LONG Overdue...

Well, I apologize for how overdue this update is. I've been battling the blog site about uploading photos again, so after a couple months things have kind of built up for a LONG session of reading and photo viewing for you all. Our days are busy and our nights are sacred so there hasn’t been a lot of typing time of late. We’ve all been staying pretty busy and the Holiday season certainly was no exception around here.

Sycely continues to learn new Bible stories and has started incorporating Biblical characters into her dramatic play. I no longer find it unusual for her to say things like, “Mommy, you be Lizabeff and I’ll be Zechariah.” Her tenderness and love for Ella richly blesses me on a daily basis. She loves to hold her hand (though loves it a little less when Ella tries to “eat” her hand!) and is still quick to include Ella in any activity. I’ve been trying to set aside times for “Mommy dates” where Sycely and I do something special, just the two of us, but often when I propose a “Mommy date” she’ll want Ella to come along too. She doesn’t want to do anything without her. She constantly asks if Ella can “stay in for books” at bedtime and ensures that Ella always gets a good night hug and kiss from her big sister. She likes to try to include Ella in her play, often building a bed or “tent” around Ella’s play area on the floor and bringing pillows, blankets, animals and sometimes whole tea parties to share with Ella. Sycely is starting to recognize lowercase letters now, in addition to the uppercase letters and numbers she already knows. She's really gotten the knack of letter-sound associations and is starting to read some words as well. She’s really into writing and has tried her hand at some inventive spelling, writing “DADE” (daddy) and other such things. She’s mastered writing her name, and Ella’s and has produced some pretty adorable portraits of our family of late.

Ella's 4 month picture

Ella's 5 month picture

Ella's 6 month picture

Ella has an appointment next week, but was weighing in at just over 15 pounds and measured over 25 inches long now. She’s still on the tiny side compared to all her big baby friends at church, but that certainly isn't stopping her from trying to get around. Dr. Willow warned us she'll likely be "prematurely mobile"- just what Mommy wants to hear, that she'll be up and all over the place before too much longer. She’s finally grown into some 3 months shirts but is still lacking when it comes to filling out a waistband. She’s quite proficient at rolling over both ways and spends absolutely no time on her back before rolling to her tummy. She is "frogging" her way around quite regularly and is able to gain quite a bit of ground. She's started pulling up onto her knees and scooting forward that way too. She’s got quite an infections giggle-even if we’re not exactly sure WHAT she’s laughing at sometimes-things like Mommy saying “Hi” and the cat walking by are apparently a real hoot. Most important in the development department, Ella started sucking her thumb a couple months ago. It’s just about the most endearing thing I’ve ever seen and it’s made her sleeping quite delightful. I just snuggle her in, she gets settled with her thumb and that’s that!

Ella's first bite...

Lem is plugging away with sthe new semester at school. He’s working really hard to stay on top of his grading. He had teams compete at the local Model United Nations and state We the People competitions. Now his kids are gearing up for the state Model UN competition.

Our Special Olympics skating season started up in November as well. I did lots of extra planning and prepping this year and had a pre-season meeting for both parents and volunteers so I’m hoping we have a smooth, low-stress, enjoyable season this year. We practice once a week with local games this weekend and state games in March. Additionally, I’ve got my other two special O girls for private lessons once a week, one of which leaves this week for World Games!

The Holidays were marvelous! It was sad without Aunti Eris here, but it was delicious nonetheless! I kept real strict with my workout so that I wouldn’t feel quite as guilty about indulging in all the Holiday treats. We enjoyed a scrumptious traditional dinner at Nanny and Papas on Thanksgiving, followed up with a traditional English trifle (minus the peas and onions for those of you thinking Rachel on Friends right now!), and game playing. Sycely got a stomach bug a few days before Christmas so she was pretty down and out for a few days. Then of course, I got it so it was kind of low key heading into Christmas around here. We did squeeze in our annual light tour with Alaina though. Christmas Eve we attended the candlelight service at church and Lem's family joined us. We had our annual Christmas morning here at our house followed by a full day of presents, food and games at Nanny and Papa's. We’re so very blessed to have family so close to spend our holidays with (and to cook yummy meals for us!) Ella has a wonderful first Christmas, getting especially excited about all the shiny bows to suck on! Sycely even had her own pink Christmas tree in her room this year.

