December 16

Brendan keeps asking for Nicklas to come out now. He knows that Nicklas won't be coming out until after Christmas, but he also knows that when Nicklas comes out, Oma is coming. The other day he held a baptism for the baby Jesus from the Nativity scene. He had all the figures around Jesus and he was saying "baptism, baptism, baptism..."
Luke has been telling us lately that he's the baby. He points at himself and says very insistently, "BABY". We may be in for a bit of trouble...
Tomorrow, Brendan turns three! He's very excited about this and likes to tell people that he's going to be three years old. He's looking forward to the candles on the cake.

November Recap

Everything's going well here. Brendan's learning to read. Luke has developed a habit of of running in circles around the living room, grinning and screeching. We call him "crazy baby". About a week ago, Michael was having a beer with dinner and Brendan asked me if I wanted some. I said no, I couldn't have beer because I have a baby in my tummy. Well, the other night, Michael was having a root beer in a brown glass bottle (Brendan thought it was beer). Michael offered me some and Brendan scolded him, "Daddy! Mama not have beer! She have baby Nicklas in tummy!"

One More Post...

Since Luke was an absolute bear to put to bed tonight, I thought I would mention a few good and cute things he did today.
He folded his hands very nicely for prayer before dinner. Often, requesting that he fold his hands results in one of his infamous meltdowns.
He put his crayons away without any complaint when Michael asked this evening.
He woke up in a wonderful mood. Of course, he was a puppy, but he was at least a happy puppy.
After bedtime prayers, we sang "All Praise to Thee, My God, This Night" and he folded his hands and sang along. Well, he sang until we got past the part about the dump trucks. He was done then. Bet you didn't know there was a stanza about dump trucks in that hymn, did you? Well, there is, Luke composed it tonight. It goes something like, "Ah do bah doo dee dee ah, dump truck dump truck dump truck, ah dee bah doo..."

Tummy ache!

After dinner tonight, we let the boys have cookies. This is a very rare treat in our house, so the boys were quite excited. When Brendan finished his cookies, he asked for more. I said no, that too many cookies would give him a tummy ache. He looked at me and said, "Brendan WANT tummy ache!"

October 18 - St. Luke's Day

The Lesson I Learned Yesterday:

When you are standing in the kitchen washing dishes and your almost 3-year-old announces from the living room, "Mama, Brendan cleaning!" Do not simply assume that he's playing with his toy broom as is usually the case when that announcement is made, say, "Thank you, dear." and go back to your dishes. Oh no, not a good idea. You REALLY ought to go to the living room and find out just what he is cleaning and more importantly, what he is cleaning it with...

...He might, just might, be scrubbing the living room carpet with his brother's toothbrush.

October 14

Brendan is absolutely loving feeling Nicklas kick lately. He will come up to me throughout the day, place his hands on my belly, and say, "Nicklas! Kick Brendan's hands!" He is so delighted and laughs hysterically when Nicklas actually does kick. He also asks Nicklas to come out and play. He's starting to understand that it's going to be a little while yet before that happens, though.

September 27

Okay, I'm getting really bad at this. I've been a bit busy, I guess. Anyway, we found out that we're having a third boy! Everything is going really well with the pregnancy; I feel great and the baby, Nicklas, is growing and active. Brendan really enjoys feeling Nicklas kick and wiggle, Luke isn't so thrilled by it. Of course, Nicklas does seem to have a habit of kicking Luke while he snuggles with me...
I started Preschool with Brendan at the beginning of the month. He's such a bright little boy and I love watching him learn. He already knows his numbers from 1-10 and can actually count objects up to about 6 most of the time. He knows most of his colors and shapes and is getting much better at coloring. He knows most of the Lord's Prayer and a good portion of the Apostle's Creed.
Luke is taking more and more, although he rarely does it in front of anyone but us. He can do several signs as well.
Both boys are obsessed with motorcycles. Thanks, Dad. Lately, the keyboard bench has been being turned upside down and used as a motorcycle. Before that, it was the box that my photo printer came in.
My friend Becky and I took our children to the zoo earlier this month. Brendan loved the alligator and the jaguar; Luke wanted to join the kangaroo herd. Last week, she and I took the children to the fall festival at Salomon Farm. Luke was delighted by all of the tractors; Brendan enjoyed the petting zoo and the pumpkins.

