Reflections on 2013

Briefly, before 2014 arrives, I wanted to put down a few thoughts on the whirlwind of the past few months...since I haven't taken time to express these on the blog (although many of you have heard me say something like this...if I don't write it down, I won't remember!)

We are so thankful for how well our move has gone.  I don't think if we had written down all the things we wanted to happen, we could have hoped for a move as smooth as we've had.  So instead I'll just try to list a few of the great things that come to mind.

Tom has a great job!  Our house sold in 23 days.  The house we wanted, had offered on and been rejected came down in price and the sellers accepted our second offer right away.  We found a good moving company with good guys who packed our stuff well, and a driver who made his way safely here, and more movers who unpacked our stuff.  We had a safe trip here, even though many things could have happened (and something came quite close), nothing bad did.

Natalie loves her new school (forgive me for not blogging about her new school!)  She attended for two weeks before Christmas break and I really think the new school will be a great benefit to her.  She is not the only special needs kid, as she was at her school in California.  There are 20 or 30? other kids with special needs, and there are many staff who work to integrate the kids with additional needs into the gen ed classroom setting.  They "get" Natalie (even Natalie's gen ed teacher "gets" her), and Natalie is blossoming under their care.  This is a HUGE relief, because Natalie's school placement was probably the thing that I was most worried about with our move.

The house we are renting while our home was closing and continues to have minor repairs is quite comfortable in a nice neighborhood.  The church Tom has been attending since he first came out is welcoming to our whole family.  There are tons of kids at the church, and Tom and I enjoy meeting new people every week.  Everyone is so nice while driving:  they let you cut in front of them, I've only heard one car honk the whole time I've been here, even when someone doesn't see the light turn.  I've seen no road rage or drivers weaving in and out unsafely.  Everything is a much slower pace, and that means people take time to express niceties to each other, whether it's in the store or on the street or at the mailbox.

This morning I was talking with the kids about how much God has blessed us with a new, much larger home, and how we still have to be careful not to covet the abundance we see that others have.  Someone will always have more than us, and we can be so thankful for what we have when we remember the small property we had in California.  That led to a discussion of what the opposite of coveting is:  contentment.  So as 2013 closes, I pray that we all feel contentment with how God has blessed us, and that we will see His new blessings in 2014.

Mother's Day 2013

Happy Mothers Day, Cindy!

The Happy Ones hope you have a nice Mother's Day.

Cindy opens up cards from the kids.

Cindy is wearing the two necklaces made by Lukas and Konrad, while she sits in her new beach canopy.

Sea World

Did I mention we got Sea World passes?  Annual passes are not much more than the cost of one visit, so we got passes and have gone down a few times with Jordana while she's here.  Last week was a beautiful visit!  Great weather, light crowd, lots of fun!

I mentioned to Tom that Dominik hasn't had many pictures taken of him on our outings, so Tom made sure to take a lot of pictures of Dominik on this trip!  The kids always like to go up the Sky Tower first thing.  They call it "the double-decker doghnut."

We started to sit in the same section for the Shamu show as the last time...then I remembered that the sun shines in our faces there and we quickly moved.  Natalie enjoyed the show sooo much better this time!

 

 Left to right, Jordana, Natalie (in a poncho), Tom and Lukas (in a poncho).  They get very wet on this ride...apparently the couple in the raft with them were a little surprised at how WET  you do get!

Konrad is so photogenic!

Dominik, Jordana and Lukas enjoying the Pets Rule show.

We'll try to go down one more time before Jordana leaves...and then take a break from Sea World for a month or so!  It's a lot of fun, and especially when we go more than once, it's easier to plan our visit.

End of the Year Happenings

It's the end of 2012.  We've had a blessed year (see our Christmas letter), and here are a few activities from the very end of the year.

Family visited:  

Tom's sister and brother-in-law Chris and Jim, and his cousin Susie came for an afternoon.

 Susie's daughter Jada was a welcome addition.  The boys loved playing Wii with her, and she was also content to just watch (we really need to get more Wii remotes!)  I love that my kids know their second cousins.

Friends visited:

Russ and Karen came for another afternoon, and we loved seeing Leah again and meeting Paige for the first time.

 I finally gave Konrad his favorite Christmas-time snack:  an orange with a candy cane stuck in it.  You suck the orange juice out of the straw of the candy cane for a minty orange snack.

Tom is working on our addition.  An addition to the fort, that is.  That post on the right side is the beginning of additional climb wall area (because there isn't already enough to climb).

We had a fun "Swiss" New Year celebration.  We screamed and yelled "Happy New Year!" at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, since that was midnight in Switzerland.  Jordana can yell pretty loud, too!  Then we had bratwurst and rolls, Swiss cheese, mashed potatoes and green beans for New Year's Eve dinner.  Tom and I had champagne and the kids had bubbly grape juice.