Lem and I had a fancy overnight date in early Decemeber to celebrate being together 10 years. Truly it was a week long celebration as Lem had left daily memories hidden for me around the house every day for a week leading up to December 7th, even soliciting the involvement of our friend Alaina in Porland to write about the memory that involved her. It was so fun to read about the memorable moments leading up to the beginning of our relationship. Saturday night the girls went to Nanny and Papas and we enjoyed a tasty, fancy dinner complete with rose petals on the table, a view and crème Brulee "on the house." After dinner we made a stop at Dimond’s winter formal, Crystal Ball. It was neat to be all dressed up right back where it all started for us 10 years earlier. We even had Scott, the photographer, take pictures of us. We picked Ella up (Sycely was having a “sleepover party”) and checked into our hotel for the night. We had a gorgeous suite that allowed Ella to have her own room so Mommy actually got some sleep instead of spending the night awake listening to all her rustling! There were more rose petals scattered throughout the room and scented candles as well. We enjoyed a yummy breakfast in the morning and then put Ella (and Mommy) down for a little nap before we had to pack up and check out. It was a very memorable and refreshing, romantic weekend celebration.

With Nanny and Papa gone over the break we didn't get any dates in, but our second week of break was much better than the first-for the most part. A few days after Christmas Lem accidently ingested some nuts so that made for yet another evening of me playing the role of nurse. We managed to avoid a trip to the ER this time, but that didn't make it any more enjoyable for any of us!

January brought lots of business around here. We had a miniature New Year's celebration with Uncle Ian. We wanted Sycely to be able to enjoy some festivities so we had some party snacks, decorations, poppers, noisemakers, etc and counted down LIVE with New York, so at our house the ball dropped and the New Year rung in at 8:00, in time for Sycely to get to bed almost on time.

We were able to have a visit with my older sister Heather and her family as they came through town from Soldotna to join her family for a New Year's celebration. We hadn't seen her or her kids for years so it was great to get to catch up with them. Sycely had a real blast playing with her cousin Sissy. She's often played with imaginary (or a dedicated stuffed animal) cousins so to have the real deal here was a real treat for her!

Ella was dedicated, with a few friends, at church. Uncle Ian was able to represent the fam since Lem's parents were in Arizona visiting Eris. It was very special to have some of our closest family friends standing with us as we prayed for all our new "church babies." I am contunially so grateful for the church family we have. We are so richly blessed to have such wonderful friends to share our lives with-we genuinely cherish them so much!

Ella during her dedication at church

January also brought us some seriously crazy weather. Our first two weeks of the year brought record breaking cold temperatures. We actually saw -30 at our house. So, needless to say, we did a lot of staying snuggled up inside for a couple weeks! Then, for some crazy reason, we saw a 50 degree temperature change literally overnight. One day is was in the teens BELOW zero the next it was in the mid 30s ABOVE zero! That wreaked serious havock causing it to rain, melt snow, oh and of course, the accompanying 80-100 mile an hour winds! All that combined to make a freshly zammed skating rink out of all the roads. School was cancelled for an unheard of THREE days!!! And that came before a 3 day holiday weekend. Lem enjoyed 6 days off! Unfortunately, as is apparently customary, we spent his time off tending a sick kid. Ella got her first cold and spent a couple nights' sleep interrupted by a yucky nose and a cough. She coped pretty well (though Mommy got NO sleep) and is through it now and back to her normal self. But, it didn't make for a very fun unexpected vacation for Daddy.

Now everyone is back at work for a mostly regular week. The temperature is back to normal, the roads are recovered for the most part, school's back in, skating's back on and I'm just finished with presenting two workshops at last weekend's Early Childhood Conference. Ella got to start having some solid foods last week-mmmmmm...rice cereal! She's actually been spacing out her feedings these days so it's been a little easier to leave her for dates and skating and such, but I will be much more relaxed knowing she'll be able to eat if she's hungry if I'm not around for whatever reason. It definitely gives Lem and I some more freedom with planning our dates.

I reached my weight loss goal right before Christmas and somehow managed not to gain half that baby weight back over the holidays! I'm now a couple pounds under my pre-pregnancy weight which is aweseome. I'm making some wardrobe replinishing funds by unloading all my too big clothes-which is ALOT-on craigslist. I figure every $5 I get is $5 I didn't have before to put toward replacing my wardrobe (with some much smaller items!)

