We DIDN't fall off the face of the planet!

Wow! Has it really been almost 3 months since I've posted anything on here? I guess one of my New Year's Resolutions needs to be "keeping up with our blog!" Anyways...I'll try to sum up the past three months.

November 3rd - I had spinal fusion surgery (ALIF to my L5/S1 disc). I am pretty restricted as to what I'm allowed to do for at least 3 months. Limited housework (darn), no bending (only I make an exception to shave my legs), and no holding my kiddos (that's the hardest) until I go back to the doctor on February 18th. It still seems SO FAR away.



We took the kids to see Santa...and it was rather uneventful (as you can tell from the picture). Ryan was excited...and wanted to know where his Spiderman bike was. I guess he hasn't figured out the part about waiting til Christmas morning! Drew didn't realize he was sitting in a stranger's lap until Santa said, "My, what big eyes this baby has!" (in his oh-so-low Santa voice)...which scared the crap out of Drew and he started screaming. That's when Rob came to the rescue (before I could take any really good pictures of him being terrified of the jolly man). Oh well...there's always next year!



December (sometime towards the beginning) - Drew figured he needed to keep up with his "baby cousin"...and decided to "sprout" his first two teeth...which you can KINDA see in the picture, if you look closely. Just like his big brother used to do, he LOVES to chew on the edges of the coffee table...to keep them nice and sharp, I guess.



December 24th - We celebrated Christmas with Noni and Bumpa (Rob's parents). We had a really good time. Drew got an airplane...and LOVES it. He and Ryan fly all over the house in it!



December 25th - We celebrated Christmas with Papa and Ghi...and the rest of the "Sendt" clan. It was quite a chaotic day, but that's when memories are made, right? The best part was the fact that Ghi and Papa's heater was broken...so it was FREEZING in their house. Thank goodness for the fire in the fireplace, otherwise we'd all be sick.

Throughout the month of December, we visited the boys' pediatrician MANY times...probably somewhere in the range of 15 times or so. They have both been fighting ear infections. They have taken amoxicillin, zythromax, augmentin, and finally (coming in at $94) clindomycin. We went back to the doctor this week...and they are CLEAR! Thank goodness. We were praying that 2010 didn't start with both boys needing tubes.January 4th - We had a nanny named Katy start, to help out with the kids (on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays) until I'm cleared by my doctor. This was her first day...and she is WONDERFUL! She was exactly what my kids need....someone who has LOTS of energy to keep up with them and doesn't mind spending her day on the floor playing cars, building racetracks, stacking blocks into tall towers, wearing funny hats, etc. The kids absolutely love her! We are so blessed to have her help! (On top of keeping the kids entertained, she picks up around the house too. What else can you ask for???) When Ryan woke up from his nap this day, he walked into the kitchen and said, "I missed Katy." Awww, he's so sweet!

January 7th - We were thrown a curve-ball by the MDO program that the boys go to. I talked to the director and she said that Drew no longer has a spot in the class, so he's not allowed to return. (We joke that he's already been kicked out of school!) They were doing me a HUGE favor by allowing an "extra" child in the class for a while. But decided that they wanted to go back to only having 8 babies after Christmas. So, we were without a back-up plan for him. We were shown proof (again!) that God has a plan that's bigger than anything we could think of. Our nanny, Katy, has agreed to come on Tuesdays and Thursdays to help me take care of Drew through the end of February. Isn't God good?!? We are having to do some pretty tricky things with our finances in order to make ends meet, but we're trusting God that it'll all be okay. She will start working for us full-time this next week. We can't wait!

What else is going on???



I can't believe that it's already time to start planning Drew's first birthday party! Where has the time gone? I feel like it wasn't that long ago that we were (finally!) bringing him home from the hospital and introducing him to his big brother. So much has changed since then. And my two boys are such a blessing in our lives. They get along great. (In fact, there are many times when we're at dinner and Ryan says, "Drew's my best friend!") He's crawling and has just started to stand up by himself. (He's only done it a few times, but again, I guess he's trying to keep up with his "little" cousin. Malachi is practically walking already!) He still only has his two bottom teeth, but that doesn't stop him. He will no longer eat ANY baby food (or anything that resembles baby food, like applesauce)...he only wants whatever we're having for dinner. And he can chew like you wouldn't believe! Even without teeth! Some of his favorites are: pretzels, lasagna, pancakes (he eats 2-3 big ones at a time) and cheese enchiladas! Besides Gerber, there's nothing this boy won't eat!



