save the children

this is one of my favorite pictures from the trip.
let's just say we all had some hard days in the Dominican Republic.

july 31st, 2007 - DR journal

matt and i decided to move to an empty bunk room. we all slept very soundly. praise the Lord! actually, aubrey is still asleep.

ok, so this is tuesday morning.... we left the the retreat center and headed to the beach before going to santiago to work at jacagua christian school. this is the last journal entry before august 2nd.

tuesday we spent an amazing day at the beach. i was in heaven. nothing like having a number of "helpers" to play with aubrey so that i could relax. matt spent the afternoon cliff jumping and swimming. i didn't quite relax, so to speak, i kind of went snorkeling.... it was awesome! only problem is that swimming doesn't really seem like exercise to me. you don't sweat. you don't get tired (until later). i wound up being out in the ocean for over 2 hours. not so smart. that night was the first night that i wound up in pain and on bed rest.

july 30th 2007 - DR journal

Psalm 86:1-3

Bend down, O Lord and hear my prayer;
answer me, for I need your help.
Protect me, for I am devoted to you.
Save me, for I serve and trust you.
You are my God.
Be merciful, O Lord,
for I am calling on you constantly.

up bright and early at 5 am. aubrey decided that as long as 13 other people were in her room, it must be time to play. trying to keep a toddler from waking up a room full of people is quite a feat. i prayed through an hour of rocking her. when it was light enough in the room to see, i discovered that she was covered in bug bites. they were head to toe, so many it looked like chicken pox... the guilt set in. i had one bite on my knee and my poor baby was covered. what had i gotten her into? seems the mosquito got stuck in her pack & play and made a meal out of my baby. she hasn't complained though. the kid is amazing. takes everything in stride (that's her daddy's personality coming out).

we had our breakfast and our team climbed into a pick-up truck to head out to the schools and hand out supplies. the driver, susie, aubrey and i sat in the front (aubrey on my lap) and everyone else crowded into the back of the truck with the supplies.



i prayed up every hill and around every sharp turn, but we made it safely. we were warmly welcomed in each community. we were able to play games with the kids and "practice" our spanish. try teaching 10 kids card games in another language is interesting. i still don't know how to say "go fish" in spanish. the kids were sweet, they loved aubrey. they shared coconut meat with her (yeah, for peer pressure).


matt has been awesome. i get worn out easily (and tired, and hot). he has been great at anticipating my needs and being a strong shoulder to lean on. he and aubrey spent an entire hour or so together swimming in the river. aubrey made friends with a dominican boy who took on a "big brother" role and kept an eye on her while she played. thankfully, aubrey fell asleep in my arms on the way home. God has graciously provided a catnap for her each day.




we got home, took showers and headed out to dinner. we got to dip our feet in the ocean and eat pizza. (yeah!) it was a perfect end to a wonderful day.

july 29th, 2007 - DR journal

i just took the best cold shower of my life. i would have stayed in longer if i wasn't so tired. today was a long day. up at 4 am, to the airport by 6:30, by 8 am we were on our way. for a full day of flying aubrey did exceptionally well. we arrived in puerto plata at around 2 or 3 pm, not sure, time is kind of a non-issue. we had an amazing meal and I was surprised to watch aubrey gobble up everything... rice, beans, chicken. she is picking up spanish faster then i am. makes me excited to see what God has in store for us on this trip and in the future.

wow, what a summer!

hey all... we have returned. our computer and internet are FINALLY up and running at the new house and i am hoping that this means many "nap times" filled with blogging and internet surfing. thank goodness that it is finally set up. i know you are all anxiously waiting for the details of our missions trip. i will try to make up for a very "quiet" august on our blog with many posts of our adventures in the DR, and updates with what is going on in our neck of the woods.
thank you for your patience.

leaving on a jet plane

we leave tomorrow for the dominican republic at 8:05 am.

please keep us in your prayers this week as we travel.

Adios!

most of my day is filled with phrases like, "aubrey, don't feed the chalk to chloe" "aubrey don't give the dog your baby doll" "chloe get off the baby" "chloe give me the blanket." but sometimes amidst the chaos there are moments like this that make it all go away for just a quick moment... then it's back to, "aubrey do not give the dog your shoe."

if life wasn't crazy enough

new house. new baby.... yes baby.
if you haven't already heard, we are happy to announce that we are expecting baby#2 in december. aubrey is going to be a big sister!!! please continue to keep us in your prayers as we grow our little family just a little bit bigger this year. we are sorry for the delay in "blog-announcing" our happy news, but i wasn't sure of the blog etiquette for pregnancy announcements. i am just about 17 weeks pregnant, we are terribly excited for this december and cannot wait to meet our little one. i can tell already that baby #2 is already sporting a different personality then miss aubrey. i remember specifically aubrey being quite feisty in utero even this early. our newest addition seems a little quieter. it's fun to think about a completely different person joining our o'malley clan, i wonder what it will be like?

we are scheduled for another ultrasound in a couple of weeks so i will post the new ultrasounds and, lord willing, will be able to tell you all if our little pumpkin will be a BOY or GIRL!

a new addition

CHLOE
9 weeks old

cows, cows, cows

the title of this blog only my mother will understand, so let me explain.... while we were growing up my family took a trip out to visit my aunt sweetie (my grandmom's sister) in western pa. being from new jersey we were quite fascinated with the "countryside" as we drove. however our fascination only lasted a few hours and about halfway through the trip we got bored with it. my parents not realizing this continued to point out "look girls, cow." to which we replied.... "cows, cows, cows."

