After the nausea and exhaustion finally subsided, I found I had some time to start sewing again. And let me tell you, I've been busy with lots of small projects! I started small with some little bean bags for G to juggle for Baby L, in addition to dropping off a baby quilt top I finished over the summer to the local quilt shop for quilting.
I also sewed myself a bolster pillow to help me sleep on my side during the later stages of pregnancy - I had a lovely bolster pillow when we lived in Abu Dhabi, but sadly the pillow belonged to the hotel and I haven't been able to find one like it since. So I decided to make my own! Baby L actually loves my bolster pillow and often tries to steal it from me, so I've added to my list to make her one as well.
Bolster pillow made from an rolled up Ikea pillow, a cheap pillowcase, and some fabric scraps
After a week in the shop my baby quilt came back beautifully quilted in a simple meandering pattern. It still hasn't made it to its final baby yet, so for now, a photo of the minky backing with the hand-sewn binding will have to do. I tried bias-binding around rounded corners for the first time, and I loved how it turned out! I used an online tutorial for cutting a continuous strip of binding, and it really made the process not too unbearable.
Minky (fuzzy fabric) is horrible to work with, but the end product is so nice!
After finishing the baby quilt, I made several heating pads to give away as Christmas gifts. The first one was a very simple flat heating pad went to a white elephant gift exchange - I was in a rush to make it, so I forgot to take a picture. I used this tutorial on Sew4Home with some leftover fabric from a grill apron that I made for my dad years ago, and I added peppermint essential oil to the rice.
The next two were slightly different types of heating pads, and they went to Miss J and her daughter for Christmas. The benefit of the neck wraps was that I was able to use up the last of the minky in my stash, and now it is thankfully gone forever. I hope that I don't have the urge to buy more for a long time!
Rice-filled neck wrap, using this tutorial from Sew4home
The most recent project finish is this cute little bag that I use to hold Baby L's fabric letters. We had be storing them in a box, but she tends to try to step on the box and then fall over, and we'd rather not have a rolled baby ankle on our hands. With the bag, she gets really exciting to pick up the letters and put them in the bag so we can dump the letters on her head (it's raining alphabet!). The tutorial from In Color Order was fast and easy, and if I hadn't been using some fussy satin for the lining, I probably could have finished the whole thing in less than 2 hours...and now that I have a basic pattern that I like, I can re-size to make a lovely gift bag for any oddly sized gifts!
Bag made from 1 fat quarter and some scrap satin, but the original pattern calls for 3 fat quarters
In addition to these fast finish projects, upcoming bigger projects will include a baptism blanket for Baby #2 (fabric already purchased for inclusion in the upcoming shipment!), a string of projects to use up the rest of my Christmas fabric stash, a bolster pillow for Baby L, and maybe a chair cover for the Ikea Poang Chair that we bought her. The ivory fabric drives me nuts in its boring-ness! Plus of course the occasional hemming of pajama pants or mending of torn seams for Baby L.
Unfortunately all of that is on HOLD right now while my machine is in the shop!!! My Brother Innovis F420 (insert marijuana joke here) has an automatic thread cutter, which I LOVE. Well, the bobbin thread started catching on the automatic thread cutter, so when I started taking apart my machine to clean out the bobbin area, I dropped a screw into the machine! I couldn't believe my clumsiness, and I couldn't even see where the screw was to try to use one of G's magnetic screwdrivers to get it out. So, sadly, I took my machine back to my local store to send it out for service. Hopefully it will come back soon!
I still have the same etiquette conundrum for Baby #2 that I had for Baby #1, so I am literally just going to re-post the same thing....again. We are still registered on Amazon, though mostly for consumables that we can't get in UAE (our favorite wipes Huggies Naturals, and Kiinde breastmilk storage pouches are must-haves for us!) We are still getting a baby shipment (explained in the linked post), and we are clearing our registry on March 15, 2019 so that it can all be packed up and sent to us April 1...and hopefully arrive in time for the baby!
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all the love and support everyone at home has given us while we've been abroad!
Right after New Year, Baby L had a huge treat of having one set of grandparents come to visit her in Dubai. We were a little worried that they wouldn't get to spend much time with her since it takes her some time to warm up to new people, but within 5 minutes of seeing them (and a little peekaboo!) Baby L and Ông Ba Ngoại were fast friends!!
Baby L has a new see-saw buddy for the park!
Baby L loved the extra attention
Since it was short trip for Ông Ba Ngoại (they arrived late on Friday night, and left late on Thursday night - so really, only 6 days with Baby L), we kept it pretty low key. We sent them on an evening desert safari through the same tour operator that we used when both my sister and G's sister came to visit last year. G and I did not go along on the desert tour since we just had our little babymoon in the desert, but it sounds like Ông Ba Ngoại had a great time! I also booked a car for them to do some sightseeing in Abu Dhabi mid-week when I had to go to work for some meetings, and that also seemed to go well. The rest of the time was pretty much either cooking or playing with Baby L - sorry, no pictures of the food!
