Silliness

Attention all Michigan readers:

Don't forget to go out and vote! Preferably for Mike Huckabee. Not that we intend for this blog to be our own political soapbox, but any candidate that both voting members of this household agree on deserves a shout-out.

However, if you are looking for a blog that has great political (and religious and social) discourse check out Gene Veith's. His posts are always insightful and the comments take on a respectful, thoughtful debate.

Four Months Old!

Our smiley little girl is now a quarter of a year old. She celebrated this milestone by trying out a little bit of rice cereal and having a better hair day than her sister. She's still on a bottle strike, but she occasionally sleeps through the night making all of our days easier.

My promotion

"Tomorrow is my last day of work."

A friend of mine recently started a blog post with that same sentence and it certainly caught my interest. She went out to list her reasons for resigning, and summed it up by saying that while quitting work may not make sense to many people (with or without kids), it made sense to her. Knowing her and her husband, who is probably keeping his fingers crossed that she'll make more of her yummy cookies in her time home, I'm sure it's the right decision for them. I'm so happy for them.

And now it's my turn. It now makes sense to me and to our family. For the past two months or so, I've been attempting to work part-time, still doing social work consultation at Head Start centers, like I did before Brinn was born. The so-called life-work balance has yet to take form. Brinn refuses a bottle. Mali came down with Fifth disease. Regular night-time sleeping has not been occurring. Jonathan's job requires his 100 percent, as well as us as a supporting cast. Our baby-sitters are wonderful (I'm not just saying this because they read this blog), but I missed any time with the girls. And even though I was only scheduled to work PART-time, my job exists FULL-time and it was often on my mind. It is difficult and frustrating not to be able to do a job well. I NEED to do the job of parenting well.

Of course, this is bittersweet. I work for an amazing agency (how many non-profits can be described in that way?) and for the best supervisor in the world. They have been unbelievably gracious with this transition. I will miss them, and the work. While contemplating this, I read another friend's blog post about her resignation (by the way, I didn't ask anyone's permission to quote them, so I'm not identifying my sources). She explained "I'm glad to be sad about leaving. Because if I was glad to be leaving, then that would be sad. I've always felt very blessed to have my job...doing something meaningful, and getting to work with some pretty great people. Very blessed indeed"

We are all really excited to begin this new phase in our lives. I have lots of ideas of how to spend my time at home and with my girls. Maybe I'll finally make a few of the updates to this blog that I've been thinking about. I'm actually going to a puree-party next week to learn how to sneak veggies into recipes. (Does that sound like fun or what?) This is a really good move for us--just look how cute my new bosses are!

Christmas Reflections

Merry Christmas, or more precisely, a blessed Epiphany. We are slowly adjusting to our normal home routines after a wonderful Christmas trip with many celebrations. In many ways, we felt this was our best Christmas-tide ever. The girls adored spending so much time with their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins as well as friends we don't see often enough.





We also tried to maintain our own family Christmas tradition (now two years in the running) of celebrating the twelfth day of Christmas this Saturday. After a fun-filled trip to Ikea with Grandma Sandy we had a family dinner together and let the girls finally enjoy all of their new toys. Here are the rest of the pictures from the past few weeks.

We've also started something new this year...a book that my friend Ruth sent me suggested to save Christmas cards throughout the year. Each day (or week, or whatever) choose a card that you received and pray for person or family. What a way to purposefully remember loved ones throughout the year! We're hoping Mali will soon join in this too...the other day at breakfast she asked to pray for her friend Jack and then for her friend Adi. We had been talking about Jack earlier in that meal but her suggestion of Adi was pretty spontaneous. Hopefully they both had good days that day!

2007 to 2008

Happy New Year! (And happy engagement anniversary to us) I LOVE this holiday! We had a fantastic time celebrating last night at a neighbors' party and then had a birthday/New Year's brunch this morning. Entertaining certainly is different with children. I think we may start this tradition of an 11:00 am party, complete with pajamas, champagne, and football.

On our drive back from Michigan the other day, we reminisced about the past year. Here are a few recaps of things we've learned:

1) Life is much better and also much more challenging with two children. Mali was born to be a big sister.

2) As Mali came into her own (and Brinn will soon do the same), we came up with our own philosophies about disciplining our children. Setting boundaries, teaching skills, enforcing consequences, infusing humor and hopefully grace...what a responsibility.