August 6

Sorry it's been so long. It's been a rather busy few months.
Brendan is completely potty-trained now!
Luke is starting to talk a lot more, although you still have to be paying very close attention in order to catch anything he's saying.
This afternoon I was finishing unpacking their room when I walked out to the living room to put something in the Co-op box. There was Luke, sitting at their little desk, sharing his pacifier with a stuffed puppy. He'd give the dog a turn, then take a turn himself. Very cute and sweet.
Brendan has fallen in love with Curious George. Oma bought him a book of Curious George stories last week and it is his new favorite. Today, he named his sock monkey "George". I pointed out that it wasn't actually Curious George and he looked at me and said very firmly and matter-of-factly, "George!" And that was that.
Our new house is very nice. I'm happy with it. It's much smaller than I'm used to, but I'm trying to use that as motivation to get us more organized and to get rid of the stuff we never use anyway. There are a few things that need to be fixed, but the landlord is working on them. It's going to work out well.
The new little one is doing great. Spends a lot of time bouncing around. Michael has already felt him move once. I'm so happy to be pregnant again; another new little one to love and raise, what could be more wonderful?

May 19

Both of my boys are pastors now. The past few times that Brendan has been playing pastor on the stairs, Luke joins him. When Brendan sings, Luke sings. When Brendan prays, Luke prays. When Brendan turns to face the imaginary altar, so does Luke. Very cute.

St. Brendan's Day

Happy St. Brendan's Day!
I gave Brendan a box of 24 crayons for his name day. He's thrilled! Right now, he's at the kitchen table trying out each color and helping Teddy color.

A Few Cute Moments to Share

Brendan's meal prayer-
The other day at lunch, Brendan kept asking me to pray again. Well, we had already said Komm' Herr Jesu once, and after 3 or 4 extra prayers, I told him that if he wanted to pray some more, he was going to have to do it himself. He paused for a moment, fold his hands, looked up and said, "Jesus. Nummy, nummy carrots. Thank you. Amen." Then he ate his carrots. It's the first prayer he's come up with on his own.
No, Thank you, Luke-
Two days ago, Brendan was sitting in my lap, talking to my mom on the phone, when Luke walked up to us with a sippy cup of water. He offered it to Brendan, who responded, "No, thank you, Luke." That's the first time he's said no thank you. We've only been working with him on that for a little while, too.
Thank you, Pearl-
That same day, Brendan found a small feather on the floor. He brought it to me and asked what it was. I told him that it was a feather from Miss Pearl (our parakeet). He walked over to the bookshelf where she lives and said, "Thank you for pretty feather, Miss Pearl. Thank you!"
Signing "I love you"-
Yesterday, he mastered signing I love you. He started doing it at dinner, signing it and saying "Love you Luke! Love you Mama! Love you Daddy!" He was incredibly proud of himself. He did it again at bedtime, laying in bed and signing it to me while I rocked and nursed Luke.

Introducing Rev. Brendan Standfest...

That's right, folks, Brendan is a pastor. He told me so himself. I was washing the breakfast dishes while the boys played and when I was done, I found them upstairs in my bedroom. Brendan was standing on the kneeler, wearing a cross necklace that he had pulled out of my jewelry box and chanting. When he saw me, he told me that Brendan was a pastor and could he have his Bible, please?

April 30

Sorry it's been awhile since I last posted. I got a pretty nasty cold and then was very busy finishing the stole and then with trying to catch up on the housework that had been neglected during the illness and the completion of the stole.
Brendan and Luke are both doing great. We recently discovered that they both have wide feet. So we've spent a little extra money to buy them each a pair of Stride Rite shoes in wide-width. Brendan's look a lot like Daddy's, which he thinks is really, really neat! Luke's arrived today and he was so excited, he was trying to put them on over the pair of shoes he was wearing! He's recently decided that he really likes to wear shoes. He likes to stomp around the kitchen in them.
Brendan decided that he needs glasses like Mama and Daddy. On Saturday, we went to Cape Girardeau and stopped at LensCrafters to have Michael's glasses adjusted. I let Brendan try on a pair of kid's frames. He was thrilled and was quite upset when I took them off and put them away. So today at WalMart, we bought him a pair of sunglasses. They were even on clearance, yay! He was so excited to have his own pair of glasses! Oh, and Papa Tupper, he even figured out how to hang them from his shirt, like you sometimes do!
Luke has begun to talk a little. He said something sounding alot like Hello today. Yesterday, he said Austin, well, "Ah-tin", as in the kangaroo from the Backyardigans. He also has a word for peek-a-boo, but I'm not sure I can accurately write it down, so I'm not even going to try right now.
Yesterday, I was folding laundry and Brendan came in and started putting things away without even being asked! I was so proud of him for being such a good helper.
We've moved Luke into Brendan's room. So far, they're thrilled, but it's making for a very difficult bedtime. It's getting better, just very slowly. Brendan's being pretty good, but Luke keeps getting up, singing, bouncing, rattling the doorknob, etc.
This morning, Brendan drew a picture of church. He had been sitting at the table with a piece of paper and pen and called me over to show me the picture. There was actually part of the picture that vaguely resembled a steeple. He asked me to draw a cross there for him.

