What I am doing

Addie is home sick from school, but she is feeling much better now. So here's what we're doing. Addie is reading her new Magic Treehouse book about the Titanic.

Notice that reading for her involves several horses, Baby Kendall, and an assortment of pillow pets.

Teddy is swinging and snoozing.

 I am drinking coffee and drinking in God's Word.

Doesn't get much better than this, does it?

Thanksgiving

I am thankful for so many things. I am thankful that God chose to send Jesus to die for me while I was still His enemy to rescue me from destruction and give me a new nature. I am thankful that He is sovereignly in control and that He is altogether good.  I am thankful for the innumerable blessings that He has given, some of which I know about and some that are a mystery to me.  Some of those blessings include my family near and far, friends who we get to love and be loved by, the country where we live that is the most free the world has ever known, and the comfortable home that I get to share with the most amazing man and kids I know.

Our Thanksgiving Day was filled with food, family, and relaxation. Addie woke us up bright and early dressed in a turkey costume that she had fashioned earlier in the morning from construction paper. Gobble gobble! When I threatened to cook her for waking us up early, she informed me that she'd "been to the White House. So there." Who could argue with a Presidential Pardon?

After breakfast, we watched the parade, played, and did some last minute cooking.

My mise en place - everything measured and ready to cook!

Brining the turkey.  Jason calls this my "witches brew."  Just about everything but the kitchen sink went in there.

gratuitous diapered baby picture

Sis and bro watching the parade.  Fabulous, Harry.  Love the feathers.

Thankfully, I had staged all of our dishes the day before, so there wasn't much kitchen time left. Both of Jason's parents and my mom came for the feast. We had such a great time enjoying the food and company. Teddy and my mom really had a sweet time together talking and cooing to each other. He doesn't usually give out smiles like this, and it was so precious to watch him and mom building those bonds.

Gumpers, food, and a sneaky little silly pants.

cooo

One highlight of our day was the eating/judging of our pies. They were all quite tasty, but Addie's was really amazing. We voted anonymously and unanimously. We each had a plastic token to place under our pie of choice. Addie's won handedly, and when we picked up the pie to count the votes, two stuck to the bottom of the plate. This is hilarious for us because in one of our favorite books, Duck for President, time after time, election after election, there are always 2 sticky ballots found during a recount stuck to something...the bottom of a pig, a plate of pancakes, the bottom of the Vice President...you get the idea. It was so appropriate that 2 sticky ballots should be found stuck to the bottom of her pie.

from the top and clockwise:  pumpkin, pecan, Addie's winning frozen peanut butter pie, key lime, blueberry, and apple turnover in the middle

We ended our day Skypeing with Jelsea, Mateusz, Leo, and (sleeping) Julia in Hawaii and playing a board game. I pray that your day was as sweet as ours and that the thanks we feel and express today point to the One who is alone worthy of all praise. I pray that for you as for me our giving thanks in this day pales as the reason for the day, replaced by a focus on the magnificence of the One who ultimately deserves our thanks.

I is for Independent

This post is all about Addie, who is having quite an independent Thanksgiving week so far.
For our family Thanksgiving this year, we are having what promises to be a rather epic pie contest. Why a pie contest?  Because...pie.  And because...who loses?  No one.  Let me clarify (as I had to do for Addie yesterday) that this is a pie baking contest, not a pie eating contest. Addie was bummed at that news and felt a little cheated at not getting to eat a whole pie by herself.  I digress. Back to the story. Addie decided to participate in this contest (and I quote) "all by myself." She decided on a peanut butter pie. She found the recipe online, printed it, read it, told me what to buy at the store, and made the pie(s) with minimal help from me.  This was perfect because it is a frozen pie and did not require use of anything sharp or hot in its construction.  The same cannot be said for "messy" ingredients.  Between the powdered sugar/stand mixer combo and the creamy natural peanut butter, there was a bit of a mess to clean up when all was said and done.  Interestingly, she wasn't so bent on doing the clean-up work all by herself. Go figure.

Peanut butter is messy stuff.

Folding in the whipped cream

Ta-Da!

