Family

happy birthday, mom & dad!

/ emmykay / 2 Comments

My parents always seemed magical to me when I was growing up. I always believed in true love and fate and soul mates, not because I read about them in a book, but because I lived with them in real life.

My parents are less than 24 hours apart in age.  My mother was born at St. Francis Hospital in Evanston and my father was born at St. Francis Hospital in Peoria.

My parents both have O- blood types (guess what blood type I have??).

Both of their families had the same birth order – boy, girl, girl, boy.

My mom’s parents were both born in January, my dad’s parents were both born in October.

The night they went on their first date (September 20th, 1975), my mom came home and told her roommate that she was going to marry my father.

I’m not saying their marriage hasn’t involved a lot of work.  While it is cute and cliche to say “Opposites Attract”, the statement mitigates the amount of work it takes to understand someone so different from yourself.  While my mom loves to chat it up after church and stay out late, my dad enjoys a quiet evening at home and going to bed at 8 p.m.  Not 8:05.  Not 8:10.  8:00 p.m. Mom loves to “fly by the seat of her pants” while Dad loves a schedule, a plan and organized fun.  But because they love each other so much, they have worked to understand one another and appreciate their differences.

So for as much as they taught me about true love and fate and being soul mates, they also taught me how to argue, negotiate, forgive and move on. They taught me how to laugh at myself.  And they taught me that true love takes time and work and effort.

And that it is so worth it.

So to my mom and dad on the occasion of your 57th birthdays: Happy Birthday!

I love you both.  Teewinot. Caca Poo Poo.  Mecca Sicca.

Mom & Dad posing with Frank & I on our wedding day.

why I didn’t call Meghan back…

/ emmykay / 9 Comments

My dear friend Meghan called at about twenty minutes to five today.  Oh, the joys of receiving a phone call from an adult!  And, as luck would have it, I just finished changing and feeding the girls, so there was a happy calm over the entire house.  Ahh…. the calm before the storm.

At 4:50 p.m., Frank announced that dinner was ready and I told Meghan, “I’ll call you right back, we’re just going to have dinner.”  Yes, that’s right – it wasn’t even 5 p.m. yet and we were ready for dinner. To say that our biological clocks are a bit off would be an accurate assessment of the situation.

Carrigan was in the bouncy chair and I put Elliana in the swing.  About three seconds into eating, Elliana started squawking.  Frank picked her up to comfort her and discovered that she was all wet.

This was curious because she wasn’t wet when I put her down and she didn’t have any signs that she had spit up. Frank decided to check her diaper upstairs in the nursery.  Mistake number one.

While I was still seated at the kitchen table, I heard Frank discovering the horrors in our daughter’s diaper.

“Oh-oh-ohmygosh!  It’s a blow out!!”

“Do you need help?” I called up the stairs.

“No. But, ohmygoshohmygosh! Oh, ew… eww!!  Ellie! Oh, that is just – that is just EVERYWHERE!  You have got to be – ohmygosh – Ellie!  What did you do??”

“Are you sure you don’t need help?”

“Maybe.”  Silence. “Yeah, yeah, I need help.”

I thought I would feel differently about our first blow-out diaper.  You know how you imagine the romance of being proposed to, the joy of your wedding, the bliss of giving birth to your children, etc?  I thought that there would be mass hysteria on the streets below, a soundtrack of terror in the background and some sort of angry monster banging on our front door.  Instead, I could hear birds chirping outside the window, the sound of children laughing as they played soccer on the field behind our house and the roar of our neighbor’s engine as he peeled out of his driveway.  But in front of me was a nightmare of poop covering my child, her changing table, my husband and an escalating number of diapers.  Every time Frank attempted to put a new diaper on it, the stream of baby nastiness spewed forth.

“Ah, um, what can I do?”

“I don’t know – it’s everywhere!  It’s on her clothes!  It’s on my hands! EMILY! IT’S ON MY HANDS!”

And just then, as he was taking off her third diaper, Ellie stopped crying.  I cocked my head to the side.  Time slowed down.  When Ellie stops crying during a diaper change it usually means one thing…

“PEE!” I yelped.

