Happy New Year! Gezuar Vitin E Ri!

2010 has come and gone. Last Christmas Nathan optimistically talked about the possibility of having our 2nd child at Christmas 2010 and I pessimistically disagreed. Look who was wrong! What a year it unfolded into! Not in my wildest dreams could I have envisioned what would be in store -- but aren't God's plans usually better than what we imagined? You just have to have the faith to jump!

December 23... My Birthday

Thursday was my birthday and the day started out with a trip to Washington (IL) to visit my high school friend and "lockermate", Joy. "Twist" and "vanOrman" lined up alphabetically in our class at Peoria Christian so we came up with the idea to store all of our coats and bags in one locker and keep our books and school items in another locker. I think we did that for two or three years! Sadly, it's been nearly eleven years since we've seen each other (we attempted a visit two years ago but I got sick on the day we were to get together). She and her family live in North Carolina now, but thanks to Facebook, we were able to arrange a get together at her parents' home! Hopefully next year our other girlfriends from our group will be able to join us!

After lunch the kids all got in Gjyshe's tractor for their traditional ride. (Below) you can see Reni is quite excited.

(Above) now he's like, "Let's get this show on the road!"

After a traditional birthday supper of LaGondola spaghetti, garlic bread and torpedos, the kids were anxious to get to the cake and presents. I had a lot of help in all areas!

If you want to feel like you were there (or hear Tua's sweet rendition of Happy Birthday), watch the video below... my birthday cake was Nathan's famous peppermint cheesecake. Thanks, Babe!

Christmas in IL Part 2: Grizzly Jack's

The day after Pippa's birthday party we left home for a few days to stay at a place called Grizzly Jack's Lodge, near Starved Rock. This was a big departure from anything I think our family has ever done before. The few trips we did when I was growing up revolved around historical attractions, not amusement parks (those were pretty much limited to the State Fair), but when you have 4 small children under the age of five, their interests tend to set the tenor for the family's activities. And since my parents thought 8 straight days in the farm house with limited amusements and even tighter space might be a bit much for us all, they surprised us with a little get away.

Mom found the resort online and it proved to exceed our expectations! It started snowing shortly after we arrived and continued to snow the remainder of the day. From inside our cabin, and later on through giant windows in the indoor waterpark, we could watch thick, fluffy flakes falling outside. It provided a quiet calm and contributed to the whole rustic, mountain-y feeling.

What cabin doesn't have a fireplace? Ours certainly did but what we didn't know was that they were all GAS and Mom and Dad had taken valuable packing space in the van to haul three seed sacks full of firewood... which we wouldn't be able to use. In their defense, given what we paid for firewood on a previous trip, I can't blame them. Nevertheless it was good for a laugh.

This collection of photos feels incomplete, and that's probably from my total laziness with using my camera right now, but it gives you a general idea of our time together.

Ellie is NOT cooperating with the camera these days. I hope it's a temporary phase. We watched lots of kids movies, made meals in the cabin, enjoyed the fireplace and cups and cups of hot coffee, and squeezed in a few games of Catan (not easy with small children around!). All in all, quite relaxing!




The water park was really nice (though Reni was a bit chilly outside of the heated children's pool, as you can see in the right-hand photo below). Everyone enjoyed the "family" slide, even Reni who went crazy letting us know how much he wanted to go down by himself too. Nathan would let go of him at the top and I'd catch him at the bottom. He loved it! His sister wasn't so brave to go by herself!
In addition to the waterpark, the facility also had an indoor amusement park which featured a lot of carnival-type rides and our package included unlimited access to both. Ellie absolutely LOVED this and got our family's admissions worth practically by herself. While she couldn't bring herself to slide solo down a waterslide, she had no fear to ride whirling, spinning, free falling carnival rides. Seriously. I can't believe the rides she did and she was just tall enough to get on them all! My dad decided he would be a good sport and join Tua and Ellie for one of them. For some reason he chose to join them on a ride that spun your pod around while spinning and lifting your unit in various directions. All the spinning action made him quite sick and that was the end of his amusement park experience. But he was a good grandpa. ;-) Why he didn't volunteer one ride earlier on the carousel we don't know ... All in all, we made some great memories and enjoyed this departure from our typical Christmas trip to central Illinois!

