Learning Joy

Nicholas with his Aunt Tina at Chuck E. Cheese on Friday, April 29, 2005.  

What a relaxing day. So far, at least! 🙂
We woke up quietly and had left-over doughnuts. Yum! Oh, Jef got up a little earlier than I did, so I could sleep in a bit. My mind kept racing, though, so I got up pretty quick.

Jonathan had a great birthday party day. Maybe I should back up.
Wednesday was the day Matthew went to the hospital. Thursday was Jonathan’s actual birthday. Since Kamali & Tina had taken the boys, we just had to pick them up on the way to ice skating. We got to ice skating late, and the boys were tired. Jonathan complained of his feet being cold as soon as lessons were over. Daniel’s skates were too big, so his ankles kept turning in. Jonathan was very sad. We couldn’t figure out why. I didn’t realize how tired he was until later. Jef finally figured out that Jonathan thought his party was going to be that day. So he wanted to hurry up and leave so we could have his party. 🙁 We ended up leaving early. We went home, then Nicholas & I went to Target to pick up some things we’d forgotten.
The boys played Nintendo with Daddy, and then they took naps. The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. I made Jonathan macaroni & cheese for his birthday dinner.

Thursday morning we woke up and had donuts for breakfast (Jef had brought them home the night before). Then Nicholas decided to make the bathroom messy again. Once we got that cleaned up, we were ready to go. We headed off to Chuck E. Cheese’s. We were off about an hour later than we had planned. Jef was a little worried that Chuck E. Cheese’s would be busy. (we hate crowds) The boys prayed for Matthew on the way to the playplace, and they also prayed that it wouldn’t be crowded. :o) We got there, and it seemed like there were a good amount of cars. When we got inside, we immediately saw kids from ice skating!! God is so cool!! They said, “Hey! Jonathan’s here!” and our kids said, “Hey they are from ice skating!!” 🙂 So it was a fun time for the boys. Jonathan was a babe magnet. He had two or three little girls following him around the whole time! He rode the jet ski ride and one of the little girls rode behind him! It was so cute!!
God was just blessing our day on Friday. We got pizza, drinks, and 139 tokens for $30! I thought that was great, because 100 tokens would have cost us $25. I was able to bless someone else, too, because I had extra coupons. So that was neat. I was brave and asked Mary, Charissa and Aaron’s mom, for her phone number. Now we can make a playdate, hopefully. 🙂
Aunt Tina was able to join us for lunch, which made it really special.
After we played and played, it was time to go home and get ready for the party. We were a little worried that we wouldn’t be done in time, but we were!
Jonathan had a wonderful party. Grandma, Jacob, Aunt Kamali, Aunt Tina, Aunt Amy & Libby, Wes, and all of us were here. Nicholas decided Grandma was his, and planted himself in her lap. He got down a couple times, but promptly returned. That was good, because Grandma needed some baby love with all the stress with Matthew in the hospital. 🙂
We had lemon cake, peanut butter cup ice cream & mint M&Ms ice cream. Jonathan requested tropical punch kool-aid to drink. 🙂 We also had some snacks, too.
Jonathan received really cool presents! He got a Star Wars LEGO Rebel Snow Speeder (from Wes & Amy); a LEGO racer car, a LEGO Ferrari kit, some bookmarks & a Children’s Dictionary (from Aunt Kamali & Aunt Tina); movies & M&Ms from Grandma; a tool bag, with grown-up tools (from Daddy); Hungry Hungry Hippos (from Mommy); an Etch-A-Sketch (from Daniel); and a set of LEGOs for rescue vehicles (from Nicholas). 🙂 Right now he’s putting together the Ferrari. He has already put together the Star Wars Speeder. That he did the first night. 🙂

Saturday was really relaxing. Now today is too. I love hanging out with my family. The kids are so neat. Oh, yes, Jonathan lost one of his front teeth last night! His other front tooth is also very loose, but he doesn’t want it pulled yet. 🙂

This has become very long. I’m gonna go now. Thanks for reading!