Family Photos

We had our photos taken by Olan Mills yesterday at the Parish Hall. It was the first time that the boys have had professional portraits done. They refused to smile. The photographer did get some good ones, though. I hope that at least one of the family photos turned out well. There's one of just Michael and I that I think was really nice. I know there's a really cute one of Brendan giving Luke a kiss. There's a really nice one of just Brendan. I'm not sure if any of the ones of just Luke turned out well. Either way, I know we're going to be spending way too much money!
During the family pictures, Brendan started to get a little upset - he wanted Teddy. Luke picked up on the fact that Brendan was upset and had a meltdown. It reminded me of a couple days ago when Luke woke up from his nap in a terrible mood. Brendan tried giving him a pacifier to calm him down, but Luke refused to take it. Brendan was just devastated that Luke was upset and he couldn't make Luke happy again. It's so sweet to see how much they care about each other.
Oh, and I did eventually get Brendan to smile at the pictures by saying hamburger and french fries.

April 1 - Update

Tonight as I was saying prayers with the boys before putting them to bed, I said the Invocation, then the Apostles' Creed, then the Kyrie. As I was saying the Kyrie, "Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy", I realized that Brendan was whispering it right along with me, "Ohd ah essy, Eist ah essy, Ohd ah essy." He looked so proud of himself too!

April 1

Not too much exciting happened this week.
One morning, I think it was Tuesday, I opened a jar of goat's milk to pour glasses for breakfast and set the lid on the table. Brendan saw the cream that had collected on the lid, said "MILK!", grabbed the lid and licked it. He had cream on his nose, lips, and chin and was quite happy!
Luke has discovered dancing. He spins around in circles until he falls down. Then he tries to get back up and keep spinning, but he's usually so dizzy that he falls back down before he gets all the way up!
He absolutely loves the Ergo Baby Carrier I bought with some of our tax return money. The Maya ring sling worked wonderfully when he was little, but now he's just a bit too heavy for me to comfortably carry him in it. So, I got an Ergo. It is wonderfully comfortable and fairly easy for me to get him in it on my back. I clip the waist buckle, set him on a chair, sit down in front of him, and he climbs right onto my back! He knows what needs to be done and he loves being in it, so he's quite willing to co-operate. Sometimes, he'll even bring it to me if wants to be carried. It's so cute when he does that! I do quite a lot of my housework with him happily on my back now.

March 25

We're almost over our colds here. Just some runny noses to deal with yet.
I learned yesterday to make sure that the stickers are put away where Brendan cannot get to them. I went downstairs to change the laundry, came back up, and Brendan was covered with stickers! And Luke had a pair of cows on his bottom and a pair of zebras on his wrist. They were both quite pleased with themselves...


Potty-training is going fairly well. He still has plenty of accidents, but it's getting better and better. On Thursday, for the first time, he asked to go to the potty and actually went when he sat down. That was very exciting!
Our other exciting news is that goat's milk seems to be okay for the boys! We get it fresh from a friend of our neighbor. It's a little bit more expensive than rice milk, but it's so yummy! I never could drink rice milk myself, but I really like this goat's milk. Michael says I can't have a goat though. Oh well, maybe someday!

Happy Birthday to Luke!

It was a good day, if you ignore the fact that Luke and I both have nasty sinus colds...
My parents arrived last night after the boys were in bed. Everyone woke up a little too early today. We had banana muffins for breakfast, played for awhile. Brendan found and opened one of Luke's birthday presents before anyone could stop him. While Luke took a morning nap, my mom and I made a chocolate cake. I made popcorn with dinner - Luke's favorite treat. And then we had cake! Luke didn't want to blow out his candle. He was fascinated by the candle and wanted to touch it, but he wouldn't blow it out. The cake was delicious, Brendan kept asking for more and more. Luke ate the frosting. First he used his fingers to eat the frosting and then he picked up his bowl and licked the frosting off of the cake. He only ate a couple small pieces of cake. Then we opened presents. He loved them all, thank you to everyone! After that both boys got a bath and put to bed.

