First Time Sledding

It snowed last night and today for our first snow of the year.  The kids were excited to go out and play in it, and Joshua was really excited about shoveling it.  I was working today, so I wasn’t available to go out front with him, but he was quite content to shovel the deck.  He also enjoyed making snow angels.

Yesterday I bought sleds, as we previously had no sleds that we owned.  I love sledding, and I think the kids are old enough to enjoy it too.  I bought two saucers and a toboggan.  Hannah, being Hannah, needs something a little more low-key and secure, so I bought her a “baby sled” that goes slower and has a seat with a chair-back to support her, and it has a seatbelt strap as well.  That seemed more her speed, and she was pretty pumped in the store when we got it.  In Kansas, you never know now much snow you’re going to get in the winter season.  Usually we get a handful of decent snowfalls, but with my travel schedule, it’s possible I won’t be available during future snows, so I decided to make sure to take advantage of this one and take the kids sledding. So after nap today we packed up and I drove to a nearby hill, which was really just a very small incline next to a neighboring subdivision.  But it was perfect, because no one else was there, and it wasn’t too tall (maybe only a 15-foot elevation difference) and was a gentle slope.  Joshua loved it. I showed him how to do it the first time, and them he took over from there going up and down as many times as he could on his saucer.  Clara liked it a decent amount and was able to bring her sled back up the hill, though it wasn’t easy for her, so I helped her when I could.  Hannah kind of liked it, but it was cold, and we had some mitten issues, so that made it less fun.  But she did really like the safety and security that her baby sled provided.  I also let her ride with me on the toboggan, and she thought that was fun too because I was able to hold her and keep her safe.  I only went once or twice by myself since I was mostly helping the kids, but it was still really fun and made me wish I could go down a big hill by myself, but that doesn’t really happen in my life at this point.  They were cold at the end, and we went home, but until that point they all had a lot of fun, and our first family sledding experience was quite a success.

Christmas Season Trip to KCDC

Julie, Andrew, Joanna, and Kirk went in on a joint gift for our family this year to get us a membership to the Kansas Children’s Discovery Center in Topeka.  We’ve been there a few times and really like it.  There’s a lot to do indoors and outdoors.  I wasted no time in taking advantage of this gift that we received yesterday by taking the kids today, giving Meghan a chance to relax after an exhausting holiday season.

A place I hadn't explored with the kids before was the vet clinic.  Joshua immediately sat behind the desk and picked up the phone to make some important calls.

Joshua told me I could be his assistant, and he handed me the clipboard.  He said, "You're the one who talks to people, and I'm the one who works on the laptop."  So I guess I'm relegated to greeting people as they come into our clinic, while he does the important stuff.  He's the boss, and I'm the assistant, so it makes sense.

He apparently also hired Hannah as an x-ray technician, as she went to work on checking out this giraffe's x-ray.  Yes, we're a specialty vet clinic that not only handles cats and dogs, but also African animals.

The plasma ball is a new addition, as it wasn't there last time I was here.  These things are always fun to play with.

In the mechanic shop, Hannah decided she would lounge around while others did the work, but later she was intrigued and decided to get her hands dirty by refilling the antifreeze.

There was a traveling exhibit which focused on China.  I found it quite interesting, as there were plaques everywhere with interesting information.  For example, in China baby clothes have a slit in the back, because babies get potty trained much earlier, so they need to be able to still wear their onesie while sitting on the potty.  They had a setup of different rooms in a typical Chinese house, including this living room that was showing The Monkey King, a popular cartoon there.  The kids did not care what language it was in, as they saw a nice couch and a cartoon on TV and plopped right down to watch.  There was a lot of info on pandas, and there was this crib with stuffed pandas in it that you could pretend to feed milk, but Hannah for some reason took that as an invitation to climb in the crib with them, though I stopped her before she could join them.

We finished with the grain-moving structure and the coin well, which they always love.

I stayed a little longer than I should have, and the kids were overtired when we left. They were all indignant at being forced to leave, and Joshua was so tired that he ended up bursting into tears because he wanted to stay so bad.  I did need to stop at Walmart to get a few things on the way home, and they had cheered up by then and were excited to go shopping with me.  It was a full day of fun with Daddy and the three kids.

A Geographically-Centered Christmas

 Tonight we had the Leach Family Christmas, graciously hosted by Julie and Andrew.  We started off with a great meal that was both tasty AND Benjamin-friendly!

We then went down to the lower level and played, as Kirk was mobbed by his adoring fans.  Joshua's head looks like it's in a very uncomfortable position there, but apparently he was fine, as he later modeled the lasted in fashion-forward headgear.

Benjamin was excited to open gifts and enjoyed his new car that he could disassemble and reassemble with a working drill.

                                                         Hannah, as she often is, was very happy.

                                                Clara got to hang out with Grandma Deb for awhile.

Benjamin chose me to play a game of ball with him, so we kicked the blue ball back and forth for awhile.

We started to get our kids ready to go before we realized we hadn't done a cousins picture, so we quickly took some and ended up with this pretty decent one, despite Joshua's slightly unnatural smile.  Meghan then took our kids home, and I stayed for a late-night game session, in which we played Tri-Bond and also a Telephone-like game that involved alternating drawing and guessing what other people had drawn, and it was really fun.  It was another great Christmas, and as always we were really thankful that Dad and Deb were able to make it down, and that Joanna and Kirk were able to make it up, for us to all have a celebration together.

