The Table is Set

 The only picture we took on the night Fr. Pendergraft came for dinner: the salad and appetizers. I can't believe we forgot to take pictures during dinner...

Cecilia Selling Lemonade

A couple of weeks ago, when it was still warm outside, Cecilia set up this little lemonade stand with a sign :$7 (actually 7cents is what she meant). She got a few customers: dad, mom, Teddy, Bebe, even Celsus who was crossing the back yard to come to our house, and had no choice but buy lemonade. Cece is also showing off her artwork, called "Woodland Park Zoo" of a bird in a tree.

New Blog Title

Hi Everyone,
It's been almost a year and I'm finally in a blogging mood again, although I will probably post on my homeschooling blog more often. The address is www.catholichomeeducator.blogspot.com.
I'll be playing with different blog titles for both my blogs for a while and eventually I'll settle on one for each. I'm in a Latin kind of mood, hence this blog's new title. It seems fitting, since I'm mostly writing about my family and life at home plus there's another sweet Domus in my life...

Trying on the Christmas Outfits

Alex was just out of the bath and in his pj, so we didn't change him, but he has an outfit just like his brothers



Somehow that doll always appears in the pictures I take of Cece and Sophia on the couch.

This was supposed to be Sophia's Halloween costume (a chili pepper) but we had lost it and only found it now. The kids insisted that I put it on her and take her picture .

Teddy's Art

December 2004 (Teddy, 6)


January 2005 (Teddy, 6)


November 2008 (Teddy, 10)


October 2008 (Teddy, 10)


October 2008 (Teddy, 10)

Teddy started going to art school again. He went for a couple of months in 2004-2005 but then we stopped going because of the distance and cost. I recently decided that, since drawing is one of Teddy's main talents and hobbies, it is worth having him take some more lessons. I just love everything he makes there. If he is guided step by step, he makes beautiful art. At home he loves to make cartoons and is very good at it. I'm constantly looking for cartooning classes for him. He would love to take some lessons in cartooning/ drawing comics.
Benedict has been taking classes with him too but he doesn't like it. He's a mathematician not an artist :) He wants to quit.

Here is a little story of what happened today at the drawing school. When I dropped them off, I heard Benedict asking the teacher if they were supposed to do free draw and she said "yes but no violent drawings please". He likes to draw armies of soldiers fighting with all kinds of weapons. Apparently he made some of his "violent drawings" at art school. When I picked them up, the teacher asked to talk to me privately. She complained (as I expected) about his violent pictures and then she told me that Benedict got a little "political" during class, he told the kids that "Obama kills babies", but to not feel bad about it because he probably heard it from the kids at school.
When I talked to the boys in the car about the incident, they said that the teacher brought up the subject, saying that the elections were tomorrow and all the kids said that their parents were voting for Obama. The teacher said that she was Australian and couldn't vote but if she could vote, she would have voted for Obama too. One girl then said something negative about McCain. Benedict and Teddy felt like they had to say something and that's when Benedict said that Obama kills babies, which is pretty much how we explained abortion to them.

I'm just telling the story here and won't make any comments. Benedict did not get in trouble with us but I did ask them to not discuss politics with other children, especially at drawing school.

Benedict now really doesn't want to go back to that drawing school which is, as he puts it, "full of Democrats".

Here are some of Teddy's past and present works.
I think they are beautiful.

A Day in the Life of...

...our family. I was gonna do the whole day but at 1:30pm the batteries in my camera died, so I had to stop. This was on Tuesday, last week.

7:30am


Making lunches for the boys. Cecilia and Alex are eating breakfast. Most days they still sleep at this hour.




The boys are getting dressed

8:30am



Reading to the stuffed animals and folding laundry.

9:30am



Playing with the school buses.

10:30am



Getting to know my new sewing machine...and my pathetic attempt at making a skirt. At least I figured out my sewing machine. Briana was a great help the day before this picture was taken, when she came over to help.



Picnic time.

11:30am




Early lunch for early risers.

12:30pm



Nap time for Alex.

1:30pm


"School time" for Cecilia.

Benedict's 8th Birthday

Our tradition is to have 2 celebrations for each of the children's birthdays, one on the actual birthday, when we just have a little party in the family (together with Thea and Ron and their kids) and a bigger party with friends on the Saturday after the birthday. On the family celebration, we usually order Pagliacci pizza and eat cake, then we have a BBQ or some other party food and another cake for the second celebration.

Here is the family "Pagliacci" party at Thea's

...notice how Benedict is gently pushing Christopher's hand from the cake :)
I made the cake using a cake mix and a Romanian chocolate cream recipe that I've used as both filling and icing. I decorated the cake with caramelized walnuts.


The party on Saturday. We had hot dogs and another cake, this time from Safeway. We had a sunny day so we were able to do the whole outdoor party thing, complete with grill and pinata and playing in the club house.