In December, I took Ryan for a speech evaluation (through the school district). He is a little behind due to his numerous ear infections when he was younger. The speech therapist said that his intonation is that of a deaf child. In other words, the way he pronounces words reflects that of a child who has been unable to hear for a majority of his life. They said that he would NOT qualify for PPCD (aka preschool) because he is ahead of where he should be intellectually. But he WILL qualify for weekly speech therapy. We go back to finish the testing on January 25th. Sometime after that he will begin getting 50 minutes of help each week. As much as I absolutely LOVE to hear him talk and tell stories, I am ready for him to be understood by those outside of our family.

That's about it. We are really hoping for a healthy year for our family. (Please God, no more medical bills!) And I'll do my best to keep up with this...for a while at least. :)

Pumpkin Patch 2009

Every year my sisters and I meet at a pumpkin patch to take pictures of the kids. Well, this year there were two new additions to the group shots...Drew and Malachi. It's amazing how each additional child makes a "good" shot that much more impossible. One's always looking away...or should I say that only one's looking at the camera?! Some are talking. Others are giggling. And right when we get everyone to look...Ryan acts silly. He's quite a ham...always wanting attention on him acting goofy! So, we didn't really get a good group shot, but here's what I got. (Note: there aren't very many of Ryan because he was busy running laps around the pumpkin patch and playing soccer with the white pumpkins the entire time!)

Little brother likes to do whatever big brother does! Here are Mommy's two little pumpkins looking at all the pumpkins.

Drew is one cute little pumpkin!

Fell off of the bench and the big pumpkin steam-rolled over him! (And of course, Mommy had to grab the camera and take a picture before she could console him.)

Look Mommy...I can stand up with a pumpkin! How exciting!

Who needs pumpkins when there's grass to chew on?!?

Here's Ryan showing me one of the white pumpkins. He was calling them "soccer balls" and kicking them all around the patch! I just knew we'd have to pay for them if he kicked 'em too hard!

Here's one smile I got from Ryan...after bribing him with a bag of Spiderman fruit snacks!

Ryan and Jacob playing what looks like Pumpkin Poker. "I'll see your one pumpkin and raise you three!" Hmmm....where have they seen that?!?




Enough's enough already...it's time for my nap!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Well, it's official...I'm no longer in my twenties. Today I have been on this Earth for three decades. Man, makes me sound really old, huh? Not to mention the massive amount of heat put off by 30 candles on a cake. Ryan helped me blow them out...and it had us both sweating. (Not sure if it was the heat or the numerous breaths we had to take to get them all blown out..or a combination of the two!)



Rob made shirts for both of the boys to wear to church that said, "Today's my Mommy's birthday!" They looked so cute in them. The plan was to take a picture of the two of them in their shirts. But as we walked in to church, Drew had a massive poopy diaper and had to change clothes. His outfit didn't last long...and so much for the cute picture. I did manage to snap a quick picture of Ryan in his shirt while we were eating cake at home. Thanks Rob for the thought that went into this day....it was great!

Some Advice for Parents of Little Ones

If your baby has recently become mobile, I have some words of advice. They might seem obvious, but even as a second-time mom, I still forget the simple things!

First, don't take your eyes off of him (or her) for too long.




Second, if you do and he (or she) gets into a bag of "Blazin' Buffalo" Doritos, follow with a cup of juice...QUICKLY!

Thinking Outside of the Box

When I was in kindergarten, I brought home a paper that I didn't do so well on. When my mom looked at it, one particular question had a picture of one side of a bus. The question asked, "How many wheels does this bus have?" Well, being the genius that I am, I answered, "4." My mom proceeded to help me count the wheels, and we found that there were only 2. My response was, "Yes, but there are 2 more on the other side." Smart for a 5 year old, huh?



Well, I guess I have passed those genius genes on to Ryan. The last time we went to storytime at the library (which was a while back...it's just taken me this long to write about it), the craft was to make a bird. They gave us half of a paper plate. The kids were supposed to glue on little squares of tissue paper, two long tail-feathers, and one eye (since you're only making one side of the bird). Well, everything went fine until I told Ryan to get one eye to glue on. His response was priceless, "No Mommy. Bird no have one eye, bird have two eyes. Me need two eyes." How do you argue with that? So, Ryan's bird officially has two eyes...like all birds should!

A future in the ministry???

