Ocean World

It has been so nice having David home during the holidays. We have been able to spend a lot of quality time together. We have taken the kids to the largest aquarium in Bangkok, known as Ocean World. We got yearly passes because we plan on going a lot. They have sharks, stingrays, penguins, giant lobsters, turtles and lots of different kinds of fish. The nice thing about it is that it has new stuff all the time. There is also a little padded playground in there so the kids can run around while the parents talk. On Thursday, the kids and I met some friends from church at Ocean World. David was hoping to go but had to go into work for a couple of hours. We had a lot of fun. McKaila enjoyed spending time with her friends. Here are a few pictures.

This is McKaila, Jack and Jane sitting in the middle of the floor watching the t.v.

Jack, McKaila and Jane. What a bunch of cute kids.

Kameron was a little confused with the Santa penguin.


Here is Santa in the fish tank.

McKaila petting a real snake. I was surprised that she actually touched it. She was also trying to squeeze it. We are working on that one :)

I hope you liked the pictures. We have had a blast hanging out with new friends and playing with daddy. He sure is a great dad. We hope everyone has a merry Christmas.

He's Almost Home

Just a few more days till David is home. These last couple of weeks haven't been as bad as I thought they would be. The kids were pretty good and since we hired Janet (maid/nanny) I have been able to get out and run errands by myself. It takes a lot less time getting groceries without a child on my back and a child in a stroller. I got to talk to David on the phone today. I hope it isn't going to cost us an arm and a leg again. I have missed him so much. I'll be glad when he is home safe and sound.

We have been trying to stay busy this last week as we anticipate our move and David's arrival. Monday night we went over to the Hillman's house for family night. They are such a neat family. They have two kids. Jack is 4 and Jane is 2. Jack was so cute with Kameron. He was saying peek-a-boo in Thai and Kameron loved it. Probably because it sounded pretty funny :) Tuesday we went over to the Beck's house to play. She has a daughter named Madeline and she is 18 months old. She also has identical twin boys, Isaac and Lucas, and they are 4. The kids played for a while and then we went down to the pool because the boys had swimming lessons. McKaila was wearing a life jacket and we put her in the baby pool. The water goes up to her chest probably. She was trying to get a rubber duck or something in the pool and she fell forward in the water. With the life jacket on she couldn't get herself to stand back up so her face was in the water. Her eyes were above water but her nose and mouth were under. I was fully dressed and holding Kameron. I jump in the water and pull her up. Katherine, madeline's mom, had shorts on so she could get in with them but she was chasing Madeline somewhere. She felt bad that she wasn't there to get McKaila. I don't care about being wet because I saved my daughters life. I think this is the 3rd time we have had a scare like this in the water with her. I think we are going to get her into swimming lessons. Needless to say she was done swimming for the day. Poor thing.

This might be my last blog for a little while. We move in to our new house in two days and I'll be busy organizing and shopping for things to help organize I'm sure. Hopefully I will be able to blog soon after but I don't know. I hope everyone has a wonderful rest of the week.

Kameron's First Haircut

I finally cut Kameron's hair. It was pretty long. The hairs above his ears always stuck straight out. I was hoping to wait till David got home but it needed to be done. I was pretty nervous considering I don't cut hair but it turned out cute. Atleast I think so. He kept moving his head so it took me about 45 minutes to cut his little hair. Then today I had to fix some pieces.

8 more days till David is home. I cannot wait. I am more excited for him to come home than I am excited for Christmas, and I love Christmas. It seems like he has been gone for so long. I have to try and keep myself busy so I don't think about 8 more days.

McKaila has definetly hit the terrible two's. She has changed since we've been in Bangkok. She used to not be shy around strangers and now she is. I think it is because so many Thai's want to touch her and see her that she has become annoyed and now she spits at people. Nice huh. She doesn't spit spit though, it is more of a blowing raspberries type of blowing but it is horrible. Everytime Janet, the nanny, comes in the house McKaila does that to her. I thought it was just the nanny but we were in the elevator and some Thai lady was saying hi to her and how cute she was and McKaila did her little spitting thing. I am so embaressed by it. Oh and she bit the nanny yesterday while I was out shopping. She even left a bruise on her arm. I asked the nanny if McKaila was being mean or just playing and she said just playing. Still I felt so bad. McKaila shouldn't even play bite. AAHHHH!!!!!! What am I going to do with this child? Well, enjoy the pictures of Kamerons new hair.

