The first snowfall this year was in March. So was the second, but the first one was all we thought we’d get. Anna Kathryn took one look at the tiny white flakes falling onto our brown wet grass and disappearing, and went hunting for her “hum-brella” and shoes. “Anna Kathryn, do you want to go play in it?” I asked. She nodded, and out we went–me with the camera hoping to capture a flake or two, and AK with her frog umbrella hoping to catch a flake or two.

The pictures don’t do the snow justice. We were beyond delighted.

I was just now sitting at my computer at midnight, looking at swing sets on WalMart’s website and dreaming about my three kids playing happily in our backyard this summer, when I saw a flash of light outside the dining room window and heard the crack of thunder. I cocked my ear toward AK’s room, and sure enough two little feet came scurrying out into the living room. Tears rolled down her cheeks and her lip quivered.

“Mom, that storm is making me crazy!”

We sat and snuggled for a few minutes while the thunder passed overhead. One particularly strong burst made my footstool vibrate.

“That one made our house all wobbly. Makin’ me really crazy, Mommy.”

She’s back in bed now, snuggling with her Panda bear and asking for her grandparents. Any and all of them. I think this tactic is to make me sorry I can’t produce them, sorry I’m not them, and offer my sub-par presence as consolation. We’ve been through this before; bear will have to do.

I suppose this means it is time to take the phrase, “Child, stop! You are making me crazy!!” out of my vocabulary.

Mommy (putting the boys in their car seats and tickling them): I love you, William! I love you, Stephen!

Anna Kathryn (buckling herself in): What about me?!

Mommy (tickling AK): I love you, Anna Kathryn! You’re my best girl ever.

Anna Kathryn: Yep.

My kids still love me best, but they want to do everything their Daddy does. We’re both loving every moment as long as it lasts. John got a Wii some months back, and has been working on getting his pro status ever since. Anna Kathryn begs and pleads to play too, and knows if her wii-mote is really connected to a player or not, so he can’t trick her into taking a spare one and “playing” along. Recently, we had a friend (JD) over who has a Wii also. He agreed to a boxing match with Anna Kathryn. Her boxing style is so funny, we tried to get it on video. The video we did get was later into the game and she was tired, but multiply her motions by about five and that’s how she started out. It was way funnier watching her than the television! Notice the short shot of JD, calmly kicking her behind without breaking a sweat! (I think she got him once, though.)

William and Stephen wanted in on the action, badly. William kept grabbing anything that looked remotely like a wii-mote, and Stephen followed suit with a a PS2 game controller. They gestured wildly at the screen just like their big sister.

And that’s an evening’s entertainment in our family. Oh, how far we’ve come!!

I’ve not been able to post here in a couple months. I’ve missed it. My kids do the funniest things constantly. I want to capture them in pictures and pen, but my free minutes are few and far between, and I usually save them for hugs.

Anna Kathryn sings all over the house. I try to put her songs in my memory for later when she’s going through growing pains and telling me I’m so not cool. They make me smile–if she doesn’t remember the words, she makes them up and keeps on singin’. She prays, too. At dinner time, she will pray without ceasing–until Mommy reminds her to thank Him for the food, too. Every time she ends every prayer, she asks God to take care of Uncle Matt in Afghanistan. I have a little video clip Joelle took while she was here–she turned it sideways, so it views oddly, but still very cute.

William and Stephen are so very different. I love how loving them is accepted by them in totally different personal ways.

Stephen is a total lover. He preens like a cat if you scratch the curls at the back of his head. Sitting on the floor in our playroom, he’s in his own little world, bouncing, wiggling, making funny faces, and then laughing delightedly at the funny joke he just thought of. He has come up with a new laugh. It’s gone from sweet baby laugh to this gutteral giggle that kills me. I wonder how long he’ll decide to keep that up. Recently, we came home late from somewhere and the boys were half asleep. I was in the kitchen getting milk ready quickly so as to further chase them on to dreamland. I heard giggles in the room, and was sure they were getting overstimulated. Here’s what John was doing with them (listen for mean Mommy at the end):

William is a smart little guy, but a tough sell. If you play peak-a-boo with him, he’ll look at you with a sideways grin that he’s trying to take back. You feel like he knows so much more than anyone in the world. Totally too cool for child’s play. But then you reach out and tickle his tummy and he just can’t hold it in any longer. He laughs like a big boy, plays with the big boys (when he can get around his cousins), and thinks he’s a big boy. Don’t try to convince him otherwise. You think he’s Mr. Independent, and then–surprise–he’ll lay his head on your shoulder for a long squeeze. He loves hats, cell phones, and any adult items, like Wii-motes or game controllers. He loves to watch the washing machine. He loves to figure things out.

