The picture on the mantle

Sitting on our fireplace mantle are six framed photographs. There is one of our niece, one of our nephew, one of Kate, two of Zach (had to keep his newborn picture on display), and one of Joe and I with our friend Anna. All the photos are current except the one with Anna. That particular photo is almost four years old but I can't seem to take it down.

While on maternity leave this spring, I would find myself looking at the photos while feeding Zach or when he was asleep in my arms. All of the photos have special people, but the photo with Anna is more than just a picture of a special person. The photo itself was a perfect gift to receive that Christmas 2005. It was taken a few weeks before Christmas at Joe's brother's wedding. Joe was the best man and I was a bridesmaid. Anna was almost 2 years old and I remember her not quite recognizing us initially due to our wedding attire.

So what made that photo a perfect gift? The timing and simplicity of it. Joe and I were about to start IVF and it had already been a long 2+ years of trying to expand our family beyond the two of us. Anna filled that void a little bit. Her happiness and excitement to see us when we'd visit always melted our hearts and I see that happiness in the photo. She's more like family and so the photo has remained with the other photos.

When looking at the photos on the mantle, I sometimes feel I see a journey that starts with that Anna photo. I see Kate's picture, our little miracle baby who surprised us after we moved on to adoption. Then Zach, who was just as much of a surprise as Kate. Add the pictures of our niece and nephew who are each days apart in age with Kate and Zach and we have an amazing family story.

The journey across the mantle says to me that there was a plan and we just had to be patient.

I should get an updated photo with Anna, one that has Anna, Kate, and Zach all together; but for now, the Anna photo stays. It helps remind me of our journey and each day I'm thankful for our two miracles and look forward to the fun times and frustrating times, the little moments and the monumental ones.

Oh the things a toddler says...

A couple conversations with Kate have gone as follows:

#1 a few weeks ago...
Kate: Zach's a boy.
Me: Yep.
K: Daddy's a boy.
M: Yep. And what is Kate?
(Pause)
K: Kate's a cutie!
(Insert lots of laughter)


#2 over the last weekend...
Kate: I want to go to Iowa. Not Izzy's Iowa. The other Iowa.
Joe: You mean Grandma Hagen's?
Kate: Yeah, the Grandma Hagen's. The other Iowa.
(for reference, Izzy's Iowa is referring to the Green grandparents)

Happy 6 months old!

Zach is 6 months old today. Here is a picture from Labor Day weekend. Yes, he is a huge baby, but the perspective is a little skewed due to me leaning back in the chair...keep that in mind.

I hurt...

I'm trying to get into training for the Irongirl Duathlon at the end of September. I've had a few runs, but getting into a regular training schedule has not happened yet. But, I ran last night (plan to use the Couch to 5k training for the run) and now I hurt.

It's good for me, right? Now if only I can get to a regular training regimen.

It's Goose!

Our church had Vacation Bible School last week and I helped on 2 of the days with Games. The second day was beautiful and we were able to play outside. We had some extra time and a couple of the small groups wanted to play Duck, Duck, Gray Duck. We've had the debates with native MN friends about Duck, Duck, Goose versus Duck, Duck, Gray Duck. The argument for MN's "better" Gray Duck version is that colors are used and therefore it's a better game. Instead of going around the circle with just duck, duck, duck, duck, goose it's supposed to be red duck, yellow duck, green duck, blue duck, gray duck. I suppose I can give in a little bit on that point.

However, the kids at VBS just did duck, duck, duck, gray duck and no other colors! Did their parents forget to properly instruct them on how the game is played? Do they not know color names? Should they just give in to how the rest of the world plays the game?!!? Can we teach our kids it's goose and not gray duck and not have them ridiculed? Oh the dilemma! =)

Here's the Wikipedia link to the game. Even Wikipedia recognizes Minnesota's are "different".

It's all about perspective

It's Friday night and Kate and Zach are asleep (at least for the moment). An 80s movie on TV has a scene where a quarter is put into a juke box to play a song.

That sure makes today's 99 cent MP3 downloads look cheap AND you get to listen to the song how ever many times you want!

Guess that's my random thought for the night!

Bath time fun!

Joe and I are bad parents. Zach got his first bath last night at almost 4 weeks old. To be fair, I had been wiping him down with a wet cloth, but we hadn't done a full bath with him in a tub. We kept putting it off since the experience was never fun with Kate. She cried and screamed the whole time. We got to be pretty good at baths in under 5 minutes. Kate was 16 months old before she seemed to "enjoy" the bath. Even now it can be hit and miss.

So, we were prepared to do the bath really fast last night...and I mean fast. In and out in a few minutes. It turns out our trepidation was all for nothing. Zach didn't mind the bath. He didn't start crying until he came out and was wrapped in a towel.

Maybe there's hope for fun bath times sooner than later!

Deja Vu #2

This was 23 months ago when Izzy was born.
Kate is 9 days older than Izzy.


And this is yesterday...Baby Sam arrived.
He weighed in at 8 lb 8 oz and 22 inches long.
Zach is 18 days older than Sam.


And just for good measure, here's the Green dads with their kids.

This should be a baby post but...

I should post something about Zach, but it'll wait.

In Hotel Rwanda, Don Cheadle's character and Nick Nolte's character (I think anyway) had a conversation about Americans (and the world) seeing the atrocities happening in Rwanda and doing something about it. One of them responds with something like "No they won't. They'll see it on their TV, think how sad it is, then resume eating their dinner." I remember thinking "no we won't!" at the time.