Before

After (his hair is just spiky in the second one to show how much was cut off. It looks uneven but thats because half of his hair was wet and the other half was dry so it didn't spike very well)

McKaila's First Haircut

Now that my sister-in-laws episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition has been shown, I can now post pictures of McKaila's first hair cut. Karia cut her hair for me. I think it turned out adorable.

Karia was smart and gave her a sucker to distract her.

Time Goes By So Slowly

Time seems to stand still when you don't feel good. The kids and I are all sick. Kameron has had explosive diarhhea leading to loads of laundry, McKaila has been throwing up everywhere, and I have just been feeling really sick and very tired. (No I'm not pregnant). I have not been sleeping well so the days just drag on and on. We were hoping to move into our house earlier but that isn't going to happen. So we are still set for the 14th to move in and have every delivered at once. Janet (the maid/nanny) and I walked over to the new house last night. It was pretty dark because they didn't have the electricity on but it looks nice and clean. They have repainted all the walls and even the outside. I am just anxious to get in and get settled down.

I was able to talk to David on the phone today. It was so good to hear his voice. I know I am pathetic but I haven't gone this long without talking to him before. He is doing well. He is in Alaska right now and is bored out of his mind. There really isn't anything to do on the ship but watch movies and exercise. He still has about 12 days left on their. Poor guy. The stuff he does for his family :) I can't wait till that paycheck comes in.

I hope everyone is doing well. For once this week I'm hopefully going to go to bed before midnight. Even sleeping pills aren't helping me. I don't know what is going on. Until next time...

18 Days To Go

David left today for a 18 days straight. He is going on a cargo ship trip. He flies to California for two days and the rest of the time he is on the sea. I'm sad that he is going to be gone for so long but he makes great money on this trip. They get a lot of overtime. Just in time for Christmas. I also just found out that he'll be home for Christmas and New Years. Unless of course something changes. He has to turn in his passport to obtain his Thai visa. Without the passport he can't travel. YEAH!!!! He also has the kids birthdays off as well as mine and his own.

We just hired a nanny/maid. Her name is Jean and she is Philipino. She starts working tomorrow. I hope everything works out with her. We finally are able to move into our townhome on Dec. 14. David will get home at 11 pm the next day.

McKaila is growing so fast. When we first got here we had to take her to the doc. because she had an ear infection. The doc. were a little concerned about her weight. She was around 22.4 lbs and had lost weight since her last appointment. We were at a grocery store last night and we weighed her on this scale that was really cheap and it said she weighed 11.4 kg which is roughly 25 lbs. She has become such a little porker. The other night we ordered pizza and she ate two slices. Kameron is doing well. Still lazy and doesn't want to have anything to do with crawling. Oh well. It'll happen before I know it.

Nothing else to add up to this point. I hope everyone is doing well and had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Pictures

Here are some pictures for you to enjoy. My last blog was long so I'm giving you something enjoyable to look at.

McKaila giving me a fake smile.

My handsome little boy.

She has the cutest smile when she wants to smile.

Ronald McDonald is giving the Wai. Sawadeeka Ronald!

Mmmmm. These are some good toes.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. We had a great Thanksgiving. David and I have been talking about getting another laptop. The reason being is that he is going on this cargo ship for 3 weeks and can't take our one and only laptop. He can't do that because otherwise I won't have any way of contacting my family or checking emails. We still don't have our home computer but hopefully the ship docked today. So we are still another two weeks out. Anyway... since David wouldn't be able to take the laptop he would have no way of contacting me and no way of watching movies, playing games, etc... So today we went out and bought ME a new laptop. YEAH!!!! I am really excited. Now we can communicate with each other while he is gone.

