OH BOY!

We found out we are having a little BOY! I was so surprised! All along I felt like we were having a girl but then I woke up the morning of our ultrasound and just "knew" it was a boy.
It was so fun to see his little body moving all over the place on the screen. It's still crazy to me that he is inside of me. It's a little weird and mostly awesome. The ultrasound tech told us I am measuring 5 days ahead and our boy is "very rambunctious". Oh heavens!

My appetite is back to normal but sadly for Blake, Chiptole does not sound good to me at allllll. It's probably for the best though with all the e coli stuff happening there. I also still can't stomach chili- bad memories from first trimester sickness.

I haven't had any crazy strong cravings but cold cereal like honey nut cheerios and mini marshmallows always sound SO good to me.

I slept 10 hours straight Friday night after a week of waking up every hour with hip pain/bathroom runs. I felt like I could rule the world Saturday so we tackled IKEA, Babies R Us and Buy Buy Baby -without any meltdowns I might add. #winning.

 The only decorations so far in the nursery, his sonograms month by month :) 

2015 year in review

0:  Pinterest recipe fails (yay!), baby clothes purchased so far (I do have some self control)
1:  pregnancy announcement, new state visited, pen conventions attended (yes you read that right), new country visited, Georgetown certificate program started (Stefi), promotion (Blake)
2:  sunburns (Blake), snow days off of work, number of baby kicks felt so far, sonograms, new China visas
3:  year anniversary celebrated, new church calling, diaper bags kept
4:  diaper bags purchased, new Pinterest recipe successes
5:  new books read, weekends babysitting little Mike
6:  new fountain pens purchased, dinner parties held, sand castles built
7:  unsolicited belly rubs
8:  hours spent jumping ocean waves in Cali
9:  groups of Asian tourists begging for a picture with us
10+:  hours researching strollers and gliders, flights taken, Target runs, hours spent sick on couch for Stefi (worth it!)

Here we go 2016!

BABY BEHNKE!

Blake and I are so excited, grateful, and THRILLED to be welcoming a baby into our family this coming June!

We had been hoping for a baby but weren't sure when it would happen for us. On Blake's birthday, I had an inkling that I might be pregnant. I decided to take a test but told myself I couldn't be sad if it was negative so it wouldn't ruin Blake's birthday.

Longest 2 minutes of my life! I was shocked and so happy to see a positive result. I quickly wrapped up a special gift and card (with an inside joke) telling Blake he was going to be a dad before he got home.

I tried to act as normal as possible while Blake opened up his other gifts. I finally gave him my present and watched as his face looked so shocked and then slowly registered what was happening. Then we started crying, laughing and hugging each other. It was the best night.

The first trimester was rough but Blake handled it all like a champ. We learned important lessons like when I'm throwing up, I want you to come rub my back but do NOT talk to me and tell me 'its ok' ;)

Seeing the adorable little flips, kicks and heart beat during our sonogram appointments have made the rough parts all worth it. Since then we've been frantically researching cribs, mattresses, strollers, car seats, and gliders like all neurotic first time parents. And we've been loving every second.

The excitement has just grown and grown as we've told family, friends and then the big announcement. We are so grateful for everyone's excitement, support and love. Thank you! Cheers to the 2nd trimester!

Prenatal yoga here I come :)

#backtoschool

This weekend I went back to school.

After undergrad then grad school I never thought I'd be back in a classroom!

I'm attending Georgetown to get a certificate in Early Intervention. I currently work in early intervention providing speech therapy to infants and toddlers birth-3 with special needs. I'm hoping to be better equipped to work with families and gain more skills as an early interventionist. 

This is a mostly online course so I'm still working full time with my cute kiddos. I could never leave them! :) I'm feeling a little crazy for going back to school but Blake promised to help me with my homework ha. 

I've already learned a lot after two days, like did you know there is a huge "word gap" between children born into low income families vs higher income families? By age 3, children born into low income families have heard about 30 MILLION fewer words than their affluent peers.

Kinda scary. I want to change that :) 

No matter what your income level- TALK WITH YOU KIDS!

Wish me luck as I remember how to use blackboard, write research papers and use ABA formatting blah blah blah :S

P.S. More info on the 'word gap' issue

http://www.naeyc.org/tyc/article/the-word-gap

http://www.nationaljournal.com/early-childhood/30-Million-Word-Gap-Divides-Rich-Poor-Kids

Best of Beijing

We booked a day tour through out hotel to hit the highlights of Beijing. We totally lucked out because tour group can be really big and lame but we only had 4 other people in our group! Our tour guide was awesome and told us lots of interesting facts throughout the day. My favorite is the classy "I heart tequila shirt". Nice.

Our first stop was Tienanmen Square. This is the entrance gate into the Forbidden City and has a lot of cultural significant. I loved the Forbidden City! I kept picturing Mulan scaling the walls to save the emperor. The Forbidden City is huge and made up of a bunch of different buildings. I had no idea how big it was, it took a good 2 hours to walk through. Our tour guide told us lots of interesting facts about the various emperors and royal families. Apparently one of the emperors was so paranoid about being murdered that he had the top floor of his sleeping quarters made up into 9 different identical bedrooms. He would randomly sleep in a different bedroom every night so one one knew exactly where he was sleeping. The emperor believed he was the son of heaven and that belief was very apparent in the layout, order, and overall feeling of the Forbidden City.

Then we drove about an hour and half to the Great Wall. Unfortunately by that time it was late in the afternoon and 100 degrees but we were still excited. Blake randomly got a really bad headache RIGHT as we arrived at the Wall. The Great Wall is so huge and steep, pictures do not do it justice. You have to climb over huge large steps to reach different look out towers.

 
Blake and I started the climb but Blake quickly started feeling worse and worse. When he felt like he was going to throw up/pass out, we took a break. We sat down right in the middle of the staircase to let people hold onto the railings to go up/down. Then this random Chinese lady came and sat next to Blake. I figured she was just taking a break too but then she put her arm around Blake and started smiling for her friend taking pictures a few steps below. I was so confused...this was not really a picture worthy moment with Blake hunched over with his head in his lap. Blake perked up and started smiling when he realized what she was doing. We started laughing and smiled with her for a bunch of pictures. She was super nice spoke to us for a few minutes in Chinese then started climbing up the Wall.

Blake and I laughed about how random and weird that was when another group stopped us for a picture. This time it was 3-5 women. Blake's headache had mostly gone away by this point. Clearly the man loves a good audience. So we snapped some more pictures and made our way up to the first resting point/look out. When we got to the look out, over 10 groups of people just grabbed our hands, linked arms or put their arms around us and just started snapping pictures. People then started busting out their selfie sticks and the party really got started. We were there for over 10 minutes taking pictures with people. It was so fun, random and bizarre! I didn't get a ton of pictures because we busy being in the pictures. This guy below loved Blake and posed like that for a good 2 minutes.

At the second lookout point, the same groups of people wanted to take our picture again! They brought new friends and did some different poses. Everyone was so nice and smiled at us a lot. A lot of women pointed to my teeth and smiled and nodded repeatedly. So I'll take that as a compliment? It was the same story climbing down the Wall, different groups either blatantly taking pictures of us or just grabbing us to take with pictures with them. It was all very flattering. I basically know what Beyonce feels like.

China doesn't have Facebook but has something very similar called Renren. I bet Blake and I are FAMOUS on Renren. Someone look into that for us. #chinesecelebrities #chinesebeyonce #chinesejayz

We were beat by the end of the day but a fantastic day touring such a cool city! Then it was back home to America in the morning.