1. Bonjour

We leave this weekend! Please keep praying for us! A lot of my anxiety has been lifted, PTL, and I am actually really excited. One of the places that we’re visiting is the Chapelle De Notre Dame de la Medaille Miraculeuse…. Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal! Like, THE Miraculous Medal. Can’t wait to see the incorrupt body of Saint Catherine Laboure. Send me any intentions you’d like me to pray for while we’re there!

2. French

Also worth noting, I’ve been working on my French with Duolingo for the past 2 weeks and OH MY GOSH. French is so impossible. Spanish and Norwegian, I can soak it up so easily but French makes no sense to me and everything sounds the same. Today one of the questions was to translate “Je cherche mon chien” aka “I am searching for my dog”, but the pronunciation is

Follow that link and click on the little speaker icon and see what I mean. Impossible. So basically I’ll be Merci-ing, Bonjour-ing, Pardon-ing, Parlez vous anglaise-ing my way through Paris.

3. Gifts

Okay, one last thing about the trip. I ended up getting the kids a tiny gift for them to open everyday we’re gone (I <3 Target $1 Section) and wrapped them with a little note. Might be little over the top of me, but they’ve been breaking my heart with their “Why can’t we come?”, “I don’t want you to go.”, “I’m going to miss you so much.”. So hopefully bubbles, Tic-Tacs, and Play-doh are worthy parent replacements.

4. Homestead

We had a nice balance of homesteading and lifestyling this weekend by venturing out to Ikea to get a new dining room table. Our old one is still available! Vintage mid century dining table, $200 OBO! Anyway, that was a trek because our van a/c also broke and we forgot that Ventura is in this nice cloudy May pocket whereas the rest of LA is scorching so we were dripping surrounded by giant boxes.

5. Lifestyle

And we also went to the beach! First real beach day this year and it was so relaxing— the kids have a general sense to not got far into the water which is such a milestone!

6. Legos

Oliver and Atlas combined their birthday money to buy a giant Ninjago lego set— over 1000 pieces. They’ve been chipping away at it all week and I can’t help but love/hate legos because it’s so mentally stimulating and good for them, but I’m finding stray legos everywhere. In the bathroom, pantry, bed, laundry, etc etc etc etc etc.

7. Not photos, whaaaaboooom

I actually didn’t take many photos this week! Lucky you!

But, how much of a let down was the premiere of The Bachelorette?? I love Rachel! The guys were all so so so so lame. I can’t pick a favorite at all. Ashley Jones recap was magic like always (even though I disagree with liking Bryan). Hoping next week is better and that Daniel doesn’t hate me when I inevitable download the episode next Monday while we’re in Paris…

Linking up with Kelly!

Crepes! Pain au chocolat! Cafe mocha! Rosé! S’il vous plaît! Au revoir!

Okay, where’d I leave off in Parte 1?

So the second part of our trip was spent on the coast— we stayed a few nights at an airbnb in Tulum near their downtown and the holistika center.

It was so beautiful, but the stairs made me superrrr stressed out. Made a rule that the kids have to keep one hand on the wall going up and down, ha! Also one day when I was doing a load of laundry I stumbled upon the biggest spider I have ever seen in real life just chilling in a bucket. Another wildlife moment was when evening rolled around, bats would fly back and forth over the back pool because our house was situated right up against the jungle.

While in Tulum we went to Ash Wednesday Mass where Ollie almost had a panic attack because the priest asked for all the kids to come to the front (and there were tons and tons) and a few of them had to read some paper and Oliver got SO scared that he was going to have to speak Spanish in front of everyone, bless his heart.

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Happy Friday!

Here is a joke from Prim this morning:

P: Knock knock

Me: Who’s there?

P: Sad.

Me: Sad, who?

P: Tears.

1. Trip

I woke up this morning thinking we were leaving THIS Sunday and immediately got sick to my stomach and then remembered we still have another week. Guys, please pray for my anxiety to let up! It’s totally inhibiting me from getting super excited. I think it’s pretty much anxiety over leaving the kids for that long and anticipating how much I’ll miss them (and tbh, how much they will miss me). Rational me knows that we all will be fine, but still. I can’t help but feel silly over feeling this way when we are about to take a trip we’ve been dreaming of for years and years. Also can’t help thinking that something will happen that will delay our return flight which will make us indeed miss Ollie’s evening kinder graduation. Prayers, pleaseeeee please please.