Cookbooks

UPDATE: Those burgers were indeed horrendous, even though Benedict ate an entire burger and the other kids ate about half each, which is pretty good...Still, definitely not a keeper.

Here are a few cookbooks I've recently used/bought/borrowed.


I only discovered Barefoot Contessa recently and she has already become one of my favorite cookbook authors. I bought this book from Costco and checked out the other ones from the library. I think this one has the best recipes. I made her "Parmesan Chicken", "Lasagna with Turkey Sausage" (I used an Italian sausage instead), "Zucchini with Parmesan","Parmesan Roasted Asparagus", "Garlic Sauteed Spinach" and her "Mashed Potatoes". Everything always comes out very good, except for the spinach recipe, but that's because it's hard to cook spinach perfectly, without overcooking. Her mashed potatoes are our favorites. I've made them several times already. The only downside is that she uses a little more fat than many of us are comfortable with (one of the reasons why my mother in law doesn't like her).


I just bought this one. It was $9 at Target and now after I read the Amazon reviews, I'm sorry I wasted my money. The author, who is Jerry Seinfeld's wife, had this amazing idea, which she apparently plagiarized from some other author, of adding small amounts of vegetable or fruit purees to kid friendly recipes (cauliflower in mac and cheese, broccoli in chicken nuggets etc). I'm making her burger with mushrooms today and I really hope they will turn out OK. Many of the reviewers said that nothing they made from that book was edible. One more reason why you should read reviews BEFORE buying a book.


A few years ago, when we lived in Ballard, a Seattle neighborhood, "Ray's Boathouse" was one of our favorite restaurants (and we did go to restaurants much more often back then, since we only had two kids). They have amazing seafood. I've been wanting to buy their cook book for many years and finally did it this summer, when my in-laws where here. My sister in law, Patricia, was so impressed with the book, that she bought one herself. They have them at Costco for about a 40% discount. I know Dominic and I made more than one recipe from this book already but there's one that I remember well, the "Seafood Risotto with Morels and Chanterelles". We made it without seafood, just with the wild mushrooms added to our already much loved risotto and it was delicious. Wild mushrooms can be expensive but we found an affordable solution: the small bag of mixed dried wild mushrooms from Trader Joes, for about $4.99. It's enough for a big pot of risotto, serving 10 or so.


I borrowed this William Sonoma book from the library when my dad was visiting. He loves salmon and I wanted to make some food using local ingredients, which this book suggests. There was one recipe there that I remember making, but I don't know its name. It was a salmon with a delicious red wine sauce (they suggested an Oregon Pinot Noir, but I just used a chep red wine I had in the house, which worked out just fine). I'm pretty sure we had this with Barefoot Contessa's mashed potatoes. The salmon was a nice alternative to our usual grilled salmon with salmon rub.

Ready for Bed

New Routines

If you're wondering why I'm not writing on my blog very often, well that's because we're trying here to start the new routines going. A lot has changed lately :new baby and no help, start of school, start of Sunday school, start of extracurricular activities, adult education classes at church, volunteering, approaching auction dinner and so on.

I feel like we are starting to fall into a pretty good routine, a very different one than last year's. Here are a few things that I do differently now than last year (mostly because I have a baby and a toddler and 2 days per week a third child at home during the day):

1. I wake up at 6:00 to 6:30am to start my day before the kids wake up as opposed to waking up at 7:30am with the kids last year
2. I only go shopping once a week (at Costco, Trader Joe's or one of the supermarkets) as opposed to going almost every day last year (no more weekly Target and Value Village runs).
3. I start the kids' and my before bedtime routine at 7pm (and if I don't I should) as opposed to 8 last year.
4. I do most of the dinner preparation before I go to pick up the kids.

Many more changes to make...

Sophia and her Cousin Olivia

They seemed to be quite aware of each other's presence, which is about all you can expect from a 5 and a 3 months old on a play date.

Cecilia at the German School

We've had Teddy and Benedict in the German school in the past, Teddy for two nonconsecutive years and Benedict for one year. They both hated it, especially Teddy, because all the kids there are from German families and speak German at home so the teachers teach at their level. My kids didn't understand very much so we dropped German.

I didn't think I would return there but Cecilia is showing an unusual interest in learning the language. She started picking up words at 3- 4 while listening to German tapes, intended for her older brothers, in the car. She started saying words and singing songs and she kept asking me to speak to her in German. I borrowed all the German DVD's and tapes I found at the library several times. Even my parents have learned the "Ich heisse Moritz" and "Magst du Coca-Cola" songs. My brother in law, Chris sent us many German books and CD's from Germany for the kids and I ordered more from Amazon.de. Cecilia is listening to her CD's over and over again and can say a few phrases in German.