And indeed, there was pee.

For. The. Win.

Frank and I looked at Ellie and she looked at us.  And she started crying again.

“Well,” said Frank slowly, “I think she’s going to need a bath.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah.”

Now, this is where I should’ve cut our losses and done what we knew worked.  I should’ve just given Ellie a sponge bath upstairs and thrown everything in the hamper.

But no, that is not what I did.

My mother-in-law suggested that we give the kids baths downstairs on the washing machine.  Initially I balked at the idea – I’d heard that washing the kids on a counter was dangerous because the tub could slip off the surface.  But after thinking about it, I figured that I could put towels over the washer and dryer and get a nice little bath system set up.

So, I lugged a bath tub, towels, soap, new clothes, a new diaper and a screaming, half-naked Ellie down to our finished basement.  I put Ellie in the pack’n’play and started getting the bath ready.

But her bath tub didn’t fit under the faucet of our slop sink very well.  I thought about using our floor-washing buckets to fill up the tub, but I felt that sent the wrong message to Ellie.  I went upstairs and grabbed our extra-large red tupperware salad bowl.

Frank, who was attempting to finish his dinner, saw me with the red salad bowl.

“What are you doing with that?” he asked mid-bite.

“I’m using it to give Ellie a bath.”

“What?”

“I’m using it to give Ellie a bath,” I repeated.

“Why?  Don’t you have her tub downstairs?”

“Yeah.”

“So what are you doing with the salad bowl?”

“I’m using it to give Ellie a bath.”

“In the salad bowl?”

“NO!  I can’t fit her tub under the faucet so I’m using the bowl to fill up the tub.”

“Oh. Okay.”

I went downstairs with the red salad bowl, filled up the bath tub, undressed Ellie and put her in the tub.

Ellie looked at me and I looked at her and then I heard the ominous sound of farting in a bath tub.

I looked down and saw that Miss Ellie had pooped in her bath water.

“CRAP.”

She cocked her head to the side as though to say, “Well, now what?”

“FRANK!  She pooped in the bath tub.”

Now, it’s worth saying that Frank does not like giving the girls tub baths.  He feels like he can give them a more thorough sponge bath than a tub bath.

He came downstairs and saw Ellie cold and screaming in her bath towel and me looking at the bath tub and announced he was going to give Ellie a spa sponge bath.

“Whatever.”

I cleaned up the bath tub (lots of antibacterial spray) and started the laundry.

When I made it upstairs, I found Frank and Ellie in the nursery.  Frank had turned on zen spa music and was carefully cleaning Ellie.

And Ellie was not crying.

“See?  Zen baby,” said Frank.

Frank taking care of our zen baby!

Zen baby, indeed.

Meanwhile, sweet Carrie was sitting quietly in her bouncy seat, staring out the window and plotting.  I’m sure she will not let herself be outdone by her sister.

Carrie staring out the window and plotting ways to out-do her sister.

Send help.

Even the stuffed animals in the nursery were appalled by the diaper disaster!

And that is why I didn’t call Meghan back.  Or answer Sue’s phone call.

Sorry ladies!

the shortcomings of the interwebz

/ emmykay / 1 Comment

The interwebz is a great tool for communicating sight and sound.

The girls at 2 weeks.

You can see our twins and observe how cute they are (I’m biased, I know).

You could hear the twins, too.  If I was cruel, I would record all of the twins grunting and crying so that you could enjoy their vocal stylings.

But I am not cruel.

But, oh, how sad I am that the interwebz is not a great tool for sharing smells.

Frank bathed the girls tonight and put on some yummy nighttime lotion on their tummies and legs.  He brought them down to me, all fresh and swaddled and smelling like delicious little babies.  And I thought, I wish I could post this glorious fragrance on Facebook.  People would check my status just to enjoy it.