ANYWAY.....here are some photos from the backyard, well, about 20 feet from the backyard. we can walk over to the fence and greet the cows everyday at dinnertime. which is a hot commodity now but in a few years i am anticipating hearing "cows, cows, cows" from aubrey.

you gotta help me luke, i'm in escrow

after many years and much prayer we are now the proud owners of a new home, and in 2037 it will be ours. until then, we are looking forward to many wonderful memories of our kids growing up in this house. thankfully it came with a swing set and the makings for a vegetable garden.

aubrey had a couple of rough days adjusting, but each day gets a little better and i know she likes it here. this is confirmed every time we pull in the driveway and she yells, "WEeeeee!" (meaning she wants to go swing on the swings. thank God for those swings!)

we wanted to thank all of you who have prayed so hard for us these past few years.... God is so good!

beat the heat.

photos courtesy of sarah peeler

they say summer is officially here. well at least temperature wise. i am told it hit 90 degrees today. ugh! aubrey and i spent the afternoon with some friends at bell tavern park. they have a fun fountain that the kids can play in. aubrey wasn't to fond of the water, but we just had to run in every couple of minutes to cool off.

play clothes

i think at this age all clothes are play clothes. aubrey doesn't stay clean for very long these days. that's ok though. i feel as though i have somehow "arrived" as a mother, while standing over the washer applying "spray and wash" to the knees of kid jeans.

our little gardener

i thought "the constant gardener" would have been a little to cliche'. although, that is sometimes what it feels like. aubrey ALWAYS wants to be outside. i have heard her father did the same thing at the very same age. matt used to stand at the back door begging to go outside. well, hopefully it just means our very outdoorsy girl won't mind things like hiking, kayaking, spelunking, etc. as she grows up. (i just added spelunking for fun... we have only done that once. i am not sure i would want to do it again. i am not really into being in the dark.... with bats.)

she's aloud to love princesses, pink and ballerinas as long as she never looses that love for the outside.

grammy has taught aubrey how to water the flowers, how to pick the pansies so they don't go to seed, and how to pat the dirt when you plant something. her work has been greatly rewarded with a energetic "FLOWER" from aubrey every time they go outside. as well as aubrey taking little sniffs at all the flowers she sees.

summer missions trip to the dominican republic.

This summer our family will be heading down to the Dominican Republic for a work week. It has been a dream of ours to be able to go on a missions trip together as a family and this year is our first opportunity to do so. Melissa, Aubrey and I are heading down to the DR with a group of young adults and high school students. The team is scheduled to leave July 29th and we will be returning August 6th. Many of you know that we have had missions on our hearts for a long time. We attended “Next Steps” with Crossworld Missions in the spring of ’05 and felt God asking us to step out in prayer and faith to see where he may be leading us. God has given us an opportunity to not only minister to the hearts of the Dominicans this summer, but also effect the lives of our student teammates that we will be working with in preparation for this trip. The team will first go to Nagua and pass out school supplies and then work on a construction project in Santiago. We are excited to see where God is moving and join him wherever we can.

We would like to ask for your support. It will cost our family $2000 to make this trip and we need to have all our funds raised by the end of MAY! This is a huge step of faith for us, as we are trusting God to provide the finances to allow us to go. If you feel led to support us financially checks can be sent to:

Calvary Fellowship Church
Attn:Pastor Scott Pollock
95 W. Devon Dr. Downingtown, PA 19335

Checks should be payable to CALVARY FELLOWSHIP CHURCH with a small “post-it” stuck on them that says “DR TRIP: The O’Malley’s”. (The memo section of the checks are supposed to be left blank.)

Please pray as we prepare for the trip and while we are there. Pray for the language barriers as Melissa and I try to remember how to speak Spanish (by the way thanks mom-mom and granddad for the lessons). Pray for team unity and safety in travel and as we work. Pray that lives will be changed as a result of this trip. Pray that we will be able to trust the lord with our worries as we take our little girl to another part of the world. (This is slightly out of our parenting “comfort zone”.)