March 18

Bath time is so much fun! The other night, Luke decided to go bobbing for rubber ducks during their bath. I couldn't see what he was doing at first, but he kept ducking down and popping back up, laughing, and with his face dripping wet. And then he came back up with a duck in his mouth. He took it out and quacked. They have quite a few rubber ducks and Luke loves to play with them and quack. He doesn't just quack at the neighbor's dogs... Later on, after I had gotten them cleaned up, Brendan apparently decided that I hadn't done a good enough job on Luke's hair. He took the wash mitt, dipped it in the water, and wiped off Luke's head. Then he did it again several times more.
Brendan is becoming a wonderful helper to me. Today, while I was folding towels, he came over and asked for the pile of napkins. I knew that he knew where the napkins belonged, so I gave them to him and asked him to put them away. When he came back, I handed him a pile of dish cloths. He said "thank you" and happily walked off. After he was done with the dish cloths, I gave him the bibs. He said "thank you" again as he walked off. Thanking me for letting him help me, wow! When I got downstairs, I checked the drawers and he had gotten everything into the correct drawers! Not exactly neatly, but everything was where it belonged.
My parents came to visit for Luke's birthday and "Gamma" helped by starting to potty-train Brendan. He did it twice the first day and several more times the second day! I'm very proud of my boy.
Brendan has a new "Spiderman" trick. Our front window is very close to the floor. He gets his toes up on the sill and holds on to the top of the sash and sidles back and forth along the length of the window - probably about 9 ft.

Two recent pictures

Brendan got a cut on his hand last night. Kira put some ointment on it before bedtime and also put a Backyardigans band aid on it. Once he realized what was on the band aid he was thrilled! He even tried scratching himself and asking for more band aids. We didn't give in. But it's good to know that if he gets hurt again, we can give him another band aid and at least distract him from the boo-boo.


Mama also helped Luke draw his very first picture. This was the first time that it was his own piece of paper (and not his scratches on his brother's picture). Mama helped him get crayons and to make sure that they didn't go in his mouth. He had fun and so did Mama.

March 11

Ummm... I know stuff happened this week, but my mind is drawing a complete blank. Hmmm.

Well, I finished weaving the first half of the stole! That was so exciting. I cut it off the loom and everything. Later today or first thing tomorrow I'll start on the second half.
This morning, as I was changing Brendan's diaper, Luke came over with Teddy and dropped him on Brendan. Brendan said, "Dee do, Buke!" (Thank you, Luke!)
On Friday morning, the boys and I walked up to the Lanham's. As we reached their house, the dogs came running around the corner barking. Brendan started barking back. Luke started quacking.
This afternoon, Brendan helped me make soft pretzels. He had a great time playing with a little ball of dough. He tasted it too, but wasn't too impressed with that! He was very happy to get to eat the pieces he had made.
Lately, Brendan has been calling Luke "Buddy". I referred to Luke as that while cleaning him up after breakfast the other day and he's been calling him that ever since.

There's our updates for the week!

March 4

Hello again.
I've been quite busy here. Working hard on finishing up an ordination stole for a Sem 4 student. Plus, trying to keep the house and family from sinking too far into chaos while I do that. Not an easy task...
My parents are coming to visit for Luke's 1st birthday. So, I've got to work on tidying up the basement for them to stay in. Shoot, and I should probably get Luke a present too, shouldn't I?!
Let's see, what else has been going on? We've been talking about potty training Brendan. But every time we ask him if he has to go potty, he says, "ummm... nope." Luke is finding plenty of mischief to get into. We have also learned that Luke loves popcorn and Brendan can't stand it. Brendan is speaking in sentences more and more now. Very cool! He can also be a great little helper to me.
We're going to be doing psanky here pretty soon. I'm really looking forward to that. It's been two years now since I've done it.

February 25

A blessed Lent to everyone!
We have had a fairly good week here. Well, other than the fact that I twisted my ankle yesterday afternoon. Not sure when or how I did it, but it sure hurts.
Luke has cut his 6th tooth! He's been working on it for a while now and has been quite crabby about it, so this is a very exciting event for us! He also learned how to click his tongue the other day and spent hours doing it. He thought it was absolutely hysterical.
Brendan has his own laptop now. Well, in his imagination he does. He took the green box from the toy shelf, dumped out the cars that were in it, propped it up on the end table and started typing and told us that it was "Myenen's dapdot." (Brendan's laptop)


He also drew his first picture of Jesus the other day. Fortunately he told me it was Jesus... It was very cute, he was sitting at his desk and drawing a big blue circle round and round. When he saw me watching, he pointed to it and told me that it was Jesus.

