Elijah's Prognosis...

Obstructive Sleep Apnea. He's scheduled for surgery on March 15th to have his tonsils and adenoids removed. We've been pretty straight with him about the fact that it's going to hurt for a while, but that he'll be able to sleep better and feel better in the end. He keeps trying to see his tonsils in the mirror and doesn't seem too worried. Dr. Pruden, his ENT, has an awesome office so that made him feel better. The examining table is a fire truck and there are Sesame Street characters painted all around the room. They also have a Buzz Lightyear room with a rocket ship table. He has already reserved that room for our next visit.

Sawing Logs

I know it may be mean but we just couldn't help ourselves. Elijah snores like a freight train and the doctor says they are probably going to take out his tonsils and adenoids. So turn up your sound and enjoy the sweet sounds of sleeping. (I would just like to say that Erin took the video and just had me put it up because I do the "video stuff" so don't blame me as the "mean" parent)

You can also take a look at a news story about kids and snoring.
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Micah sing "Happy Birthday" to himself...someone has to...

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Micah's Birthday with pictures

Micah is such an anomaly. Most kids can't wait to dig into their birthday presents. Not Micah. He is a stop and smell the roses kind of guy, first admiring the Thomas on the outside of the bag, then chatting for a minute about what might be inside.
Finally when his brothers started to close in like vultures, he decided to look inside the bag. One thing he didn't want to wait for though was...

His cake. The boy loves his desserts! We had chocolate Lightening McQueen cupcakes. I know your mouths are watering right now.

Micah's Birthday

Happy 3rd Birthday to Micah today. I really tried to get some pictures on tonight, but alas, technology is not on my side tonight. Maybe I'll figure it out when I'm more awake tomorrow. Anyway, he had a lovely evening- chocolate cupcakes that we decorated ourselves and a Cars toy from mommy and daddy for his birthday. They had as much fun with the balloons as anything. Micah walked around singing, "Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me..." all evening. Humility is his gift. :)

New Friends

Mr. Tom and Ms. Cassie have become great friends of our family since our move to seminary life. Elijah recently started calling Mr. Tom "Uncle" Tom which is just fine with all of us. We all got to help Tom celebrate his birthday last weekend. The party was at their house, and we decided to try putting the boys to bed there, then bringing them home after the party. Surprisingly, they went to sleep pretty well in their sleeping bags on the floor, and then when we had to get them up to go home, they rode home in a sleepy fog and went right to sleep in their own cozy beds. Ahh the freedom of being able to spend an evening out with other adults without paying for a babysitter.

Isaiah has been talking more and more. His favorite words right now are "to infinity and beyond" only his sounds more like "ooo ifiiiiineeeee a eeeeooooon" and you can only really tell that's what he's saying when he's holding or pointing to a Buzz toy.

Micah is sick right now, and when he's sick everyone knows it. He isn't cranky or whiny, he just lays around, moaning, shivering and asking for tissues and movies. Poor little guy. He has also been picking up the Spanish that Elijah is learning at school. We have spanish word pictures on the fridge, and tonight at dinner he was pointing at them saying "hace frio" and he knew what it meant.

Elijah can't wait for his birthday on the 21st. 5th birthday is a big deal. It means he's no longer a toddler and its almost like he senses it, like he knows that 5 is really old. He loves superheroes of all kinds and asks often things like, "Is God bigger than Superman?" "Is Superman stronger than God?" Always thinking. He has also had lots of birth and death questions lately. He keeps us thinking. He got invited to his first school friend birthday party last week too. After some initial misgivings and a thorough conversation about the details of the event, he agreed to go and had a great time.

We've had two snow days this past week, and it is true that in Kentucky school gets canceled for almost any amount of snow. I'm not complaining though.

Reading Again

I'm not sure if it's because the boys are getting a little older and therefore are a bit lower maintenance than they were, or if it's because we're living in a college town where everyone reads a lot, but I've found myself rediscovering my joy for reading. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy reading about almost anything and everything, but especially about issues concerning women in ministry, post-modernism and the growth of the next generation of the church.

I recently finished reading a book given to me as a Christmas gift-Wanting All the Right Things by Shirin Taber. The overall theme of the book that stood out to me was the comparison the author made between American families and European families. Her view that American women have turned parenting into a competition was refreshing. She points out that at no other time in history have women and families been so ready and willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of our children's interests, and not necessarily for their best interests. Our families are over-committed, over scheduled and over-stressed. We have little time for casual socializing and building genuine relationships with other women. Ultimately our children will suffer from the absence of genuine relationship in our lives. Taber encourages her reader to initiate relationships with the wonderful women around us instead of signing the kids up for more activities. She reaffirmed for me that it is OK to let them watch a movie and eat ice cream while I can have a conversation with a neighbor for an hour. There was lots of other good stuff in there too.

Now I'm reading a book Eric had to buy for a class- The Web of Women's Leadership. It seems like the whole premise of the book will be women in leadership- more specifically church leadership- and how women lead differently from men. They authors of the book use the metaphor of a web style of leadership, contrasting it to the traditional hierarchical style of leadership used by men for generations. It looks promising too. I'll let you know.