The logical next step was to enroll her in the German school. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she will like it and will want to stay in the school for more than 1 or 2 years. We'll see. Anyway, Frau Coffin, the Kindergarten teacher and Mrs. Newcomb, the principal, were happy to see us back, this time with a new student.
The Seattle German Language School teaches grades PK-12 and adults on Saturdays from 9-11:30am at the Villa Academy in Seattle (close to University Village).

Laura's Blog

My cousin, Laura Moisin, who lives in New York, just opened her author blog for the book she wrote. The book, called "Kid Rex" is the story of her struggle with anorexia and will be available in stores in a few weeks. It is now available to pre order.

Baby's First Taste of Solid Food

No, I wasn't planning on introducing it to Sophia before 6 months. She's happily and exclusively breastfeeding but, what do you think, while I was busy talking to this guy who wants to pave our driveway, Cecilia was sharing her mushy banana with Sophia. Sophia loved it!
Life sure is interesting in a house full of children. Nothing goes as planned.

Sophia the Cutie Pie is 5 Months Old

She's sitting on a quilt that Tavis made for her a while ago, with the help of his grandma Judy. He asked his grandma to teach him and then decided that his first project would be a quilt for Sophia. He did most of the work, the proud grandma told me.

Sophia is posing with her new toy, Sophie the giraffe. She's starting to have quite a collection of giraffes.

An Evening with Familia Romana

So what does a mother of five do an a Saturday evening? She could do a number of things, like watch a movie, eat out, read, relax after a difficult week. Well, this mother of five spent her Saturday night, in addition to feeding 5 mouths, wiping two bottoms, correcting 4 Kumon worksheet packets, picking up toys again and again, washing dishes (the normal evening routine), well she spent more than an hour looking in the Latin-English dictionary, finding unknown words to translate a 3 page Latin text for her darling 5th grader who just announced her that he has Latin homework.

See, the book that Teddy and his classmates use for Latin, Lingua Latina Part 1 (Familia Romana) was meant for high school and college level. With my pretty strong Latin background (5 years including Latin Olympiads) I still have trouble translating my 10 year old's Latin texts, meaning I need to use the dictionary and to review my Latin grammar. I try to do all the deciphering myself and once I'm very familiar with the text, then start working with Teddy, so he doesn't get too frustrated.

There are times when I think that this is way too hard for him but I have been amazed at how much he learned. He is in his 3rd (or maybe 4th?) year of Latin and I could safely say that he knows as many words as I do (I still know more grammar than him though...thank goodness). The problem is that if he wants to find a word in the dictionary, if that word has a different grammatical form than the one in the dictionary, he'll never find it. Take for example "eam". You can try to find the word in the dictionary but will not find it if you don't know that "eam" is the singular Accusative of the feminine form of the demonstrative pronoun (or whatever that's called in English) is (as in is, ea,id,eius, eius eius etc., I can still recite part of this after 13 years). To make a long story short, the kid needs help in looking up words in the dictionary and I volunteered.

To finish studying the chapter for the test, which will probably take place in a couple of weeks, we will spend a few hours, first reading and translating the text, learning whatever grammar topic is introduced in the lesson and then doing all the exercises in the textbook and in the workbook. Doing all this will probably secure a B for Teddy. C's are the norm and A is probably a one in a school year event (I'm only talking about Latin). In other words it is extremely challenging for both mother and child.

The good part is that not only does Teddy learn a lot of Latin at an early age, but I also get to review my Latin and even improve it.

Here is a little paragraph from the 3 pages of text from ch. 9 (the material I worked on tonight).

"Dum ceterae oves a pastore numerantur, ovis nigra in magna silva, ubi via nulla est, errat. Ovis, quae iam procul a pastore ceterisque ovibus abest, neque caelum neque solem supra se videt. Sub arboribus sol non lucet. Ovis nigra in umbra est."

After looking for about 6 words in the dictionary, I came up with this translation:

"While the rest of the sheep are being counted by the shepherd, the black sheep wanders off in the big forest, where there are no pathways (or trails). The sheep, which is now far away from the shepherd and the rest (ceteris= the rest as in etcetera= and the rest) of the sheep, doesn't see the sky or the sun above itself. The sun doesn't shine under the trees. The black sheep is in the shade."

This is only one out of 21 paragraphs in the chapter. We'll see how Teddy does tomorrow with the translation. I usually only offer minimum help but I do like to be familiar with the text before I work with him.

Among the many interesting things I learned from Teddy's Latin book are the animal sounds in Latin.
Did you now that in Latin "Canis latrat: Baubau, lupus ululat: Uhu, and ovis balat: Baba". How funny!

Now would anyone dare tell me that we, stay at home mommies are not intellectually stimulated?!

Teddy's Dolphin Essay 2005

This was written by Teddy when he was in 1st grade at Westgate Elementary, our local public school. Even at that very young age, they were learning a lot about the environment and endangered animals. I found this and I thought I would post it. It was so cute...but I'm glad he's not in public school anymore. Some of you who read this (the homeschool minded) will understand why this cute little essay was a warning for what was to come if Teddy stayed in the same school (teaching about global warming, overpopulation etc.)

