It is hard to connect in the mornings...

Kaila- "Geez, I hope it doesn't rain before the ARC gets here."

Tim- "Yeah, we wouldn't want to drown."

Kaila- "In old clothes and used furniture."

Tim- "Uh, water?"

Kaila- "Water?"

Tim- "Like, a flood."

Kaila- "Why would it flood today? Is it supposed to rain a lot?"

Tim- "I don't know, isn't that what you just said?"

Kaila- "It looks like it might rain, but I didn't check the weather."

Tim- "Don't worry. I'm sure it won't rain enough to need a boat. haha."

Kaila- "Good joke, dear." (sarcasm)

Tim- "You seemed worried we'd need a boat."

Kaila- "I don't think I said anything about a boat."

Tim- "You tried to make a funny about the Ark if it rained."

Kaila- "What ARC do you think I'm talking about?"

Tim- "Noah's."

Kaila- "NO, Dingdong! The ARC of Spokane! We have stuff on our front porch and I don't want it to get wet before they get here to pick it up!"

Mornings, weightloss, and updates...

This morning was one of those mornings my eyelids glued themselves to my eyeballs. I really did not want to get up. I figure my job begins when my children get up and this morning they decided to sleep in. Actually, Thayen is still sleeping (it is 8:20 am) which is unbelievable. Anyhow, Tim was bustling around looking for clean underwear; all in a tizzy. I'm a little behind on laundry. I tried to mutter something like, "Check the pile of clothes downstairs..." I just really wanted to still be asleep. Why am I sharing all this? Because for a while now I have been rolling out of bed around 6 am to go running before the family gets up. I've been doing a great job of this until recently I appear to have morphed into some sort of a slug in the morning. Tim keeps joking with me, "You're probably pregnant!" ha. ha. I'm sure that is not the case, for various reasons. Anyhow, I am excited to introduce to you my SIZE 4 jeans!!! Yep, after all these a.m. workouts and a change to my dietary habits, I am the proud wearer of a size 3/4. I lost 17 pounds in the past two months and am working to maintain that. I feel great, have lots of energy (except, of course, the whole current debaucle of not being able to rise in the morning...), and have 0% thigh rubbing while walking. That, right there folks, is worth the effort.

So here's some more of the latest and greatest. Thayen is almost 3 now (December 14) and I am working on planning his 'cowboy party'. He helped pick some things out for the celebration. He keeps talking about it. He chose cow print table cloths and a giant 43" horse balloon. Luella is 9 months and scooting around the floor. She's got the bear crawl down now. Not quite on all fours yet. She is such a doll. I don't think I've ever known a baby so sweet. She "hums". Whatever she is doing, she makes these content little humming noises. I should also say here that Thayen is an amazing older brother already! He is always concerned about her and gentle with her. He likes reading books to her (Yes, there are a few books he can "read". I think he has them memorized), building towers out of legos to watch her knock them down, and he especially enjoys making her laugh. Yesterday they took their first bath together and it was a riot. He splashed around to make her laugh; the more she laughed, the bigger he'd make a scene...Until it escalated to nonstop belly-laughs for the both of them. I sadly had to end it when I had to remove their shivering bodies from the luke-warm water.

Well, duties are calling, so this is my sign-off 'til the next. Wish it were more exciting, but hey, it's still early! Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Tomorrow is the big day.

Until next time, enjoy these fall photos of the kiddos (don't be surprised if a couple of these end up in your Christmas card):

Meet Luella!

I have been deciding whether or not to delete this blogspot. I just do not have the time to put it on my priorities. I just keep hesitating hoping I will have this magical time slot appear in my day when I have absolutely nothing to do except...blog. Today is one of those days. Actually, I am putting off housework and Thayen is watching his Veggietales Pirates movie for live the thousandth time.

As most of you know a TON has happened since my last entry. Namely one HUGE happening--the birth of our gorgeous daughter, Luella Verona Treto, on February 15. Woo-hoo! She's already two months old! I feel like it was just yesterday when she was born. I have been asked to write a little about the birth, so to start it was such a wonderful blessed experience, as with the arrival of any anticipated bundle of joy. I had her at home in our living room in a birthing tub. I'm planning on doing it this way, Lord willing, with the rest of our children to come (who knows how many...). The labor began on Saturday with contractions anywhere 8 to 20 minutes apart ALL DAY LONG! We thought for sure our blessed baby would come on Valentine's, but I continued to labor all night (sleeping between contractions) and throughout the next day. They really began to pick up around 6 pm Sunday evening. I was on my feet all day long. Every time I found myself sitting or laying down during a contraction, I was in much more pain. So I paced around our living room and stopped and rested on Tim's shoulder or leaned on the arm of the couch to "relax" through the contraction. The midwife arrived somewhere around 9 pm and I was only dilated to a 4--bummer. So more pacing and an hour later I dilated to a 5, which was wonderful news this meant I got to spend the rest of my labor in the nice warm tub full of water. Plus the contractions were getting a great deal stronger. The rumors are true: water takes away much of the pain. It was soothing, but certainly did not take the hard part of labor away. I kept asking myself in my head, "What am I doing to myself?" & saying things like "I am going to die..." etc. At 11:20 pm on the dot my water broke and it felt like I had to take one ginormous poo and my body began to push the baby out on its own. The midwife kept telling me to stop pushing and it actually took more of my effort to restrain my body than to actually push when I was supposed to. So I had another contraction and out came baby's head. One more contraction and I pushed baby all the way out at exactly 11:28 pm. Easy peasy---yeah right. But it did go pretty smooth. I won't lie there is nothing I can say to describe that horrible sensation when baby's head is halfway out (and you are like stretched "down there" to the MAX!) and you are told to stop pushing. What?! But then there is absolutely no other feeling on the earth that you get when that baby is in your arms and you have this incredible sense of relief flood your entire body and you enter some sort of other-earthly realm. I did it! Praise God--He helped me through the entire thing! Then to hear, "It's a girl!" I wanted to cry for joy, if I had had anything left in me to muster the energy for tears. It was just awesome. Just awesome.