They did bring me some yummy treats from the recent (disappointing) Peach Bowl, along with a bunch of gifts for Baby L and odds and ends that G and I had ordered from Amazon in advance of their arrival.
Cookies from home!
On their last day before the headed home, we took a big family trip to see the Burj Khalifa. Baby L hadn't been in almost a year, so we thought it would be fun to take her back. She loved it!
She thought this pretend glass floor was the coolest thing ever - she kept chasing the birds
She also really liked this chair, and almost threw a huge temper tantrum when we tried to remove her
We think her favorite part was the wind at the top - she turned her face into the wind like a puppy sticking its head out the car window!
We were super sad to see Ông Ba Ngoại leave, but they already have plans to come back later this year to help out when Miss J takes her annual one-month holiday back to the Philippines. By then, they'll have their hands full helping out G with 2 little ones!!
Baby L full of Christmas Cheer (and a snotty nose that you can't see)
Family Christmas Photo - in our matching PJs!
It was a pretty low-key holiday season in our home this year. Since G went back to the US to walk at his graduation from Lamar (congrats, babe!), he brought home the typical holiday travelers cold so we were all under the weather on Christmas Day. Incidentally, if you didn't get a Christmas card from us, and you would like one next year, please input your address into our address book, and we will get you one! Plus, you will also get an announcement card when Baby #2 arrives.
We couldn't be with G on his big day, but we re-created the moment at home after everyone was healthy again!
We did get a chance to take our first grown-ups only weekend getaway to the desert. Miss J stayed with Baby L for 2 nights while we went to an all-inclusive desert resort for my birthday. Al Maha Resort is part of the Marriott Luxury collection, and G and I had a blast. We rode a camel, held a falcon, got spa treatments, and generally relaxed baby-free for 2 days...pretty much a little babymoon before Baby #2 shows up in May!
We gave Miss J the evening off for New Year's Eve so she could visit her daughter in Abu Dhabi, and just relaxed at home. Neither of us were able to stay awake until the midnight fireworks, but they did wake up Baby L and me! We have a nice view of the fireworks from our apartment, so I took her to the window to see the sparkly lights. At first, she was scared, and held onto me super tight, but after a few moments, I kept saying "Happy New Year! These are New Year Fireworks!" and when the show finished, she said in her cute little toddler voice, "Bye bye New Year!".
Our (growing) family is super excited for all the things that 2019 will bring, and we can't wait to share it with you on our blog!
Whew, it's been MONTHS since I last updated this blog, in large part due to some big changes for our family! If you follow me on social media, you'll know that our family is expecting to grow from a family of 3 to a family of 4, effective early May! Somehow, when I had Baby L and held her in my arms, I magically forgot how much I dislike pregnancy - the nausea, the all-day-sickness, and the general fatigue. I have been reminded of all those things again, and it's even worse because I have a toddler to chase after when I get home from work!
Hats off to all those moms out there with "2 under 2" because I have no idea how you do it alone. I'm so, so, so thankful for Miss J, Baby L's nanny, because she not only takes care of Baby L, she takes care of sick, pregnant mommy!
Baby #2!
Fortunately, at around 16 or 17 weeks, Baby #2 decided to do something different from Baby L, and the nausea, sickness and fatigue has started to subside. I actually made it a full day on the weekend without taking a nap when Baby L took a nap! And I've been able to eat meat during this pregnancy which has also been nice (still no onions).
We think Baby L is excited for Baby #2. She sits on my lap and rubs my belly saying "hi baby!", and she hugs my belly saying "I wub woo" (I love you). She then proceeds to rub her own belly saying "hi baby!" which is also hilarious. We're trying to teach her to say "big sister", with some success!
Similar to the last time I was pregnant, my job also decided to grow simultaneously with my belly. When I was pregnant with Baby L, we had a reorganization where we merged 2 project management sections into 1, and while most people weren't impacted, my role was consolidated with someone else's role (so...my organization got a 2-for-1 deal out of me). Almost the same thing has happened again, except this time we're not consolidating organizations. The other person in our group with my same job title is retiring, and so I've taken over his scope in addition to my own - and now I have 2 bosses, and 2 completely different portfolios. I'm hoping this consolidation is temporary because it's definitely been the source of some stressful days at work in the last few weeks!
In the midst of all this, we tried to take a little getaway vacation to Oman. Oman is nearby, flights are not expensive, and we thought it would be nice to check out somewhere new since all of our family trips with Miss J have been local to UAE.