THANKS

MATT, MISSY, and little Aubrey too.

well at least we tried.

ok... well, there is one part of me who would like to maintain a "super-parent" identity and only show you the latter of these photos. but the other part of me wants you to know how insane and hilarious and FUN parenting is and can be.

saturday was a beautiful day and matt and i had decided a little while back that we wanted to try and go kayaking (with the baby) sometime soon. we got the stickers for the boats. we even got aubrey a toddler "off-shore" life-vest. we were ready to go.... and totally out of our minds.

we packed everything up on saturday morning and headed out to marsh creek. no one had had anything to eat yet. we were all a little cranky, but we had loaded everything up....we had driven everything over....we were going to do this. it was a fiasco. it was almost as bad as when matt and i kayaked on our anniversary in one of the two-seater kayaks (AKA "the divorce boat").

aubrey isn't really happy about anything new... she takes a little while to warm up to things, so she started bawling as soon as we put her in the boat. all i could think was, let's just make it to the next shore, we can have lunch and try again on the way back. i spent the entire 10 minute paddle singing "row, row, row your boat" and feeding her snacks so she would stop crying. it didn't work.

we pulled into the next little shore area. it was muck. we waded in and aubrey stopped crying.... and started throwing sand and eating pond scum, while matt and i stood there and bickered over whether it was a harder job to entertain the cranky kid or to pull in the boats and unload lunch. nobody won. we ate lunch..... and three different people got back into those boats. (obviously next time we are eating lunch before we try anything crazy like this again.)

the ride back was an entirely different experience. aubrey threw rocks in the water and when she ran out of rocks.... she was comfortable enough to start moving around. i don't really know which was worse, the crying child who stayed in one place or the happy child who was trying to capsize the boat.

we waded in back at the boat dock.... i pulled the boats up to the grass, and matt played with aubrey in the water. the whole day ended with aubrey bravely sticking her face toward the water and losing her balance....and basically going under. didn't anyone tell this kid there is NO SWIMMING at Marsh Creek, it's a reservoir. she went home in my t-shirt and a diaper.... super-mom forgot a change of clothes.

family days

we are kind of in a lull here.... (a very welcome lull). matt has cut back on hours at starbuck in order to prepare for "house stuff". we are not yet in our new home (Lord willing we settle on June 8th).... and it's a little to early to pack or do anything on this end yet. so we have embraced our free saturday and sunday afternoons and made sure to have some family time whenever we can. last sunday afternoon we spent the day at springton manor farm with aubrey. it was so much fun to have her see in person what she has only seen in books. we saw goats, sheep, horses and brand new baby piglets (like wilbur, aw, how cute!). we are looking forward to these next few FREE weekends before we become "home-owners".

practicing for "fear factor"

little girls hate bugs...right? not ours. we have a bunch of little bugs that i bought a couple of months ago, they have made their way from the toybox to the bath tub. aubrey spends the entirety of her bath "tasting" each one and sticking them on her belly. she does this with all of them except for the lady-bugs which she merely holds in her hand and shakes her head "no," because i have deemed them to small to put in her mouth. nice mother.... let her suck on a centipede or play with a roach but don't let the poor child put the cute little lady-bug in her mouth.

(late) easter post.

i should have posted these a long time ago...
aubrey's first easter she could hardly sit up. this year she got to join in all the fun.
easter egg hunts (in icy cold temperatures) playing with her cousins and getting to eat a yummy easter dinner (thanks mom and dad!).
aubrey's grammy, na-na and gigi were a lot better then mom this year. i totally forgot about doing an easter basket. but luckly she didn't miss out.

personally i love this picture of pappy in the bunny ears. i was going to post the close up of him and aubrey. but i think he would have killed me. but this one gives you the idea.

all the little babies are getting so big. even brooke participated in the festivities. sort of.
i loved looking back at last years easter post to see how big they all have gotten.

if they are being quiet, they're up to something

i heard her go into the bathroom. i heard her talking to the mirror.... then i heard nothing. what's the worst thing she could be doing? the toilet paper was almost out (she had pulled it all off the roll the other day). the cabinets were all shut (she usually doesn't pay attention to them unless i am in there). she's probably playing with her bath toys, right? a few more moments go by, ok, i need to go check this out.

this is what i find.

nice.

No!

i am amazed at how fast your kids grow up. i remember my mom saying "it feels like just yesterday that you girls were...." aubrey is almost a year and a half, and my how the time has just flown by. i cannot believe i am the mommy of a toddler. new parenting "opportunities" are arising each day, as her awareness of her independence grows. i have now come to the point were i have to say "it's time for a nap" or "it's time for lunch" instead of "do you want lunch?" or "do you want to go to bed?" which is met with a miniature "no" from my toddler. now that aubrey has mastered the art of walking (aside from the running into things and falling over stuff).... she is now reverting back to her former passion in life, babbling up a storm! except now it's a little different then a few months ago. the babbling actually resembles words. she tries to repeat things you say and comes out with the darnedest stuff. yesterday the surprise word of the day was "i-pod," now there is a sign of the times, eh?

spring...come back please!

matt, aubrey and i spent lunch at the park. (this is back on that 70 degree day, where we thought spring had finally arrived....lies, lies i tell you!) cannot wait for it to warm up again. there is something wrong with it being this cold in april.

we ran into some of aubrey's little friends...and enjoyed the sunny weather together.

it's so much fun having friends with kids around the same age. i love seeing them interact, especially since just a few months ago they could all be in the same room and have no idea the other one was there.