Today has been an up and down day! We woke up this morning and played “Paper Mario” with the boys. We’ve rented this game from Blockbuster. It is a pretty fun game. 🙂 I get to be Princess Peach sometimes.
Jef went to work, and the boys laid down for a nap. All was well. I was going to nap myself, but I received a phone call that changed the rest of the day.
Evva called me and told me Matthew, my nephew, was in the hospital in toxic shock. It didn’t sound good, so I called Jef. He called his mom & then he talked to his supervisor. He ended up being able to come home. He headed directly to the hospital. I called our friends, Kamali & Tina, to ask them to pray. Then I sent out an e-mail and called my mom & dad, and my sister. Kamali & Tina called back to say that they could take the boys for the night. Jef called while we were on the phone, so I told them yes.
After I got off the phone, I put together the boys’ bags. Then Nicholas and Daniel woke up. I got them ready. Kamali & Tina arrived just at the right time (we were all ready!) and the boys were off. I got ready and took off. Jef told me to bring money, because the parking was not free anymore. That meant I had to find an ATM. I found one at the 7-11. :o) Still charged me a $1.50, but at least I didn’t get stuck in rush hour by the Narrows Bridge (otherwise know as “bridge traffic”).
Anyways … prayed a lot on the way to the hospital, was worried I would get lost, was worried about parking, was worried about Matthew, and Doug & Marie, etc. I got to the hospital, and the parking garage was nearly empty. I found a spot right next to Balloo (Jef’s car)!! 🙂 Once I got in the hospital, though, I did get lost. 🙁 Hospitals can be confusing. I found them without too much tadoo. Matthew was in surgery, so we were waiting. Doug & Marie said they didn’t know how bad things were. We found out fairly quickly. Matthew was only in surgery for an hour. It seemed longer than that, though. The drs. came back and told Doug & Marie that they had removed the puss between the skin and the bone on Matthew’s shin. They think they got all the bad stuff. They left the wound open, though, and will go in and look again tomorrow. They have to make sure everything is out. When he first arrived at the hospital, Matthew’s organs had already begun to be affected by shock. So this was very good news that the stuff (I’m not sure what to call it, it is akin to gangrene, but not that) hadn’t spread anywhere vital. The dr. even said that Matthew should be able to play football this coming season. 🙂
So I say, God is good!!! I am praying that Doug & Marie will be able to recognize His goodness & mercy in this. I’m also praying that Matthew will come to know God through this. 🙂
We are home now and childless. It is always weird when they are gone, but it is a good break tonight.
Please keep praying for Matthew & his family. I think his younger brother Jake is taking it pretty hard. Jake is 11. Matthew just turned 15. 🙂
God is good – all the time.

Today has been nice. We had some company in the morning. Amy & Libby came for a visit! :o) The boys just love Libby (& Aunt Amy, too!). We went to the Harvester for lunch, but we all got breakfast, except Nicholas who got pizza. We had a nice visit with Amy and the boys had fun playing with Libby. Just so you know, Libby is a dog. 🙂 Daniel has a stuffed Libby, too. So Nicholas was calling the real Libby “the other Libby”. It was awfully cute.
The boys are down for naps and Jef & I are relaxing.
Nicholas has begun talking a lot more lately. He can say all kinds of things. Every day he adds to his vocabulary. The other day we were at the Laundromat, and he was copying Jonathan. We were walking to the store while the clothes washed, and Jonathan tripped a little on a bump in the sidewalk.
“Oops! I tripped,” he said.
“Oops! I trip!” came a little voice beside me.
“Don’t say what I say,” Jonathan admonished.
“Say what I say.” Nicholas replied. 🙂

Nicholas can say I love you now. That is just the sweetest thing to hear.
Oh, and he doesn’t consider himself one of “the boys”. I will say, “Good night, boys.” and he will say, “Good night Mommy!” He expects me to say “Good night Nicholas” back! (he gets upset if I don’t.)
Anyways … that’s all for now.

I’m hoping this blog won’t become mundane. 🙂
Today has been beautiful and sunny here in Tacoma. We haven’t had our heat on for two days. Right now we have the window open. Since the time change, it seems like the days are incredibly longer!
We went to visit Evva today (MIL). She is well. Then we went to McDonald’s and had supper. I don’t know if they have these everywhere, since Tillamook cheese is made in Oregon, but we had a new Tillamook Bacon Cheeseburger. It was “the bomb”!!!! It was almost as good as homemade! :o) Very yummy. Oh, they also brought back the boxes for the Happy Meals!!! The boys love the boxes vs. the bags, so they thought that was neat.
While we were there, some interesting, thought-provoking things happened. First, just after we’d sat down, a man came in carrying a bottle, and asking people for money. We were torn as to what to do, because he obviously had enough money to buy himself his alcohol, but would go hungry now. What to do? Jef ended up helping him get some dinner. Still feels weird, because one doesn’t want to encourage begging and drinking, but you also don’t want a person to go hungry, you know?
While this man was wandering around asking for money, a large group of people were trying to all sit together. After a bit we overheard one of the men talking about how they had 549 people in church that morning, and would soon reach 600. I guess Jef and I are tired of numbers, or tired of people not being concerned with souls. The man didn’t say anything about how many people came forward, or anything like that. What is the point of having so many people? How are you able to have a family with that many people? These people didn’t even seem to notice the man asking for money for dinner. Jef and I talked about Rick Warren and how his dream was to have a church of 20,000 when he grew up. We don’t understand that.
I get tired of the whole seeker-sensitive thing. Jesus said the Gospel would be offensive to people. I don’t know how much I want to say on this. 🙂
On our way home, we stopped at Blockbuster and picked up Paper Mario & the 1,000-year Door. We joined Blockbuster’s online movie club, which means that we can get three movies by mail at a time for $14.95/mo. With this deal, we also get two free game rentals or in-store rentals a month. It has already paid for itself because Jef rented Jedi Knight and found out he doesn’t want to buy it. So that saved us $35. :o)
Nicholas and I went to Target together. We bought a pillow, a trash can, hair spray and animal crackers. Doesn’t sound that exciting, but it was fun Mommy-Nicholas time. :o)
Now we are all in the living room hanging out together. The boys & Jef are playing the game, Nicholas is sacked out on the floor (his big bear “MM” is on top of him) & I am blogging. :o)
Oh, yes, and wonderful news — Jef installed Picaso 2 (a program from Blogger.com, through Google, through another company) to help me post pictures and guess what it did? It went through all our media (video & pictures is what we know about so far) files and corrupted a bunch. “Apparently”, Jef says. He says that because that’s what we can figure from what happened. (He installed it, and things went bonkers, so …)
Ok, I’m gonna scoot. 🙂 See you next time! Oh, and thanks for the comments — you don’t have to be a member to comment, just so ya know.

