Luka's 1st Christmas

Merry Christmas, buddy. Tata & Mama love you very much. Your sister does too although it would be fair to say she's still getting used to you. You are all boy. You crawl faster than I ever remember Danijela crawling & you want to be in everything. You have both upper & lower teeth making an appearance. You also like to talk. And by "talk" I mean yell sounds very loud. One of my favorite things you do now is clap. You smile from ear-to-ear most of the time. You definitely get fussy when you are tired or hungry. At night you find yourself sitting up & aren't sure what to do except scream. That is our least favorite part. Love, love, love you.

Baby Luka(s)

Danijela received two new baby dolls this Christmas. She has quite a collection. The one Cabbage Patch doll is called "Big Baby". All others (and I mean all) are now referred to as "Baby Luka." It can be quite confusing for both me & her brother.

Kitchen Help

Tata helped Santa assemble the kids' new play kitchen on Christmas Eve. This was the first Christmas that Danijela understood the concept of Santa. We tried to down play it & talked about how Santa is imaginary. I'm not sure she got that part. However, she definitely wanted me to tell Santa not to eat all the cookies. She was very specific.

The kitchen is a big success. We've had lots of good playtime together & all parts are infant friendly. Grammy & Poppy gave her the baking set from IKEA. She already had IKEA pots & pans plus the kitchen came with some awesome wooden items.

The day started with cookies & milk. Yes, the breakfast of champions. Within an hour Danijela had managed to shove lots of chocolate in her mouth as well. The girl has her Tata's sweet tooth. It was a wonderful morning together as a family without any meltdowns.

Letter to Danijela & Luka

Sweet Danijela & Luka,

Thank you so much for the moon cookies. That was very thoughtful of you. You are both wonderful children & it is a joy to bring you gifts. Always remember that the greatest gift of all is Jesus Christ. It is His birthday that we celebrate by giving gifts to others. Giving is much greater than receiving.

Please love each other & share. Show kindness to others. Remember that God is Love. Love others as Gods loves you.

Merry Christmas,
Santa

Letter to Santa

Dear Santa,

Please eat the moon cookies. We also left you some milk. Hope you like them. Please don't eat them all.

Danijela

Whiskers

Oh, sweet Luka, how can a baby reek complete havoc on two grown adults? Tata's been amazing in helping me cope with the lack of sleep. I'm still an ingrate mind you. I try not to be, but sometimes it just spews itself all over him in the wee hours of the morning when I'm suddenly looking at 10 hours solo with two kids & no sleep. Everyone that knows me knows I'm married to a (almost) saint. I know. I know. He's not perfect. But I'm reminded often both by other people & by my own witness of how wonderful he is.

Luka is almost 9 months & still wakes three times a night. Danijela is closing in on 3 years & wakes sometimes two times a night. My saint husband snores (love you, honey). I've been sleeping on the couch for 8 months to avoid Luka baby sounds & Tata snoring sounds. I want my life back ... whatever that means!

Henrietta

Both Penelope & Henrietta have beautiful red hair & blue eyes like their mama. This girl loves the camera & the camera certainly loves her.

Happy Birthday, Jesus

For the second year in a row Melanie hosted a birthday party for Jesus. The obvious intent is to teach our children that Christmas is the celebration of Christ's birth. There are different versions of the cake but Melanie did brown (sin), red (cross), green (all things new) and white (purity) layers.

Attempting a party of any kind with toddlers & smaller siblings is a little nutty. This was no exception. If I'm counting correctly there were 14 children and a couple on the way. Their attention spans are almost nonexistant unless cake is involved. It was amazing how quiet the house became when they were served. Hum. Next year we should probably read to them while they are eating. I don't know how Melanie does it, but I better figure it out because I volunteered to host in 2008. Here a few cute mugs.