Here, William has found the can of Gerber snacks and thinks he’s getting away with something:

This one’s a few months old, but very indicative of the boys’ personalities. William (in navy blue) very intent; Stephen just hangin’ out waiting for the fun to begin.

Santa Claus shows up everywhere. We saw him at the gym, at the mall, on floats in the Christmas parades. We have told Anna Kathryn that Santa is for pretend, but since she’s still rather unsure what “pretend” means, she thinks he’s real. This is the first year she was not afraid of him, and when we saw him at the gym, she yelled, “HI, SANTA!!” and jumped into his lap. He asked her what she wanted him to bring her for Christmas, and she quickly informed him of the one thing she’s been asking for all year, “A camera.” He raised an eyebrow and winked at me, then gave her a piece of candy. The Santa at the mall asked her the same question, and she looked at him as though to say, I already told you! But she told him the same thing, just in case. “I want a camera.”

So, Santa put a camera under the tree for her this year. A kid-friendly, working digital camera.

This is the gift she opened last, and the one she spent the most time with. The camera holds 60 photos at once, and the following shots are from her first set of 60 on Christmas morning. I thought she did an excellent job! In the process, she captured a glimpse of the new couch, chair and rug we treated ourselves to this month. Take a look:

Anna Kathryn’s feet (like our new rug?):

Mommy and the back of William’s head:

Aunt Joelle:

Daddy and Stephen:

Omie and William (on our new chair!):

Daddy made the lighted “tree” behind Omie and William, out of Gerber jars and Christmas lights and hot glue. He did an excellent job, and we all think he could set up a table at craft fairs with those!

Papa Bill (let’s see who can take the most pictures!):

Stephen with his new Lego’s:

Mommy, fresh from Santa’s workshop:

And Palmer, our little neighbor boy (AK and Daddy brought them cookies):

Merry Christmas!

With love, from John, Kari, Anna Kathryn, William and Stephen

May your family be blessed and Christ be glorified this Christmas and in 2008.

Stephen had been sick since Monday. He had a low grade fever off and on, and wouldn’t feed himself. He would hardly take a bottle, which wasn’t like him at all. He was coughing and congested. By Wednesday night, his breathing had turned into a pant, and he sounded like he was running a marathon even in his sleep. I called the clinic on Thursday, and they told me they didn’t have an opening until Friday morning.

Friday, I dropped AK and William off at Omie’s house early, in hopes that Stephen and I could get checked in and out of there in time for Omie to make it to a funeral that morning. Wishful thinking. The doctor was rather brusque. She looked in Stephen’s ears, listened to his lungs, made some notes, and stood up quickly, “I’m going to have them come do a breathing treatment to see if we can clear up those lungs.” Okay. The nurse came in with the breathing treatment, and Stephen laid his head back on my chest and took it pretty well. Nothing changed with his breathing, though. Within ten minutes, the doctor was back in, and dropped the bomb.

“You’re going to have to take him over to the emergency room and have them do an x-ray on his chest. It’s probably pneumonia.”

You could have knocked me over with a feather. She had me grab my bag and my naked son and march right over to the ER; the hospital is attached to the childrens’ clinic. I hastily threw his jacket on him and followed their directions. I called John in tears. He jumped online to do some quick research and called me back to say that the symptoms didn’t seem that bad.

In the ER, they X-Ray’d Stephen right away. The baby X-Ray machine was a little plastic suit of armor with a sling to hold the baby. I donned a leaden bib and held his arms up high. He screamed, and the technologist said that was perfect; it inflated his lungs for her. She turned him sideways and took another picture, then I got to take him back.

Next, they had to put an IV in his arm. The RN who did the IV was “nurse of the year” and was known for her one-stick IV’s, so Stephen got lucky with her. He still bawled, of course, as did I, and I think the assisting male nurse might have too, but he’d never admit it. Nobody likes to stick little babies. The next trick was to keep the IV running properly. The fat in Stephen’s wrist blocked the flow every time he tried to move it, and the hour-long treatment turned into three hours. I finally re-started the IV’s myself when they’d get blocked, and held Stephen’s hand steady so it could finish.

