RIAV

This is a great story! Those of you who know Rian well, know that she is absolutely obsessed with the color PINK! About six weeks ago, she was playing with these magnets and she was trying to spell out her name. We have been practicing her letters and numbers a lot lately, so I was excited to see what she was going to come up with.

So, there she starts picking out the letters for her name. She gets the R-I-A and then starts searching for the last letter. She moves the N closer to the other 3 letters, but then continues searching. Intrigued, I keep watching. She picks up the pink V. I simply explain that her name is not RIAV. She starts throwing a fit. She throws herself onto the floor and starts crying really loud....did I mention she is quite the actress?! :)

Then the phone rings, it's my mom. She immediately asks why Rian is crying. I said, "I don't know, let's ask her". Even though I did know why, I like Rian to explain her feelings to me. Rian explained that she wanted the pink letter in her name. I told her that we didn't have a pink R-I-A or N, but she was not happy with my explanation. So my mom and I continue to talk and a few minutes later, Rian comes running over to me with the biggest smile on her face. "Mommy," she says, "I spelled RIAN!!!" I walk over to the kitchen and find this (look up at picture). She says "See Mommy, I do have a pink A". I was in complete shock. I was so proud of my little girl! She never seizes to amaze me!

Biba Guam!

July 21st is Liberation Day and it is probably the most widely celebrated holiday on Guam. Here is a little background info: Japanese forces landed on the Micronesian island just days after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, occupying it until U.S. troops recaptured it in July of 1944. July 21 — Guam's official Liberation Day holiday — marks the day American troops began the battle that proved a major turning point for the war in the Pacific. Guam celebrates this holiday to honor those who fought for the liberation of this westernmost U.S. Territory.

We decided to take part in all the festivities, especially since Matt was given the day off of work (it was a Tuesday)!! We headed down to the 1 (one of the main roads) to watch the parade. Although it was incredibly hot, we managed to stay for 2 hours of the 4 hour parade. Here are a few pictures!

Locals made many floats to honor Liberation Day. Check out their outfits...awesome, huh?! Of course, we had to get a picture of the carabao too! Rian just loves carabaos :) I also took a great picture of the F-22's (Air Force) flying overhead!


The military took a HUGE part in the parade and I just loved that! The Marines even flew in from Japan to participate! We also have to give a shout out to the Seabees! NMCB 40, a Seabee Battalion, participated in parade too (they are the ones with the hard hats)!


Matt took this picture of a Military Helicopter flying directly under the sun. Here are more pictures of all the Military that took part in the parade. Check out their fire power!

Some of the floats were so cool! Here is another local in a little loincloth :) Rian loved when the cheerleaders went by too....she is such a mini me!

After we couldn't stand the heat anymore, we had a little lunch and then headed to the beach to cool down! It was a really fun family day! Long Live Guam!!!

We Are EXCITED

We are having a BOY! And we couldn't be more thrilled!

The ultrasound lasted over an hour. The hospital was very thorough, taking about 60 sonogram pictures. We did get a disk with the pictures, however, we cannot save them to our computer :(

The baby weighed approximately 1 lbs 2 oz. He was breach and facing my back. So the tech had a hard time getting a profile picture.

We were only given two actual pictures, one of the spine and this one!

The tech said the measurements looked great, but that is all he told us. I have my appointment with my Dr next Thursday. She will go over the ultrasound at that time. Apparently they are very strict at this hospital and they tell the to tech kept his lips sealed, even about the gender. We got him to peak at the gender, but that's it.

I still can't believe it's a boy! Even though it's my second pregnancy, it feels like a whole new adventure knowing that it will be a completely different experience. Thanks for participating in our poll....looks like the majority of you were right :)

Beach Day Fun

Our friend invited us to celebrate her birthday with her at her other friend's beach house. We had a great time! This beach actually had good sand that we could build sandcastles with! Usually it's full of coral. And the water was so shallow for what seemed like a fourth mile. If you look closely at the pictures, you can see the water is really light and then turns really blue way far back. That's where the waves broke. So we didn't have to worry about waves taking Rian out or anything. It was so fun to just sit down in the warm (and I mean warm!) water and have Rian play all around me! I have a feeling we will be back to this beach in the near future :)

Potty Training Update

First off, I need to say THANK YOU to everyone who posted comments on my previous post about potty training. I was in a huge rut and I really need the boost you all gave me to continue on the potty training journey! I am really happy to announce that Rian has been doing awesome since my last post!

I took Auntie Lauren's advice about not asking Rian if she needed to go, but instead just taking her. That way she wouldn't have the chance to tell me no. Most times I would just say something like can you come with me? and we would walk hand in hand to the potty. That worked extremely well!