Every time I see something sad in the news, like at least 12 people killed at an immigration center in NY today, I think of that line. What can I do? Sure, I can say a prayer, but it doesn't feel much different than thinking how sad it is and then resume eating dinner. More often than not, I've moved on to the next news story shortly after reading the sad one.

Typical American? It would seem so.

A Friday Morning Conversation with Kate

On the way to Brenda's this morning, Kate and I had the following brief conversation:

Kate: Butterflies!
Me: Butterflies? Where?
Kate: In the trees.
Me: Oh. (pause) What color are they? (we've been working on colors)
Kate: Brown.
Me: (after another pause and realization) I think you mean leaves. The leaves in the trees are still brown.
Kate: Yeah, leaves.

Got to love her. =)

Deja Vu?

We went out for dinner with Pat and Brenda last night. Brenda wanted to get a picture of the two of us since we are getting close to due dates (2 weeks for me, 1 month for Brenda). Roughly 2 years ago, we did the same thing at her baby shower.

For giggles, here's the 2007 picture:


And here's last night's picture:


I think Brenda looks good while I look tired...I just want to be done!

After picking my jaw up off the floor...

Check out this article link!

Absolutely incredible that parents would complain. It's completely fair to say I've got a different viewpoint, but I've NEVER seen kids be frightened by Joe. In the article, the women shares some of her comments about kids' reactions and it is right in line with Joe's experiences. Kids are curious and not afraid to ask, which is actually pretty cool.

Wow, I'm just dumbfounded...and yes, the parents are the problem here.

Signs of tiredness?

I was out from work a couple days last week due to Kate being sick. While entering time-off into our time entry system this morning, I opened the "current pay period", looked at the date and thought there must be some glitch in the system. More specifically, I thought "We're not in the 2/14/2009 - 2/27/2009 pay period. It's only January!". After sitting a few minutes, I realized that it was the correct pay period.

Think I'm a little tired? Why would you care? Are we there yet?

3 weeks and counting...

The Cuteness Known as Kate

While taking a bath last night, Kate placed two rubber ducks on the edge of the bathtub. The next thing we know, she's talking to the ducks. She starts off with a wave and "hi". Then the conversation continues: "How are you doing? How was the fire?" (FYI, one of the ducks is a fire duck with helmet and a fire hose). The conversation continued another minute or two. Joe and I were trying not to laugh too hard so she didn't get distracted and stop.

Might have needed to be there to appreciate the cuteness of it, but if you can picture her sweet little "hi" and the wave, you'll be close enough.

What can you say?

January has been a long month for us. I've been sick, Joe's been sick, I was sick again, then Kate was sick. Add in cold weather, and I'm so glad it's February. However, it's still Monday and I've been feeling a little down anyway.

Then, a friend at work stopped by. She seemed to have something on her mind but was trying to figure out how to start talking about it. And then she said she and her husband are separating which she's sure means divorce. Whoa! She's talked about having trouble in the past and they were trying to work through the issues. She really wanted to get things working again.

Joe and I haven't had friends go through a divorce. I feel so bad for her and want to help, but I'm feeling at a loss as to what to say, etc. So for now, I'm just there to listen. I'll take suggestions on other things I could do to help though.

I wanted to give her a hug, but she was pretty sure she'd start crying. I'm hoping the sentiment was enough.

Another first...

I finally remembered to ask for a picture of the quilt I made for Joe's mom for Christmas. The idea to make the quilt started about a year ago and ended up with picking out fabric last March. My mom had made a few of the same pattern and provided lots of help (and I mean lots!). Got it finished around Thanksgiving when we headed to my parent's house to do the quilting. It's made with flannel fabrics (instead of cottons) and is so cozy I was tempted to keep it for ourselves! It's a lap size, though it is close to fitting on a twin size bed.



If you look closely, you might be able to see "Sarah Joe Kate" and "2008" quilted into it...happy searching!

Holiday recap and more

We had a wonderful Christmas with family and then fun on New Year's! Traveled south to my parent's house on Christmas Eve day. Nicki and Brian made it in by 5 pm (instead of late that night). Kate was adorable in her Christmas dress (I'll get pictures at some point). She also had a great time opening gifts Christmas morning. The paper is so much fun to pull! She also loved all the puppies and kitties at my parent's house (especially Juno the Samoyed aka big white fluff ball). Spent an afternoon with cousins and Kate is now loaded with Little People. Headed to Waverly on Monday to be with Joe's family. Pretty low key time with the Green's. Came back home on New Year's Eve day. Got home, unloaded the car, then loaded back up to head over to Tina, Chad, and Anna's house for a New Year's get together. Went sledding (well, Joe and Kate did) on the side hill. Kate loved it! She went down a few times with Anna, then a couple more times by herself. I saw one face plant from the window and thought that might be the end of sledding, but Joe said she was laughing and wanted to go again! To top it off, Kate got to stay up late (almost 10!).

Finally, if it didn't seem like get was already getting older, we moved her to a big bed yesterday. Nap time didn't go so well. She never settled down and finally fell asleep sitting up in Joe's lap a few hours later than normal. Bedtime went much better although it was later than usual. She did well and stayed in bed all night. Today was even better. Nice long nap (almost 3 hrs) and went to bed easily. Hopefully she stays in bed all night again!

To close, I'll add a story from a few weeks ago. Kate was sitting on my lap and I asked her "where's baby?" to which she responded by pointing to my stomach. I was surprised since we haven't really talked about the new baby. The next evening, I asked Kate "where's baby?" again. This time, she walked over to Joe and started to pat his stomach. Joe and I were laughing so hard Kate started crying a little. We have yet to ask again.