Side note, I wish that the TV had smells, too.  I’ve been watching copious amounts of the Food Network (and by copious amounts, I mean, I haven’t changed the channel except to watch E!) and have often lamented that I cannot smell the dishes that are being created.  Even worse, I cannot taste them.  But I digress…

Alas, I cannot post smells on Facebook.

Although, it’s better this way.  While my girls smell fantastic right now, these young ladies can toot with the best of ’em.  Toots are not something that you would probably enjoy smelling as my Facebook status.

Maybe the interwebz is smarter than I thought…

the twins’ birthday: a day in pictures

/ emmykay / 25 Comments

About a week before the twins were born, Frank snapped my last pregnancy pictures in my super fancy, extra-large hospital gown.  What can I say?  I’m a trend setter!  For anyone wondering why most of my smiles look so pained, all you need to know is that I had a scary cervix.  A very, very scary cervix.

 

 

Then there was the morning of the twins’ birth.  The first picture is of my mom and me and the second is of my mother-in-law and me.

Grandma Mary Kay and me

Grandma Sandy and me

Then, after wondering if Frank was going to make it to the birth – he arrived!!  Hurrah! (note to self: pictures of me lying down are not the most flattering…)

Baby Daddy and me

After sitting around for about 90 minutes, the doctor determined that it was go-time!

Ready to have some bebez!

After pushing for about 20-30 minutes, sweet baby Elliana was born:

Baby Ellie

And then just three or four short minutes later, sweet little Carrigan made her way into the world:

Dad and Carrigan

In just under an hour, our little family of two became a family of four!  Mom holding Elliana and Dad holding Carrigan:

Our first family photo!

 

Yo’ Mama’s Got a Scary Cervix

/ emmykay / 7 Comments

… and other tales of child-birthing.

At some point last week, all of the maternal fetal medicine doctors (MFM), OBs at my practice and neonatal intensive care doctors were monitoring my condition from the sidelines.  One MFM doc told a NICU nurse that I was the patient with “the scary cervix”.

Sure, I knew that things didn’t look all rosy from a cervical standpoint, but in my fight to stay positive about the situation, I didn’t really think that my hooha was “scary”.  Well, not scarier than usual.

Anywho.

On Friday I had some visitors and I started to feel badly by the end of their visit.  My blood pressure was rising, which is not typical for me, and I was just feeling “off”.  I tried to get some sleep before the 1 a.m. nurse shift change when they conveniently wake up all of the sleeping patients and get their vitals.

After the 1 a.m. check-in, I stayed up to wait for Frank to land in Denver.  Oh, did I not mention that Frank was flying?  We decided that since it seemed like I could stay in my current condition for a long time, it didn’t make sense for Frank to take time off just to watch me sit (not patiently) in a hospital bed.  So Frank was flying into Denver and landing at about 2 a.m. CST.

During our conversation I mentioned to him that I just didn’t think I would make it until Monday to give birth.  I just had a feeling.

I tried to sleep after talking to Frank, but I felt like I had to go to the bathroom a lot.  I kept getting up to go, and then didn’t feel like going.  Finally I realized that  I might be having contractions again (what can I say?  My contractions just didn’t feel like contractions).  I called my nurse, she started monitoring me on the fetal heart rate monitor and saw that I was having contractions every 3 minutes.  She stepped out of the room to call my doctor and the hospital OB.  The hospital OB made it upstairs and assessed the situation.  I was at 5 cm and the amniotic sac was definitely bulging.

I was going to Labor and Delivery.

But no one would say for sure that I was going to have the babies for sure.  So after asking multiple times if I should call my husband in Denver and not getting an answer, I finally just called him.  Within minutes, he was up and getting dressed and racing for a flight.

The doctor did a quick ultrasound and determined that the babies were both head-down (how did the second twin flip around again in such tight quarters???).  I asked for an epidural both because I had to have one since we were delivering twins and because I knew it would slow down labor and give Frank a chance to make it to the hospital.

