Xystus

They have amazing indoor play places here.  It is a flat fee for a three hour time period.  It is very reasonably priced and it is a magical kid play jungle gym type thing.  Just a total free for all with all kinds of things to tucker a little one out.  It is nice when it is super rainy (which is a lot this time of year) and I imagine it is also magical for when it gets roasting hot during the summer.  

 This sign was over one of the garbages.  So awesome.  Prastics.

 There is slides, trampolines, ball pits, jumping places, zip lines.  Seriously I have never seen anything like it.

They also have these donkey things that you can bounce around on and if you are Bianca you take them for a stroll around the whole gym too!

Gastronomique

 While Michelle was here we ate out A LOT!  It was awesome and so yummy!  We took her to places we liked and explored new places with her.  I think the first two days she was here we ate out at like 4 different places.  It was so insane and insanely delicious!  

One of the places we went to was Big Daichan.  You eat on tradition Tatami mats.  It is a ramen noodle house and we feasted on miso ramen and gyoza.  So delish.  Marcus does not enjoy sitting on the floor or any form of cross leggedness, so he was not quite feeling it there haha!  They do have regular tables you can sit at but with our larger group we could only fit in at the tatami tables, plus you have to eat like that at least once whilst in Japan.

 I also had Indian food for the first time while she was here.  Mango Lassi's!  So delicious and creamy and amazing.

 When you buy a set (like a combo meal but they call them sets here.  Even at McDonald's they call the value meals sets) it also includes a drink and I always get a lassi now!

 Curry and naan bread.  SO delish!  This day we were at Ali Babba's but since then we have tried a few different ones and a Nepalese curry house and they are all so good!

 They had this fun thing outside a thai place we ate at in American Village so of course we had to have the girls pose in it!

 This one they are eating out someplace that I didn't go to.  I think this was after I had Benson.  I sent them out to do sightseeing while I stayed back with the bebe.

 Ooooooh!  The cuteness!

 Again I don't know where this restaurant was but I love this picture of Auntie Shell and Bianca.  She needs to make an appearance on the blog after visiting with us for the better part of the month!

 We also went to this lovely little sushi house and had a fun time exploring the world of sushi.

 The presentation was so BEAUTIFUL!  I have determined that I am not a fan of wasabi.  AT ALL.  I love me some spice and I will do spicy curry or spicy mexican food or spicy pasta.  I will pour hot sauce on my food (well not really so much right now.  Poor Benson. I am abstaining from spice for him).  BUT wasabi...BARF.  Seriously gets my gag reflex every time.  They are so sneaky with it on the sushi too.   Hidden underneath a beautiful piece of fish on rice and then BLAM!  The grossness that is wasabi hits my tongue.  Besides that I am LOVING to delicious sushi!

 Macaroni Grill on Camp Foster.  I had never eaten at this restaurant stateside before coming here and I really like it!  Helps me fill my Olive Garden cravings.  Plus we love to doodle all over the paper table cloth while we are waiting for our food to come!

Michelle!!  Love this girl.  Seriously.
DISCLAIMER:  Bianca requested a funny face from Michelle.  Hence the googly eye picture.  That is why she rocks as an Auntie!  (One of many many reasons!)

Thanksgiving, Army Family Style

 So for Thanksgiving we went to our good friends, the Carmitchel's house.  Seth and Shauni love to put on big holiday meals and we gladly helped them eat it!  It was so much fun and the food was so FREAKING good!  

 I did have a food assignment and that was a dessert and rolls.  I wanted to make my pumpkin chiffon pie but the commissary was out of gelatin packs so I went for this pumpkin trifle instead.  It had candied pecans on the top.  It was OUT OF THIS WORLD good!  Mmmmmmm.  I am getting hungry just thinking about it!

 Nicole brought her girls who are the same ages as my girls and they are so precious.  Her hubby is deployed so we were so grateful to get to include her in our festivities!

 Here is the spread.  Seth and Shauni really went all out.  Stuffing made with home made challa bread, turkey, cranberry sauce, candied yams, mashed potatoes and green bean casserole.  It was so freaking good.