So...how young is too young to be called in to the ministry? We have started a Monday night tradition in our house. We have a family devotion time. Right now, since the kids are still really young, it's nothing too complicated. We're going through a Veggie Tales family devotional. It's really neat. It gives you a little story about Larry the Cucumber or Bob the Tomato. Then it tells a Bible story and gives you a fun activity to do with your kids. (It also includes some discussion questions, but those will still have to wait a while.) Last night's story was about Baby Moses. How "his mommy put him in a basket and gave him a push into the water to keep him safe from the king. A princess found him and kept him." (That's the story in Ryan's words!) The book had us put the boys into a laundry basket and act out a "shipwreck." Rob pushed them all around the living room floor, and they had a blast! Then we shipwrecked on "Ice Cream Island." We ate ice cream and talked about the Baby Moses story. (If you ever get a chance, you'll have to ask Ryan to tell you that story and the one about Jesus and the blind man. It's too cute!) After ice cream, it was time for a family prayer and bath. I don't know if Ryan got the idea while he was in the tub, or what. But he ran out of the bathroom with the toilet paper holder. He ran into the living room, turned it upside down, and set his "Bible story" (the devotional) on top of it. Then he was going to each of us (Rob, Drew and myself) and asking, "Do you want to hear a Bible story?" I guess he's using the toilet paper holder as his podium to hold his Bible, like our pastor does on Sundays. After he went to bed, we cleaned up the house and put away his podium. When he woke up this morning, he was upset that we had moved it. He found it and set it up again in the middle of the living room. So maybe now instead of wanting to be "a man" when he grows up, he'll want to be a preacher!

Who knew our house could be so quiet???

Today was Ryan's first day of "school." He is attending the MOD program at our church. We took him last week to meet his teachers. He got really sad at one point and thought we were leaving him. So I was dreading dropping him off today. I didn't want to deal with lots of tears and having to convince him that he was going to have fun. We had really been talking up the whole idea of going to school (although he REALLY wishes it included a ride on a school bus). He woke up early this morning, a little after 7:00. He came bolting out of his bedroom door and shouted, "It no dark outside, me ready for school!" (He's been getting up before the sun comes up, so we tell him all the time that he has to wait until it's not dark outside before he can get out of bed.) He had a hard time grasping the concept that there was still more than 2 hours until we needed to leave. The morning went by pretty smooth. I got him all ready to go and took him outside for our "first day of school" photo shoot. We grabbed all of the necessary things, or at least I thought we did, and were out the door with time to spare. As I got him buckled into his seat, he said, "Mommy, you forgot to make my hair spiky." So we had to get out and head back inside to spike up his hair using Daddy's gel. Well, me being the crazy-camera-mom that I am, we had to re-do the entire photo shoot...so that 40 years from now we'll remember that he had spiky hair on his first day of MDO. We got back into the car and buckled when he said, "Mommy, I need to go pee pee." So out we got (again). We ran inside just in time to make it to the potty. And out the door we went. (Thank goodness for the "time to spare" that we started the morning with!) He was SO excited to go to his class and see his teachers. He ran in so fast that he almost forgot to kiss me goodbye.

As I walked into the house from dropping him off, I realized that I had forgotten to pack a diaper for nap time (a necessity). So, I had to head back out the door. What a morning! When I finally got home, Drew fell asleep for his morning nap. And, for the first time in a LONG time, the Nordlander house was silent. I thought of all the things I should be doing...but a nap sounded much better. Ahhh....is this what it'll be like every Tuesday and Thursday? Should I feel so guilty for having someone else watch my child so I can do whatever I want? Hmmm...

I went to pick him up at 2:30 and they told me that he had a GREAT day. (In fact, he was the only one in the class to participate in the "Creative Movements" class. And let me tell you, he can move quite creatively....so I'm sure they'll really enjoy him during that time!) As soon as we got out of ear shot of his teacher, he said, "Mommy, my teacher no let me eat my cookie." Immediately I felt guilty...thinking back to the note they sent home. Had they told me not to pack a cookie? Did I pack too much junk food? When we sat down for dinner that night and Rob asked him about his day, he told him the same thing. "My teacher no let me have my cookie." Rob thought to ask the obvious question: Why? His response, "My teacher turned off the light....and nobody could see!" I guess we need to get him accustomed to eating a little quicker. He can prolong the meal process for hours, if allowed. I guess he took too long eating the "healthy" things that he ran out of time for the "goodies." Oh well, maybe he'll learn.

(Update: When I picked him up on Tuesday and asked about his day, he said, "My teacher no let me eat my brownie." Guess he hasn't learned yet!)