My mom and Frank’s mom arrived and sat with me while the epidural set in.  Note: epidural pain meds are not fun.  I was pretty pain free for the next hour or two while we waited for Frank.  He landed in Milwaukee at 9:30 a.m. and ran from the airport to the car.  Once he was in the car, we talked about delivering vaginally or via c-section.  He told me he thought that I would regret not trying it vaginally and I knew he was right.  I let the doctor know that we were going to do a vaginal delivery.

At 11 a.m., Frank arrived at the hospital.

Once Frank was there, they decided to administer pitocin to kick start the labor since the epidural had slowed down contractions.  After getting the pitocin started, I started to feel all of the contractions in my cervix.

Before that moment, I couldn’t tell you where my cervix really was.  I could vaguely say, “my cervix is down there.”  But once the pitocin started in, I realized exactly where my cervix was and what it was doing.  I complained to the nurse, as I breathed through the contractions, that this epidural business was a farce.  She said, “Are you feeling pressure?” and I said, “NO.  I am feeling pain.”

In the hospital, they often call painful things they can’t do anything about “pressure” because then you are not in pain.  If you were in pain, then they’d have to find something to do about it.  But pressure, well, that’s just too bad.

The anesthesiologist came back in, increased the pain medication and looked at me like I was crazy.  After he left, I told the nurse that I was still feeling a lot of pain.  Not pressure.  Pain.  In my cervix.

The nurse looked at me with the same confused look – how could I be in pain while on so much epidural medication.  She called the doctor in and after a quick check, he announced that I was complete.

What in the world does complete mean?  It means you are ready to push.

They gave Frank scrubs and started prepping me to go to the Operating Room because twins are never typically delivered without easy access to surgical equipment.

They wheeled me into the operating room and then told me I needed to scoot myself over to the operating table.  Excuse me?? I thought I hadn’t heard them right.  But I did.  So, me and my numb legs and giant pregnant belly scooted across the labor bed onto the operating table.

After everything was in position, I pushed for about 20 minutes and delivered Elliana and then 3 minutes later I delivered Carrigan.  Both babies were born screaming and generally ticked off.

Elliana was 5 lbs 10 oz, 19 inches long with tons of fuzz on her head.

Carrigan was 5 lbs 6 oz, 18 1/2 inches long with a little bit of black hair.

And they are doing awesomely well for being born at 32 weeks 5 days gestation.  No oxygen, no warmers and they are eating like crazy.

We are madly in love with them.

 

30 week update

/ emmykay / 2 Comments

Wow – I am quite behind in my updates and I have a lot to report!

What’s new with the babies? The babies are now head-down!  Hurrah!  Hopefully they stay that way and we can attempt a vaginal birth.  Now that they are head down (or vertex), I am feeling them move a lot more.  Our ultra sound tech was also able to see little hairs on top of their heads!  Sometimes the babies will get into an awkward position where they are actually sticking out of my stomach (it looks like their behind is bulging out) and I will push gently to get the babies back into place.  They are also very playful – if I push on their feet (I think it’s their feet…), they kick back now.

In other news, my uterus is measuring 40 cms, which is the same as a single pregnancy at 40 weeks.  Woohoo!  And we have 8 more weeks to go!

Stats:

Baby A – 4 lbs, 139 bpm heart rate, 2 weeks ahead

Baby B – 4 1/2 lbs, 137 bpm heart rate, 3 weeks ahead

How I feel: The pregnancy has been awesome for me.  I have energy, I haven’t been sick from the pregnancy and I don’t have a lot of discomfort.  Unfortunately, I managed to get a wicked cold/flu/sickness that is kicking my rear end.  I did great on Saturday for our shower (more like a FLOOD of gifts!!), but by Sunday I was a hot mess.  I slept for about 3 1/2 hours and woke up still feeling sick.  I managed to get into work on Monday for about 2 hours, but went home as I started to feel weaker and sicker.  By the afternoon, I was running a low-grade fever.  I took some Tylenol, but no dice.  By about 8 p.m., the fever was 100.2, which is sort of the “magic” pregnancy fever temp for calling your doctor.  Conveniently, the blizzard of 2011 hadn’t started yet (we were just enjoying a “pre-party” of 1-3 inches before the “big show”), so we were able to get to the emergency room to see a doctor.  We left around 11 p.m. with a prescription for Tamiflu and, thanks to the woman in the next sick bay, a renewed respect for the phrase, “Just say no to drugs.”