Voice of Hope

I was asked what I took away from serving at Voice of Hope last weekend. Honestly, I'm reminded this outreach is not enough. Don't get me wrong. It was well planned & beautiful. I enjoyed being there & understand its importance. Yet, in reality, it should serve as a jumping off point for some & a reminder to others that serving Christ & His people is a constant, not a holiday event. In general, we are blessed beyond measure with financial resources & time. The event motivated me to give & work more for others the full 365 days a year.

Trapped

Being sick & stuck at home didn't seem to phase Danijela. She actually wanted to stay home the next day & the day after that & so on. Sunday we went to Santa's Village with our community group. Miss Melanie was leaving & said, to Danijela, "I'll see you at school tomorrow." Danijela looked her square in the face & said "I'm not going to school."

Oh, it made my heart fill up & also break. Danijela's innocent comment speaks volumes about how what we think our children need is not necessarily the truth. Often I think I'm not enough for her. I think she wants to be around other people. I can't give her all that she needs & she'll be bored. The reality is we are everything to our children & they need to be with us alone more than we might understand or want to admit. I love you, Danijela. You are the most important girl in my world. You are my sweet baby girl. Your kisses & hugs give me life & make me melt.

Sick Day

Last week our two babies were sick. And it sucked. We stayed home & watched more PBS than I care to admit. We also played a ton which I naturally don't hesitate to admit. Luka was awesome in that he tolerated sitting in Danijela's room while he was poked & prodded. Both he & I were given nametags (on our backs) just like Danijela receives at church. It was funny. Tata came home & laughed as he pulled the paper off my back which I had completely forgotten about. The nametag was applied in the morning!

The good news is they got well. The bad news is Luka is sick again. He sounds like he's been smoking non-filtered cigarettes. For about a week he's been waking almost every hour or so screaming. Some of this craziness is related to him being sick. And some of it is related to his new found skills of crawling & going from laying down to sitting up. Ugh. Now if he could just figure out how to get himself back down! Today we learned he has an ear infection. Poor guy. Poor Tata and Mama too.

Charlotte Leona

I feel like OK! magazine with the first published images of Charlotte. She arrived to Tommy & Tracy on November 20. They have an amazing image of this baby entering this world. I have a couple I snapped when they came over recently. I'm heading over there soon to take my time & get some really good ones.

Jan-O

Once again I'm backward blogging. It's a new theme to my blog. Sweet Jan came over recently to share dinner with us in our apartment. I'm so glad she did. We had a really nice evening together. Thank you, Jan. My goal this year is to have a set day that Jan comes over for dinner. We need to do this regularly.

Inspiration House

This is our inspiration for the house we are building. We are going to paint our house blue too. Yes, it will be completely blue. I've had some misgivings as we've started trying different blues on the exterior. Who knew there were so many blues & that it would start to freak me out. I love the look of this house. We can't afford the metal roof (bummer) and ours has to be more narrow. But this is it. It's our inspiration.

Picture of the Week

Teeth

Two teeth are breaking through Luka's gums. Little booger won't let me get a shot at them. As soon as I can get his silly tongue out of the way I'll post some pictures.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all my friends. Thank you for the thoughtful Christmas cards. They are all very professional & well thought out. I didn't manage to get a birth announcement for Luka. And, yet again, there will be no Christmas card from our family. Why is it such a struggle for me to get through the day? December seems to be the worst. Everything feels so rushed & I can hardly manage the pressure to buy gifts & mail them. I'm also horrible about remembering birthdays. Wouldn't you know mine is Halloween & literally no one forgets it.

Upright

Yes. Yes. Luka can situp. He's been sitting up since October. Bad mommy for not posting this big milestone. Honestly I haven't been working with him. We just live life together as a family of four. One day someone asked if Luka could situp yet. I said "I don't know." I then plunked him down and, sure enough, he could. What a cutie.

I had a leadership team meeting at Watermark. Danijela tore it up in the playgroup room before everyone arrived. Luka is ready to run with his favorite sister. He's almost crawling. He gets up on all fours, bounces, lurches forward & face plants.