MERRY CHRISTMAS

Important Language Development

Petra has learned to sign "eat." She brings her hand to her mouth. But that is not what she does to tell me she is hungry. She signs eat after I ask her, "Do you want to eat?" I ask her if she wants to eat when I realize that she is biting my legs.

She signs "more," knowing that it will get her more food.

She shakes her hands for "all done." Some times she verbalizes it a little bit too. It does not mean that she doesn't want any more food. It means that she wants out of her high chair, and she is willing to grab some more food off her plate while I am lifting her.

She says, "Nack!" for snack. She knows it means crunchy things like puffs and crackers.

And she can now say, "Cookie." It's not "Coo-Koo" or "Cee-Kee." She says it perfectly. And she knows that it is the appropriate word to use when the cookie jar is out.




Little smarty.

Home Church

December 5th, the kids and I stayed home from church because Petra had a fever. I told Paul and Julia that we would have home church. I don't want to pretend that it was a magical, perfect moment of worship. I lost my temper when I couldn't make it through two verses of "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" without Paul interrupting me to ask why the singing, dancing toy snowman wasn't working.

There was almost constant admonition to sit still and be serious. The second liturgical scripture reading I got from an advent booklet was a little over Paul and Julia's heads. (Christ outside the temple describing the coming end times.)

But here are some things that went right. Paul and Julia helped pick out which songs we would sing. They included "Joy to the World" and "Jesus Loves Me." We did sing "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" and before each verse we stopped and talked about what the words meant.

I was responsible for the opening prayer of praise. Paul and Julia could not sit still. So I started talking about how we use the prayer of praise to tell God how important we think he is. I asked them to think about other things that were important to them, like (look around the living room) their stockings. How do we show that our stockings are important? We enjoy looking at them. We think they're pretty. We like to see our names on them. We spend time thinking about what will come in them. In the same way, praising God is appreciating him. We think about how wonderful He is. We enjoy his beauty. We spend time thinking about the wonders he has in store for us. It was a teachable moment.

Paul was responsible for the prayer of confession. He was a little confused and started off with petitions. But he nailed the assurance of pardon. I asked him, "Okay Paul, now what's the good news?"
"God sent Jesus to pay for our sins!"

Julia was responsible for the prayers for the kingdom, or petitions. I gave the kids time to think about what they would say before worship started. Julia insisted that she needed to write on the order of worship. She wrote an L for the Lundgaards. She wrote a G for the Galvins. She made another G for Gideon and even tried to spell Evelyn's name. EVVLIN. When it was her turn to pray, she was a little embarrassed, but I was so proud of her!

We're getting there.

Thankful

Okay, so the weather this morning said that it was 3.9°F (-15.6°C). That was unusual for two reasons. First, it is rarely that cold here in December. Second, we don't usually see Fahrenheit temperature reports that include a decimal. I guess when it is this cold, every tenth of a degree counts. The weather also made a 100% chance of snow prediction for tonight and tomorrow. We don't see that very often either. We see 100% chance of rain periodically, but very seldom 100% chance of snow.

So I'm thankful for

A warm bed.
A warm husband.
A hot water bottle.
Pipes that we catch before they have frozen solid.
A hot shower.
Heated seats in the car - I am so spoiled.
Hot tea - regular, decaff, herbal - it's all good.
Lotion. Lot's of lotion. (Note to self: don't put lotion on immediately before trying to twist open your travel mug of hot tea.)
Travel mugs.
Snow on the ground to soften the visual effect of it being so cold.
4-wheel drive.
Chicken noodle soup.
Vick's vapo rub

December health

Our health has looked like this:

Dec 3, Petra: fever 101

Dec 4 Petra: fever 102

Dec 5 Petra: fever 103; Julia: ongoing hacking. Sarah: ongoing hacking. Steve ongoing hacking.

Dec 6 Petra goes to doctor. The doctor checks for ear infection, tonsil infection, urinary tract infection (which meant she got a catheter. Um... sadness.) Diagnosis: probably just a virus. Wait and see how it goes.