Christmas in IL: Pip's Birthday

Our first full day we were in Illinois, we got to celebrate my niece, Pippa's, birthday. She turned two! Small in stature for her age, she is big on verbal ability and acuity. When she flashes you a smile, her face splits into the largest grin. If you could see her Grandpa Shaw, you'd see her virtual twin (nearly 60 years her senior). Since we don't get to see our Vermont family very often, it's special to celebrate events like birthdays together!



Aunt Hannah gave the gift of the night, a baby doll which she promptly named "Baby Luke".

My grandfathers moved to "town" and live within a few hundred yards of each other (by the crow). Makes it easy for get togethers like this at Grandpa Ford's house!


Ellie got a writing tablet and she practices her name so she doesn't get rusty during this 3-week long Christmas break (thank you snow storm)!

Pippa's a little shy -- not too keen that her mommy left her in Grandpa's lap. Next to her is her big sister, Tua, who will turn four in a few days!

My sisters and I with Grandpa and Grandma Whiteford

Always happy in Gigi's lap!

Merry Christmas! from the Waggoners

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John1:14

(family photos from Illinois to come next week when we regain internet access)

What to do on a snow day...

... make Christmas gifts for Ellie's teachers! Between her teacher, teacher's aide, special ed teacher and her assistant, the bus driver and bus monitor... Ellie has quite the team behind her and we wanted them to know our appreciation. After viewing the forecast for the week, we did this project on Tuesday. Good thing she took them to school on Wednesday because it's the only day she had school all week!

Only because I need blog content am I letting you see my messy kitchen... I don't normally keep Oxy Clean on my counter. Don't worry -- it wasn't one of the ingredients. I think we we were running the SpotBot on some carpet stains (Reni ground eye shadow into the carpet -- that would have been a whole 'nother post if I had photos).

We let Ellie use a knife, so she was all about helping!

Reni wanted to be up where he could see all the activity and gives his approval while sampling some Craisins.

I love the little bits of flour on her face here!

We were making bags of dry cookie ingredients. The recipe? Choco-cranberry Nuggets

Of course, we had to test the recipe. The bag in the middle shows the finished product.

Reni -- 16 months

What a whirlwind this fall has been! I can clearly remember details from the middle of October like they happened last week, yet that was mid-terms and we're already preparing for finals week!

While time seems to be slipping away, it feels like we've had Reni forever. His adjustment into our family has gone so smoothly. He's such a happy, contented little guy. Here's a few updates on our "fluffy blonde-headed" little boy's accomplishments and milestones...

1.) He is now walking (sans prosthesis) quite smoothly and under control across a room, though he can usually crawl as fast, if not faster. He's a speed demon on the stairs, up and down. You can't take your eye off of him! When he knows he's done a good job, he'll clap his hands and say "yay" or even "bravo!" Perhaps the funniest feat to witness is his dancing. It has grown from a general up and down "bop" to a shoulder shimmy, a side-to-side-sway, and a fist pump. We crack up and would film it for you but he's shy and usually stops as soon as he sees someone watching him. He loves music.

2.) Verbally he has a growing vocabulary: momma, da da, Ehee (Ellie), ha (eat), hi, night night, bye bye, up, down, no, yep, dog... but his hands-down-favorite is "uh-oh!" and he uses it appropriately (and sends mom running when she hears it). His babbling is more sophisticated and intentional. It's full of inflection. If he's not babbling, he's singing in his soft, sweet voice.

3.) He imitates so much of what we do. I was blow drying my hair and he picked up Nathan's electronic razor and ran it through his hair (it was not on) in a similar motion. He has wiped the floor with a rag while Nathan mopped, and he loves to grab tubes of whatever he can find and wipe them across his face and over his ears while I apply my make-up.

