Goodbye 2008

What can I say about 2008? William went from "almost 2" to "almost 3".... Lillian was born... and overall it was a great year. William is in to Handy Manny (both the toys and the tv show) and loves to eat ramen noodles. He hardly wants to eat anything else but noodles and fruit. Lillian is so sweet- she wakes up smiling and goes to bed smiling- she's too young to give us much trouble. She started sleeping through the night nearly every night in early November- when she was about 3 months old. We all get pretty good sleep. The kids really love each other (I hope that never changes). We welcome 2009 and especially spring weather, camping trips, playing outside, working in the garden, bluegrass festivals, drive-in movies, and going to the park!

The Dreaded Christmas Pictures

Just like me when I was a kid, my kid hates having his Christmas picture taken. I have been trying to get a decent one for weeks, and it goes something like this "NOOOOOO! waahh.. no way!" He was laying on the floor crying and screeming "cheeeese". As a result, we didn't get a good picture this year. I'm working on putting some older pictures together for a photo card.. the best I can do. Here's a picture from today. If you look closely, you can see the tears.
Before I forget- here's what William says he wants to be when he grows up:
"A doctor, a cop, and a monkey!"

Lillian-Almost 4 Months

Our little girl is almost 4 months old. She is sooooo sweet and we are enjoying every minute with her! William is a lot of fun too. He is 2 and 3 quarters... and he says the funniest things- like this conversation we had the other day:
Wm: Let's get Lillian and go for a walk in the stroller.
Me: It's too cold out!
Wm: But I'll wear my jacket and Lillian can wear her pumpkin! (that was her halloween costume)

And when he was eating noodles: "I'm Wiyyam.... I'm Wiyyam... I'm Wiyyam Bob Noodle Belly!"

OBAMAAAA!

We were there............ and as the newspapers just reported, so were 74,996 other people (give or take). Barack Obama visited Kansas City today for a rally at Liberty Memorial. It was a beautiful day and the crowd was anxious and excited. Josh & I and the kids had a late lunch at Kabuki then walked over, and we couldn't believe the line- extending from the south memorial entrance all the way down the hill to union station. People eager to get a glimpse of the next president (or so we hope) although relatively few were close enough to see him. William (2 1/2) had quite a good time and had been excited about this for days. He yelled BARACK OBAMAAAA as loud as he could and got many laughs. When he saw people taking pictures he assumed they were taking his picture, so he would shout "cheeeese!". What a cutie. Lillian seemed less interested in seeing Obama. She was quiet, just looking around taking it all in. I wondered if anyone so young had ever seen so many people.

It was inspiring, exciting, fun. I am so glad were were there.

We were standing near the back of our area, but this picture of the crowd is just a tiny portion of the overflow area that was behind us. Josh said "Obama was like a rock star... people were fainting and passing out.... of course those were the diabetics".

William and Lillian at the rally:

Ok.... this last picture isn't from today's rally, but I couldn't resist adding a picture of "our first black President"...

William's Big Bite

As I was taking this picture I thought.... "how cute! he's kissing her!".... a few seconds later she let out a wail-- yes, he was biting her ear. William is being nicer to his sister every day now, as he is getting used to having her around. Mostly he just kisses her, but sometimes he's a little rough. I told him to be gentle with her, she is a delicate flower. He said "I want to be a deliclower flower too!". He gives her a sniff like he's smelling a flower, and lots of kisses on top of her head. Lillian turns one month old tomorrow. She weighs almost 9 pounds now and is a good eater. She is almost grown out of her newborn clothes- we may have a week left before she's wearing her 3 month size. They grow so fast!

Happy to be home.....

We are so happy to be back home......
Sunday morning as I was feeding Lillian, I noticed she felt very warm. Took her temperature and it was 101.5! Very scary for a 3 week old baby. Called Children's Mercy and they said to bring her right in to the ER. They took her temperature and it was 102. When a newborn has a temperature this high that means an automatic hospital stay. Then ran blood, urine, and spinal fluid cultures and 24 hours later we learned that Lillian has an Enterovirus. By Monday morning her fever had come down (and she was eating well and acting normal all along), but we had to stay in the hospital another 24 hours to get all the lab results back and make sure there was nothing bacterial. The preliminary cultures all looked good so we got to come home around noon today and we're so happy to be home, but even more happy that our little girl is feeling well. Since there is really no way to treat a virus, she has to fight it off all by her little self. I got to spend extra time cuddling her while we were in the hospital, without distractions such as tv, phones, computers, and errands. I tried to worry as little as possible, and all the great nurses and doctors at the hospital reassured us that she would be okay. Lillian's very own Aunt Erin is a nurse there at CM South, but unfortunately her days off were the same days we were there. She still came by every day and made sure the nurses were taking extra good care of us. Erin will be a mom herself next week, if little Max doesn't decide to show up before then. We can't wait to meet him!!!

That's Bob Dylan

More than once now William has pointed at Lillian and said "that's Bob Dylan". We don't know where he got that! William loves his little sister. He has been picking on her some though- so far he bit her ear, her nose, and her foot. Nothing too serious, but boy did she scream! We have to watch him every second. Hopefully he'll get used to her soon and we can all relax a little. I wonder if he'll teach little "bob dylan" to play guitar someday..... he has a guitar, mandolin, harmonica and kazoo. He wants to be in a band like his daddy.