Filling up our Quiver!!

Whoa... it's been almost 4 months since I've posted a blog.  I've got a LOT of catching up to do, because a LOT sure has happened in La Familia de Gallegos since June. For starters, we had family pictures done a few weeks ago!  What a fun way to document the end of summer for our little family.  Levi is now just over 2 1/2 years old, and Lexi is now 15 months.  My wonderful friend Dawn was patient enough to capture some wonderful pictures of our little family.

Since June we've celebrated Lexi's first birthday, had visits from friends and family, completed a massive DIY backyard overhaul, took our first trip to Hawaii,  I started taking college classes again, plus many other simple, yet blog worthy activities that I really need to write about ASAP.  Ah, but catching up will just have to wait a bit longer, because we have exciting news to share that just simply cannot wait.   First off, here's a little insight from the Good Book:                                                                                                     

            "Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him. Children born to a young man are like arrows in a warrior's hands. How joyful is the man whose quiver is full of them!" Psalms 127: 3-5

Apparently our Heavenly Father felt like we had room for even more joy in our lives, so next May we'll be filling up our Quiver by one!

Translation:

We are expecting our third child to arrive in May 2014!!

We are super excited and feel so fortunate to be having another baby.  Children really are a gift from God, and we are completely in love with our little family (even though not every day alone is completely lovely. Ha!). Can't wait to meet the newest little Gallegos next spring!!

11 months ~ Holy Moly!

Just think, in a few short week our cutie-pa-totie Lexi will be ONE!  But until then, I'm going to keep on enjoying my little 11 month old.  She really is such a sweet baby.
At 11 months, Lexi is not only crawling at super lightning fast speeds, but she is now walking!! She's not very good at it, and I think her record to date is a whopping 7 steps, but either way she is taking steps and getting stronger every day. 

 We've yet to experience any stranger anxiety with her, which I think may be a sign of her personality.  She's just chill and loves everyone!  Hey, if we get to skip that stage altogether with her, you won't hear me complain!

 Lexi has perfected the wave and will clap and cheer for you after every song you sing, though her favorite to date seems to be "The Isty Bitsy Spider."

Look close, she has 5 teeth!  Two on top and three on bottom.

 She's working on learning to use a sippy cup, and is very efficient at self-feeding.   She doesn't have a favorite food that I can tell, but she also doesn't refuse any food, so I'm happy with that. 

She can repeat after us saying "dada" and "mama" but hasn't associated those words with us yet.  She shakes and nods her head, and can almost sign the word "more" while eating (although she usually prefers to just scream at the top of her lungs until you give her another bite).

 She has enough hair for a clip!! No need for the head bands anymore!

   Lexi is also super ticklish, which is always great fun for us!  ;)

 Getting photo bombed by a dirty big brother.  Yup, they love each other.  And yes, she too enjoys eating some dirt every once in a while.

  We love you, Lexi-bugs (or Wexi-bugs, as Levi would say!)

Mother's Day: My One Thing (Or two actually...)

Levi~19 months, Lexi~1 month

Aren't they adorable?!?!? 


First Mother's Day with Lexi

This is officially the 3rd year I get to celebrate Mother's Day.  Did you catch that?  I GET to celebrate Mother's Day.  No, I'm not expecting any gifts or presents or grandiose gestures from my kiddos telling me how great I am or how much they love me.  It's quite the opposite.  I feel so blessed to be their mom that I've decided today is a day I get to celebrate THEM!  They made me a mom, they are my gift, and that's definitely worth celebrating!

My first Mother's day, May 2011

To those of you that have known me for quite some time, it should come as no surprise when I say that I didn't always want to have children.  In fact, to those of you that knew me before we had Levi, it may have been shocking whenever you heard we were expecting.  You see, if I'm being completely honest, I never had that internal natural desire that most women get to become a mom.  The thought of being pregnant almost made me ill.  I just really didn't like babies all that much and had absolutely NO desire to ever bring one home with me.

(Of note, I have always loved my job as a nurse working with children and babies, and I have always been crazy in love with my 15 nieces and nephews - I just never wanted to keep one.)