The ER doctor came in to inform me that it was, in fact, pneumonia, and that they would be checking Stephen in for the night. They sent him upstairs in a little gurney, wearing a little yellow hospital gown and a diaper. To keep his oxygen count up, they put breathing tubes in his nose. By that time, he’d had a whole bag of fluids, and was feeling hydrated and good. Here’s my tough little guy in that big hospital bed.

They offered us a crib, so I took them up on it. I thought it would help him feel more secure. Here he is getting a breathing treatment. It’s one of the few times he sat still for it.

Notice the big blue “cast” on his arm. That was to keep him from pulling the IV out. After a few minutes, he ignored that arm altogether and played with his right arm. I took a shot of his back so you could see the precious little hospital gown he wore.

As it turned out, Stephen’s lungs were pretty clogged, and it took a while for his oxygen levels to get high enough to go home. We had to spend the night Saturday, also. Sunday morning, his brother William came by on his way to an appointment for his own ear infection. They enjoyed a little tour of the hospital together.

William checked out with a slight ear infection and Stephen with a double ear infection and pneumonia in both lungs, several prescriptions for the week, and two very tired parents. We were happy to be home around noon, both boys napping in their own beds. John and the kids had stayed at John’s parents while Stephen and I were in the hospital, and when my sister Joelle came in Saturday night, she stayed there, too. By Sunday night, we we’d all had naps, and were drinking hot cocoa and decorating our Christmas tree.

Home Sweet Home! Thanks so much to those of you who knew about Stephen and were praying for his recovery.

I’m finally posting pictures of Megan’s wedding day. Don’t give me a hard time about this–if you knew what every week looks like on my calendar, you would wonder when we find time to sleep or eat (for the record, we do make time to sleep, and I eat while I’m working or doing my laundry). Life is very full and busy for us right now, but we’re maintaining our expanded family, so it’s worth it.

Uncle Anders enjoyed his moments with the twins. Here he’s holding William. I think Stephen looks incredibly like him, though.

And Murray, looking handsome and husbandly:

While Dad walked Megan down the aisle,my cousin Aria sang the most beautiful songs with the sweetest voice you ever heard.

The bridesmaids in all their raisin-colored finery. Oh, and the token groomsmen photo. Click to zoom.

We survived the sun and the heat, and when the pastor pronounced them husband and wife, the entire wedding party donned sunglasses and sauntered back down the aisle to the tune of “If ya wanna be happy.” Funniest wedding song ever.

Cutting the lovely cake, and the father/daughter, mother/son dance. It was sweet. I didn’t know Dad had such smooth moves.

Rachel ended up being the wedding coordinator for the day. She made sure everything flowed during the ceremony, and looked amazing doing it. Nobody (including her!) knew she was pregnant at the time!

Everyone wanted their turn holding those babies. Not that I minded one bit. I made sure to appear very preoccupied whenever smells began to emanate. Poor John got most of those.

Aunt Stephie with Stephen and the Bride with both boys.

Here’s a great “grandparents” shot:

Laila, William, Stephen, Jack, and Anna Kathryn, with Mom and Dad.

Here’s the sunglasses shot. Our photographer was great.

And here is our little family. Happy Wedding Day.

We had a couple other fun things we did before we left California, including a boating trip in a nearby reservoir the following Monday (Jen Anniston showers with the water we swam in–I can only hope they run it through a filter system first!) and a nice little breakfast and birthday celebration the day after the wedding. I’ll share those pictures soon.

“Mom,” Anna Kathryn asked me the Saturday after Thanksgiving, “When are we going over to–” she paused to think, “–Uncle John’s mom’s house?”

“We were at Omie’s house yesterday, Anna Kathryn.”

“Well, I want to see her again, Aunt Kari.”

My daughter is learning about our family tree, and is an eager student. She enjoys giving us pet names, or referring to us as others do. I don’t mind; she’s not being disrespectful, she’s just three years old and learning how words relate to things and names relate to people. It’s fun watching her brain work through it all. For a month or so this fall, she referred to me as Momenie. I don’t know where it came from, but I liked it–the first 500 times. I felt like Alcott’s “Marmie.” Since Thanksgiving, it’s been Uncle John and Aunt Kari, because that’s what the cousins use. Such a nut.