3) Jonathan dubbed 2007 as "the year of craigslist". It is amazing how useful and addictive that site is. We can't imagine our life without our minivan now. Or having the clutter around that I managed to get rid of thanks to craigslist.

4) Speaking of clutter, we also learned how to simplify our schedule and household more this year too. Weekly routines were essential during the hectic times of 2007. We definitely recommend the tips we learned from flylady.net, even if the website itself is over-the-top cheesy at times.

5) Did we mention that having two kids keeps us on our toes? While attempting to slow down during the season of Advent, we made more decisions regarding life simplification. (More on that in another post).

6) Finally, and most importantly--pregnancy tests can be wrong! On New Year's Eve 2006, we were disappointed with a negative test. However, weeks later, my growing belly alone was proof that Brinnly Ruth Ward was on the way. I knew those cravings meant something!

What did you learn over the past year? Advice welcome!

Texas in December

Merry Christmas! But before we get to that post, here are our pictures from our trip to Austin. Enjoy!

(I would make a comment about having our pictures up before the Kurths, but if it wasn't for them, we would have no idea how to store pictures, or even what a blog was).

How to take a family Christmas picture

1) Convince your husband that this is a worthwhile way to spend a Saturday afternoon and that it won't be taking him away from football. And no, he is not to wear any Big Team team t-shirt.

2) Find a time when every member of the house is awake and ready to smile.

3) Bribe your neighbor to come over to help with the process. This is a good time to break out the snacks.

4) Attempt to arrange a baby and toddler on the couch with the parents. Convince the toddler that this not time to play with her toys or the neighbor or the camera.

5) After many, many discarded attempts, call over another neighbor, have him hide behind the couch to jump out and "suprise" the baby and toddler to hopefully catch a spontaneous-looking smile.

The result:

Three months old!

Big news this month: she moved into her big-girl crib in the room she shares with Mali. They both love it (as do their parents). If Brinn wakes up in the middle of the night loudly enough to wake Mali too, Mali is ready with the offer of a binky and stuffed animal to share. She also did great on her first airplane trip and had fun in Texas. More pictures of that trip soon. Overall, Brinn is smiley and happy and actually beginning to develop a regular sleep/feeding schedule. And she's still our snuggler!

Don't mess with us (we're going to Texas)

We're off for a family vacation to Austin. We are really excited to eat barbeque and meet up with the cast of Friday Night Lights. (Maybe that last part is just wishful thinking)



Every Friday night we watch our childless neighbors leave for a night out of happy hour and dinner. (No diaper bags! No sippy cups!) We wave and smile at them, knowing that soon it will be bedtime here and we can break out the dessert and watch our new favorite show. It's a small consolation. Did you know that the actor playing "Smash" went to Carnegie Mellon? I'm going to make Jonathan wear his CMU sweatshirt just in case we run into him.

Oh, and while we're in the area, we'll see the Kurths, meet baby Jonah, and be honored to stand as his godparents at his baptism. It's a good thing they live very near where FNL is filmed so we could fit them in.

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving in Michigan. The minivan performed wonderfully in transporting two little girls and all of the gear across three states. The girls did relatively well on the drive. We had two dinners, one with each side of the family and it was so great to introduce Brinn to Berrien Springs. Another highlight was finally meeting Adison Hildebrand and our "Thanksgiving Friday" tradition of hanging out with her parents.




Click here are the rest of our Thanksgiving pictures.

And, speaking of holidays, here are our Halloween pictures.

17 Months Old

Can we brag about our toddler for a few minutes here? She is changing every day recently. Her vocabulary is taking off! New word yesterday: "meat". That's a pretty useful one since she eats that and everything else in sight. One of our favorite words to describe her is "bold". She eagerly attacks the world with such enthusiasm she often wears us out. She loves, loves, loves taking a bath, seeing animals (especially Grandma's cat),saying "hi" to anyone crossing her path, laughing at her own jokes, playing with older kids, and of course, her sister. She (like her parents) is a child of routine and is proud to be able to anticipate what is happening next in the day, whether that is praying before bed or pushing her daddy out the door in the morning. Oh, and she can do a killer buffalo impression.

Recent quotes from Mali

While getting dressed for church--
Kaethe: Mali, you look so cute.
Mali: Yeah!


Picking Jonathan up from work, Brinn sleeping in her car seat--
Jonathan: Hi Mali! I'm so happy to see you!
Mali: Shhhh! (Then pointed at Brinn and wouldn't even look at Jonathan!)


