A Glimpse of Our Little Angel

Yesterday we had our 25 week appointment, and everything is 正好(zhenghao), as they say in Chinese. She's already in a head down position, the right size, and everything else is great. Apparently she also has a 高的鼻子， or "high nose". The doctor and technicians were very excited about this, and informed us she is very very beautiful. I'm not sure what the exact meaning of a high nose is, but apparently it's good :-)

Here's a few pics and a short video of the sono. The first part of the video isn't that great, but afterwards you can see her open her mouth and move around a little. Amazing how far technology has come.

She played shy most of the 4D sono part and kept hiding her face with her hand.

From Pregnancy

Finally, a glimpse of her sweet face!

From Pregnancy

And look at those long legs!

From Pregnancy

And last but not least, me a week ago at 24 weeks.

From Pregnancy

By the way, yes I said 'she'! :-)

Art Show

So I realized today, that not only had I not blogged in a long while, I had completely forgotten that I had a blog! That's pregnancy brain for you...

Today was the school's Middle School and High School Fine Arts Show, and it is really nice to have it behind me! Actually, it was a great, but busy day, and I had not one, but two pieces of cheesecake! (Cheesecake, especially good cheesecake is particularly rare here.) That alone makes for a good day.

In all seriousness, it was fantastic to have examples of all of my students' work out all together. It gave a nice sense of accomplishment, and the other students were so impressed they told me they're planning on taking art next semester! I took my camera to school, but completely forgot to take even a single picture! (Again, I blame the pregnancy brain.) However, my middle school photojournalism students were assigned to "document" the event, so if I get any good pictures out of them I'll do my best to post them.

On another note, this weekend we are taking Jillian to Xi'an to see the Terracotta soldiers. I'm excited to go on one last trip before she leaves, and of course to stay in a western hotel again! Ah, to have a bath tub...and a soft bed...what more does a pregnant woman want in the world?

Hard to believe there's only three and half more weeks of school before we head home to AMERICA! Hurray! Sorry, Texas friends, for this 10 day trip we'll only be able to make it to Oregon. But we promise to be back this summer! Hope to see you all then.

Baby Bump

From Pregnancy

From Pregnancy

So I finally have a real baby bump! Of course to me my body has felt different for ages, but last week I wore an outfit that happened to highlight the bump and nobody can deny it from these pics. Most days I can still hide it pretty well depending on what I wear (you can see from the pictures how much even angles make a difference), but I'm definitely growing out of most of my clothes! Especially my pants. I can't wait to get back to the US for Christmas to buy some "in between" outfits.

My old work blessed me with quite a few items of maternity clothes when my sister came over in early October, but I think it will be awhile before I fit into either of the pants. And unfortunately almost everyone here has had a summer or fall baby, so no one has winter clothes to lend. I did get a wool skirt tailor made which turned out really well, but is a little big so will be awhile before I can wear it too. However, I was really impressed with it so I can't wait to go back and get some more clothes made! I also want to get a good winter maternity jacket made. The cool thing is that it is so much cheaper here to have it made than to buy it in the States! My skirt came out to about 15 USD, and I looked at equivalent ones for more than 50-100 USD online! Definitely a benefit of living outside the States.

A downside is that Chinese pregnancy clothes look a lot like US pregnancy clothes from the 80's. You know, overalls, huge overshirts, and baggy pants. So I haven't been able to find anything in the stores that I like. Actually, I haven't found any maternity shops since I've been pregnant at all...oh well.

By the way, we now have our tickets and we'll be back in Portland on December 22! Can't wait to see anyone who is around!

An Update

I thought once I was able to announce our pregnancy, I would have abounding material to write posts on. Instead I've been too exhausted to do anything but occasionally keep up on my friends' blogs! But I did want to give an update...

This Saturday we are 12 weeks! I can't believe the time has already passed so quickly. Most times I feel as though I've gotten off pretty easy this first trimester, but it has definitely been hard. Working full time is exhausting...I feel as though I sleep whenever I am not at school, and most of my days go bye in a fog. I'm waiting for that mystical "burst of energy" people talk about in second trimester, but we'll see.

The morning sickness hasn't been too miserable. Really I've had two rough weeks as far as stomach goes, general heartburn, and a lot of just feeling blah the rest of the time. But I haven't thrown up once, which is a blessing!

We've had one doctor appointment, which Nathan posted the sonogram on his blog. Don't get too excited, it doesn't look like much in the picture! But everything was healthy, we could see and hear the heartbeat, and we were even a few days farther along than I thought we were. It was exciting to see an actual living thing inside of me!

Here are a few pics. I know it's cheesy, but I hope to do the customary pregnancy "flip book". Here's installments one and two:

About 5 weeks:



And last week at 11:

From Pregnant

I have to say, last week at school a parent commented that my belly was visible. It was pretty exciting for someone other than Nathan and me to notice!

6 Weeks And...

So, I was going to make a post, but my husband's post says it all. Check here for the big news :-)

mallaksavindica.blogspot.com

Needless to say, we are very excited :-)

Mid-Term Reports

So I'm proud of myself. Not for getting up early this morning and doing an hour of grading before school (and then promptly leaving it at home-how frustrating!), but for actually getting in an average of six grades per class by the first mid-quarter report. Now you may say, what big feat is that? Well, with 8 classes, totally with 120 students, that's a lot of grades! Roughly 720 items worth of grading. In four weeks. And most of it done in the last week (not the assigning, but the grading, that is-I tend to get behind). Last year I think I was lucky to have 2-3 grades per class by this time. But the hard thing with that was that if a student bombed one thing, their grade plummeted. This year I'm trying to break things down into smaller parts, which helps their grades, but totally eats my time!

However, I have matured as a teacher. I now have rubrics, lesson plans, and even course outlines! (Almost) no more deciding day of what I am teaching. Adjustments always have to be made, but hey, we're talking vast improvement.

This is good, because this year I'm teaching even more classes than my crazier than ever schedule I had last year. I'm also taking an extra 1/2 hour of Chinese a week, will soon be teaching a sex-ed seminar at a local school, and have a cousin to take care of (luckily she takes care of herself pretty well). But I'm holding on. By the skin of my teeth, but it still counts.

Not Much To Blog About

These last few weeks have been pretty quiet. Nathan has been horribly ill for the last two weeks, but is finally feeling better (when the antibiotics aren't making him feel worse). Things with Jillian are great. She seems to be doing well making friends with her peers and has balanced homework, time with us, and everything else pretty well. I'm still going crazy with all of my classes (I have 6 preps-if there are any teachers out there who know what that means), and mid-quarters are due on Monday, so it's going to be an exciting weekend of grading, entering grades, and more grading (followed by more entering of grades).

Our good friends Jacquelyn and Jeremy just had a death in the family, so they are currently on a plane back to the states. Our hearts are with them and their family and we will definitely miss them over the next month.

Other than that, life is just cruising by. We have Fall Camp next week. I'll be on the High School Girls Camp leading art workshops and Nathan will be attending the Middle School camp to the wonderful beach city we went to last year. Then the week after that we have a week off school-and my sister is coming to visit! Yay! So so so excited about that.

Hope you all are well and life is going great!