February 18

I've decided to cut back drastically on my internet use for Lent. Thus, I will only be online on Sundays. But, I will try to update the blog AND the website each Sunday. Which actually means that they'll probably get updated more often than they normally do!
We have some really nice warm weather coming our way the next week or so. I'm really looking forward to being able to take the boys outside to play more (without having to wrap them up in so much clothing that they can barely move)!
We had lunch with the deaf today after church. Brendan watched with fascination as they signed and after a few moments he started to "babble" in sign. Very funny and cute.
This morning was his first time having cereal with rice milk on it. He usually eats oatmeal or dry cereal for breakfast but today he noticed me putting rice milk on my cereal and asked for it on his. He did remarkably well. Only a few drips got on the table.
Luke slept through the night again last night! Yay!!! Some nights he does and some he doesn't, but it's definitely getting better. He's also starting to say Dada. I think Michael's pretty thrilled about that.
Well, dinner is ready so I'm going to go eat!

February 14

Happy St. Valentine's Day!

We're all doing quite well here. My back is completely recovered! That's a huge relief and is making life so much easier for me. Brendan is doing very well in our home preschool, I'm quite proud to say. He's getting very good at identifying the colors, letters, numbers and shapes he's learned so far. And he loves to point out Jesus in the pictures he colors each week. Luke is a daredevil as always. I think he spends all his naps and nights dreaming up new ways to injure himself. He has cut his two top front teeth! He has the two side top ones coming in, I think maybe later this week - two weeks at most. He also seems to be starting to sleep through the night! A very exciting thing for me.

I've recently come up with substitutes for soy sauce and cheese that are safe for our family to eat! Yay! We can have stir-fry and macaroni and cheese again!

Enjoy Brendan's first post below. I was trying to get him to type the alphabet as far as he knows it (A-E), but he got a bit excited and threw in a bunch of other letters. I don't think any of you mind!

Brendan's First Post!

ACCCCCBVCCCCCDDDDS WEEE

January 29

"Ummm... No Ecks, Mommy. Bret!" Translation: Ummm... No eggs, Mommy. Bread! Except that it was pancakes, not bread and there were no more. Explaining that to a two-year-old doesn't work so well. He seemed pretty sure that I could just magically produce more pancakes for him and he wanted nothing at all to do with my offer of scrambled eggs instead. A minor meltdown ensued. On the plus side, this was his longest sentence yet!
Luke's not speaking in sentences yet. Give him a few more days. He's already got two words. Bye and Duck. And yes he does use them both in the appropriate contexts and yes he is barely 10 1/2 months old. He's learning to eat slightly pureed table food. He loves spaghetti and Spanish rice. He's not too thrilled about meatloaf and veggies.
I could use a few prayers. I got a knot in my back last week and it's gotten worse and worse. Saturday night and Sunday morning it was so bad that I could barely move. It's a little better today. It still hurts, but at least I can move without crying. Of course, with the slightest bit of improvement I went and overdid it. I did way more housework than I really should have today and it now hurts worse than it did this morning.

Updates

Sorry it's been so long since I posted last. These last few weeks have been quite busy for us.

On New Year's Day we headed up to Wisconsin for my brother's wedding. Well, we tried at least. We got about two and a half hours down the road and discovered that Teddy had been left behind. Brendan was distraught. We had no choice but to go back - we know from experience that getting a new Teddy won't work at all. The next morning we actually succeeded at leaving for Wisconsin and got there in the mid-afternoon. After a busy and crazy week, it was finally Saturday afternoon and we went to the church to take pictures before the wedding. Got Brendan dressed in his little tux, got Luke dressed in his little suit, turned to talk to Lydia and heard from behind me - thud, scream! Luke had fallen and hit his head on a rather sharp edge of a table leg and gotten a deep cut in his eyebrow. I nursed him right away and decided that we needed to take him in to get stitches. So, Michael, Luke and I went to St. Mary's, which is really close to CUW, and Luke got three stitches. He did really well and everyone in the ER loved him. We got back to CUW in time to see Stephan and Penny's vows.

Even stitches can't slow Luke down. We still spent a lot of time chasing that child around the hospital and the church.
Michael and I after the wedding, in of those few brief moments in which neither one of us has a child attached to us!
I'd post a picture of Stephan and Penny, but I can't seem to find any really nice ones right now.

After we got home, everyone got sick. Brendan had pink eye and a sinus infection, Michael had pneumonia and Luke and I had nasty colds. We're all recovering now, but it made for a rather yucky week.

Then this week, I started preschooling Brendan! It's been lots of fun.

Here's a picture of Brendan pointing out the letter A for me on his preschool poster.

And here's Brendan pointing out the number 1. We are also doing Bible stories, shapes, sign language and other stuff as well.