Skate with the Aces

After Sunday night hockey games, the Aces open up the ice for kids to skate with the Aces (hence the name of the event). After Kira's experience out at Westchester Lagoon, she was begging for more practice before her school had a Skate-a-thon to raise money for PTA. Devon had told me about Skate with the Aces, so I asked if they could take Kira after church on Sunday night. She went and had a great time. the second time she went Phoenix realized what we were doing and he kept asking, "Phoenix skate? Where Phoenix skate?" So I think that next time there is a Sunday game, Uncle Paul and his friend Bud might brave the ice with two kids. (Phoenix takes a lot of help because he is so young.)

Kira, uncle Paul, and Jacob (no relation although he does look somewhat like Phoenix) pose for a quick picture at the beginning of Skate with the Aces.

New do

Phoenix's hair was finally cut to the way that I would leave it alone. No more trimming, no more fussing. Then some friends came over to play with the kids. The four year old found the scissors laying on the bathroom counter and decided that Phoenix would be a good subject for trying out for beauty school... and removed a stripe of hair down teh middle of his head. Now Phoenix will be getting a buzz cut all over so that he doesn't look like he has a reverse mohawk. The pictures don't show it as drastic as it is in life, but this is as close as it gets. (You can sort of see his white scalp in the left picture and patches in the right one.)

Skating at Westchester Lagoon

We went skating with our friends at Westchester Lagoon. Fortunately, they were able to help with the kids and I was able to take pictures and video of our kids on skates for the first time. Kira did awesome. She was skating with the chair in no time. She learned that if she fell down, she could get right back up and get going again. Phoenix spent most of his time riding on the sled or the chair. Quinn was sweet to Phoenix and shared the sled and pushed the chair when Kira would go skating with Miss Lori.

Resembling the finished product

As you can tell, his hair is much shorter. When we get to a point that is acceptable I stop fighting Phoenix to make him sit for his hair cut. However, over the next three days he must sit for touch up times, where I fidget and fix his hair until I find it decent. This is day one, and it won't change much except get more even and add texture.

the hair cut

To get Phoenix's hair cut, I let him stay awake through nap time. Of course, half-way through the cut, the phone rang. I hurried to answer it so that it wouldn't wake the baby. Of course, I could find the phone. One might ask why I couldn't find a phone that was ringing perfectly loudly. Well, I am about to admit one of my faults to the whole world... I don't hang up phones. It makes Patrick crazy because he is always finding phones on counters, couches, tables, and beds, but never in the cradle. So with Patrick not here, I couldn't find the phone. Back to the story... while I was hunting the phone and finally answering it, Phoenix quickly ripped off the plastic hair-cutting apron and ran downstairs with half of a haircut. So I took pictures. I halfway liked it, but it would need touch ups. Of course, I could never get it the way I wanted it so he ended up with a full hair cut by the end.

The boy needs a hair cut somethin' fierce

VIP Kira

Kira's class has a VIP each week. This child is the focus of the week and they get to make a poster, do a presentation, and answer questions about themselves. Kira picked a whole bunch of pictures to print and then had to pare down to what could fit on the board. I showed her how to use my scrap booking outlines to make the pictures different shapes and the board is what you see above. For the presentation, Kira sat in the "big cushy chair" and used the teacher's pointer.

A New Experience

Kira had her first experience of being a flower girl in one our friend's wedding. She was very excited because she had always watched her friend Zoe as the flower girl for friend's weddings and Zoe's aunt's weddings. As parent's, we were honored that they chose our daughter to be a part of their wedding. She was nervous about her role in the wedding and thought that she might make a mistake so she walked around the house for the whole week before the wedding pretending to throw down petals everywhere. She was excited to be in the wedding and she did great! There was never a more beautiful or graceful flower girl in the world. This was also a great experience to help prepare her and increase her confidence for her Uncle Larry's wedding in May.

Kira rubbing her wrists together to rub in the perfume Christy gave her.
Kira trying not to smile for the picture while she is getting her hair done.