Filling the shells

Then, today, I attended a show that Addie's class staged.  It was the second of a two-day, 5 show, run.  It ran approximately 7 minutes and was a live-action rendition of an alphabet book about Thanksgiving. Addie was assigned "I" for "Indian."  She memorized her line last week, and she delivered it...well...take a look.


I'm so proud of my independent little kiddo. So, here's the last word on this. To quote Addie (age 1-3ish) "I do it!"

After a Long Night

The events of last night started a few weeks ago when my dear friend Leann loaned us her Angel Care Baby Monitor. The thing is a pad under Teddy's bed that detects slight movement. It senses whether he's breathing or not. If it doesn't sense movement for a few seconds, it beeps once. If after it beeps it still detects nothing, it wakes up the neighborhood.  I am so thankful for the piece of mind and (usually) solid sleep it's brought.

 It's only beeped legitimately twice, and I think Teddy was probably yawning both times and not in trouble. It's gone off full-blast twice, too....once last night, and both times for the same silly reason. Teddy is an active, squirmy, little guy. Though we swaddle him, he doesn't stay in the same place long. Eventually, he wiggles himself sideways in bed. This is a problem because we have his bed at a pretty good angle to help him breathe. So, it doesn't take much to get him moving from there. The little guy ends up log-rolling himself all the way down the silly bed, a procedure helped by the fact that he's still swaddled and roughly log-shaped, coming to rest against the bars where the monitor can't sense him.

This is a re-enactment for the sake of illustration.  Do not be alarmed.  I did not, in my delirious stupor, stop to take a picture of this moment as it actually happened.

So then what happens? The monitor screams at his hapless, unconscious parents at roughly 1:43am that the baby isn't breathing, and we run in there like crazy people and scoop him right up. The kicker is that up until this point, said kid is still peacefully slumbering! The half-awake, half-witted parents of his, though, have now fixed that quite completely.

What follows is my version of events after that.
Me: Let's get you back to sleep, Little Goober.
Teddy: Oh, it's morning? Great! How about a new diaper and some food?
Me: Sure, but then you're going back to sleep.
Teddy: Don't count on it. I am awake and happy now. Whatcha wanna play?
Me: Ugh. Dumb alarm.

We did finally get back to sleep, but that plus two feedings later, here are some hot-off-the-presses pictures of how our morning is going.

I'm WAY more awake than Mommy!

Watchin' the bears on his mobile

Ahhh..sweet wake-up juice!

Side note:  I'm seriously considering getting some of that non-slippy stuff people put under rugs and sewing it to his sheets.  That or velcro.

Poland

We've marked a milestone in Addie's schooling this week. This past Tuesday was the day of the International Festival at Addie's school. She has spent the last several weeks researching and putting together her project about Poland. Poland was the obvious choice for her because she has an uncle who grew up in Warsaw, so all things Polish are dear to our hearts. So, ready for the pivotal milestone? Her project included her first big tri-fold display board!  I saw visions of future Science Fairs all day as she cut, pasted, designed, and glued all over the thing.

I helped guide her online research, helped her find and print pictures, and showed her generally how display boards are usually put together. But, she did the work. She made a "cluster map" of information, wrote questions to ask Uncle Mateusz, called and interviewed him (he says he "beautified" some of the details so as not to alarm her teachers), collected examples of Polish pottery and amber, and created her board. I also might add that this fair was voluntary.  She chose to do all of this.  I am so proud of her.

The only slight hiccup came when she was annoyed with me because I felt the need to clarify the source of one piece of information that she insisted on sharing with every.single.person. who stopped by her booth. Here is her very favorite "fact:" "When kids in Poland get home from school, they get to go with their friends all over the city and do whatever they want! Even without their parents!" When I saw slightly horrified (and often amused) looks from some of the parents, I had to slip in that Addie had interviewed her Polish uncle for this project, and some of the information that she got was very interesting!

Without further ado, here she is at the Fair with her work.

Laryngomalasia

This post is much more informational than humorous.  Sorry about that...I'll will henceforth after this attempt to be more light-hearted than I am feeling right now. 