A shot of all three of us.  And by all three of us I mean Marcus, Myself and his creeper stache.

Getting our Festive on

 So I didn't get the girls actual Christmas dresses this year but it was so warm I was pretty ok with that.  As you can tell from the sandals and sundresses they are wearing!  This maxi skirt is pretty much the only thing that fit me for church (and is pretty much the only thing that fits me right now).  So I kinda felt like a hobo wearing the same skirt and few shirts every Sunday but I was also too cheap to go out and buy new clothes for only a little bit left of the pregnancy.

 Marcus and his mustache and the girls.

 I AM MY OWN SOLAR SYSTEM!! Whoa baby.  Haha like my pun?

 I got this nativity set from Teri and Darrol the first Christmas we were married.  I love setting it out every year.

 Our living room with the tree skirt on.  The girls were watching a movie we rented from the corner store.  It is a Disney Christmas special thing and it had three short movies in it, one of them called Small One. HOLY HANNAH.  That little short movie was so DANG good.  It is all about this little old Donkey called Small One and he couldn't keep up with the other barn animals so the owner sent his little son to take Small One to town to sell him.  The whole thing ends up being traumatizing things one after the other and the little boy cannot find a good home for his beloved Donkey.  Then, just as all hope was lost, a man came up and inquired about the donkey.  He needed a good, gentle beast to help take him and his wife to Bethlehem and his wife was big with child.  CUE TEARS.  So magical.  So Small One had the most special job ever and the whole thing ends with seeing them walk across the dessert, screen pans out and the star in the sky.  It is an older movie.  I love the good old days before political correctness.  When Disney could put out a little short film about the Savior.  I bawled my brains out every time we watched that little movie.  So freaking good.

Other view of our living room!

Trimming the Tree

 We set up our tree the day after Thanksgiving.  I LOVE having the tree up!  It is so magical to sit in my living room with all the twinkling lights of the tree and how festive and beautiful everything feels.  We have had this same tree for I think 4 years now.  It is a fake tree which works great for here because they didn't ship real trees here until like the second week of December and even then they weren't the greatest because of how long it took to get them here.  The lights on this tree have almost all gone out so we strung more on there to fill in the gaps.  I think we might have to get a better tree next year!

 Each of the girls got to pick out a new ornament for the tree.  Olivia picked out a Barbie ornament (surprise surprise!).

 They were so excited to set the tree up!  We set it up earlier in the day and then finished decorating it that night (hence the costume changes).

 Bianca picked a Princess Merida ornament. They were both so excited about their ornaments that they kept on switching where they were on the tree.  ALL THE TIME.

 Marcus was in the process of growing out his mustache as you can tell from this picture.  BLECK.  I am not a fan of mustaches, at least not on Marcus.  It is the only type of facial hair he can have (that is military sanctioned) so him and a couple other guys started growing them out when we got here.  It was the happiest day EVER when he shaved that sucker off!  I believe he is growing it out again while he is stateside.  Hopefully it is gone by the time he gets back!

 We hung up the stockings over the front archway.  We even got an iddy biddy stocking for Baby Boy!  It also had his first ornament in it waiting to put on the tree for when he got here.

 The girls LOVED decorating the tree and I LOVED having it up!  Some of my favorite times after Benson was born was sitting in the living room with the glow of the tree for the late night feedings.  So peaceful and calm!

I'm Baaaaaaaack!

I finally feel a little more organized with the craziness that is having three kids.  I have wanted to start back up on the blog but my days just kept escaping me.  Besides the fact of wanting to keep our family up to date on our happenings (ahem ahem....MARILYN...ahem ahem) I also have extra motivation to get back on track.

My wonderful, sweet Marcus left on Saturday to do some training stateside.  It is wonderful opportunity  that he can take these classes but it does take him away from us for the next three months.  deep breath. We knew that having this assignment here would mean a lot of time separated so we consider it a gift he has been here this long.  Part of my heart left me on Saturday and as much as that stinks and hurts it is also a good thing.  Good that my Marcus is such a wonderful husband and Daddy to make his girls miss him so terribly.  Good that when he can be here, he goes above and beyond to be everything we need him to be and more.  He works so so hard and all that work has benefited our family more than I have dreamed.