We had her name, Luella, chosen right after we were married. I had a dream we had a boy and a girl and the girl's name was Luella. I woke up and told Tim and he really liked that name. So we took it as a sign from God. Luella is a combo of two names Lou (meaning warrior) and Ella (meaning torch or bright light). The name Verona came after I had a miscarriage. We received a prophetic word that the Lord would grant us victory through this circumstance. So we knew we had to have a name meaning victory. Verona not only means victory in Greek but it means truth in Italian. And it is simply a beautiful name. A beautiful name for a beautiful blessing.

So there you go.

More later on life with Lulu & little Mr. two-year-old T. Right now I've got to get cleaning. In-laws will be here in 3 hours!!

In labor Sunday morning.

In labor a few hours before birth (I know...nice socks!)

The kiddie pool

Seconds old. Tim was by my side the whole time--what a wonderful man.

Wiped!

Thayen meets Luella in the morning.

Firetrucks and Elections...

So, Thayen has a new word. We live near a a little fire station and so we get to hear the firetrucks as they head out. Every time this happens it is a special event in our house. Everything comes to a standstill and my little boy's eyes light up and a look of sheer joy and amazement spreads across his face. And he'll look at me and as he points out toward the noise he says in an amazed and excited little voice, "fwuck."

As the weather gets colder and more dreary, we've been forced to hole up inside the house. Aside from learning new and exciting words, Thayen has been spending quite some time during these days on daddy's drums. He could spend all day banging on these things and now he's finally starting to actually play on beat counting 1-2-3-4. Here he's "playing with" the Rolling Stones on the electric set... (so cute!!)

Can you believe elections are today? By the time I go to bed, our country will pretty much know who the next president will be. Crazy. I've been praying off and on throughout the day. I'm a little anxious about it. We sent our votes in yesterday. As usual, Tim and I voted for the person we felt would do the best job as far as seeking God's direction and wisdom for our country. This year we voted for Chuck Baldwin, who, I know won't win, but in good conscience I just could not vote for either of the frontrunners. However, between the two of them I'd like to see McCain as our next pres. I just cannot put my hope or trust in someone who claims "faith", supports Islam, and cannot define a human life. That is not exactly the God-centered leader this country needs. On the other hand, I do fully trust God and I know that He can do anything through whomever He chooses, regardless. Perhaps God has bigger plans. Yes, he ALWAYS has bigger plans. We shall see...

Read about our trip to Italy!

Soooo...slight change of plans. I created a webpage through Shutterfly for our Italy trip. You can read all about it and see all of our pictures on that site. It was way easier to use than blogspot. I'm considering changing over permanently. We shall see... The url is:

http://aweitalia.shutterfly.com

Enjoy!

Summer round-up

Today is officially the first day of autumn! I love the fall. I have better clothes for the fall. And autumn means soup season. Yesterday was a hearty 13 bean chili and today shall be a beef stew. This also marks the beginning of hot cocoa and peppermint tea in front of a cozy fire. Oh, I love this time of year....EXCEPT the part where I get to rake bags upon bags of leaves. But it's worth it, I suppose.

Just to catch everyone up on the summer's news... My belly has been growing--that's right--I'm pregnant and baby is due mid-February. We're planning on a home birth. I have a wonderful midwife and am very excited about this decision. We also are not finding out the gender until birth! What an exciting surprise it will be.

Thayen has also been growing. He's jumping and playing with "swords" and "guns" and this is not something we taught him. His carrot is a gun...the markers can be put together to make a sword...His bunny can be used as whip or a club. I guess boys just figure this stuff out on there own somehow. And he is all boy! His vocabulary has expanded and will repeat anything you say these days. His first sentences were, "Where did it go?" and "I don't know." Kind of interesting...

Lots of days were spent on trips to the park, hiking, and days at home playing in the whale pool. Tim and I celebrated our birthdays in July. I turned 26 and he is now 27. So young still! To top off our summer (where weekends were spent on house projects) we took a two week vacation to Italy! My next several blogs will be about the trip and it might take me a while to get it all up, so be patient with me.

Here are some pics from the summer:

Birthday date at the Melting Pot (overpriced fondue joint, but extremely good food and kind of a fun place to eat)

A hike above Spokane Valley

The hit of the summer--the whale pool

A morning at the park

That is my brave little boy in the front with dad! He marched right up to the front of the line to ride this elephant and was so excited.

My hometown trip

Hi! I'm realizing more and more how much I stink at this! Okay, now I'm posting just about once a month. How do people find the time?


Well, the latest and greatest... I just got back from visiting my folks for a week. While over in Kelso, Thayen caught the flu which put him out for a couple days, but we still managed a trip to the Portland Zoo, a one night stay at Cannon beach, and some quality time with Grams and Gramps. I also went to a dear friend's wedding and I made it to her bachelorette party as well. It's always fun catching up with those girls!

Petting goats--I was not going in there!

He liked the sea otters

Thayen LOVED the beach!

Especially the sand...

This is right before we went Salsa dancing. It was a blast!