We’ve just about got all the details worked out for our upcoming vacation in two weeks. We’ve got our hotels reserved for both San Diego and Anaheim. We found a great vacation rental right on Mission Beach (500 feet from the amuzement park) in San Diego. We have only told Sycely about the San Diego part of the trip. We decided we'll just tell her about San Diego, get her excited about seeing Aunti Eris, the zoo, the beach, etc. That’s exciting enough in its own right; we decided it might spoil the San Diego fun (since we’re spending 4 days there first) if we tell her we’re going to the “Magic Kingdom”. I think she may be like, “beach, yeah that’s fun…giraffes, sure, let’s just get to Cinderella already!” So our plan is to wait until we’ve left San Diego and are heading to Anaheim before we tell her we’re going to Disneyland. That way she won't be anxious to get to Disneyland and miss out on all the pre-Disneyland fun San Diego has to offer. My mom and her hubby will be driving down from Northern California to join us for three days at the “happiest place on earth.” It will be so great to have some extra hands to help with the girls-have the option to let Ella nap at the hotel or whatever, as well as maybe get in a date or two for Mommy and Daddy. We found a perfect hotel suite that gives us three bedrooms, two bathrooms (and everyone has their own door!), fridge, microwave, crib, pool, breakfast-all a 5 minute walk from Disneyland’s maingate, for little more than a regular room would cost us. Lem and I are both totally overwhelmed by the prospect of managing our route at the parks but are completely excited to get the chance to go and to take Sycely on what we know will be our best family vacation yet! Only 10 days until we leave!

Halloween

Halloween was extra exciting around here this year because Lem had a half day inservice at school which meant he got off at 10:45 Friday morning. Us girls got up and ready and headed on over to the school to do our annual Halloween visit with Daddy, Nanny and their school friends. After we finished up at school we went to Uncle Ian's office for a visit and had some pizza lunch while we were there at the mall. Sycely was super stoked to get to wear her "Mommy penguin" costume all day.

We headed home to get the girls down for a nap before our evening festivities with friends. After a couple hours of "quiet time" we gave up on Sycley napping and got ourselves ready to head to church for the Kingdom Fair (a church-sponsored carnival type event). We stopped to get gas on the way and Sycely was asleep in her car seat before we really even got on the road to church! It made for a sweet photo-op though :)

We met up with Sycely's friend Scarlett and her family at church and the girls enjoyed touring the booths and trying out the activities. They searched for golden coins, hopscotched, fishing for prizes, scooping ducks in a pond, did face painting (a first for Sycely), bean bag tossing and Sycely did us proud, following in Mommy's footsteps, establishing her self as a professional cake-walker! After we wrapped up at the carnival we went to Nanny and Papa's to visit, have dinner and dispense candy to a few trick-or-treaters.

October

The girls enjoying some snuggle time

The past month has just flown by! Lem was busy wrapping up all the finalities of tennis season, including Regions, State and the end of the year banquet. He's also back on the ice playing for our church hockey team.

Us girls have been keeping plenty busy with check-ups, playdates, Mom's Club at church and all our other usual daily activities. Lem and I have been trying to squeeze in some dates (including one Saturday when we both were planning covert op surprise dates for each other-poor Nanny and Papa were in such a spot!)

Ella's 3 month picture

We've been really loving our new earlier church time. Getting done with church at 11:30 gives us enough time before all the kiddos have to be home for naps to enjoy fellowshipping with our friends. Most Sundays we get to enjoy lunch with our friends and their kids after church. Lem and I have started doing a Bible Study on Monday evenings together. It's been such a refreshing, meaningful time of study, discussion and prayer for us. We're both really excited to see what God has in store for our family as we continue to make Him a priority in the different areas of our lives. Sycely has been warming our hearts with her joyous spirit. She's started praying on her own now, "just talkin' to God" as she tells us., especially when she's feeling afraid of something. She's started memorizing and reciting scripture too as well as mastering some Bible stories.

Sycely and her best friend, Scarlett

Ella is developing quite the little personality. I'm continually told by people that she has the most expressive eyebrows. She's so quick to smile and is cooing and babbling a lot these days. She's even started to give us a little giggle here and there. She got to go to her first Aces game this month- Second Annual Aces Paint the Rink Pink night, which is doubly fun for Mommy cause everything-including the ice-is pink! And I find her completely irritated that she has rolled over back to front in her crib some nights. She starts out at the bottom of her bed but ends up face planting into the top left corner a few hours later-she just "frogs" her way up there. She's on a pretty regular schedule as far as eating and sleeping and she's really starting to enjoy "playing toys" and talking to anything that has eyeballs-and some things that don't :) She's weighing in at around 12 pounds now-still tiny compared with most of her friends, including some born 2 month after her!