I took a sick day on Tuesday to try to recoup, but no dice.  By the evening, I was super-sick-feeling: chills, low-grade fever, severe congestion and ridiculous coughing.  My ribs are so sore from coughing!!  The good news is that the twins are doing fine and will likely be completely unaffected by this cold/flu/whatever.  As a matter of fact, whenever I cough, it seems the twins think I am saying “hello” to them and they kick me back.  Lovely!

 

100 joys (88-90)

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Another day, another chance to rack up a few more joys before the end of the year!

joy #88

Frank’s enchiladas!  Oh, sweet heavens to Betsy – they are SO good!!  And tonight were Frank’s best enchilada’s yet!  Now, I must confess, the above is not a picture of his actual enchiladas.  I lack the skill and self discipline to 1) take an appetizing food picture and 2) stop myself from diving in so that I can find the camera and snap a picture.  Just trust me, his enchiladas are outstanding and I could eat them all day long.  And since there are leftovers, I just might…

 

joy #89

Godiva.  Heaven on earth.  Especially when you belong to their club where you get a free truffle once a month.  Holy cow.  We had a dinner guest this evening who brought a box of chocolates from Godiva.  Frank and I tore through that box like we’d never seen chocolate before – it was SO good!  It’s like having an adult Disney World in your mouth – so much fun, you can hardly stand it!

 

joy #90

Listening to NPR brings me joy.  Seriously, it does.  I don’t know what it is about NPR’s microphones, but all of the reporters sound the same.  A subtle lisp on the “s” sound and a slow, steady, deliberate way of speaking that says, “What I am saying is LIFE changing.  Listen carefully.  Once you hear about Joe the donkey in Brazil that carries cocoa beans, you will NEVER be the same.”  Listening to NPR makes me feel the same way I do when I pick up a leather bound book in a mahogany library – the distinct feeling that I am being enriched and improved.  But just to be sure, I try to balance my NPR time with a little bit of conservative talk radio.  You can never be too careful!  I remember in one day, I heard a report on conservative radio about a study that was done regarding teenagers and how biased and horrible the study was, and then I flipped to NPR and heard a vastly different type of report on the same study.  I don’t know who is wrong or who is right – I didn’t care enough to research it – but let’s just say, I listen to both channels with the same level of cynicism.  Gotta be fair and balanced and all that jazz.

 

25 week update w/ 24 week belly pic

/ emmykay / 2 Comments

I am a bit behind on the belly pics, so hopefully I’ll get a 25 week picture done this week.  Until then, this 24 week picture will have to do:

What’s new with the babies: The babies continue to grow and are more and more active every day.  It’s amazing to feel how strong they can kick now!  The babies are about 13 1/2″ long and about 1 1/2 lbs.

How I feel: I’ve started having heartburn and realize that I should start eating smaller meals and not eating too close to bed time – otherwise I experience disastrous results…   I’ve also had to adjust how I am sleeping to include more pillows and support.  And I’ve needed more naps.  Other than that – I feel great!  Oh, and awesome news – I passed my gestational diabetes test!  Hurrah!  I was legitimately worried about it since I have PCOS and was diagnosed with hypoglycemia a year ago.

Other thoughts: Time has really started to fly by.  We are almost done with our birthing classes at our hospital (they like moms of multiples to take the class sooner).  We only have 13 weeks to go, which at first sounds like a lot of time, but considering how fast time has gone so far, it seems like it’s just around the corner… The cribs and dressers are ordered and should be ready for delivery in the next month or so.  We’ve packed the month of January with projects to take care of before the babies get here – let the nesting begin!!