Baby L and Miss J walking around the airport while G and I were checking in our bags
Unfortunately, I thought I'd done my homework on Miss J's visa requirements - she should have been able to travel with us and obtain a visa on arrival to any GCC country, even on a Filipino passport, because I am her visa sponsor in UAE. HOWEVER at the gate at the airport, we learned that she needed to have 90 days validity on her UAE visa, and since her visa was up for renewal in just over a month, Emirates Airlines would not let us board the plane. Trust me when I say that you NEVER want to be turned away from an international flight at the gate, especially with checked bags. Airports are not set up to handle this! We had to go back through a special immigration counter to get our exit stamps cancelled, and then re-claim our luggage - in the time it took us to leave the airport in Dubai to go back home, we would have already been at our hotel in Oman sipping fruity mocktails by the pool. We were all super duper bummed - the only upside was that I booked the trip on points, so it wasn't really "cash" out of pocket, but I did lose all the points, so that was also a bummer. Depending on G's job situation, we'll probably make a second attempt at Oman in February when I can still fly without a doctor's note.
Until then...we're pretty much just hanging out in UAE!
For Baby L's first birthday, we had the pleasure of making a trip to visit my family on the East Coast. My sister lives with her husband in Boston and my father & step mom live in Connecticut, so we were able to enjoy some beautiful late-summer weather in New England. As an added bonus, G'd folks flew up from Houston to join us for Baby L's birthday party!
Family portraits for Baby L's birthday!
Baby L's birthday "party" was really a 4-day affair filled with balloons, presents, new clothes, cupcakes, ice cream, Dad's Vietnamese cooking, mooncakes, and Nintendo Switch.
Birthday girl!
Baby girl with her GDad
Birthday girl loves her new presents
Auntie came with us to introduce Baby L to mom for the first time
Baby L wishes that she could have a Nintendo Switch like daddy and uncle!
After the birthday festivities, we headed out for a road trip to Maine! We weren't sure how Baby L would do since historically, she is not a fan of long car rides and she did better than we thought (though not great). We ultimately wanted to go to Bar Harbor & Cadillac Mountain, but since it is 8 hours from Mystic, we broke it up into 4-hour driving days with overnight stops in Portland on the way there and Saco Bay on the way back.
Baby L LOVED the windy gusts at the top of Cadillac Mountain!
Playtime at the hotel in Saco Bay just before checkout
We ate tons of lobster while in Maine - and Baby L has definitely developed a taste for expensive seafood! After our the last night of our road trip in Saco Bay, Granny and Gdad headed back to Houston while we went back to Dad's house in Connecticut. We spent the last week of our trip hanging out at the house, doing some last minute USA shopping, and generally relaxing before going back to Dubai. We think Baby L has some sensitivity to disposable diapers (we primarily use cloth at home), and so we were also fighting a post-road trip diaper rash by letting her run around naked on the deck behind Dad's house.
This little wolverine was ready for the game! Until she fell asleep before kickoff - she didn't miss much in our season opening loss to Notre Dame.
My babies, sleeping in well past sunrise
One last trip to visit Mom
Baby's birthday balloon, still afloat 10 days later!
And just like that, our East Coast vacation was over - it was time to pack up our boxes and bags for the long journey back to Dubai. Baby L was a champ on the flight - she slept for long stretches on the flight, and was (for the most part) not too cranky. However, after the 3 long trips we took with her this year, we've decided that next year, we are going to limit flying to regional destinations and everyone else can come visit us!
Last month, I had one more week of parental leave to use up so we opted to stay local to UAE and visit the one Emirate that we haven't at least driven through: Ajman. Ajman is the smallest Emirate at only 100 sq miles and population of ~250k. G booked 2 nights for all of us at the beautiful Fairmont Ajman, and we had a lovely little beach staycation.
The view from our balcony - pretty swanky
We tried to take Baby L to the ocean after success in Galveston, but alas, we think the seaweed scared her. Fortunately, unlike the attempt in Fujairah, she happily splashed in the pool after crying in the ocean.
I'm not so sure about this sand, Mommy!
G and I got some much needed R&R at the spa, and Baby L got to explore the kiddie area with Miss J. I think both of them found it was much more fun to just run around in the hallway outside our rooms. The hallway was fully carpeted and hotel occupancy was super low since we came in the middle of the week during low season, so the two of them pretty much had the area to themselves.
Baby L learning to grocery shop....
...and then taking over the hallway of our hotel
I think the best part of Ajman for me was that my work laptop would not connect to the hotel wifi. All of our phones and tablets would connect, but my work laptop absolutely refused - we had some critical things going on at the office, but it was like a message from the powers that be that I needed a little break! I managed well enough with my iPhone and then logged in when we got back to Dubai.
Now all of us can say that we've been to all seven of the United Arab Emirates! Whew, can finally check that one off the list. Next stop, Boston, Connecticut, and Maine for Baby L's first birthday!