Dec 7 Petra's fever is gone. Steve goes to doctor. The doctor listens to Steve's lungs. The doctor asks Steve if he is a smoker or has asthma. Diagnosis: bronchitus/pneumonia.

Dec 8 Petra breaks out in a rash. We decide her fever was roseola.

Dec 9 Paul's tonsils are really red and swollen. We give him cough medicine and send him to school anyway. He takes himself to the nurse. She tells him to stay home tomorrow if his throat still hurts.

Dec 10 Paul goes to the doctor. Diagnosis: adenovirus (?).

Dec 11 Julia: ongoing hacking. Sarah: ongoing hacking

Dec 12 Julia: ongoing hacking. Sarah: ongoing hacking

Dec 13 Julia: ongoing hacking. Sarah goes to doctor. Diagnosis: bronchitis/sinusitis. I mention that Steve has pneumonia and my doctor tells me to come back in two weeks if I'm not better. Paul's eye looks really bloodshoot.

Dec 14: We're planning to take Paul to the optometrist for a pink eye diagnosis.

Dec 15: Probably ought to take Julia to the doctor for ongoing hacking.

We don't usually see this level of medical malaise until January or February. But at 5°F this morning, it kind of feels like January or February.

UPDATE 12-15-2010
Paul didn't have pink-eye. It was bloodshot because of an allergy. We have a script, and I guess we'll be looking to see if we can identify the allergen.

No More Turkeys

Our first foray into turkey farming has reached its end. It was definitely interesting, and we learned a bunch. We also got a freezer full of turkey meat & broth out of the deal. I don't think we'll need to buy turkey for a while.

They started out so cute:


Then they got bigger:


For the last couple months the turkeys have pretty much called this little shelter home:




While they were out in the elements a bit more, they enjoyed the benefits of eating lots of good stuff leftover in the garden. And next Spring, we will enjoy the benefits of them fertilizing the garden during their stay. The shelter has a couple wheels, so it got moved every few days through the garden area so they got fresh ground under them, and fresh weeds & seeds to munch. But the birds we butchered later in the season, after some time outdoors, seemed much healthier than the few that had not gotten out of the coop at all. Ignorant of the fact that she's less than a week to live, this female seems happy enough:


And when its all said and done, they end up like this:


At least until we cook 'em...then they look like this:


Just for curiosity, I'll give you a few quick facts from our experience:
- Turkey's hatched: May 26
- Number of turkeys: 14
- 1st turkey processed: Sept. 6 (16 lbs.)
- Last turkey processed: Dec. 4 (~22 lbs.)
- Largest turkey processed: 33 lbs. (that's the ready-to-cook weight!)
- Number of weekends spent plucking turkeys: 8

Precious women

These women are unspeakably dear to me.

Grandma, Aunt Carrie, Great Grandma (and me. In the reflection.)
Petra, Emma



Aunt Carrie, Julia, Great Great Aunt Ruth, Emma

Names and Meanings

I was always fascinated by the names that meant things in the bible. I once heard someone teach that each time Hosea called his kids home for supper, he was giving a mini-sermon to the neighbors. I thought about that when we were picking names for our children.

I was also impressed by the habit in the southern U.S. of calling children by their first and middle names, even when you weren't mad at them. I wanted names for our children that would flow easily, so we could do that too.

Paul Joseph, your name means, "Small: God adds." We all start small. It is God who adds to us. We all are small in the eyes of God. We are to be humble. Ask God to build us up. Paul, your name is all over the place in the bible. You are also named after your father and your uncle. Look to them as role models. My one hesitation in naming you, Paul, is that I have a cousin Paul who has not been living a life that is honoring to God. The fear skirts my mind now and again that you will fall into the same sort of rebellion. Paul Joseph, your name in not your destiny. You must pursue the Lord, and I must trust the Lord for your future.

Julia Rose, I must confess that I was primarily thinking that I wanted a girl's name to mean something pretty. You are my ruby, my pearl, my little rose. Your name means, "Fair rose." I remember your delight the first time I showed you that the name Julia was in the bible, in the last chapter of Romans, where Paul is sending his greetings to the believers. When I think of your name, I remember the Christmas hymn, "Lo How a Rose E'er Blooming." It points us to Jesus. Ask God to make you fair with the inner beauty that Peter describes so that you can also point to Jesus.