100 joys (#71-80)

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What a wonderful Christmas we had!  I’m still recovering, so please forgive me for the lack of pictures.  I will also post a 25 week babies update tomorrow and, if I get my stuff together, there may also be a belly pic included, too.  Consider yourself warned: the belly is on the verge of epic (although, not quite legendary).

joy #71:

Frank was home for Christmas!  It was a little bit touch-and-go, but Frank was never called up to fly and so we were able to spend the entire holiday together.  It was such a wonderful blessing!  In the morning we went to my parents’ house to open gifts, then off the Frank’s parents’ home for lunch, and then back to my parents’ house for dinner.  It was so much fun to be able to do all of these things with Frank and it just made the whole holiday all the brighter.

joy #72:

Frank’s good friend from high school, Garrick, and Garrick’s girlfriend Kelly (sweetest girl ever), stopped by Frank’s parents’ house and gave us gifts for the twins.  They gave us a Dr. Suess book, movie and then “Thing1” and “Thing 2” tees for the babies.  It was such a perfect gift – Frank had been calling the twins exactly that for a while and we are excited for them to wear these shirts in a few months!

 

joy #73:

Every year, Dr. K (Frank’s Dad) dresses up as Santa.  I think the older kids might be on to him, but it was cute to see my youngest nephew look at him with terror amazement this year.

 

joy #74:

Yes, we had a white Christmas this year!  It was really a nice treat, especially since the roads were pretty dry and clear.

 

joy #75:

My mom made 20 lbs of prime rib this year – as per usual.  And it was soooo delicious.  The above photo is not her prime rib – I forgot to snap a picture.  Does it matter, though??  It was delicious, amazing, heavenly prime rib.  Nothing says, “Happy Birthday Jesus!” like a ton of red meat.  And twice baked potatoes.  And warm dinner rolls.  And mayonnaise salad.  Yeah, you might be judging me a little bit for loving mayonnaise salad, but I don’t care.  The only thing less healthy than mayonnaise salad is just eating the mayonnaise straight from the jar.  Thank goodness for lettuce leaves, right?

 

joy #76:

Yeah, that’s right, we did it.  We went to the Nordstrom Half-Yearly Sale today.  Frank was in desperate need of shoes for work (read: he no longer had tread left on his other shoes!), so we ventured out to The Mall with the rest of The World.  And I must say, it wasn’t half bad.  And, combined with the sale and coupons, we saved about 80% on a pair of shoes for him.  Victory was had.  Joy to the world, indeed.

 

joy #77:

So, as someone who has been CRAVING Papa John’s pizza, I wasn’t sure how I was going to like Domino’s Pizza tonight.  I mean, I have been eating Papa John’s about once a week – that’s how bad it has been.  But since I had a gift card for Domino’s Pizza, we figured we’d buck the trend and try it.  OMG.  I knew that Domino’s was re-working their pizza recipe (apparently they realized their pizza sucked) and their new pizza is FABULOUS!  Forget you, Papa John’s!  I’m loving me some Domino’s Pizza!  Even Frank was pleasantly surprised and enjoyed the pizza, too.

 

joy #78:

To celebrate Boxing Day, we boxed up all of our Christmas decorations and put them away.  Yes, that’s right, we are sitting in a Christmas-free zone right now, folks!  And I love it!  Christmas, and all of its trimmings, are wonderful up until 11:59 p.m. on December 25th.  As soon as the last carol has been sung, the last pound of prime rib eaten and the last present opened, Christmas feels instantly stale to me.  Instead of merry Christmas decorations, it feels more like clutter.  For the last 7+ years of our marriage, Frank thought I liked having the decorations up until New Year’s Day.  Truth is, I’d start taking them down Christmas night if it didn’t feel like I was violating some sort of sacred holiday law.  When I told Frank last night that I would love nothing more than to take down the decorations, his eyes grew wide and a smile spread from ear-to-ear.  So happily today we put everything away and it feels like we are living in a new house.  I love it.  Bringing in the new year in a fresh house is a delight, and dare I say, a joy!