I found out today that we won't be moving into our townhouse until Dec. 14th now. I was hoping to move into the house while David was gone. It would help keep me busy for 3 weeks. He comes home on the 15th of December. I am hoping my mother-in-law will be able to come and visit me while David is gone.

So back to Thanksgiving day. We had our first ride on a tuk-tuk today. For those of you who don't know this is a tuk-tuk :) It kind of looks big in this picture but that is because I was standing close to it. They are pretty little.

We had quite the experience. It was really cheap though. After we bought our laptop we decided to take a take a ride home so we could get dinner started. With tuk-tuks the price is negotiated before they take you to where you want. So they asked us where we were going and how much we would pay. We told them where we lived and said 40 baht. That is what we would pay a taxi so I don't know why we said we'd pay that much. Anyways he told us he would charge us 10 baht and he'd make one stop. If the drivers take people to this certain store, the store will give the drivers a coupon for free gas. So we said what the heck. We went to this jewelry store and looked around. Then we headed home. At first the tuk-tuk didn't seem so bad. The weather was nice so it wasn't extremely hot in it. I know why you don't take tuk-tuks too often though. Once you hit heavy traffic all you can smell is the exhaust. It was horrible. It was fun to finally take a tuk-tuk though.

We didn't really have big plans for Thanksgiving. We were going to have some potatoes and a little chicken. We can't fit a turkey in the oven here. It is really tiny. So we got a little chicken. Its about the size of the chicken you can buy in Albertsons or Walmart. You know the cooked ones ready to go. As we headed home a friend from church called and invited us over for dinner. We hadn't even started cooking so we decided to go over to their place. The food was great. There were lots of people there too.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving I want to list some things I am grateful for.

*I'm grateful for my loving husband David. He is such a wonderful man.
*I'm grateful for two beautiful children in which I can't imagine my life without them.

*I'm grateful for the health that I have as well as my families great health.
*I'm thankful for temples. Without them my family wouldn't be able to be together for eternity.
*I'm grateful for my parents and my siblings. They have put up with me all these years and still love me. They all made me the person I am today.
*I'm thankful for all of my friends. For cheering me up when I needed it most or just being there for me.

There is a lot of things I didn't list but I could go on forever. I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. Our lives get extremely busy during this time of year but please stop and remember what you are most grateful for.

I'm getting there

I am starting to catch up on my blogs now. The kids are being perfect angels for the time being. We'll see how long this lasts. McKaila took a 2 hour nap today. Lately it has only been an hour long nap and today it was 2. Yeah McKaila. Of course Kameron slept about 2 1/2 hours. He loves his sleep.

Well that didn't last long. McKaila dumped her chips all over the ground. It wouldn't be such a bad thing except we don't have a vaccuum. I just swept the carpets with a broom trying to get some stuff of the carpets.

Well I can't post pictures yet of McKaila's first hair cut until after December 2nd. The reason for that being is that my sister-in-law Karia, cut her hair in her kitchen. For those who don't remember she and her family received the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. I can't post any pictures of the inside of the house until it airs. Isn't it beautiful? For those who would like to watch their episode, it will be airing on December 2nd on ABC.

We should hopefully have a Christmas this year (fingers crossed). The reason I say that is all of the presents and tree and decorations are all on the sea travling from Germany to here. I just called the government shipping office and I believe she said the boat with our stuff should dock on the 24th of November. Then it takes about two weeks more to clear customs and whatnot and then we have to schedule for it to be delivered. It is cutting it close. I think the first boxes we'll open will be the tree :) Christmas is my favorite holiday. I love decorating and singing Christmas songs and baking goodies. I'm sad that I can't decorate sooner but I can't do anything about it. We also have word that hopefully we'll be moving into the townhouse the first week of December. I know you are probably laughing with all the hopefully's and maybe's but nothing is certain with the government. David is also scheduled to work over Christmas. I don't know if I mentioned that in a previous post or not but he is supposed to be gone like December 20-Jan 4 or something like that. Hopefully the trip will get canceled so we can have Christmas on Christmas. I know the kids won't know and really won't care but I would like it to be. Here a few more pictures of the kidlets playing around. Their happiness is wearing off quick.
He is always giving me big smiles.