This is what it says, if you can't read it:

"Dear people who kill dolphins, please do not kill dolphins it makes me mad and sad. Did you want to kill all the dolphins in the world and no people will be rescued and you might fall off your boat and drown without dolphins in the world and now STOP IT and QUIT IT. Now dolphins are in big danger because of you guys and other people who kill dolphins. 2005 Teddy"

In the sentence about falling off the boat and drowning he was referring to a story he heared or read about some dolphin who rescued people.

And here is Teddy at 6 (around the time he wrote this) scandalized by the murdered lobster on the table.

Lopez Island

Teddy fishing on a boat on Friday Harbor

The boys and Dominic took a trip last weekend on Lopez Island (part of the San Juan Islands). They took a ferry and rode their bikes on the island, then camped, went to Friday Harbor on Sunday and went to church there.

Two days ago, on Tavis' 9th birthday, Dominic took Teddy, Bebe, Tavis, Celsus and Joseph (their friend from school) on another bike trip. Then they had pizza and came home extremely tired.

Guess Who Started School Today

Cecilia started Kindergarten and Christopher Pre-Kindergarten. They both go to Veritas Academy and will be in the same class (K and Pre-K combined). Talia, my goddaughter will also be in their class.
Today was the first day. I can't wait to hear how it went.

Also notice in the background of the first picture our new front door. Dominic is not yet done painting it so it still has the blue tape on.

Lake Chelan Trip

We took our 3 day vacation at Lake Chelan at the end of July/beginning of August.
The kids had a good time especially since they got to meet their friends from church, the B. family.









Teddy and Bebe kayaking

Our New and Improved Back Yard

A statue of the Virgin Mary is watching over the kids at play. This photo (like most of the photos I will be posting these days) was taken by my dad when he was here visiting. Check out the cool spider web complete with spider!

So one day, a few weeks ago, my dad and I were making dinner and we were talking about how nice it would be to have a table outside where we could have lunch and dinner enjoying the nice weather. Dominic overheard us and said "Well, I can make one in about an hour". It took him a little more than an hour (including the trip to Home Depot) and that night we ate dinner on our new table built by him. I was amazed.
The brick patio and the bamboo cover where also built by Dominic on other weekends this summer.

Eating outside is so much better during the summer. The kids enjoy it too and clean-up is easier; sweeping is not required since there are enough squirrels and birds willing to eat the leftover food off the ground.


The wheels were added to raise one side of the table and make it strait since the ground on which the patio was built is a little tilted.

Sophia and Olivia

a few weeks ago

Sophia at 4 Months

Sophia is still in the 50th% for weight (13 lbs at 4 months) but she grew a lot in length and is now in the 90th% for length (25.5 in ?) and her head is in the 95th % (17 in. I think).
She started laughing out loud around the time she turned 4 months and she now spends time daily playing on her tummy on the floor.
She finally started enjoying her baths.

Sophia at 3 Months

Wearing the beautiful handmade dress from Kelly.



With her favorite toy, Cecilia's BlaBla giraffe Gigi. She loves to wrestle with it and chew on it and if she is unhappy and we put her in bed with the giraffe she plays with it and then goes to sleep.

On the day of Olivia's baptism.

The Boys are Back...

...from Romania. Here are some pictures they took there.

Richmond Beach Park

We discovered this beautiful park/beach, which is only about a 7 minutes drive from our house. Dominic likes to go running there. The view from this point is gorgeous.

4th of July

We had a busy day on the 4th. Dominic started the day by running in a 5K (a 5 km mini marathon ) here in Edmonds. Later we all went to see the famous Edmonds 4th of July parade. In the afternoon we went to a party and finished the day watching the fire works.

It's a girl...

...for Thea and Ron.

OLIVIA FRANCESCA MARIA arrived today, Saturday, June 28, at 4:40pm.

She weighed 6lbs 4oz (2845 gr) and was 18 in long (46 cm).
She has full lips like her mom, dark hair and big eyes.

She joins brothers: Christopher (3), Anthony (2) and Joseph (1).

Thea had a very easy labor and is recovering very well now.

Matching Sisters

As soon as my aunt Magda found out I had another girl she ran to the first Roots (a Canadian store similar to Gap) and bought her and Cecilia a set of matching outfits. I think they look very cute.
Thank you Magda!

Sophia at 2 months

At her 2 months check up, Sophia weighed 10lbs 14 oz (50%), her length was 22 in. (30%) and her head circ. was 16 in. (90%).
She sleeps pretty well at night, waking up a couple of times to eat, wakes up for the day around 7am and then takes very short naps throughout the day with the exception of one longer nap (2-3 hours) which lately has been coinciding with Alex's nap.