I also decided that I did not want to 'reward' Rian, but instead 'chart' her progress. As all of you probably know, Rian is absolutely obsessed with anything princess. So I found a free sticker chart on the internet, printed it out, and taped in up on the wall in Rian's bathroom. I just happen to have some princess stickers too. I crossed my fingers that this would be the key to her success.....and thus far it has been! She loves to put her stickers on her chart whenever she has gone on the potty! She has already filled up one chart and is doing very well on her second!

I also read on the internet to add food coloring to the potty water. Supposedly, if you use blue dye, it will change to green once the child goes in the potty. Well, we tried that experiment and I guess Rian's pee isn't concentrated enough (which is a good thing!), but she still loves to add food coloring every time she tries to go on the potty!

We've moved on to Princess Pull-ups instead of diapers! Sometimes she will tell me when she has to go, but that isn't too often. I wonder how to get to that next step? However, over the past three days she has told Matt and I probably 5 or 6 times that she needs to go. So I guess that is improvement, right?! We are just so proud of her! In fact, yesterday she told me she needed to go and asked if she could try it by herself. Of course we encouraged it! So I secretly watched her from around the corner :) She did so good! We are so proud of our little girl and hope that we can continue making progress!!

'D' Day Preview

Yes, 'D' as in Delivery Day!!
A few weeks ago, I started noticing that my lower abdominal would hurt when I lifted one leg to get dressed or shave, or wash my legs/feet. I said to Matt, I don't remember feeling pain like this this early in my pregnancy with Rian. I took out my pregnancy books to research pain in lower abdominal and only found stuff regarding the stretching of ligaments....all normal stuff. Fast forward to two weeks ago. Matt and I decided to do a leg workout together. I was definitely sore for a few days after the workout, so I took a few days off from working out and waited for my body to recover. In the meantime, I continued looking up soreness in lower abdomen....no success. A week later I felt fine. I would still feel weird when getting dressed and showering, but I didn't feel sore or anything so I figured I could workout.
Wednesday morning I was doing an leg and arm workout at home. Right after I finished a friend called and asked if I wanted to meet her at the gym after Rian's dance class. I decided walking on the treadmill would be a good cardio workout after doing arms and legs in the morning and since Rian's class is at the gym anyways, I should take advantage of being there. So I did. Big mistake!
That night, I was in the worst pain of my life. I couldn't walk or get up from a sitting position without my lower abdomen killing me. I knew something wasn't right. There had to be something in my books about this kind of pain. I started looking in the index for anything that could relate to my symptoms....soreness, pain, tightness, abdominal, but I found nothing. At that point I just started reading the index knowing there had to be something in my books, I just couldn't find the right word myself. Finally I got to P. Pubic Symphsis Dysfunction. I read about it in my book and then researched it on the internet. I think this is what I have and decide since it isn't harmful to the baby I would wait it out for the night and I would call the Dr in the morning.
I couldn't get in to see my regular Dr the next day, but decided it didn't matter who I was seen by, my pain was too intense and I needed to be seen. I didn't want to walk in the office claiming I knew exactly what was wrong with me, so I let the Dr do her exam and then told her about my findings. She didn't really like my suggestion. She said that my cervix was already dilated to a one and, therefore, thought is was either a bladder infection or contractions. However, it didn't hurt when I pee'd and I know for sure I wasn't feeling contractions, I wasn't cramping at all, I was just sore and tight and I only felt pain when I moved around. But I went along for the ride, because I would rather have a concerned Dr than one who didn't want to take the time to worry. While my labs were being processed they admitted me to the Mother/Baby Unit to hook me up and make sure I wasn't having contractions. Man, laying in that hospital bed brought back many memories! I just hope this next labor/delivery goes as smoothly as my first did!
I wasn't having contractions! And my labs came back normal. The Dr still did not want to diagnosis me with Pubic Symphisis Dysfunction. She told me to take it easy and re-visit this issue with my Dr at my next appt (in two weeks). So that's where we stand at this point. The pain level has definitely gone down since taking it easy the entire weekend, but it still isn't completely gone with certain movements.

JW Tumbles

We signed Rian up for a 5 week session at JW Tumbles. It's an indoor children's gym and Rian loves going! It's rainy season here, so it's nice to have a place to go to where Rian can run free and stay dry! She has a one hour class each week and we can take advantage of their free play every afternoon, if we want!

Happy 4th of July

I think the Fourth of July is one of my favorite holidays (although Thanksgiving still ranks number one)! I just love it! It's all about warm weather, the beach, BBQ's, friends, family, summertime, good food, fireworks...I mean who wouldn't love it!