When Moises and I got married we always talked about having kids.  We both assumed we would have them someday, and when we envisioned our future we saw ourselves with children, however neither one of us ever got to the point where we had "baby fever."  We never truly yearned for a baby or craved to conceive a child - we just never really got there.  When it comes to biological clocks, I'm pretty sure mine never started ticking.  At times I even doubt whether I ever HAD a clock to begin with!!

April 2013

So there we were, living the good life, living the "dream."  Just the two of us.  Young, happy, enjoying our daily freedoms, waiting for that moment when we would be struck like lightning and a spark would light up within us that infamous "baby fever" we had heard so much about.  Waiting for some neon sign to start flashing, saying "The Time Has Come to Procreate!!"  Waiting for something...anything to change our hearts and let us know that moment had finally arrived.  Yup...that never happened!!

Well, you all know the end of this story.  Here I sit writing this blog while my 10 month old daughter is playing next to me and my 2 year old son is napping in his room.

Lexi Jane ~ 11 weeks

So what happened, you ask?  What was it that changed our minds?  When did we get our "baby fever?"  Well, we didn't.  Pregnancy came as a surprise to us.  Utter shock, actually.  Such a surprise, in fact, that once we found out we didn't even talk about it for at least a week!  I was 13 weeks pregnant before we finally told our families we were expecting.  It took me that long for two reasons: first off I had no clue how to tell them, and second I knew they would be very excited, and I simply wasn't ready for their excitement. I remember being about 8 months pregnant with Levi asking myself "Laura, are you sure you're ready for this?  Do you really want a baby? Do you really want to live through all the changes that this tiny person is about bring into your life?"

When Levi was born, our moment finally came.  We fell in love with a tiny 9lb person, and our journey through this thing called life was forever changed - and that change was good. Amazing, actually. :) 18 months later we fell in love again, this time with a beautiful 7lb person we named Lexi.

Levi Moises ~ 20 months

There's a song written by my favorite Christian group (33 Miles) titled One Life to Love.  It tells the story about finding that one thing in life you don't want to miss out on.  It tells how we only have but one life to love.  Not live, but LOVE.  It was this song that made me ponder that maybe I did always want children.  Not every day as a mom is a day in Mayberry, and some days are filled with more tough moments than good moments.  Yet, no matter where life takes me, no matter what I have to sacrifice, no matter how difficult and stressful, time consuming, and expensive it can be, I would never want to live my entire life having never met and loved my Levi and Lexi. 

If you've never heard that song, you should look it up.  It's a great song!  (And I'll just go ahead and add in that 33 Miles is a great band in my opinion!)  They have been my favorite for quite some time now.  Let me share with you some of the words to their song that tug at my heart strings.

 

...You only get just one time around
 You only get one shot at this.

One chance to find out the one thing that you don't want to miss.

One day when it's all said and done, 
I hope you see that it was enough,

This one ride, one try, one life... to love!

10 months

I have never regretted having children.  And if I'm being quite honest with you all, it's probably the best thing we ever did.  I am so grateful that God decided to bless us in such an incredible way.  The bible speaks of children as being a blessing.  And oh what a blessing they are!!
Levi and Lexi mean more to me than I could ever express with words.  The love I feel for them and the joy they've brought to our lives is probably something that can only be understood by those who have had children themselves.  Not wanting children for most of my life, or even to some degree up until the day Levi was born, had absolutely no impact on how I feel about them today.  The love I feel is not just any type of love, but the kind of love that would make you jump in front of a speeding train if it meant sparing them from harm.  It's the kind of love that would give you the strength to lift up a car if your baby was underneath it.  It's the kind of love that would lead you to share, or even give up completely the last piece of cake!!! Haha! That's a crazy kind of Love!  A powerful kind of Love!

How is it possible that out of all the little kids in the whole world... we got the best ones?

Levi and Lexi have become the tiny little axis that our world now spins around.  They are my One Thing I don't want to miss - and I wouldn't have it any other way!  Will there be more babies in our future?!  Ummm... Not today.  But someday?  I do hope so.  I guess only God knows. =)
As far as today, I got to treat myself to some serious playtime with my kiddos.  So happy to be their mom! :)

October 2012

First Beach Visit of 2013

The sun came out and the temperature finally creeped it's way up to the 70s, so the kids and I packed up, threw on our shorts and sunglasses, and met up with some wonderful friends at Sunny Side beach in Steilacoom.  It was an absolutely gorgeous day to pretend it was summer!