Sophia's Baptism - June 8, 2008

Sophia Charlotte was baptized this past Sunday, June 8, 2008, on the day of our 11th wedding anniversary (just a coincidence).

God-parents were Kelly and Gregory Rhone (Greg is Dominic's cousin).

I will post pictures sometime within the next days. We are very busy now preparing the boys for their trip to Romania, on Thursday.

Kayleen and Mike's Wedding

Two weeks ago we had the privilege of witnessing the wedding of Kayleen (Benedict's teacher) and Mike (my friend Kelly's brother). They are the cutest couple!
Here are some pictures but Kelly has some more on her blog (Flighty Girl).

Sophia at One Month

(The pictures were taken the day before she turned 1 month old.)

She had her 1 month check up today. She weighs 9lbs 7.5 oz (55%), is 21.5 in long (70%) and her head circ. is 15 in. (75%).
She has breastfeeding jaundice (a benign form of jaundice that lasts longer)but the doctor said that her billirubin levels are at a safe level. She will outgrow this at some point.

In general she is a pretty good baby. She does have days when she stays awake and cries a lot, usually followed by nights when she sleeps and only wakes up once or twice to eat and goes back to sleep. Sometimes however it is reversed and she sleeps almost all day long only waking up a little for feedings and then stays awake for a coulpe of hours at night.

Benedict's First Confession, Solemn Communion and Solemn Profession of Faith

Benedict had his First Confession on Saturday, May 10, followed by Solemn Communion and Profession of Faith (where all the children sang the Creed together during Liturgy).

In the Eastern Catholic Churches the tradition is for infants to receive their First Communion when they are baptized and to continue to receive every Sunday. At age 7 (the age of reasoning) they have their First Confession.


Benedict receiving Communion




The children had brunch at Fr. Joseph's house after liturgy on Sunday. Father also took them all out for lunch on Saturday after their first confessions. Benedict was very impressed, thinking that the priest always takes you out for lunch after you go to confession. How nice that would be :)


Benedict with Father Joseph and Deacon Michael



It took us a long time to convince Benedict in the morning to put on his white suit. He was afraid he would be the only one dressed like that and that everyone would make fun of him. I had to show him pictures from Teddy's Solemn Communion to convince him that the other children will dress like that too.

Inspirational Celebrity Parents

As some of you know, I'm a faithful reader of Celebrity Baby Blog (one of my guilty pleasures). I just love to hear about other people's happy news and see pictures of cute little babies.

Well in the last few days I read on a couple of Catholic sites about Jim Caviezel, the Catholic actor (together with Mel Gibson, they are probably the only well known actors who are truly Catholic) who just adopted his second child together with his wife. Both children have special needs (brain tumors) and the first one already recovered. I emailed the information and a link to Catholic Online to Celebrity Baby Blog and they did write about it (even gave me credit). Here is the article.




Another inspirational story featured on CBB is that of Christian singer Todd Smith and his wife Angie, who were expecting their fourth daughter and found out at an ultrasound that the baby would not survive the birth, yet they decided to continue with the pregnancy and let God make the decision of taking her to Him. A true pro life Christian family. Angie has a blog where she wrote the whole story of baby Audrey; it is called Bring the Rain
Here is a beautiful letter that Angie wrote to her daughter and a song Todd and Angie wrote for her.

Two Weeks

Sophie weighs 8lbs 8.5 oz and is still pretty good. She stays awake 1-3 times a day for about 2 hours. If I'm lucky this happens only during the day but every once in a while she stays awake at night for a while.





This one is from a few days ago

Teddy's Birthday Party

Despite the craziness in our house, following the baby's birth, we were able to have a small birthday party for Teddy. He had a few of his friends over. They first went to GameWorks with Dominic and one of the dads and then they came home and had pizza and ice cream cake.

Sophia's Birth Story

...before I forget the details.

April 18, the day before Sophia was born, was a beautiful day. It snowed a lot...

and some of the snow was still covering the trees when on the next morning, on April 19, I checked into Stevens Hospital at 7:50am. They gave me their best room with a beautiful view.

Here I am just before it all started. I was going to add an after picture, but I didn't look much different after the birth LOL.

I had my IV started at 8:15am and at my first check at 8:22am I was 4cm just like a few days before. They gave me the epidural at 10:10am and about half an hour later they started the Pitocin. At 1:10 my contractions were coming every 5 minutes and that's when the doctor broke my water. The contractions started coming faster and were getting stronger and stronger until 2 hours later, at 3:02pm, Sophia was born looking big and healthy


and even trying to cut her own umbilical cord (or so it looks like in this picture)




Ohh, if all of my delieveries were that easy...

Alex Playing the Piano...

...and enjoying two of baby sister's pacifiers, one of which he got straight out of her mouth.

Teddy's 10th Birthday

Teddy turned 10 on April 30th. We had a little celebration in the family and he will have some friends over on Saturday for a party. I'll post more pictures then.