Our festivities began on Thursday when my friend, Lynleigh, invited us to the Air Force Base for the Freedom Festival. I decked Rian out in one of her four "4th of July outfits", this particular one courtesy of Bama Wendy, and off we went. When we first got there they were just starting the 'military police dog show'. We enthusiastically watched as the dogs continued time and time again to tackle the 'bad guy'. Then we enjoyed some free grub! I tried to take Rian to the bounce house, but there were too many older kids and she climbed out just as quickly as she climbed in! After the bounce house was a no-go, I tried to get her to stand in line for the clown, so she could get a balloon animal and her face painted. That was a no-go also :) Rian finally agreed to try another astro jump obstacle course thing, so we walked over to the line for that. This is where the picture was taken. She met a really nice girl in line, they even had their arms around each other at one point...too cute!! But seconds after I took this picture, the torrential downpour started and we ran for cover! The rain was coming down hard and our car was too far away, so we just waited it out (for a long time). Eventually it stopped, but it was too late, they were taking down the astro jumps. But even with all the rain, and Rian not really wanted to do any of the fun stuff, we still had a great time!

Matt had the day off on Friday, so we made some plans with our friends to head to the beach! We haven't been to the beach since we arrived back on the island, so Rian and I were very excited for this. We packed a picnic lunch and all our beach gear and headed out the door. I took this picture in the car on the way down. But as we drove further south, the sky turned dark and the downpour began again. However, Guam is known to have rainstorms one minute and blue skies the next, so we decided to continue on. It was still raining when we got to the beach so we backed our jeep up to our friend's SUV, and everyone hung out in the back of the two cars, which was actually kind of fun! We ate lunch and chit-chatted until the rain eventually stopped. Rian and I enjoyed the warm water while Daddy took a nap on the beach. Then, as promised, Daddy built sandcastles with Rian. Soon after they started though, the rain clouds returned and we packed up and left just in the knick of time! We were only able to hang out at the beach for probably two hours due to the rain and half of that time was spent in the car. But regardless of how long we were there, we still had a great time! We came home, showered, and cleaned up nicely so we could join a few friends for dinner at Proa. It was delicious! Good friends and good food, how could you go wrong?

On Saturday, I decked Rian out in another 'outfit' (this one courtesy of Bama Lois) and we had some friends over during the day for a BBQ, games, and Root Beer Floats and Red, White, and Blue Sundaes. We had a lot of fun, once again! Then we decided to take our chances and meet some other friends to watch the fireworks. Of course the downpour started once again as soon as we got into the car. The torrential downpour lasted about an hour so we waited it out in our car once again. When it finally let up, we had about an hour before the fireworks started. Luckily, we stayed dry the rest of the night!

I number the photo collage: 1-Our family waiting for the fireworks to begin.

2-Rian blowing her Fourth of July pinwheel. Bama Lois sent it out here and Rian loved it!

3-Rian jumping around.

4-Rian using her red, white, and blue wand (aka glowstick) to cast spells on everyone :)

5-Rian swinging her glowstick around in circles as the adults chat.

6-Rian smiling for the camera. Bama Lois (my mom) sent Rian some 4th of July jewelry along with the glowsticks and light up necklaces. Rian was all decked out!

7-Rian and Seth swinging the glowsticks! What fun!

8-The girls!

Potty Training Woes

I seriously need your help! I am almost embarrassed to even blog about this, but I just don't know what to do at this point. We started potty training Rian when we were in California just a few months ago. She was doing amazing and she actually liked the idea of going on a big girl potty. I thought she would be fully trained quickly.
Then our lives started to get hectic. It was our last 6 weeks in the States and we were traveling here, there, and everywhere. We brought her potty and encouraged her to go, but not having a routine or any kind of consistency in our daily lives did not help the situation. At one point, while we were still in CA, I was putting Rian on the potty and she was screaming bloody murder. My mom asked me why was I pushing her if she clearly did not like the idea anymore. My response: She is 2 1/2 and she needs to be potty trained. But obviously she regressed and both Matt and I decided that maybe we should hold off on the training until we got back to Guam and into a normal routine again.
So here we are. We've been here for a month and have made no progress :( Rian is a very smart girl (we have full on conversations) and I know she could totally do this if she wanted to, but that's the problem, she doesn't want to. She said she will give the baby her diapers, but the baby isn't here yet, so that isn't really working at the moment. I've put her in big girl panties, but she peed right through them. She loves the idea of being a big girl, but when it comes to the potty she'll say she is still a baby. I've tried pull ups, but obviously the 'cool sensation' doesn't bug her the least. We've rewarded, but she just told me yesterday "I'm fine, I don't need that".
I hate to just give up again and say she is not ready. I know she can do this! But I am started to think again, maybe she just isn't ready. But that feels like an excuse, and that bothers me. She turns 3 in Aug, how can she not be ready yet? And I feel like it reflects on me as a mom. I don't want to push it too hard. If she tells me she doesn't want to go, I shouldn't force her, right? And they say not to get upset if she goes in her diaper, but I can't encourage that either, so what do I say at that point? I am seriously contemplating just leaving her naked for a day and waiting to see what happens. Please, tell me I'm not the only one with a 2.5-3 yr old in diapers and PLEASE SOMEONE HELP ME!!!