4.) He is getting much more leary of strangers, including 'familiar' ones like cabinet members or his PT, but is now (almost) as happy with mom as dad. He continues to want to do whatever Ellie does and has a pre-emptive squawk if she swoops too close to him, in fear that she might take what HE happens to be playing with.

5.) As reported previously, he's very independent in the self-feeding category. The photos above show a wonderful "shirt bib" that we found at IKEA over Thanksgiving. As you can see, self-feeding can be messy! We joke that he considers his hair a 'towel', frequently wiping his hands on his head. Prior to his last doctors appointment, I was picking dried bits of food out of his hair -- in spite of washing it only hours earlier.

6.) His sleeping at night has also improved significantly with "only" a midnight wake-up (for a bottle), 3AM diaper change, and a 5AM "don't-leave-me, sleep-with me-and-I'll-sleep-another 60-to-90-minutes" cry. The aero-bed in his room developed a leak this week so it may expedite the elimination of the 5AM wake-up. We'll see how much we want our sleep! This week I have gotten up with him (for good) around 5 or 5:30 and later on both evenings I fell asleep (for good) on Ellie's floor putting her to bed at 8:30. This isn't good because I have a long list of things to complete after putting the kids to bed to be ready to leave for Christmas in a week!

Found Photo: Els, Age 5

A sign of how crazy this fall has been: I've still only gone through a portion of the wonderful photos Jan took of us in August. Over Thanksgiving I discovered this image I absolutely love of Els. So her ankles aren't crossed, and we hadn't thought yet to remove her shoes but her expression is priceless. Oh how I love this girl. Some days she drives me bonkers but I wouldn't trade her for the world.

(In Jan's defense -- the cropping and editing was done by me!). Check out more of her wonderful work at http://www.janmichele.com!

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree...

I married a smart man. Yeah, I know you know Nathan has a lot of technical knowledge and expertise about a lot of things we all wish we knew, but he's also smart in some practical areas too. Like anticipating that Ellie would have a hard time coming down from a visit to Nonna and PaPa's house for Thanksgiving.

So he had a plan. And so when as we packed our bags and Ellie asked the invariable question, "What's after _________ [in this case, 'we get home']?", he was prepared with an answer that would give our future-oriented daughter something to anticpate with excitement, not just result in an audible groan, whine, and inevitable grumpy mood the remainder of the day, "But I don't want to go home and get ready for school!"

His reply was, "When we get home, we'll decorate our Christmas tree!"

The secondary brilliance of Nathan's plan was that it would force ME to consent to bringing out our Christmas tree from storage and decorate at least some part of our home for the holiday. Lest you think I'm some sort of "scrooge" I want to point out that we do have THREE full-sized (and one mini) Christmas trees out in the center. And given that we only have about three weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas travels, I'm usually too worn out just thinking about putting it all away again to have an ounce of energy to pull out a fourth full tree, our own personal tree, and decorate it in a less visible space.

It turned out to be a wonderful Sunday evening family activity. Thankfully I had the foresight some years ago to purchase plastic -- not glass -- Christmas balls, so they survived several attempts by Reni to crack them together like Emeril cracking two eggs for breakfast. Ellie had fun discovering a few ornaments of her own, including one framed photo of her first Christmas with us in Albania four years ago. Wow -- what a change! The Nativity Set was a huge hit with Reni who looks like he's getting the whole "imaginative play" concept down (check out the video at the end). In the end, it was the perfect way to end Thanksgiving weekend and begin looking forward to Christmas. [scroll down to post below to see Thanksgiving pics -- this is a 'double poster' day]

Shall we say "cheesy smile?"

(Kelly -- per our conversation last night, this is the referenced tree pic taken at ISO 12800, 1/80th, f 2.8, no exposure correction)

Thanksgiving with the Waggoner Family in Ohio

Saturday, before Steve & Rachel's crew headed back to IL.
Can you tell the back row was prepared for the Ohio State/Michigan game?