And with every intent to stay up until midnight (not!) we played Monopoly. At 9 p.m. we stopped to celebrate New York New Year's Eve on television...and went to bed around 11 p.m.

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

For the highlights of the year, please read our 2011 Christmas letter on the top right of the blog.  I hope to have highlights of Christmas Day on the blog in a few days...we've been busy living life, and recording it on the blog has taken a backseat at the moment.  But it's been a wonderful celebration and we hope yours was as blessed.

Ten Years

This Thanksgiving Day, I'm thankful for 10 wonderful years with the man of my dreams!  Tom and I have had a blast together, through the good times and the hard times...and I look forward to what God has in store for us in the next 10 years.

Happy Anniversary, Tom!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone else!  What are you thankful for?

Photo credits

You may have noticed a few changes on the blog...unless you read blogs in a reader like I do...then please go to the blog and see the changes we made!  First of all, a big thank you to Catherine for taking the wonderful pictures of the kids that are in the header and sidebar.  Catherine is also mom of Julia, who has RTS just like Natalie, so we have a special connection...Julia was the first person I met with RTS besides Natalie, and Catherine was a great encouragement at the very beginning (and still is!)  If you live in the Orange County area, you might consider Catherine for your family photos!

And Tom gets credit for the background photo.  It's from our recent trip to Joshua Tree...by the time I shrink the photo so it's small enough for Blogger to use as a background, then stretch it so it isn't tiled all over the background...it turns out fuzzy like that.  But just between you and me, that's the way it's SUPPOSED to look!  ;)

Memorial Day 2011

Our family tradition on Memorial Day is to visit a cemetery to remember those who died serving our country. As the children have gotten older we have added a Memorial Day ceremony to the day's visit. A small, nearby cemetery had just such a ceremony, with singing, bagpipes, twenty-one gun salute (Civil War era muskets), and speeches and prayers.

We had a very nice talk with a WWII Army Air Corp veteran who served as an airplane mechanic for small spotter airplanes in the war in the Pacific. Cindy spoke with his wife, who revealed that she and her husband were sitting in front of their own grave marker--that's planning ahead!

A couple of years ago I was moved when I found WWII veteran, John Norio Ogawa, who lost his life in the closing days of the war. Today we found the grave of a Marine who lost his life in Vietnam. His name is Steven DeWitt Baker, and this is his citation for his Silver Star:

"The President of the United States takes Pride in presenting the

Silver Star Medal (Posthumously) to Steven Dewitt Baker (2151521), Corporal, U.S. Marine Corps, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action while serving as a Squad Leader with Company F, Second Battalion, Third Marines, FIRST Marine Division in connection with operations against the enemy in the Republic of Vietnam. During the early morning hours of 28 May 1968, while occupying a defensive position southeast of Khe Sanh, Company F came under heavy attack by a numerically superior North Vietnamese Army force. Realizing the seriousness of the situation, Corporal Baker commenced delivering accurate grenade launcher fire on the hostile force. Although seriously wounded, he ignored his painful injury and fearlessly maneuvered from one position to another, inflicting numerous casualties on the enemy. Observing an injured comrade lying in a position dangerously exposed to the intense fire, Corporal Baker unhesitatingly moved across the fire-swept terrain and moved the man to a covered position. Continuing his determined efforts, he boldly directed a heavy volume of fire on North Vietnamese soldiers within twenty meters of his position until he was mortally wounded. His heroic actions and sincere concern for the welfare of his fellow Marines were an inspiration to all who observed him and contributed significantly to the accomplishment of his unit's mission. By his courage, bold initiative and selfless devotion to duty, Corporal Baker upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and of the United States Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country."

I am very thankful for the service and sacrifice of our current service people and past generations.

The Valentine's Day Malady

This has been a memorable Valentine's Day, but not for the fun memories or pictures. I have been playing doctor as four out of six of us have come down with a stomach flu (you may want to skip the following details). First Dominik started with diarrhea on Sunday, followed with fairly persistent diaper rash. Very early this morning Natalie threw up in bed (so Dominik's diarrhea probably wasn't related to his fascination with eating non-edible items, as we first thought). Cindy was the next casualty this morning, and Konrad got sick during dinner tonight.

It is a blessing that I work so close to home. I was able to come home at lunch today and tend to the healthy and sick, clean up around the house, and go to the store for stomach bug remedies and crackers. I picked up pizza for dinner tonight and tended to the healthy and sick again. I must have washed my hands fifty times today.

While we were cleaning up for bed I asked Lukas (the only healthy person besides me) to clean up the Legos in his room. He muttered something to the effect that he hopes everyone is not sick like this again, and that he does not like to put things away without help. What a great opportunity Lukas gave me to talk to him about compassion and love on Valentine's Day.