Petra Grace, your name is also something lovely; it means, "Rock of grace." You are my precious little pebble. When I think of the meaning of your name, I remember the great rock in the desert, which Moses struck with his staff and water flowed from it. That rock foreshadowed Jesus and his sacrifice. You must also point to Jesus. Petra is the feminine of Peter, which you will find all over the New Testament. And you are named after a dear friend in the Czech Republic. Ask God to fill you with grace, and be also gracious.

O Christmas Tree

We (and by we, I mean Steve) lugged our artificial Christmas tree out of the attic yesterday and decorated it. I helped fluff out the branches.

I then helped by taking Paul and Julia outside for a little exercise. Steve had suggested that we could bake Christmas cookies, but running around outside requires less clean up afterward. Usually. At least, dish cleaning. Anyway, "a little exercise" consisted of me lapping our yard 4 times with Maggie in 20 minutes, while Paul and Julia lapped the yard once in 20 minutes, then picked up sticks and poked at their pumpkins and climbed into the tree house once. So I got a little exercise and they got ... ummm ... they got fresh air.

By the time we came back indoors, Steve had strung the tree with lights. We started unwrapping ornaments and hanging them. Steve (with perhaps some low key snarling and gnashing of teeth) coached Paul and Julia on how to hang ornaments not all on one branch, and don't drop them, and heavy ornaments should not be put on branch tips, and why are you digging through the bottom of the storage tub when I left perfectly good ornaments for you right on the top, and I told you not to touch that one yet, and hey - that branch already has three ornaments on it, please pick another branch.

We decorated the whole tree with a three tiered system. Soft, fluffy, indestructible ornaments at the bottom. Somewhat more durable ornaments in the middle. Ornaments that are easily mangled or fractured at the top. Mind you, we were given a whole set of Hummel Christmas ornaments soon after we were married. Most of them haven't seen the light of day since '05.

Petra, what a good little baby, napped through the whole production. She woke just in time to see the decorated tree and be charmed by the lights and colors.

Thanksgiving Weekend

We made it up to my folks house for Thanksgiving. For the big meal, we contributed, what else? A Turkey! We cooked it overnight at our house, loaded up the car first thing in the morning, and drove north for ~3 hours with a large, steamy, hot bird in the back. And it turned out reasonably well.

Highlights of the trip included:

-watching "Wallace and Grommit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit" in the car and having Paul and Julia realize that it was more funny than spooky

-exploring Grandpa's paw-paw garden


-walking to the local elementary school playground


-pumpkin and mincemeat pies (thank you, great grandma!)

-playing with new (old) toys that grandma had brought out of storage. Steve built a C'nex helicopter and flatbed.

-Julia coloring a tracing of herself while Paul watched the first Harry Potter movie with Daddy (ummm... a bit too scary for him yet. oops.)

-Paul and Julia had individualized treasure hunts to keep them busy, to give them a little exercise, and to practice reading. They've been holding out on me with their reading skills. They zipped through their clues way to quickly because I thought the clues would be more challenging then they were.

-Visiting Great Grandma and Grandpa and playing their organ.

-Starting to scan pictures of my (Sarah's) grandparents from their early adulthood.

-Trying out grandma's exercise bike.

-Chasing after Petra as she climbed the stairs. Repeatedly.

I was really pleased that Petra was outgoing and friendly with everyone at least some of the time. She was also cranky at times, and I wonder if she isn't teething.

Oh, and my grandmother is slowly dissolving her music box collection, so each of my children were sent home with a Christmas music box this weekend. I'm very grateful, but my heart is in my mouth each time the children touch one of them.

It was good time with family.

Minding my tongue

As a mom, it is interesting watching myself trying to make good word choices with my children. For example, when I’m mad about something Paul has done, I try to say that the behavior was stupid and not that he is stupid. I don’t want him to decide stupid is his identity.

Likewise, when we were expecting Julia, I had to work to break the habit of calling Paul, “Baby.” No more, “Come here, baby,” or “What’s the matter, baby?” Julia was going to be the baby and I wanted Paul to put some distance between himself and that name before she was born.