So while he is gone I plan to continue to jump into our Japan adventure.  For we truly are blessed to get to live in such an amazing place surrounded by such amazing people.  I have such an awesome network of friends that I know we will be okay.  I also plan on jumping into getting rid of baby weight and getting to my happy place again, body wise.  I also plan on updating this blog as often as I can so my Marcus can see what we are up to, so we can keep him in as much of our daily life as possible.  And if that isn't excellent motivation than I don't know what it is.

So first up is filling in what has happened since I posted last and then everything else from there.

Benson's Birth

Now that I am getting caught up on all my blogging, I figured I would just start with Benson's birth and fill in the rest as I sort through pictures.  

I want to type it all down first too before I start to get fuzzy on the details.  The week leading up to his birth was CRAZY busy.   Michelle was flying in and I had Olivia's birthday part planned for that week.  I left her party to the last minute because we wanted Michelle to come but Michelle's flight ended up being delayed and she missed it.  Olivia was counting down to her party (Michelle coming was a surprise) so we didn't want to push back her party when she was so excited for it.  

I had been dilated to a 3 for two weeks and had contractions off and on.  I went and got a pedicure early in the week and the foot massage part totally put me into labor.  My nail lady was kinda freaking out and was rushing through the end of the painting of my nails because the contractions were so intense haha. But they petered out by that evening which was good because Michelle was coming in two days and we invited her to be a part of the delivery, if she wanted, which she did.  

So Michelle gets into town on a Wed and we try and show her around, taking her out to eat and seeing some of the sights, also while trying to induce my labor.  This pregnancy was a douzie for my body and I was REALLY feeling it.  End of pregnancy is just brutal anyway but my body seems to feel rougher with it each time.  

So we had Ramen talked and walked and walked and walked to try to get things moving with this baby.  I had a Doc appointment on Friday morning and I was at a 4.  She stripped my membranes and I thought good labor thoughts and went about my day.  Michelle and I went shopping at the BX and I went up as many stairs as I could to try and get things going.  Contractions would start but then would stop.  I decided to invite friends over for dinner and to play games after.  Michelle thought I was crazy for doing it but I told her a watched pot never boils.  If I just stood around waiting for it to happen I would go crazy and would not go into labor, so party it was!  

I made home made mac and cheese and we feasted like kings.  I also went on a cleaning spree that afternoon.  We had Seth and Shauni and Murphy come over for dinner and games.  Once we started playing games I had a couple of good contractions going.  Everyone was getting super pumped and asking me labor questions and checking if I needed to stop playing games and go to the hospital.  I assured everyone that labor takes FOREVER and I probably wouldn't have the baby til tomorrow at the earliest and I was in no rush to go anyway.  We played games and everyone went home.  

It was like 10:30, Marcus, Michelle and I were talking.  I started to get strong contractions with regularity.  They were feeling pretty intense.  We started timing them and they were consistent at 7 min apart.  I kept debating whether or not to go in.  By 11 they were feeling pretty good so I decided to take a shower and get myself all ready.  Marcus timed them in the shower and they jumped to 3 min apart.  I had him call my friend Jessica to come over and stay at the house while us three could go to the hospital.  By the time Jessica got there at midnight I was really feeling them and knew the baby train was coming. 

We got in the car which was the brutal part for me.  I DO NOT LIKE SITTING OR LAYING DOWN FOR CONTRACTIONS.  AT ALL.  I need to be able to walk them out and walk/bounce my way through the pain.  The hospital is at Camp Lester which is a good 20 min drive.  So getting into that van equaled 20 min of Hell.  I had Marcus put on Mumford and Sons (they put me in my happy place) and tried to stay calm.  Marcus did some tricksy driving and got us there a little quicker than normal haha.  