I'm still plugging away with my work-out routine-spending an hour a day on the stationary bike (though I have been taking Fridays and Sundays off). I got back to coaching skating this month. I'm only working with two of my Special Olympics students right now. Our special O season will start in November and will add another day to my coaching schedule, so for now, I'm just doing a little so that I can stay close to Ella as much as possible. I also did a couple of trainings on Project Approach for a couple of schools this month. Ella went a long; the flexibility is so nice for our family (and since this is baby number 2, I think I've officially mastered nursing while presenting a PowerPoint presentation) :) I've been enjoying baking, trying out some new dinner recipes and experimenting with my new bread maker. I've also been shooting lots of photos for friends of all these new little babies we have around church. I'm no Betty Crocker or Anne Geddes, but I sure am enjoying developing those talents a little more!

Another sample of my "home made photography"

We're gearing up for Halloween this weekend with the usual pumpkin carving (which turns out is alot easier if your pumpkin HASN'T been freezing on the porch for 2 weeks!), cupcake baking and costume sewing (and candy corn eating in Sycely's case). And I'm already thinking about Thanksgiving yams and have started Christmas shopping. I just absolutely LOVE all the holidays this time of year. It's weird not having much snow, but even though view doesn't necessarily show it, I know in my heart it's holiday time and I'm cherishing EVERY moment!

Another Year Older

This past weekend we celebrated my birthday with family and friends. Saturday we had our close friends (3 couples and their kiddos) over for snacks and a yummy S’More pie treat to celebrate. It was lots of casual fun and fellowship. It’s such a blessing to be a part of a church family where we have such wonderful, close, Godly friends to share out lives with. Every day I’m grateful that we found our way to City Church and the “family” we’ve developed there. I’m so excited to watch all our kids grow up together sharing birthdays, Christmases, graduations, weddings, etc in years to come.

The new babies in our group (Mira-1 week, Summit-8 weeks, Ella-9 Weeks, Zane-4 months)

Sunday evening Lem and I went on a date to have dinner. I’ve been wanting crab for several months so I finally indulged myself (taking the day off from my weight loss regimen) and had a whole pound of crab legs. It was superb and I don’t regret it a bit! Sycely and Ella both stayed with Nanny and Papa (the first time we’ve left Ella). After dinner we had dessert and presents with Nanny, Papa and Uncle Ian. It was a nice ending to a fabulous weekend that left me feeling very special and very loved by friends and family.

All dressed up for my fancy birthday date

A September to Remember

Ella's 2 month picture

What a month September has been! Our days continue to be busy and our evenings, even more so. This month has brought the end of the JV tennis season. Lem’s team lost only one match this season. The next two weekends he’ll be helping out with coaching the Varsity team at Regions and then State, but not having daily practice after school and twice weekly meets has allowed him lots more time home with us in the evenings which has been quite welcomed by me!

Ella had her last appointment with the Midwives. She has her 2 month appointment with the pediatrician this week, so we’ll know how much she weighs and how long she is these days. Two weeks ago at our last visit with our midwife Judy, she weighed 10 lbs 4 oz (at 7 weeks old) and was 21 inches long. She’s quick to smile these days and loves to engage in conversation cooing and sighing and she gets really excited when Mommy sings and she sure puts in a good effort trying to sing along with Mommy’s made up songs. She’s still sleeping wonderfully at night, sleeping all night without waking or needing to eat. She's also on a pretty regular napping schedule during the day which has helped establish a pretty predictable routine for us.

Ella's last appointment with our midwife Judy

Sycely continues her campaign for “big sister or the year.” She has a special voice she uses when she talks to Ella who she continually refers to as “Baby Ella, sweet and tiny little face” (from one of Mommy’s aforementioned made up songs). Since she’s three now, Sycely has changed classes at church. Her new class is upstairs (she calls it her new upstairs big kid class) and so far she’s had a blast every week. She likes to tell us about the stories they are studying-currently they’re on God’s creation.

I’ve also been going to Mom’s Club, our church group for Mom’s with kids under 5. It’s been pretty fun to spend my Friday mornings with a bunch of gals-including two of my closest friends-who can commiserate with the “joys and discomforts” of being a Mommy and to enjoy some biblical encouragement in the important job we’re all undertaking and our lives as women of God. Sycely goes to “downstairs class” on Friday and is thankfully enjoying her time in class with friends. Just this week we saw the addition of 4 new babies in our group at church…rounding out that batch of May-October babies at City Church.

Ella sacked out on the bathroom floor-sometimes this is the only way Mommy gets a shower...

There is snow on the mountains, making its way toward us gradually. It won’t be long until it’s on the ground to stay. Winter is, no doubt, just around the corner. This month ushers in my favorite time of year (end of September until New Year’s) and I’m anxious to start getting my home decor out of the garage and on display for the various upcoming holidays. Of course, with my two girls, every day holds the joy and wonderment of a holiday around our house!