A little later, I decided it was time to drop the habit of referring to myself in the third person. “Give mommy a kiss,” was replaced with “Give me a kiss.” I trusted that Paul knew he was to call me mommy and that Julia (and subsequently Petra) would follow by example. Every once in a while I slip and refer to myself as mommy, but I like to think that modeling first person pronouns for the children is good for their language development.

One speech habit I am currently working to correct is calling only for Paul. When Julia was quite small, it didn’t make sense to point out the horses or trucks we saw while driving to both of them. But I’ve found that we’ve persisted in the habit of just calling Paul to come when we see something cool. I’m trying to make a point of calling both Paul and Julia to see the moon or a toad, even if it is something that Paul is more interested in.

It has also been pointed out to us that we need to bring our bathroom talk up a few levels of maturity. Paul’s first grade teacher has asked us to help him stop announcing to the whole class when he needs to go poopee. Should've seen that one coming...

In addition to “please” and “thank you” we are slowly working toward using, “may I appeal” as an appropriate way for the children to disagree with directions they’ve been given.

Unfortunately, we all have days when we use words like clubs rather than controlling them like scalpels. And I sometimes wonder whether the word choices I make are really impacting the children as much as I imagine. I know sometimes I feel stupid, even when nobody has called me that name. But I’m hopeful that by caring for our children and picking our words carefully, we will help shape our thoughts and provide a good mental space in which to develop our identities. After all, it was not without reason that the Son of God is called the Word.

Happy Birthday Sarah!

My lovely bride celebrated her birthday yesterday surrounded by family. She chose to have a celebration at home with the kids instead of going out for a quiet dinner. She chose to have a rum cake (mmmmm). She even volunteered to make supper. Wow, what an awesome woman!

Happy Birthday, my dear, we love you!

cross eyed

When I asked God to keep the cross ever before me, I didn't think He would do it by pointing out that my outlook and self esteem are perennially colored by HOW I'm doing at things.

I realized that Paul's turkey disguise project was due on Monday. I found it near the bottom of a stack of papers on my kitchen counter this morning. Rats.

The teller at the bank today pointed out that my driver's license expired yesterday. I wonder how bad the fine will be. Nuts.

The project I'm doing at work is over budget. Ouch.

God is keeping the cross in front of me by pointing out that I don't have it all together. When things run smoothly, it is too easy for me to coast and forget about my weaknesses. Having my weaknesses brought before my nose makes me cling to that cross, the depth of the Lord's sacrifice, the beauty of his person, and the persistence of His love.

Look Out

We spent the first weekend in November on, in, and near Look Out Mountain. Steve and I were blessed to attend a Global Mission Conference in Chattanooga. We were further blessed to have Steve's folks watch the kids for us and to be able to stay in THE CABIN in Georgia. Paul and Julia got to go with their grandparents to the cabin when Steve and I were overseas in the spring. It was a big hit and ever since they have been eager to show the place to us.

Near the Mountain.
The conference was great. We met up with the Sechlers, whom we had know in the Czech Republic. We tried to encourage some other missionaries. And I got to attend a session by one of the authors of "When Helping Hurts: Alleviating Poverty without Hurting the Poor...Or Yourself." I think I'm going to have to read that one. One of the authors' points is that we are all spiritually poor. If we try to help the materially poor without repenting our own spiritual poverty and addressing our broken relationships, then we can do more harm than good. We need to do the one without neglecting the other.

On the Mountain.
We stayed in a really cute, rustic, solidly built cabin in a deliberately old fashioned development. The developers have built ponds and a pool. We played in paddle boats, a huge tree house, and swings. Julia led me to the candy shop all by herself, and Paul made correct change with the cash register. Maggie was free to roam everywhere. At one point a group of us went indoors without her, so she went a half mile or so down the road to meet up with Grandma and Petra in her stroller. She meandered back home with them. The whole place is really a magical spot to be a kid.






Paul collected lizards. Lizards collected Paul.