Natalie's EEG - Second Shift

We're back!  We won't have results from the EEG for at least a week or more, but Tom and I are both proud of how well Natalie did.  She was a trooper to sit in bed for almost 24 hours. 

Anyway, Tom already told you everything about the daytime event, so here are the pictures:

Natalie and Jessie checking out the northern view toward Anaheim Stadium:

Natalie changed into pajamas and ready to get hooked up.

These are some of the wires that were attached.  They are attached to her head with a school-glue-like substance, then tape on top.  The glue takes a little effort to get out of the hair after the wires are removed.

Then everything is wrapped in gauze and tape to keep it in place.  Natalie gets a piece of tape so she won't upwrap her head.

Here's the computer capturing all the brain waves, and the video of Natalie's activities.

Cookie in one hand, tape in the other hand...what more could she ask for?  See how her glasses are taped to the side of her head.

Four of the Anaheim Ducks visit Natalie.  She's checking out a gift box they brought.

But the letter games are more fun.

Natalie's talking to Jessie about when they get to leave the hospital.

Natalie's watching Signing Time and signing with Rachel Coleman. She was signing "brown" in the Box of Crayons.

I thought I got the cushy shift, when I saw the cot Tom had ordered for me in the room (see it behind the boys?  it's the nicest bed I've ever slept in while attending Natalie in the hospital) but for a variety of reasons Natalie didn't sleep much, so that means I didn't sleep much.  The boys came into the room with Tom (instead of Natalie and me coming down to the car) so we could show them that being in a hospital is not scary.  I pray that they are never in the hospital, but in the event they are, hopefully they'll remember the room service, videos and toys that kids get to play with.

It was a good visit, if a visit to the hospital can ever be good (ok, no IVs, no sutures and we didn't go home with any new medications, right?)  But Natalie didn't sleep well, I think mostly because she had so much tape to play with since we didn't want her to pull the tape off her head.  She is now going through serious detox. 

But first we went to the optometrist to get her glasses adjusted (since they were stretched out for so long).  Then we came home and played outside for a while, before having a soaking bath to get the glue out of her hair.  I expect Natalie to have a long nap since she didn't have solid sleep last night.  The nurses assured me she did sleep, but I heard her babbling so much while rubbing the tape that I don't think she had more than a few hours in a row at a time.  I know I didn't!

In other news, Dominik readily drank formula from a bottle this morning!  He's never used a bottle and never had straight formula (I just use formula to mix his baby cereal) so this was another testament to his easy-going nature.  But we were both very happy to see each other when the family arrived at the hospital, if you know what I mean!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm thankful for all that I have, which comes from God...and thankful that I don't have the things I don't have, which is also by God's design.

Today I'm very thankful for the family with whom we can celebrate this fun holiday!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Nine Years

Happy Anniversary, Tom!  These nine years have flown by, and they've definitely been the best nine years of my life.  Thank you for being such an amazing husband and father.  I couldn't ask for a better father for our children, and I know they agree!

I love you!

Cindy :)

New Layout!

Thanks for your kind comments about the new blog design.  Several months ago I entered a contest hosted by Laura.  She was hosting a contest for a "blog makeover" by Char, whose expertise is responsible for what you see here now.  So I won...I, who never win anything!  Thanks Laura and Char!

Dominik's birth story

We're home!  And it's great to be home!  But before I tell stories about what's happened since we came home, I have to write down Dominik's birth story, because I'll probably forget something...and that's what blogs are for, anyway, right?  Sharing the minutiae of everyday life?

Tom and I arrived at the hospital on Wednesday for Dominik's 9 a.m. scheduled induction.  We learned that they were short staffed that morning, so they were waiting for more nurses to arrive that had been called in.  Maybe more babies wanted to be born on Cinco de Mayo than normal?  With Konrad's 9 a.m. induction, I was hooked up to the baby-nudging medicines by 9:45 a.m.  For Dominik, it was almost 11 a.m.  But Tom and I were there to keep each other company and we had fun talking until our nurse arrived.  After he broke my water, my doctor prayed with us for God's hand in the delivery.

I made a specific request to the anesthesiologist to not give me a full dose for my height/weight since the last time I had such a good experience with a lighter dose (I even asked them to check the hospital records for what the dose was the last time).  But this anesthesiologist didn't decrease my dose, and sure enough I ended up with one leg completely asleep.  We tried different things (spending more time on the side with the leg that was still awake), until I asked the nurse to ask the doctor to decrease the dose.  She found him, busy with another patient, and he told her we could turn off the epidural for one hour.  Great!

She turned the epidural off.

At this point, I know all the moms out there who have given birth and enjoy epidurals are saying, "Cindy, you are crazy!"  Hey, I can handle some pain (I tried to have Lukas without an epidural before begging and crying for pain killers 20 hours into labor), but I also remembered how hard it was with Lukas and Natalie to have to wait hours before I could walk because I got too much in the epidural.