Kira and Phoenix hanging out before the wedding. Of course, Phoenix is doing something crazy in all of the pictures of the two of them.

And Again, Kira is awesome

Driving to Bible class last night Kira asks a whopper of a question.
Kira: Mom, I have a serious question about fish.
Mom: About fish? OK.
Kira: Do fish get married?
Mom: Fish can't think the same way we do. God made people as the only ones to think in the ways that we can. We are the only ones who can make complex decisions and love the way we do.
Kira: Well, then how do fish get together? How do they get more fish?
Mom: Since fish don't think like us, they can get together without being married and make more fish.
Kira: Oh, OK.

I struggled with how much info to give Kira. It seems that I answered her question adequately and she didn't want details just yet, but I know that the day will come when she has tougher questions.

A Kira moment

So after leaving the JMC (where we had to take Patrick to catch his plane to Afghanistan), Kira notices that we have driven a bit and she can still see the building where we left Patrick. Then she said:
Kira: Today is the saddest day ever.
Mom: Why is that? (I wanted to hear how she would express missing Daddy.)
Kira: Because today is the day Daddy left. But tomorrow I will just get happier and happier because everyday means one day closer to Daddy coming home.

It was a great moment of seeing a child's optimism in a hard time.
We were handling it all fairly well until Patrick got on the shuttle bus. Kira came running to me crying and just wanting to be held. Of course that made me cry too. Then we got to see Patrick on the 10:00 NBC local news. It was like we were just there and it didn't seem so long before that we had seen him.

The Christmas Card

Here is the story behind the crazy looking Christmas card. We decided this year all of us should be in the picture since the last few years have been only the kids. We started looking through our pictures in the beginning of November to find a good picture of the four of us. Since we found none, we thought that Paul and Devon's wedding would be a good place to get pictures taken since we would all be dressed up for the event. Well, as it turned out, we had a friend snap some shots of Patrick and I, but the photographer offered to take pictures of us as a family. Without having immediate feedback of seeing the pictures, we trusted his comments... which were along the lines of "beautiful...lovely family...nice shot." However when we got the picture, it wasn't a good shot at all so it is not the one we used for the Christmas cards.

We all looked decent for Patrick's work Christmas party so we had a friend from work take several shot of us in front of the Christmas tree. As we scrolled through the picture, most of them had strange shadows cast over us (which we later figured out that as she was taking the picture, she raised her finger in front of the flash.) After looking through the non-shadow pictures, we selected the best one, but is still needed to be cropped. Cropping and editing on the computer is easy, but getting it all the way that you want and remembering to save the changes (while being interrupted a thousand times by little two-year old hands) is more difficult. When I finally uploaded a picture to Costco photo center, my attention was called away by a sweet two year old. Patrick came home on his lunch break and saw that I had uploaded a picture for the cards. Because he did not want the cards going out in March again, he decided to place the order for the cards. I was happy he did so because that meant next time we went to Costco we could grab the cards too.

When I came home with the cards, Patrick opened them up and made the comment, "did you look at these before you paid for them?" Nope, I sure didn't. I was thinking maybe it wasn't us or something like that. When Patrick held up the card... sure enough there was the top of Phoenix's head instead of his cute little face. I am sure that when some of you opened the card, you thought why would you send out that picture? Others might have thought... yep that is the way it is with kids. Still other thoughts might have been, that was probably the best shot of all of them, you know how kids wiggle and squirm. None of those being the case, we decided to pay $5 and get wallet sized pictures of the kids printed and add it to the card instead of paying for all new cards and then throwing out the old cards.

As we started looking for a great picture of our kids together, we couldn't find any. We had tons of great candid shots of each one by themselves, but hardly any of them together. Finally, we decided that even though Phoenix had his paci in the picture that we sent out it was the best one of the two kids together.

Lesson learned: Take more posed pictures of our kids together and pictures of us as a family.

And now you know... the story behind the cards.

A cropped version of this picture was supposed to be the card.

The picture that actually went out.

Trip to Illinois in July/August

Three silly cousins... Jaden, Phoenix and Kira.