One Million Rosaries for Unborn Babies on May 3rd

The St.Michael the Archangel Organization is scheduling a prayer event on May 3rd, at 6-7am PST or 9-10am Eastern Time. They are hoping to have one million rosaries said with the intention of putting an end to all surgical and non-surgical killing of unborn babies.
If you intend to participate, you might want to visit their site http://www.saintmichaelthearchangelorganization.org/

Sophie at One Week

Sophie is one week old today. She's been really good so far with the exception of day 2 and 3 when she was crying and staying awake more. After that she's been mostly sleeping and eating at decent intervals. She eats at around 11pm, then wakes up once at night and once in the early morning...not bad at all. I know, however, that this is the honeymoon period, babies usually go through right after birth. It lasts about 2 weeks and after that they start staying awake more and more and crying more. This difficult period lasts until about 3 months, with a peak at 6 weeks. We'll she if she follows this pattern. For now I'm enjoying the peace and quiet.

In terms of weight, she dropped to 7lbs 12 oz after 3 days, from her birth weight of 8lbs 7 oz (just under 10%). On day 4, when my milk came in she started gaining about one oz a day. She now weighs 8 lbs.

The siblings are still very excited about having a new baby, with Cecilia being the most interested in her little sister. Alex however, is a little scared of her especially when she cries.

Back at the Hospital

Sophie was a little jaundiced on the first day and unfortunately her billirubin went up to a level where she had to do phototherapy. I was hoping we could get the machine at home but the pediatrician insisted that we had to take her to the hospital. She was under the billi lights at the hospital from 4pm yesterday until today at noon. I was lucky that they allowed me to stay there overnight. I couldn't nurse her while she was there but I expressed my milk and we fed her the milk in bottles.
Apparently the reason for her jaundice is a blood type incompatibility between her and me.
Her billirubin level was down today and hopefully it will stay like that.

Meet the Other "Sophia Charlottes"

Princess Sophia Charlotte of Hanover (1668-1705), Consort to Frederick I of Prussia, Queen in Prussia


Duchess Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg Strelitz (1744-1818), later Queen Charlotte, consort of George III of England and grandmother of Queen Victoria



Princess Sophia Charlotte of Seattle, crowned by her sister Cecilia, on her birthday.

Introducing

Sophia Charlotte Marie

April 19

Our Baby is Here

Thank you everyone for your prayers and encouragements. Everything went just as I hoped for.
Our beautiful baby girl was born on April 19th at 3:02pm. She weighed in at 8lbs 7oz and was 20.5 in. long.She looks very chubby and has a head full of dark brown hair.

I did have my epidural from the very beginning and had a short, easy and uneventful labor ending in my second successful VBAC!!!
Everything is perfect and we are very happy.

The siblings are all very excited with the exception of Alex who is looking very suspiciously at his baby sister. Not that he doesn't like her, he just doesn't seem to know what "that" is.

I'll introduce her pretty soon, after I download the pictures.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow will probably be the big day. I'm checking into Stevens Hospital in the early morning and then we'll decide. I don't think I will want to leave the hospital without the baby again. Whether I changed or not since Wednesday, I think I will just let them induce me. I feel like a bomb ready to explode any second. I'm too nervous that my water will break and the labor will progress so fast that I won't be able to make it to the hospital in time. If they induce me, at least things will be under control, and I will have time to have my IV's started, to get my antibiotics (2 doses 4 hours apart) for an infection I have and to get my epidural at the right moment.
I'm very nervous and I don't think I'll be able to sleep much tonight.
Can't wait to meet this new little one!
Please, if you read this say a prayer for Baby and me for a safe and easy delivery.

Kumon

Teddy and Benedict started this great math after school program almost 6 weeks ago. It is called Kumon and was started by a Japanese guy. It's mostly a series of drills that the kids have to do daily for about 20-30 minutes on average (daily means even on Saturdays, Sundays and every day during the summer break). They start at a level that is below their grade and only go to the next level if they've mastered the material. The material covered is only the pure math (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions and decimals and then algebra etc.). They don't do reading time, measurements etc.

After becoming familiar with the Kumon method, I realized that in learning math, accuracy by itself is not enough. It's accuracy AND speed that really tell you that you've mastered the material and are ready to move on.

Benedict is very good at math but lately he had hit a wall. He just didn't enjoy it anymore and started complaining that it was too hard. I think I pushed him a little too much at a point where he just needed more practice at a lower level.

Teddy is at grade level and doing just OK which I decided was not good enough. I didn't want math to become something he dreaded. So I decided that 6 months of Kumon (maybe more) will benefit both of them. They are doing great and really enjoying it. The best part for them is that they're getting these tokens every time they return their homework and they can collect them and buy really cool prizes with them.