2. Name this Baby

Did you see Kate from Sancta Nomina’s name consultation for this babe?? She is AMAZING. So many great ideas and really helped show us some of our naming patterns. As of now, we haven’t settled on a name so keep those suggestions coming my way!

3. Volunteer Mom

Oliver’s school requires 50 service hours for the school year and as the end of the year is approaching, me and Daniel realized we had less than 10 hours done… and if you don’t meet the 50 hours you have to pay $10/hour soooooo when they said if you volunteered to run a booth at the annual fiesta you would get 30 hours we jumped on it. We ran the milk jug booth for a few hours (and thankfully Daniel’s parents helped out, too, THANK YOU!) but I’m pretty sure it led to my back being thrown out a couple days later…

Yes, same fiesta where my kids got 2 goldfish that died the next day. RIP Silver “Gold Touch” and Goldie “Gold Touch”.

And then last week I went with his class to the Santa Barbara Zoo and that was the day before take 4…so basically to me: I volunteer=I get sick/injured. (Love my half transitioned glasses, OKAY!?)

4. Sick sick sick

Guys, it’s been non stop over here. Threw out my back and then got worked on by a chiropractor where I couldn’t walk without wincing the next day. Luckily that’s better. And then last week I finally dragged myself to the doctors (haven’t seen a non-OB in YEARS) and got diagnosed with “worse than bronchitis”. Nebulizer, antibiotics, inhaler. This poor babe got the full on chemical treatment but I can breathe again which is a plus, but still forever have a stuffy nose.

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Zero

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Oliver turned 6 last Monday and I’m still in disbelief that we have a 6 year old… that’s like a big kid, right!? He came into this world after 20 hours of hard labor and was born swimming out into Daniel’s arms and quickly rushed to the hospital with congenital pneumonia and pulmonary hemorrhaging.

I’ve written about our time in the NICU before and made this tear jerker video after he was born, but I’m still in awe that this boy who they said may have brain damage, hearing loss, and other developmental struggles is the brightest kid I’ve ever met. Ollie is just the most sincere, thoughtful, and sweet little guy. Yesterday it was so clear to me that we are s l o w l y phasing out of being completely overwhelmed by kids who need you to do everything, to having kids who are a bit more independent. Don’t get me wrong, only 1/3 kids are fully potty independent— but still. These glimpses give me hope because I know and see already that as a parent, I’m going to better as a mom of bigger kids. Love me some toddlers, but I think kids past the age of reason are going to be my jam. But back to Oliver— he’s still a normal sneaky 6 year old that pulls out his heartbreaker melancholic card that is difficult to settle sometimes, but we love him so and he makes our heart melt when he uses it for good. Last night while sleepily tucked into bed, he said to me, “Mama, I hope you had such a perfect Mother’s Day.” </3

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I haven’t done a 7QT since February!! Here we goooooo.

1. Baby BOY 3

In case you missed the news, we decided to find out what we were having (thank you to my trusty Pro/Con list persuasion) and it’s a boy! We did a little gender reveal with the kids and they were soooo cute about it. Prim didn’t throw a fit which I was anxiously waiting for but now just says silly things like, “My baby boy is a baby sister” with a smirk or “Hi poopoo baby!” then kisses my tum. I had a feeling I was having a boy because I’ve had about 5 dreams that he was a he and even in passing, I kept referring to the baby as a he or saying his. The only reason I thought maybe I was having a girl is because I am been outrageously moody like when I was pregnant with Prim. -_____-
We still don’t have a name picked out, but the wonderful naming genius Kate of Sancta Nomina is doing a consult so stay tuned to see what her suggestions are!

2. Easter

Easter was great! Mass was great! Brunch at the Fikes was great minus Atlas losing it because he didn’t like the idea of having to find eggs that he didn’t know where they were hidden so he ended up helping hide them instead. “Atlas losing it” can pretty much sum up April 2017, choleric assertiveness or actually melancholic angst? Save that for another post.

Then we headed to Daniel’s parents because it was also his mom’s birthday so the kiddos got to do 2 egg hunts and luckily Atlas accepted the rules of not peaking during the hiding.

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