We went to State Farm Park pool a few times. They have a huge kiddie play area, a regular kids play area, a lazy river, a regular pool, and a big slide/diving board area. It was great fun for us all. Michelle braved the little slide with both boys. They squealed with delight the whole way down.

Mom and Michelle hanging out on the side of the pool talking and taking pictures. I took the camera from Mom to get a quick picture to capture the moment. I am glad I did. Mom always smiled big and laughed loud to show her joy in Christ Jesus.

Kira holding Michaela. This was Kira's favorite thing to do the entire trip. Any chance that she got, she was asking to hold Michaela.

A picture of Grandma with her daughter and 5 grand kids. At first, Mom was taking the picture of us cousins with Grandma, but then the neighbor came out and offered to take a picture with all of us in it. Since we had all taken the trip to Grandma's house, we thought that would be a good idea. Grandma was exhausted so she sat in the van and we huddled around. Mom was in the shadows for the picture, but at least we had her in this picture. So often Mom was the one taking the pictures and not in them.

Is Phoenix ready?

for potty training??? Are we ready for that huge commitment and added laundry??? Well, we bought him a potty chair anyway. We talked to other moms of boys and decided on the Baby Bjorn potty chair. It has a simple two piece design with a built in splash guard (no worries of the splash guard being popped off and falling into the potty.) The day that we bought it, Phoenix was so excited that he went potty in the potty 4 times, pooped once in it, and only had 2 accidents in his undies. Please notice that Phoenix is trying to reinforce his boy-like behavior by tossing his undies casually on the floor next to him.

Phoenix sporting his big boy undies. Since that day, he has not had but a few times of making it to the potty chair before he potties. We have no desire to push the issue since he just turned 2 a few months ago, and he will "get it" in his own time. We will provide the learning opportunities and the encouragement.

Here I am at 2 a.m.

I am typing in the blog and creating posts at 2:00 a.m. to create a busy feeling that I have come to enjoy. When things get tough thinking about my Mom and how much I miss her I have found myself busy. My logical side has taken a vacation and my emotional selfish side is prevailing. I miss my Mom and I am sad. I am not crying as much as I once did, but when I do it hits hard. Today, I heard Patrick say "so you're 58 then." to his Dad on the phone while wishing him a happy birthday. I cried a little then with Kira, but I thought that was the end of it. After the kids went to bed, Patrick and I snuggled up and watched an episode of Gilmore Girls. We fell asleep to a second episode and then headed to bed. As I was laying there, my mind went straight to my store of Mom memories. I started thinking about my Mom's last birthday... she turned 58. In a week, she would have been 59. I feel safe in typing to my blog because the only people who read this are people who love me and will support all of my emotional indulgences. It is not a google-able blog, so you had to find it some other way. Anyway, I came down here and got out my video camera to find what video footage I have of my Mom. I watched clips from my trip home this summer, and then found the clips on the computer from last Christmas when Mom and Dad came up here. I cried a lot. Mom never sounded or looked sick or like anything was bothering her. Most of my video was of my kids because I was thinking... I want to capture how they look, talk, and act now because they will be growing up fast. My lesson learned: capture the people I love all around me, because they will not look, act or talk that way always.


That space is for my Mom; she told me once that reading a big long "run on" paragraph that jumped subjects lowered general comprehension and interest. She always edited my papers all through high school and 2 years of college. Even when I would procrastinate and write my papers at the last minute, she would stay awake until 2 or 3 a.m. editing them and I would wake up at 5:00 to correct my mistakes. She was selfless like that. I strive to be selfless like that. I know that I am her kid so it was probably easier to do it for me (or more difficult sometimes because I was difficult sometimes), but she was like that with so many more people. We saw evidence of that at the visitation and funeral and the weeks following. It was also evident that my Dad has affected as many people; his kind, firm, just, and God fearing attitude and example has been an amazing way for me and Patrick to look up to him and learn from him. He is coming up here for Christmas. That makes me happy. I don't know if Christmas will be hard for me, but I am happy that my Dad will be here; so is Patrick.