Merry Christmas!

 Our Christmas morning started with a literal bang when Clara pulled her stocking off the mantle and the stocking holder smashed her in the head. Luckily she was fine and we hope it helps her realize the benefits of listening next time. After a break to get some ice, she was on board with starting stockings.

After stockings, the kids were eager to get the show on the road.

They all got some stuff they loved, including Hannah who somehow didn't make it into any of the gift pictures.  Jason focused on taking video this year, as he has said he wants to have more video of our family.  Afterward he said he got some great footage but that he forgot to also take many actual pictures. 

After a break for rest, Christine and Michelle came over for Christmas dinner.

We had a nice dinner of sauerbraten and then did Christmas crackers, which we always do in our family. 

We had a really nice holiday and were so glad to have Christine and Michelle to share it with us. 

Does Michelle look like she is trying not to get too close to Clara? She probably is. The kids got Chapstick in their stockings and Clara used at least half the tube in a single day and so was very very resistant to chapping on most of her face and a lot of her hair by the time this picture was taken, and she smelled very strongly of cherries.

Learning to Serve God by Serving Others

Doing service projects is an important part of who our family is, and one we are doing again this year is delivering food and gifts to families in need on Christmas Eve so they can have a Christmas dinner with their family.  A couple weeks ago we dropped off some food and other items requested by City Union Mission, and then their volunteers work to put together packages for each qualifying recipient.  Each one gets a turkey (it got cut off in the picture), a box of food, and some Christmas gifts.  So today we arrived at the Mission to collect the items to take to two different families.  Everything is already packaged, boxed, or wrapped, so we just need to deliver it to the families.  They gave us the addresses, and then we drove to each house to meet them and deliver everything.  We are welcome to stay as little or as long as is appropriate or desired, then say a prayer with the family if they are okay with it, and then we leave.  The first house was a Hispanic woman who had two little boys a little older than Joshua, and they had a new litter of adorable baby chihuahuas.  I was worried I was accidentally going to step on one and crush it, but I barely avoided causing that pre-Christmas heartbreak.  The second family had a baby who was a few months old, and they didn't have a car seat for him, so that's what the big box is in the picture.  They were another sweet family, and it was a pleasant experience.  This is somewhat of a stepping-out-in-faith service project for us, as we go into very poor neighborhoods and into houses of people we don't know (all recipients are heavily vetted by the Mission, so there is almost no actual risk to us), which can be uncomfortable since they are strangers, and sometimes the recipients feel ashamed of their houses or situations.  But we believe Christ calls us all to serve others, which is an important pillar of what Meghan and I want our family to be and do.  So it helps us to continue to teach our children that this is something we value and that is important to us and to God, and it also helps us grow in our own faith by stepping outside of our comfort zone to do it.

Finding Baby Hannah

One time a few months ago when I was putting Hannah to bed, I checked my phone for something (I don't even remember what).  Somehow it resulted in there being a picture of Hannah, and Hannah was interested in that.  The next night, Hannah specifically requested me to find the picture of Baby Hannah.  This is because any version of Hannah in the past is "Baby Hannah" to her.  So I pulled up the pictures on my phone and found a random picture of her.  She wanted to talk about it, but anytime she talks about a picture of her, it's in the third person.  So she'll say things like "Why is Baby Hannah doing that?"  Or "Why is she in that place?".  This became a nightly tradition for me and her, and then she started asking Meghan too when she put her to bed.  But pretty much every night since then, while each kid gets a book, song, and prayer, Hannah always also gets to find Baby Hannah.  "Dad, can we find Baby Hannah?"  At this point I pretty much scroll to a random picture in my past photos and then move slowly until I find a picture with Hannah in it, and then we talk about it.  Usually we'll look at a few, and then we're done, but only because I say so; she'd look at pictures of herself all night if she could.  One of her current favorites is the one she's looking at here which is a picture I took of her in the hotel we stayed in on our way back from Florida this spring.  She's really intrigued by it.  "Look!  It's Chicken Baby!"  "Why Baby Hannah wear those jammies?"  "Why she sleeping in that bed?"  Why she not have any covers on?"  So for the past few nights she's requested that particular picture, "Can we look at Baby Hannah in the hotel?  Like the one where she sleep in that bed?"  This is not something that will continue forever, and it's a little time-consuming as part of an already long bedtime process, but it's pretty cute and fun, so we're continuing it for now.

A Short-Lived Gingerbread House

One of our annual Christmas traditions is to make a gingerbread house (or sometimes a gingerbread train).  This year's version required me to assemble it, which I wasn't expecting, because the previous ones we bought came pre-assembled.  But it wasn't hard to do, and soon we had a house that was ready for decorating.  When decorating these things, I'm not so much into aesthetics or implementing some overarching design vision.  Basically my goal is to make it look roughly like a house (meaning hopefully there is a discernible door and some windows), and there should be lots of frosting on which we will stick the candy.  The candy in this kit was pretty good, with SweetTarts, Bottle Caps, Nerds, and Runts.  After I had the frosting sufficiently deployed to the surface of the house, we all worked to fill every available space with candy.  After that, Joshua was very anxious to dig in, so I let him go first, and he chomped off a chunk of the roof, and then we all enjoyed eating the rest of it.