We all hiked a trail up the side of the mountain to see a waterfall and a cave. Paul and Julia did a pretty good job for novice hikers. I loved watching Steve coach them over gullies and up slopes. "And if you are quiet, we might see some animals." Right...





In the Mountain.
The cave had water gushing out of it. Steve, Julia, and Paul went inside to explore. At first I hung back with Petra. Julia had a little set back when she bumped her head inside the cave. Eventually she felt better and wanted me to escort her into the cave. I thought that was pretty brave of her, so I left Petra with her grandparents. I then discovered that I have fear of going into dark caves without a professional tour guide. We got several feet into the cave, and I could see Steve ahead of me, but I couldn't see the ground under me and I had to stop. My eyes slowly adjusted, and I was able to take Julia further in as long as I didn't dwell on spiders, snakes, bats, hidden shafts, roof collapses, getting lost, getting stuck, or J.R.R. Tolkien. I think Paul and Steve had a fun time exploring.

Global Missions Conference

We had the joy and pleasure to spend last weekend in the Lookout Mountain, Georgia, area. This trip had 2 main goals. The first was the opportunity for Sarah & I to attend Mission to the World's Global Missions Conference in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The second was to have a family vacation around some beautiful property that my parents have an interest in on the side of Lookout Mountain. (More about the 2nd goal in a later blog post.)

Sarah & I, along with 8 others from our church spent Friday night, all day Saturday, and the morning on Sunday at the Chattanooga convention center for this amazing missions conference. There were outstanding speakers, amazing times of worship, and awesome displays of the power of Christ bringing transformation and reconciliation where most would not think it possible. We heard stories of how God is working around the world, received practical instruction for our own ministries, and had the chance to reconnect with old friends. In the immortal words of Larry the Cucumber, "I laughed, I cried...it moved me Bob." I'm sure all of us who attended are still processing the event and everything we heard and learned. And I pray that it brings about positive change in us and our families.

Here's a few pictures from Saturday's dinner of the team from our church.

More Fun at Aunt Carrie's

And here's several more good pictures from our trip to South Bend, Indiana.

Walking to the ND campus...


Fun in the leaves...



Our big 1 year-old girl...



We love our Aunt Carrie & Uncle Scott...

Petra Birthday Pics

We finally had a chance to copy some of the pictures off the camera. So here's some good pictures from Petra's 1st birthday party at her Aunt Carrie's house.

Petra is One

For Petra's first birthday, we got her up early, stuck her in the car and drove about 5.5 hours. Sounds like a good time, no?

We went to visit my sister. The drive was really lovely, as we had beautiful sunny skies, cool temperatures, and the many colors of autumn to enjoy.

At Aunt Carrie's house,
Paul had a lot of fun setting up the game, "Mouse Trap,"
Julia held her baby cousin, Emma, at every opportunity ("She has blue eyes like mine")
and Petra was delighted with their big dog, Koda. Big friendly dog. Even after Koda cleaned out Petra's ears for her.

We took a walk around Notre Dame University. Fifteen years after visiting the campus as a prospective student, I got to see the interior of their beautiful basilica.

My mom and dad came out for a visit too. Mom made & decorated the traditional first birthday Winne-the-Pooh cake for Petra. Paul and Julia "helped" Petra blow out her candle and open her gifts. Petra did open one of her own presents, which was a toy comb and mirror. She likes to play at brushing her own hair.

Petra was really funny with her cake. I held Petra in my lap and we set the cake in front of her. She had a spoon in her hand. She started slapping the cake with her spoon. Slap, slap, slap. Then she would pull the spoon around to her mouth and eat whatever had stuck to it. Slap, slap, slap. Taste. Repeat. Toward the end she enjoyed digging her hands in the cake crumbs, but most of what she ate came from the spoon.

We drove home on Sunday. On the way, we picked up supper in St. Mary's and had a picnic in Memorial Park downtown. The kids got to see the canal, a lock, a canal boat and a statue of a mule. Steve had fun showing some of the places he would go in town when he was a child. He showed them were he used to fish and where he and a buddy would pile rocks to try to dam the river. Looking back, he was marveling at the independence he had at that age (~6-9) to wander around town.

All in all, a really pleasant weekend away.