Looking forward to seeing her friend Jack--
Kaethe: Jack's coming over!
Mali: JA!
Kaethe: That's right, "Jack". You two are such good friends. He's probably your best friend. Who is your best friend, Mali?
Mali: Sister!
Kaethe and Jonathan: Awww...

Two months old

Ten pounds, eleven ounces! Still gaining about one once per day!
(Unfortunately, these pictures don't capture her precious smiles).





And yes, she's also the proud owner of a Daddy with a beard. Mike, I think you might lose this one. I like to think that the free time he has from not shaving in the morning he can use for diaper changes.

Another fun fall weekend

We have been really taking advantage of the beautiful Pittsburgh weather this fall. Seriously, I think the climate here is wonderful. Here is an album of the past few weekends we shared with visiting family.

Our girls

Jonah Howard Kurth...

has arrived! Our friends, Derek, Karianne, and Kaeta have a brand new little boy in their family. We are so thankful for a safe and uncomplicated birth. However, we're a little thrown off that he's a boy. None of our friends have had boys recently. In fact, when we heard that the Kurths may be going into labor, I said to Mali "maybe baby Greta is here" (Greta being a name that they were considering for a girl). Mali gave me a confused look...and made the sign for gorilla. We had been calling the baby "Greta Gorilla" ever since then. And now we have to get used to saying "Jonah".

We'll be travelling to Texas in December for his baptism. We've never had a baby godson before.

Now back to making the wedding plans for Brinnly and Jonah...

Happy Halloween

Lots more pictures to follow!

October 27, 2007 (A contrast)

October 27, 2001

Six years of marriage
Five different full-time jobs
Four homes together
Three years of graduate school
Two beautiful daughters
One (still) happy couple

All Smiles

This picture doesn't quite do it justice, but Brinn has been charming us all with her smiles lately. It is especially fun to watch her beam at Mali. Speaking of our big girl, we have another reason to smile around here--Mali has been practicing using the potty! Obviously, she's way too young for official potty-training, but when we got it out for her to become used to it, it worked! We'll spare everyone the details, but we're already counting the money we're potentially saving on diapers.

Here's a picture with us and Ann, our wonderful midwife who caught Brinn. All good at the six-week check-up as well.

October 27, 2001

Six years of marriage
Five different full-time jobs
Four homes together
Three years of graduate school
Two beautiful daughters
One (still) happy couple!

Fall Weekend with Grandma Deni

Happy One Month Birthday!

Brinnly Ruth's Baptism

Our baby girl was baptized this past Sunday at our church, First Trinity Ev. Lutheran. We were honored to have our friends, Ruth and Jonathan Meyer serve as her godparents. As Jonathan Meyer is a Lutheran pastor, our pastors were gracious enough to let him participate in the service as well, making the service quite possibly the smallest ratio of congregation to clergy ever. (Four pastors present with a congregation of about 80!) Ruth was also able to show off her talent on the flute. The Meyer kids, Benjamin and Timothy were charming as ever and hopefully Mali learned from their exemplary church behavior. (I doubt it, since she spent most of the time sitting on our neighbor, Kaleab's lap).

Following the service, we celebrated at home with a typical Lutheran Oktoberfest lunch and a Steeler win. We were especially blessed to share the weekend with our family and friends who once again made the long Michigan to Pennsylvania trip for us. Thanks, everyone!





Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.” Acts 2:38-39

Click here for more pictures

15 Months Old!

Our big girl is now 15 months old and what an exciting few weeks she has had! She continues to adore Brinn and speaks in a sing-song voice only around her, usually saying "Hiiiiiiii". She also loves to kiss and pat her back, and snuggles with her the longest at bedtime, after giving Mom and Dad a perfunctory kiss. A few more tidbits...

At her check-up this week, we were surprised to find out that she's only in the seventh percentile for weight and the fourth for height! Her appetite is huge and we're not sure where she's putting all of it. Overall, she's very healthy.

Her favorite toys are her books right now, and she has very strong feelings about which ones she enjoys, namely Dr. Suess and any nursery rhymes. She enjoys being read to and we also find her quietly reading to herself often. (She doesn't seem to mind if the books are upside down).

One of the perks of having a new sister is even more pink clothes and we added another rack in the girls' closet. Mali can reach this one and LOVES to pretend to "shop" by going through the outfits.

She is walking/running/climbing everything in sight. She just figured out how to climb Brinn's bassinette reminding us just how close we have to watch those two.

Pictures of her first week...

Click here to see our first few days as a family of four.