As soon as we hit the sand, Levi was tugging at my shorts asking me to help take his shoes off, then he headed straight down to the water. 

Toes in the sand, sun in his eyes - a happy boy!  Here he is with his silly "say cheeeeeese" grin. :)

He wasn't deterred at all by the cold water.  He had me a little worried that I would at some point have to go in there after him, and I was not nearly as excited as him about getting wet.  Thankfully, he was very well behaved and stayed relatively close to me.

Lexi, on the other hand, hung out with me and Ms. Alissa for the most part, which made her quite happy.

This next picture is a great example of what happens when the sun is too bright for you to see the screen on your phone, but you attempt to take pictures anyways.  Yup, I thought I was taking pictures of the kids, when I was actually taking pictures of myself taking pictures.  Nice one, Laura.

Yes, there is a tiny Lexi underneath that hat.

Our beach buddies!  Alissa, holding baby Capri, Sarah, Mary-Hayden, and Sterling (he's the super cool dude standing on one foot wearing goggles).

And to the left was the rest of our beach buddies, Ainsley, Kadence, Kristy, and Kinsleigh.  Oh, it looks like I caught Lexi trying to steal herself some snacks out of Kristy's bag.  See!?  I told you that girl was serious about her food!

 

Digging in the sand with Isabella and Boone.

 

Lexi's first time playing in the sand.

Umm... another accidental picture of myself attempting to take pictures.

And this is a prime example of why our kids love Ms. Alissa so so much!  She feeds them, and she feeds them the good stuff.  This time it was Cheetos.  Lexi just sort of licked hers, but Levi went all out!  The sand on his hands obviously didn't slow him down.  I suppose that made them extra crunchy? =)


Ahhh... what a great way to spend a beautiful, sunshiny PNW day!

Seizure Update

Several people have asked me about Levi and how his follow up with Seattle Children's Neurology went.  Thank you to each of you for your prayers and concern! Our appointment had a little good news mixed in with some still concerning news.  After examining Levi, then hearing our account of exactly what happened the day of Levi's seizure, here is what the provider decided about Levi's seizure:

1. Levi's seizure was NOT a complex febrile seizure - His highest recorded temperature at home was 99.5, which medically speaking is not even considered a fever.

2.  The seizure may have been caused by a GI virus, however she was very hesitant to name that the cause also - his seizure happened on a Saturday, he had no symptoms of illness on Sunday, then started vomiting and having an upset stomach on Monday.  So, it's possible there is a connection here, and apparently children suffering from a GI virus are sometimes susceptible to seizures (This was news to us, we were unaware of this before hand).  However, since it was 2 days after his seizure that those symptoms occurs, our provider couldn't make that diagnosis without any uncertainty.

3.  Levi was found to be clinically stable and appeared very healthy, therefore no further testing is needed at this time - She gave us the option of doing an EEG, although she felt very comfortable not ordering one based on his clinical exam.  We are very comforted knowing his CT scan was clear (no brain tumors, phew!) and no matter the reading of the EEG, we would most likely chose not to put him on medication unless another seizure occurs.  So, we all agreed that the EEG wasn't necessary at this time.

4. Bottom line - we watch him closely for a year.  He is the most vulnerable as he is falling asleep or waking up as his level of consciousness changes, so we will need to listen and watch him closely at those times.  We were given a prescription for a "rescue" medication in the event he has another seizure lasting longer than 3 minutes.  If Levi makes it a full year without having a repeat seizure, we should be able to relax with the assumption that he won't have another.  It's not the definite answers we were hoping for, but it's not at all the bad news it could have been.  Still leaves us with some concern, but the good news is she said he looks good enough that further testing isn't needed.
 

Moises and I have both relaxed and are comforted with the belief that Levi will be just fine.  We are not naive, thus we will still watch him closely.  However we don't expect him to have any more seizures (here's to praying our parental intuition is correct!).  We have faith in God to continue to take care of us, and thank each and every one of you that prayed for us and prayed for Levi.