounding her, content with that little obscure dandelion.

She snorts when she laughs, and has an easily recognizable laugh that starts low and grows louder and louder until it fills a room. When she was a baby, she didn't cry so much as she growled. She also has great expressions. Whether she is pouting, angry, annoyed, excited, bored or whatever, it is all clearly written on her face. But when it comes to things that are deeper or of greater consequence, like friendship issues, warnings from a teacher, or things of that nature, then getting her to reveal anything is like trying to crack a secret code. She is a great sister and has a special relationship with Ella. She is sweet and generous, the quickest to share in our family and the least concerned with who gets the most or the biggest.

An Even Bigger Loveable Guy

He used to shower me with kisses (see previous blog) but travels the world now and showers me with gifts. Joseph recently went to India on a b-trip and brought me back this collection of purses. Now I just need some evening gowns and events to attend. He told that will all come in time---he just was so excited about these beaded evening bags and wanted me to have some on hand for when. (The picture doesn't really do justice to the intricate beaded work of the evening bags.) After 11+ years of marriage, I've learned that Joseph doesn't do things on a small scale, and he doesn't get bogged down with decisions or second guessing anything. Obviously the purses illustrate this, but it extends far beyond into everything he does with his career, personal goals like training, and family.


Joseph recently was put in charge of coal on the steel platform. That means buying and selling the coal--trading. It has been really crazy this past month as he still is doing a strategy for steel in India along with learning the ropes in trading coal. I've learned that trading goes on at all hours because it is a global thing so it isn't unusual for Joseph to on the phone at odd times. He is excited about it though and says that if he can trade successfully he can do just about anything in Cargill. It definitely is higher risk and more stress though. Most of his travel will be in India and China now as that is where the coal customers are.