McKaila loves to sit by her brother.

She was being goofy and didn't want to cooperate with the camera.

Holding sister's blanket and sucking his two fingers. Could life get any better?

Halloween

Alright I know they are late but better late than never right? McKaila and Kameron had a wonderful Halloween. McKaila was a chicken and Kameron was a bat. They were the cutest things. We went to a haunted house/party at my father-in-laws work before we went trick-or-treating. McKaila had lots of fun. She plays this ring toss game with pumpkins and she actually got a ring on one of the pumpkins and was able to pick out a prize. Of course, she had to choose the Elmo coloring book. After the little party we took pictures with our nieces and nephews. Then off to my parents house for more pictures and trick-or-treating. McKaila and Kameron got quite a bit of candy. Kameron fell asleep about half way through though. Oh well. Everytime McKaila got candy in her bucket she would take it out and try to eat it right then. So we had to keep emptying her bucket into Kamerons so she wouldn't eat it. Goofy girl. Enjoy the pictures.

Aren't they so cute? In the back row is Jetty, Kaden, Baylee and the front row is McKinnon Kameron and McKaila.

Kameron didn't like the paint on his nose. He kept rubbing it off. It made a pretty big mess.

McKaila playing her ring toss game. Good job McKaila.

Best Friends Forever

Here are a few recent pictures. I promise I will post more later but David is traveling and I don't know the easy way of resizing them. Enjoy.

McKaila giving her brother some love.

Kameron and McKaila's first bath together.

Big Smiles!!!

We're in Japan!!!

We are in Japan for a layover. What an adventure these last two days have been. We started our adventure to Bangkok on November 3rd. We are at the check in counter checking in and the lady tells us that our flight out of Boise (going to San Francisco) might be delayed up to an hour. Normally this wouldn't be too horrible but we only had a 59 minute layover in San Fran originally. So we flew to San Francisco, missed our layover and had to stay the night in a hotel. It is now 12:34 a.m. Idaho time on November 5th. We are currently in Tokyo, Japan waiting to head to Bangkok. We still have another 2 hours until our flight leaves. The kids did pretty well on this last flight. It was about 11 hours or so. Our flight from Tokyo to Bangkok is about another 6 hours or so. I thought our flight was 21 hours but I guess that is with the layovers included.

We had such a wonderful time in Idaho visiting with our family and friends. It was sad to leave everyone. We went to Utah to visit some family and friends. I'll have to post pictures later of our trips and pictures of the kids. The camera isn't handy right now. It is actually pretty nice here. We are in the red carpet club lounge and they have a special family room. We have a room all to ourselves. It has a tv, movies, toys, and books. We also have our own little bathroom in here and it has two toilets. One for adults and one for kids. I know it isn't anything special but the little toilet is so cute.

The kids are getting so big now. McKaila just got her first hair cut. I'll have to post pictures later of that too. Her hair was always in her face if I didn't put it up in pigtails or a ponytail. So my sister-in-law Karia cut her hair. It is so cute. Kameron is 7 months old now. It is hard to believe. They grow so fast. He loves his big sister. She comes around and he just starts laughing. Well McKaila is climbing on my lap so I guess its time to get off.

Time has flown

Time has just flown by this last year. Kameron is 6 months old today. He had his doctors appointment and he isn't as big as I though he was. He was 26 1/2 inches long and only 15 lbs 13 oz. Once again that was with a wet diaper and clothes on. So he hasn't doubled his birth weight yet. The nurse was calling him a horse. I don't think that is that big actually. Some of the other babies his age are weighing in at almost 21 lbs. This one 6 month old weighs 25 lbs already. McKaila doesn't even weigh that much. He had 6 different shots today. Only 3 pokes though and then one was an oral medication. He handled it like a champ.