Hi! This is my first foray into bloggosphere. Jef helped me set up this blog (actually, he did most of it, I just picked the template & the name and, well, that’s it. ), so now I can keep you all updated on our daily happenings & post pictures & keep a better record for the boys. 🙂

That said, hello!

A small update on us – the boys (note: “the boys” usually means Jonathan & Daniel, I still haven’t gotten used to including Nicholas – he’s “the baby”, even though he’s 2.5) have begun ice skating lessons. We go every Thursday from 10a-12p. They get a half hour lesson and then enjoy the free skate from 10:30 – 12:00. They seem to really like it. This past Thursday was our second day, and I was able to join them in the free skate. That was fun. Haven’t been ice skating in about nine years! I only fell down once, but I did a lot of wobbling. 🙂 It is neat to see the boys learn new things. Jonathan & Daniel are in different classes (because of their ages), so they each teach each other what they’ve learned. That’s pretty cool in my mind.
Last week (Apr. 14-17), Jef took some time off and we had a mini vacation. On Thursday, we had our first ice skating lesson. We left a little early from that because Nicholas had an eye exam in Seattle. We stopped by the Farmer’s Market & picked up raspberry honey & yellow Finnish potatoes on the way to Children’s Hospital. Dr. Weis is Nicholas’ new eye Dr. Dr. Greenwald moved back to Chicago. We really like Dr. Weis. He tested me on Thursday to see if I have vestibular disease. That is a disease that affects your inner ear (causing balance difficulties) and sometimes presents itself through rapid eye movements like mine. They discovered, though, that I don’t have vestibular disease, because I can control my eyes & focus on things when needed. It was a pretty interesting test, I had to wear special goggles & be spun around and follow a little smiley guy with my eyes … :o) Since I don’t have vestibular disease, it isn’t very likely that Nicholas has it either. They told me what I have is congenital. The possibility of my children having it is one out of two or one out of four. So I guess we need to have another baby to see which of the odds we have. 😀
After Dr. Weis tested me, he looked at Nicholas’ eyes. He just did a visual exam (no equipment), and was pleased with what he saw. He’d given Nicholas a new prescription & could see that it was helping. He also noticed that Nicholas is also learning to “subdue” his eye-shakiness. (that means that he is able to control it, like me) All in all, it was a great visit. I’ve never been so upbeat about an eye exam before!! 🙂
Since we were up in Seattle near UW, we went to University Village to shop. They have the greatest bakery there – A La Francaise. Wonderful breads! We bought two loaves of ciabatta, and one loaf of rosemary & lavender Provence (it was good for tuna sandwiches). 🙂 The boys (all three) were able to play in the playplace there & visit the toy store. They love that. We also went to Borders, but didn’t stay too long because they wanted to play outside again. The playplace there is a nice, open-air one.
Friday we had another full day. We went to the Spring Fair at the Puyallup Fairgrounds. It was rainy & not very warm, but we still had fun. The rain made the lines for the rides not so long. Nicholas went on his very first carnival ride & loved it. He rode these planes over & over again (I think he went on them five or six times)! The only other ride he went on was the canoe ride. He ended up stepping in the water when he was getting out. Daniel fell in the water because he was being impatient, and not waiting for his little brother. But they still had a lot of fun. We got cotton candy & yummy burgers to eat. The boys had their faces painted – Jonathan & Daniel were pirates & Nicholas was Spiderman.
After the Fair, we went to Kamali & Tina’s house to change. Then we went to the Olive Garden with them. Dinner was fabulous! (thanks Kamali!) After a nice, relaxing dinner, we headed home & crashed.
Saturday was officially titled “the nothing day” by Jonathan. We did nothing. I can’t even remember what we did! We played games & watched movies and hung out together.
That was our mini vacation.
This coming weekend we have Jonathan’s birthday party! Jef took off Friday and Saturday, so he will have four days off in a row. We are hoping to see Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that weekend.
Okay, this is a really long post. I was going to post pictures, but I need to do Quicken & get going. Daniel, Nicholas & I are going to get Jonathan’s birthday present today. 🙂
See you next time!