Palin Power

We, along with the rest of the Nation, are still reeling from the shock of John McCain’s announcement of his decision to choose our Governor, Sarah Palin as his running mate. The weeks since the big news have been quite a blur around here and we’ve been through the whole gamut of emotions-disbelief, shock, elation, pride, ownership, to name a few. Since that watching her walk onto the stage with John McCain where he first introduced her to the Nation that morning (I was of course fighting tears of joy and pride!) things around our house have gotten back into the campaign swing again. With our history with Sarah I was quick to get online and find out how to get involved and help support the campaign. From there it’s done the usual snowballing:

It all started with phone calls from all over the country-no, we had no idea ahead of time that McCain had picked her (not even her kids knew until they got there!) Yes, we are totally excited.

Then came the media cameos- several pictures of myself and Sarah from election night turned up in the Anchorage Daily News as well as on their website. Then came a phone call from a friend in Seattle- “Oh my goodness, I just saw you on the news. The National news…NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams” Hence my National News debut-a short clip that included a shot of Sarah and I holding hands watching the first precinct results come in on election night (the same moments the photos featured).

Me (and Ella the night before the rally)

Then came the Secret Service (seriously!)A few weeks ago, mid week I got a very unusual, and surprising phone call. A lady from the campaign was calling, asking if she could release my name and number to the Secret Service…there was going to be a local event, she didn’t know what, where or even when exactly that Saturday and I was on the list of invitees. If I approved her releasing my info then I’d get a call later in the week with more details. True to her word, I got that call Friday afternoon. We were asked to be downtown that evening for a pre-event briefing about security and other details for Saturday’s event.

Painting signs for the rally

Turned out Anchorage was having a welcome home Sarah/send off rally at our new convention center. Sycely had a sleep over party at Nanny and Papa’s since our evening went late (sign making for the rally followed the meeting) and we had an early morning on Saturday. We were downtown at 7:00am (Ella snuggled in my front pack), meeting at the prescribed location to be escorted into the building by the Secret Service Sean (a member of the Advance Team). Our job was basically to bolster the enthusiasm at the event and block out any anti-Palin crazies.



It didn’t take long before we were back campaigning with the old crew from the Palin for Governor campaign team. Shortly before the rally started we were whisked (by the Director of the Anchorage Governor’s office and past campaign manager) up onto the stage to sit in the bleachers directly behind Sarah. You know those people you always see in the camera shot during a speech, sitting behind them, next to their family? Yeah, that was us. Hence our international television/print media debut .

Our view from the bleachers on stage

It was neat to see things from a difference vantage point and see what Sarah sees when she’s giving those speeches up there, to see the signs, hear the clicking press cameras, etc. I got to have a nice chat with her fam, and Ella got to finally meet her in person. Since then I’ve resumed my old post and am answering the emails for the Alaska office for McCain/Palin. Surprisingly, it’s not as overwhelming as I though it’d be and I’m actually fielding fewer emails than during the gubernatorial race. We’re looking forward to this week’s VP debate and seeing our girl in action. We’re still completely overwhelmed that Sarah could not only be the next VP, but very possibly president someday. My how far we’ve come from those early days-and to think all this time we thought being Governor was the ultimate goal and that we’d reached it. Little did we know, God had so, SO much more in store!

Me too Mommy

Sycely of course wanted her own photoshoot this morning so she picked out her special Belle dress (or so she calls it) so she would be "so fancy for the pictures." She sure is a big girl these days-every day she amazes me with her joyful, loving spirit, especially where her sister is concerned. What a blessing my girls are to me!

Us girls had ourselves another little photoshoot this morning. I was finally able to get Ella to be cordial about not being fully clothed-a photo op I've been striving for the last 6 weeks!

As you can see Ella continues to pack on the ounces and is still growing like a weed. She's been sleeping in her crib in her own room for over two weeks now, which has let Mommy sleep ALOT better, too. She's sleeping eight to eight and a half hours-usually until about 5 or 5:30am-then she eats and sleeps another 4 hours give or take. She's on a pretty regular nap schedule during the day as well which has really helped ensure that Sycely is able to stick with her routine and schedule, too. So far Ella seems to be keeping pace with most of Sycely's developmental milestones, best I remember them, anyway.

I was able to start working out again (the whole regular schedule/routine thing has been a big help with that, too) and I'm excited to see the rest of my baby weight coming off quite steadily-hooray!

We have our last appointment with our midwives this Friday :( I'm expecting it to be a bittersweet farewell. We're so very blessed to have these ladies as such a big part of our pre-natal/birth/newborn experiences that it's pretty sad to know we won't be seeing them regularly anymore. We've already got a reunion in the works for November.