About 3 weeks ago Cecilia joined her brothers at Kumon. She is starting Kindergarten in the fall and I thought we could use some help preparing her since she's no longer going to preschool. She is doing the Kumon reading program and the instructor is very impressed with how well she's doing. Every time she goes there she gets these little worksheets to work on every day, a set of flash cards and 2 books that I read to her every day.

Here is Cecilia's latest homework package.


Here is Benedict's homework for the week plus his tokens. He is currently at level B, which is 2nd grade.


And this is Teddy's (currently level C or 3rd grade)

I highly recommend Kumon, both math and reading (at least for preschoolers, since I'm not familiar with the reading program for older kids). It's not only great as a remedial program but it's also good for keeping kids challenged and above grade level.

Here is their official website : www.kumon.com

My Appointment Today

This morning I saw my OB. She said I was 4cm but not quite ready to be admitted in the hospital and induced. We'll give it 3 more days, hopefully there will be more progress. On Saturday morning she told me to check into the hospital and they will most likely induce me.

Soccer Saturdays

We decided that our schedule does not allow us to have the boys in any sports classes during the week. They have school until 3pm, sometimes they like to play for half an hour on the school's playground after I pick them up, Teddy has piano from 3-3:30pm (with his teacher) on Thursdays and both boys have French lessons on Tuesdays, also at school from 3-4pm. On Tuesday night, from 6:30-7:30 Benedict has cub scout meetings and on Wednesday nights, it's Teddy's turn to go to cub scouts. On Mondays and Thursdays both boys and Cecilia have Kumon (math for the boys, reading for Cecilia). We have to be there anytime between 3:30 and 6:30 and it takes them between 20-60 minutes to do their exercises.
In addition to all these activities, Teddy has daily homework, which can take up to 1.5 hours plus piano practice, which unfortunately he doesn't do very often, and then of course they are required to read for about 20-30 minutes every day.
And since we also have to eat dinner, have a little break and go to bed at a decent hour, we don't have time for sports activities during the week.

We opted for Saturdays instead, when Dominic can take them to their lessons. Up until 2 weeks ago they were doing swimming on Saturdays and now they started soccer. Last Saturday Cecilia joined them for their soccer lesson. Dominic wanted to take her with them to see if she might be interested in joining. He has warned me even before Cecilia was born that she's going to be a soccer girl. I was like "no way, you have your boys to play soccer with, I've waited for my little girl forever and I want her to be my little princess and do ballet and be the sugar and spice and everything nice kind of girl, blah blah blah..." Well now even I decided that she's a little to princessy and will certainly benefit from some soccer or anything similar. We might enroll her this summer in some sports. I do plan on having her do ballet lessons in the fall,though, since that's what she wants the most.

38 Weeks

I made it to 38 weeks and 1 day. Now I'm officially at term. I did have another scare last week, on Wednesday, I think. After the first false labor, I decided to only go to the hospital if either my water broke or my contractions were strong AND painful. Well on Wednesday (I think) I was having severe abdominal pain that was not going away and was getting even worse with contractions and baby's movements. I called the hospital and they told me to come in and there they put me on the monitor. The monitor didn't show regular contractions and my dilation was not changing. After about 2 hours they sent me home again. I was so embarrassed! The abdominal pain continued for the next 2 days and 2 nights and was very severe. I couldn't sleep more than a couple of hours at night and couldn't eat much. I realized at some point that it was a severe case of heartburn and stomach pain, which is not unusual during pregnancy. After 3 days and 2 nights of pain, I finally felt better.
Now I am determined to not go to the hospital unless I am very very sure it is the time.
My next appointment with my OB is on Wednesday, April 16. She said that if she finds me at 4 or 5 cm, she will probably just admit me in the hospital and break my water, which is what I kind of hope will happen. April 16 is a perfect day to give birth, it's Pope Benedict's birthday! Lucky day!
We'll see what happens. I do feel ready!

Choosing a Name

Choosing a name for this baby has been a nine months long process. It's been so hard for Dominic and me to decide on names but we've finally made our decisions. With this baby, for the first time, we decided to not discuss our name choices with anyone. From our experience with the other children, when you tell people your name choices before the birth, there will always be a few (usually family members) who will not agree and will suggest other names or try to make you change your mind. I think it's hard enough for a husband and wife to agree on a name; when other people want to have a say in naming the baby it becomes impossible to make everyone happy.
Over the last months I've presented lists of names to Dominic and asked him to vote. He would return the lists with just about all the names crossed out. We finally found a couple of names we both like so those are the ones we are going to use.

Did any of you have difficulty choosing names for your babies? How did you and your spouse decide? Did you choose to hide the name from everyone else until the baby was born or did you like to call it by his/her name even before (s)he was born. I'm curious what your opinions are.

4D Video of our Baby at 31 weeks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoRyh8z641k

I'm Back...