I know that my Mom's birthday will be hard for me. I can feel it already. My birthday was hard too, but this next week will be full of specific prayers to make it through the emotional side and focus on the logical side that knows my Mom is in God's presence. To help me through Tuesday, we are going to open a Christmas present, watch videos of my Mom and one of our Christmas movies. Mom always wanted to go get the Christmas tree on her birthday. But, as life goes, it didn't always happen that way. Some years Michelle and I just climbed up on the roof to do Christmas lights because we couldn't make it to the Nursery to get a tree that day.


I am hoping that now I will be able to sleep. I need to get a glass of water because my head hurts from crying too much. Logical side is making a come back. Please pray for me and my family this week. I have just given you a look at how I am handling this week. I know that we all have memories tied to different things and some things will hurt me more than others and vice versa so please pray for all of us. Love, Faith

Bragging rights

The week of November 12-16 was a big first for Kira. She received all smiley faces on her weekly report! This was a big deal because she has been working like crazy since we got back at the end of September. She was doing two homework packets per week to catch up on the 3 1/2 weeks of having no homework and going to tutoring twice a week for her Japanese. Not only did she face her own struggles of her high energy levels and difficulty with focus and perfectionism, but she also had to adjust once again to being in school all day after having only short bursts of "focus time" when she did her homework with me in Illinois.

Her weekly report consists of characteristics of a good learner. I don't have on in front of me, or I would be able to tell you how many things are listed and give you examples of them. None the less, in the past her areas of improvement were usually focusing and completing work in class.

With coming home with a great report, Kira was able to plan her Saturday with her choice of activities. Beginning with a poptart, and ending with staying up late at a friend's house, Kira also had a great trip to the zoo and some games and art projects in between. Congratulations to Kira for a great week!

My kids

... love babies. This proof comes from Marc and Christina's recent stay with us.

Rylee Grace

Kira and Phoenix's newest cousin, Rylee, was able to stay here with us for a week with her family. She was 7 1/2 weeks old, and Kira loved having her here. In a very surreal way, Kira handled Rylee in a way that was beyond her 6 years. Kira was comfortable taking care of her and holding her and jumped at any chance she got to have Rylee.

Phoenix and his buddy Austen

Phoenix has not seen Austen for quite a while since his Mom is now staying home with him. So the other day when he came over to play, Phoenix was happy as can be. He climbed up on the couch next to Austen and put his arm around Austen. Of course, I was too late for the really cute picture where you could see Phoenix's arm around him, but none the less, it is adorable to see these two together again.

Trip to Seward

Although the weather did not cooperate as much as we had hoped, Marc and Christina still had some amazing pictures along Turnagain Arm.

Phoenix and Weston sat in the back of the Suburban with the middle seat empty between them so they could not touch each other.

Thoughts:

Phoenix: "Is he laughing or crying?"

Weston: "I am still in the car... Should I laugh or cry?"

While Marc and Christina were here, Patrick drove them down to Seward so that they could see the most beautiful highway drive in America. It is about 2 hours to get there so the kids needed some entertainment (books,toys, etc.) ... and they made their own.

The Wedding

Phoenix... so willing to share and so handsome.

Kira is looking beautiful and dainty in her dress, hat and gloves.

Check out those guns.


A picture of Patrick and I. I looked for a picture of our whole family together, but I guess that those pictures the professional photographer took (I remember posing for them though.)

Rod and Charlotte taking time to pose before the wedding.

Paul and Devon watching as Marc gave a speech. Marc was nervous, but he did great (even holding Weston because Weston wanted Daddy time.)

Of all the pictures of both Rylee and Weston, I picked this one because you can see how adorable Rylee's shoes are too.

Marc and Christina had a few moments to pose with no kids... but it didn't last long.

This is a way cool picture of Devon and Paul that also shows the beauty of the dress that Devon picked. To see Devon's hair and makeup, you have to wait for the professional pictures because we managed to get no shots of the two of them face on. They were both beaming and beautiful all day long.