 

joy #79:

Yeah, that’s right.  I’ll admit it.  Not only do I LIKE naps, but I LOVE them.  I need them.  There is no shame in my game.  These kids (and the holidays) darn near wore me out.  I took a strategic Christmas night nap from about 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., allowing me to be a descent human being to the rest of my family for a few more hours than normal.  I took another strategic 2 1/2 hour nap between shopping and taking down decorations so that I would, again, be a descent human being to my hubz.  I have NO idea how I am going to make it through the work week, considering how important these naps are seeming to become.  I am sure that I will survive, though.

 

joy #80:

I love reading people’s Facebook statuses.

I love the mundane updates: “Just ate dinner. Yum. “

I also love the vague updates: “Thank God that’s over!”  What’s over?   What happened??  Usually three or four people comment asking for specifics.  Their inquiries are often unrewarded.  The people who post updates like that WANT you to wonder.  So whenever you see that kind of vague update, they are probably referring to a herpes outbreak.  I mean, what else could they possibly be talking about?

Last, but not least, I love the social commentary status updates.  Like this one: “How low can reality TV go? Bridalplasty. Yep.”  It makes me feel good that I am friends with people who recognize the bottom of the reality TV food chain.  It is because of people like this that I think, “Hum, I should probably turn this TV show off because it is not socially acceptable to watch this…”  Who said Facebook couldn’t be an integral part of my moral compass??

 

100 joys (#62-70)

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OK, this is going to be my epic joy post.  Grab a cup of hot cocoa and a warm blanket – it’s all joy, all the time!

joy #62:

Last night, as I mentioned before, we went to church for the Christmas service.  It is one of our most FAVORITE Christmas traditions in the K-Fam.  Because our church has 12 Christmas Eve services over the course of 8 days, Frank and I are always able to find a service we can attend, no matter what Frank’s schedule looks like.  At the last minute, we were able to include Al, Rose and Rose’s sister, Sara.  Seated way up in the 3rd balcony at Willow Creek, I was a little bit concerned that we wouldn’t get a good view of the service.  It turns out, being seated way up high was the BEST view of the service.  It was awesome!  The service included a drama that was the modern telling of the story of Jesus’ birth.  It was absolutely amazing.  When the Angel was telling Mary that she found favor with God and would be giving birth to Jesus, the song in the above video played.  It was absolutely magical!  The whole story was told with the underlying theme of “Don’t be afraid.”  What a joy to go to that service!

joy #63:

After church, we went to Steak ‘n Shake.  Now, I have to say, if I owned a restaurant within a 5-10 mile radius of Willow Creek, I’d definitely find out when big events were happening and then get prepared!  Unfortunately, that was not the case at our friendly neighborhood Steak ‘n Shake and they were just a bit overwhelmed by the crowd that came through their doors last night.  After waiting a while to be seated, and then waiting even longer for someone to come to our table to get drink orders, etc., Frank jokingly told our waitress that it was free shake night at Steak ‘n Shake if you had to wait more than 5 minutes for your server.  She laughed and then said, “Really? OK.  Free shakes and drinks then.”  And the shakes WERE free!  It was a Christmas Miracle!

joys #64-70:

Oh, how my family does bring me joy!

Familial joy #64 was my sweet niece singing tonight at the Christmas Eve service at the church that Frank and I were married at.  With her white-blond hair and cherubic smile, she melts everyone’s hearts.  And of course #65 was my nephew who gets taller and cuter every time I see him.  He’s my first-ever nephew and has a special place in my heart.

#66 and #67 are my sister-in-law Kathryn (or K2; K1 is her sister Karen) and her husband Dave.  As the parents of my dear niece and nephew, of course they are a joy!

After church, we moved on to my Uncle Steve (#68) and Aunt Judy’s (#69) home for some delicious homemade corn chowder and general merriment.  My cousins Meghan (previously mentioned as joy #40) and David (#44) were also there, along with my siblings (Caitlin, Andy & Sarah – also previously mentioned joys in a variety of places).  While we were there, nearly everyone got to feel the babies kicking, which I would like to call joy #70.  It’s one thing for me to feel the babies moving around, but it’s such a delight when others get to experience it, too!