We visited Riley Hospital for Children for the second time this morning with Teddy.  Teddy has always been a squeaky little guy. Even in the hospital when he was born, his little noises were always present and rather endearing. Though I asked every doctor and nurse who saw him both then and in our family doctor's office after, what might be wrong with his breathing, I was told again and again that it was normal. That some babies do that. Some babies sputter and cough and have retractions (the medical word for for what I called dimples) in their bellies when they breathe. I was never quite convinced, but who am I to argue? In the last few weeks, though, he has begun to struggle to breathe. Last Friday night when Jason was in Arizona, he was really having a hard time just getting a breath. By this time, though, I had been told not to worry enough times that I didn't. The next morning, I called my brother in law, who is an ENT, just to check it out with him, to hear if he thought I should pursue it further. According to him, I should have been in the ER with him. Whoops. That was not my finest parenting moment.

Come Monday morning, I was in hot pursuit of help for my son. Tuesday morning, we had an appointment to see a specialist. Praise God. She diagnosed him with Laryngomalasia, a condition where his airway, and specifically his epiglottis, is floppy instead of firm. It's getting in the way of his breathing. And it's making his Mama very nervous.

Today, Teddy donned a cute baby - sized hospital gown covered with...what else? teddy bears...and went in for a procedure in which the doc stuck a camera up his nose and all the way down to his lungs to check it all out visually. He did well with the necessary fasting and anesthesia, but his parents will be happy to never have to do that again! The diagnosis was confirmed, and his case is severe. We return to the good folks at Riley on Tuesday to do one more test - a sleep study. Then, we will receive recommendations about how to help him breathe at night and possibly some sort of monitoring gear. I am rooting for that because that sure sounds like peace of mind for me!

Here's the good news, though. He is going to grow out of this. It's going to take a while, perhaps a year or year and a half, but it will start improving, the doctors say, in about 6 months. I am thankful. There is nothing that quite so effectively inspires thankfulness like walking around Riley seeing all of the kids who spend way more time there than anyone would ever hope to do. I am also thankful that God chose us to be his parents. Who knows but that this might be one of many reasons? Getting this kind of specialized care might have been much more difficult for his birth mom should she have chosen to parent him. Whatever the reason, though, he is already a blessing to our family! Though I will not make this condition the subject of many blog posts because it does not define him or our family, I will strive to provide updates as appropriate. Much love to you all, and here are some cute pictures of our big day!

He's getting his blood pressure taken.

Napping on Mommy after his long morning

Punkin and Meatball

I have an odd compulsion. I seem to have the need to refer to our kids by nickname instead of actual name... unless, of course, they are in trouble.  Seriously, I need to be careful that the poor kids actually learn their own name instead of my little term of endearment by the time they can talk and introduce themselves to others.
Addie has been Punkin from the start, and I don't even remember how she got it.  It just always seemed to fit.  Teddy has been trying on several for size recently. The latest version is "Meatball." Now, before you raise an eyebrow at this choice, let me es-plain. No. There is too much. Let me sum up. (What? A Princess Bride quote mid-story? Yep. I told you. I'm a piece of work.)  Teddy has already shown himself to be a very strong little guy, so for a while, he was "Beefcake." The problem with that is that he's so little and, at the time we thought of this little moniker, pretty scrawny. So, that name morphed into "Beef Cupcake."  From there, it was just a small jump to the one that seems to be sticking, "Meatball."
In the name of sharing the joy here's a picture of a certain Punkin and a cute little Meatball masquerading as a Princess and a Dragon.

My Sister Made Me Do It

Welcome to my blog.

I read lots of blogs.  Some inspire me, some keep me supplied with awesome pics of the nephews, and some are just fun.  All of them are written by amazing people who paint stunning word pictures and keep me coming back for more.  This will probably not be that, and I'm OK with that.  This is an idea that I have resisted for quite some time.  But, much like the persistent widow from Luke 18, my sister has pestered me to write a blog for several years now, and so here I am. 

This is a blog wherein I shall attempt to be a commentator to the life of our family.  So, why "Pieces of Work?"  Two reasons: First, we are all works in progress.  God is continually growing and changing us to be more like Him as we submit to His Spirit.  Our bumpy road is exactly where He wants us to be, and sometimes those stories are worth telling.  Second, my sister (for whom this blog is affectionately named) is often amused with our antics and, with a head-shake, remarks that we really are "pieces of work."  So we are.

Onward!