After about 30 minutes of the epidural off, I was starting to feel contractions (I hadn't been feeling anything) but it was still mild pain.  I called her at about 50 minutes and asked to have the epidural turned back on, even though I still couldn't feel my leg, because I was concerned that with the rate the contraction pain was returning, I wouldn't have enough happy medicine in my system when the baby was ready to arrive.  That green button in the picture is the button I pushed to get a little extra happy medicine before Dominik arrived.


As she was there turning on the epidural again, the nurse asked if I had been feeling any need to bear down.  I said I was feeling a lot closer to the end and she said, "I should probably check you."  But for some reason she didn't, and left the room.

Ten minutes later, I thought "she really should have checked me!" so I called her in, she checked me, and said, "Ok, the baby is further down."  then... "Wow, you're ready to go!"

"I'm fully dilated?"

"Yes!  Let's go!"

But wait, I didn't have enough epidural in my system yet!  She said the baby is ready to come.  I asked her to page the doctor and see if we could get more happy medicine in my system before it was time.  I turned off the movie I'd been watching to pass the time (Julie and Julia).  Then Dominik's heart rate started to drop.

Not a good thing!

Another nurse came in, they moved me to another side, gave me oxygen so the baby would get more oxygen, and still the doctor hadn't arrived.  Dominik's heart rate would drop to the 80s, then go back up, then go down...he was right there ready to be born, but we had to wait for the major league catcher.  The nurse also requested a doctor from the children's hospital to come over since the meconium coming out (even before Dominik was born) was thicker than when the doctor first broke my water.  Between the two issues--drop in heart rate and calling a pediatric specialist--I was really concerned.  Right before I delivered, there were more than 10 people (besides Tom and me) in my room--nurses, OB, pediatrician, even a few students observing!

But then my doctor arrived and Dominik was born with just two pushes.  Someone said, "he's beautiful!" and someone else said, "he's perfect!"  I got to hold him and wipe him for a few minutes before they took him across the room to get super-duper suctioning to get all the meconium out of his lungs.  He was screaming a lot, so I knew he was ok...I didn't realize until later that the reason he was screaming so much was because he was getting suctioned.

And then the anesthesiologist showed up to check on my dosage.  Too late!  The good thing is that I did get just enough medicine in my system in the few minutes we were waiting for the doctor, to not be at all uncomfortable during the final push.  I wasn't able to walk for at least three hours, but it was still much better than what I experienced with Lukas and Natalie.

Dominik took a little while to latch on, but finally figured it out.  He nursed well the first night, but the next morning I had to work hard to wake him up enough to be interested in nursing.  Now that he's two days old, he's doing great.  Overall, he's sleeping well and eating well.

And his siblings really love him!  But this post is long enough and I have a baby to feed, so more stories tomorrow.  Thanks to everyone for your prayers and kind wishes.  We are having a great time with our new Happy One!

996 Minutes Later

This morning the kids went to the hospital to meet Dominik and to see "Mommy". It was quite exciting to get wrist bracelets and stickers, and then walk through the maze of corridors to find Cindy and Dominik's room. When we arrived Dominik was napping and Cindy had just finished breakfast. Cindy looked great and Dominik had that peaceful angelic look (please, let this be the really easy kid). Lukas did a great job of holding Dominik, and Natalie and Konrad understood that he was their new little brother.

Cindy with all four kids!

And His Name is Dominik

Baby #4 has a name and a face. Dominik Andrew was born at 3:54 PM, and weighed 8lbs 5 oz and was 21" long.

The delivery went well, but there were some tense moments when it became apparent that there was meconium (the baby's first poop) in the water. After a good bit of cleaning and suctioning he seemed to be just fine and settled in for a nice snuggle with Mom. He is feeding well and seems like an easy baby. Cindy is doing great and is enjoying the bonding time with Dominik.

We hope Dominik and Mom get to come home on Thursday.

Operation Baby Drop II

The last time we tried some "extreme" (for 9 months pregnant mom...now 10 months pregnant!) exercise was two weeks ago.  We didn't go to Disneyland because it was a blackout date for our passes, but last night wasn't!  Natalie, Konrad and I ate an early dinner, Tom picked up Lukas at taekwondo, and we left the house to go to Disneyland (Tom and Lukas ate dinner in the car) at 5:05 p.m.

We were inside Disneyland by 5:35 p.m. and left about 7:30 p.m.  Here are the pictures.  This could be our last Disneyland visit for a while (our passes expire the end of this month and we're not planning to renew).

Tuesday morning, still no contractions.  Blog update tonight after OB visit. 

For those who have suggested "running," when I mentioned Operation Baby Drop I, and how I "jogged," my OB was concerned I might hurt myself (some part of my body I've never heard of).  I think the heavy walking is about all I can do right now.