Only two more days here and we are done. I am excited and sad at the same time. We have made a lot of friends here and I am sad to leave them. However, I am excited to get to Bangkok. Moving can be really expensive. This being our first real move with this job it was quite a shock. We just had to pay $1800 for Davids work cell phone bill. If he missed paying for a phone call they don't add it up till the end. That also includes outprocessing fees. My stomach is still hurting from this one. David called me from a country and we talked maybe 20 minutes and it cost us nearly $270. I didn't know it was that expensive but I can say that isn't happening anymore.

Our inspection of the house went well. We don't owe for any of the furniture or any damage done to anything. We just had to pay for two lost keys. Each key was about $70 though. Man this job is expensive.

We found out more about our housing in Bangkok. We thought we'd have high rise apartment buildings. It turnes out we are getting a house. Its about 1600 square feet. So its a decent size. It has 5 bathrooms, 3 bedrooms, a maids quarters, and a study. It looks really pretty from the pictures we have seen. Speaking of pictures. Here are a few of the kids. Sorry I'm not posting that many but its harder from the laptop.

Can you see his two teeth?

McKaila saying goodbye to her friend William.

I survived!!!!

David is finally done traveling for a while. He had his last trip this week. He is in the office all next week and then he is all mine till Bangkok. It has been a rough couple of weeks but I made it.

This is probably going to be my last post for a while. I'll try my best to get more done but things are going to be pretty busy the next couple of weeks. We pack out on Thursday of next week so our home computer will be gone. We'll have our laptop but no internet service. We can go over to the fieldhouse and get internet but we probably won't do that too often. We have a lot to do before Thursday. We have to pack our suitcases and find out what we want to throw away. We also have to figure out what is going into storage, our air shipment, and household shipment. So much to do and so little time. Then once we are packed we then have to worry about getting the apartment clean for the inspection. Once that is over we can finally relax. Well we can relax as much as we can. Our inspection is Monday the 24th and we leave Sunday the 30th.

I am so excited to be going home and seeing family. This will really be our last time visiting for a while. It'll be too hard for me to travel 23 hours with two little kids. So our families will just have to come and visit us :)

The kids are doing great. Did I already mention Kameron has two teeth now? They came in so fast. One day they were just barely poking through and two days later both teeth were all the way through and you can see them really well. He is now enjoying baby food. We started him with rice cereal and he didn't enjoy it. He spit it out and seemed to almost choke on it so I thought he wasn't ready for food yet. Well I tried applesauce baby food and he loved it. So now I trick him and mix banana's and rice cereal. He opens his mouth for more. My little boy is growing up so fast. McKaila is getting big as well. She repeats so much of what we say. She is also remembers her friends names. We went to the park yesterday and she saw one of her friends and said "Hi Kaden." It was adorable. Of course Kaden felt so special because McKaila remembered his name. Her favorite food is cheese hotdogs. When I tell her its time for breakfast and to get into her highchair she tells me hotdogs.

Well I am off to go help decorate the church for a ward party tonight. We are having a luau.

Das Tollhaus

David will be home in 2 days. YEAH!!!!! Then he'll have two days off and then he is on another couple of trips. Then he is finished going out of town for a while. These last couple of days have been ok with David gone. We have been keeping busy. That first week was really tough. The weather hasn't been so great though. It has been in the high 50's low 60's this past week. It doesn't feel like summer or fall.

We had a fun day today with my friend, Allison, and her son Aiden. We went to this indoor playground, Das Tollhaus. It had a bunch of fun things to do. They had bobby cars and a little race track, a giant inflatable slide, a ball pit and lots of things to climb on. The kids had so much fun there as you will be able to see in the pictures. They were definetly worn out by the end of the day.
Kameron has two teeth now. Once again he slept through the night last night. I hope it continues. He did really well today just chilling out on my hip. When we got home we ate dinner and went out to the playground outside. McKaila loves playing out there. I let her run off some more energy. She is talking so much. We really have to be careful with what we say because she copies everything now. I can't believe how big my little girl is getting.