Hi everyone. I feel like it's time to reopen my blog as I'm sitting here waiting for this new little baby to be born and introduced to our family and friends.
I've posted some pictures during the time the blog was closed but I still have to post more of the pictures between November and present. After all this is my diary and I like to have everything recorded.

Anyway, to make a long story short, last summer I found out I was pregnant and it was a total surprise. I usually like to space my babies at least 2.5 years apart but was hoping for at least 4 years this time...didn't happen. This is the shortest age difference between two of our children (Alex is only turning 2 in July). I'm a little scared of the chaos that will be in our house, but at the same time I'm excited because we always wanted 5 children and every time God gave us a new one, He also gave us plenty of love and patience to take care of him/her, so I know that things will work out just fine.

This pregnancy has been a little harder on my body than the other ones and I don't know if it's the fact that it's my 5th, or my age or what, but especially these last weeks have been no fun. I'm having a lot of discomfort and I can't wait to get my non pregnant body back.

My due date is April 27, so right now I am 37 weeks and 2 days but I am expecting to go into labor any day now. I started dilating at 34 weeks and have been having contractions often. On Saturday I checked into the hospital because I had labor signs. They put me on the monitor and I was having regular strong contractions and at some point went to almost 4 cm. They admitted me in Labor and Delivery and I spent the night there waiting to give birth. The day nurse even told me when she left in the evening:"Tomorrow morning when I come back I'm going to see a baby here". The contractions, however stopped over the night and I even went back to 3cm. They sent me home on Sunday morning and since then I've been in this limbo, waiting, counting contractions and wondering when this baby is going to come and whether I will get my much wanted epidural on time. The good thing is that the baby will benefit from the extra days in utero. I'm still not quite at term and I'd rather have a 7.5 pounder than a 6.5 pounder.

Keep us in your prayers and I'll keep everyone posted.

Our Visit to Romania

Cece, Alex and I went for a short 2 weeks visit to Romania, end of October to the beginning of November. We spent some time in Bucharest visiting with friends and then went to see my grandparents and uncles in Victoria. I wish I could have posted more pics but it takes so long for each of them to post... You get an idea. Everyone was happy seeing the kids and the kids had fun. Cecilia came back speaking almost only Romanian and her Romanian is still amazingly good.

The New Planters

The kids have two planters on their club house now where they can experiment with planting anything they want. We helped them plant all kinds of things in the dark green one but, unfortunately, Cecilia and Christopher got their little hands in there and threw all the dirt, seeds and all, on the club house floor, so now Dominic moved the big planter away from very little and curious hands on top of the swing set.

Movies I Recently Watched and Enjoyed

A beautiful 3 hour long movie about St. Rita's life, concentrating on her relationship with her abusive and criminal husband and his family. One of the messages of the movie is that God gives each one of us the possibility to achieve holiness, no matter what our life situation is. It also illustrates the power of forgiveness in a moving way.
This movie redefines the notion of "soul mate". Your soul mate is not necessarily the person who would make you happy on earth, but the one who will be most likely to help you achieve salvation and holiness...and sometimes that has to be done through suffering and sacrifice.
Gorgeous movie! Watch it if you get a chance.

Green With Envy!

You've got to read this birth experience. Tirzah had her baby with a midwife at a birthing center without an epidural or any other pain relief of course (those are the details she didn't mention) and here is her birth story.
I had short labors too but I was NOT smiling half an hour before my baby was born.

Out of the Mouth of ...Bebe

Bebe: (pointing to a piece of aluminum foil and laughing) "Mom, do you know what some people on TV call that silver thing?

Me: "You mean the aluminum foil; no, I don't, what do they call it?"

Bebe: "They call it emergency blankets." (giggles)
Those people on TV said that you use those to keep you warm if you go in the wilder-nest (sic)."

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"Mom, what is the whole white world?"

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"What is the world pool?" (that would be a whirlpool)

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"Mom, why do you always have to put sun-scream on me?"

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Teddy (referring to his summer homework): "Mom, when you were my age, did you work as much as I do?"

Me (after thinking a little): "I don't think I did as much summer homework as you do now, even though I did have those annoying German fairytales I had to read and write reviews on."

Teddy: "Oh, so then I do have a chance to get into Princeton!"

Me: " Yes, I think you do if you keep working like this or more. I never would have had a chance to get into Princeton."

Teddy: "So how good was your school?"

Me: "My alma mater is University of Washington and even though it's not as good as Princeton, it was ranked at number 49 last year...and you know, dad's alma mater, Rutgers, was like number 60 or something." (I like to tease Dominic about that sometimes and he actually thinks it's funny).

Teddy: "So how come dad is so much smarter than you then?"

Me: ???!!! "Excuse me!!! Hellooo!"

Well, he is right, Dominics is much smarter than me and much more educated and all, but geez, hearing that from your kid's mouth.
I did have a good laugh though. Sort of. Hmmm.