Once we got to the hospital it was 12:30.  They wanted to observe me for 20 min on the fetal monitor and see how my contractions were and then they would check me.  If everything looked good than they would admit me.  Enter the second 20 mins of Hell.  I had to stay laying down on that bed during that observation time and I was NOT happy about it.  We still hadn't told anyone that we had gone into the hospital.  I wanted to make sure they were going to admit us before we started spreading the word.  They checked me after 20 min and I was at a 6.  They moved us to a room and started getting me set up.  

They told me they would have to put me on the baby monitor for a little bit each hour just to check in on the baby but I could labor standing up if I wanted until they had to monitor me again.  We had really great staff and nurses except for one.  She was crabby Mccraberson and I was not a fan.  When she put in my IV (just in case with my history with Olivia) she leaked blood all over me and the floor and wasn't even going to clean it up until Michelle called her out on it.  

So it didn't feel like we were in the room for that long, we went back there at 1 am.  The contractions were really intense and I told Marcus to get the nurses and that I felt pressure.  In less than an hour and I went to a 10.  They had set us up in the room but then hadn't really come back to check on me so they started scrambling when they realized how fast I was going.  My Doctor, Dr. Tracy Alexander has just got there 5 min earlier so everyone was scrambling to get things ready.  

I asked if they were going to break my water and they said it would just break while I was pushing.  

DO NOT READ FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO MUCH TMI.

So they set up and said I could start pushing.  I all of a sudden felt really tired.  In my head I was like "great now I have to push him out.  Do I have to??".  I just felt exhausted and like I couldn't do it.  I gave one push half heartedly and Dr.  Alexander said I made great progress with that one.  I figured if I wasn't really trying on that one that if I REALLY went for it maybe I could get him out quick.   So I really pushed and my water broke.  It didn't just break, it EXPLODED.  It shot out across the end of the bed and went all over my Dr as well as the nurses around her.  Everyone was silent for a second and then the laughter and "way to go girl!".  It was so crazy.  They kinda mopped up a little bit.  I turned to Marcus and said "I don't think I can do this."  Then he said something encouraging like "You got this, just push really hard and you can get him out."  Michelle said I looked at him and gave him the equivalent of a death ray look which ended that conversation haha.  

 Just a couple of pushes later my sweet baby boy was here!  8lbs 2oz of beautiful baby.  They put him on me right away and he was so sweet and quiet and chill.  I didn't have any bleeding complications which was great!  I just sat there drinking in his sweet baby self.  He was beautiful.  He was here.  I was holding him.  No more pushing, no more pregnant.  I had my little baby to snuggle.  I had a BOY.

 It is still crazy to me when I look at him sometimes.  I grew up with sisters and my Mom.  No boys in the house.  It was all girl all the time.  It is so crazy and awesome that I have a son.  That Marcus and I have sons and daughters.

We were all just in such a happy place and Michelle turns to Mccraberson and asks her "Don't you just love your job?!?" to which Miss Crabby replied "We don't GET to pick which department we work in".  After that we all just wanted her gone and out of our room.  The rest of the staff we encountered was the nicest ever which I am so grateful for.

 So he was born at 2:28 AM.  We all kinda looked at each other and I was like "No one even knows we are here huh?".  Everything went so quick that we hadn't even emailed anyone to tell them we went to the hospital.

 So we started clicking some pictures and letting folks back home know the news!

 The girls came the next day to see their brother for the first time.  It was love at first site and they have been enamored with him ever since.  Such good big sisters!

 Benson went the better part of a week without a name.  I really wanted to be 100% on his name and I didn't feel totally sure when we were in the hospital like I had been with the girls.  So we took our time and let it marinate.  I am glad we did it because it was a really relaxing time to just get to know him and his little personality.  He is perfect and he is ours!

Here is Dr. Alexander.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE her!  Best Doctor I have ever had.  She is so nice and thoughtful.  I always leave her office feeling uplifted.  She is our family Doctor so the girls, Benson and I all see her.  It totally works out awesome because if I have an appointment for one of us but something comes up with someone else that needs to be seen  she just takes care of it all in the same appointment.  She even brought Benson a baby present of a cute new outfit and two new Cinderella books for the girls!!  I am SO grateful for her!