Moving plans are coming along. We pack out in 2 weeks and move in 22 days. Thats right I'm counting down. I've made a lot of friends here and will be sad to leave them. I didn't know too many people when we first moved here because I was never at the playground and never got out much because McKaila was just a newborn. I have met so many people now I hate to leave. Just as I was starting to enjoy Frankfurt I move. Thats how life is sometimes. Oh well.

McKaila and Aiden in the ball pit.

McKaila on her bobby car"

McKaila went down this huge slide all by herself. It really is big. I screamed going down it the first time.This slide was little but steep. Everytime they would go down it they would hit the ground with their bottoms and then keep bouncing. He thinks my tractor's sexy :)Kameron in the ball pit.McKaila in the ball pit.

My sweet children and I. Yes, McKaila is picking her nose.

FINALLY!!!

Kameron got his first tooth. It has been so close to breaking through for a while and on September 1st it popped out. His poor gums are so swollen that yesterday it covered his tooth again. It has popped through though. We had a rough night that night as well. I was up with him every two hours and then from 5-7 in the morning he just screamed. Poor little guy. The last two nights have been great with him sleeping though. I pray it continues. He has slept from 8:30 p.m. to 6 a.m. one morning and 7 a.m. the other. I have been having issues with him sleeping all night and it makes it really hard for me to sleep now.

David finally comes home today. We are going to go pick him up from the airport in a little over 3 hours. It'll be nice to have him home. Even though it is only for a day. We had such a rough week. I was so stressed out and cried a couple times everday. Something is wrong with me I guess. Here are a few pictures. It'll probably be a week before I can post again. Enjoy.

McKaila feeding her baby.

Kameron kind of sitting up.

McKaila plays basketball with these guys. From left its Jake, Gage, and lil' Jake

Kameron is finally starting to enjoy his saucer.

Stop and smell the flowers. In this case the leaves. It looks like a flower in the picture but the white is actually from her shirt.

It's Begun

That is my two weeks of misery. David just left for work. He left just now and he will be back next Monday. Then Tuesday he leaves again and will be back Wednesday morning. His flight lands Wednesday at 5 a.m and then he has another trip at 11 a.m and won't be back until Sunday. So if I even get to see him on Wednesday it will be just for him to grab his bags and then leave again. Then I believe he has another trip on Monday. I'm not sure how long that one is. On the bright side that'll be his last trip for a while because of our move. I am just not looking forward to these next two weeks. I was hoping to go to Washington with him but flights were too expensive. Then I was hoping my parents could come out over Labor Day but they need new passports :( So if anyone wants to come visit me. The only thing I can do is to try and stay positive. That'll help get me through the week as well.

I was telling David that we were going to be really bored while he is gone. Kids have all started back to school and so there is no one left on the Seidlung all day. The weather has been nice for the past 4 days. I am hoping it'll stay this way so I can keep my sanity. Anyways, this morning before he left he made me a schedule. It was too cute. He went through hour by hour and wrote us a schedule including naps, meals, playtime and even time for me to clean and do laundry. How thoughtful of him to do so. We have a few things on the 30th for moving. We have a preinspection of the apartment at 8:30 a.m and then a prepack out at 10:30. Some ladies on the ward are going to the temple at 10 and I was going to go but I guess I can't. Then they are having lunch afterwards but David took the navigation system and it is so confusing out here to drive without one. Pretty much every car has one. Even the Germans do.

I feel so bad for Kameron. He now has chapped skin under his chin in the creases of his neck. It is so raw and red. Poor little guy. We have been putting creams on it but it looks like it hurts. He is getting so big. He is finally starting to play with a few toys now. He still isn't a fan of his saucer. Enjoy your week everybody.

Kameron enjoying his swing.

Don't you just love his spikey hair. He's all ready for church.

McKaila giving momma a smile.

McKaila sporting the new hat daddy got her from Switzerland. It say's "Bad Girl" on it and has a little cow.