white Christmas...Nebraska style

The "Christmas Blizzard of 2009" (duh-duh-DUH) tried to stop us from getting to Nebraska to celebrate R family Christmas hosted by M&A. It didn't - we made it down there on Wenesday before the worst of the three day storm hit, and everything was mostly clear for our trip back on Monday. Unfortunately, the "Christmas Blizzard of 2009" (duh-duh-DUH) did prevent Gma K, L&J from making it though. Even though they were missed, we made the best of it:

While it did this outside, leaving us housebound for 3 days,

we made Christmas cookies,

and decorated them,

we knit,

we colored,

we read books to ourselves,

we read books to kids,

we played,

and played,

and played,

we relaxed and snuggled,

we danced,

we ate,

we opened presents,

and more presents,

we worshiped,
(church was right next door!)

we opened stockings,

and had a very merry Christmas together!

Christmas letter 2009

Carsten 11 months, Willem 2 1/2 years, Grace 4 1/4 years

Christmas tree ornaments that Grace and Willem helped make this year – they painted the cardboard trees glued to clothespins and stuck on the star and “lights.”

The kids had so much fun with decorating the Christmas tree! It was hard to keep Carsten from getting into everything though!

Perspective

Perspective has kind of been the theme of our year in the Bruin household. Our lives are very focused on our 3 small children. The world literally revolves around them and their needs. We can get overwhelmed by this, but then we have to step back and remember that life will not always be this way. Trying to keep a bigger perspective has helped us live in the moment and truly enjoy this stage of life that we are in right now.

The year started in a huge way with the incredible unplanned home birth of our son Carsten, just an hour into 2009. God truly blessed us with the safe arrival of this little one into the world and also into our family.

Carsten has grown from a tiny helpless newborn into a big (almost) 1 year old who is happy, determined, very mobile (almost walking!), loves to eat, and who is starting to communicate with words and signs. We all love and dote on him and have been amazed to watch the very many milestones that he has gone through this first year!

Willem turned 2 this summer. He goes from snuggly and sweet to tantrums and back very easily. He loves to talk and sing almost as much as his sister and knows all his letters and colors. He enjoys reading books, and is starting to turn into our “boy” boy who loves blue (rather than pink which was his favorite color earlier), wants to rough-house, play ball, be outside and play trucks and tractors all the time.

Grace turned 4 in August and is becoming our little social butterfly. She is always asking if we can go somewhere or play with someone. She loves to play with her brothers and has a very active imagination in coming up with things for them to play or act out. We get “shows” from her regularly, complete with stories, singing and dancing. She is our “girly” girl loving all things pink and princesses! She likes to write and sound out words with our help as well as coloring, reading books, being outside, and helping momma.

Steve has been blessed with a steady, good job that he enjoys as manager of the Costco Pharmacy (less than a mile from our home – great commute!). And Cary is very happy to be able to stay at home and take care of the kids and try to keep the household in order (once again, that whole perspective thing!).

Connecting with family and friends is always fun and such a blessing, and we have been fortunate to have had some good road trips (the kids have traveled well!) this year to visit some of you in Edgerton, Willmar, Grand Rapids, Orange City, and Brookings.

We wish you all blessings and peace this Christmas season. May the big gift of the Savior give you the perspective to enjoy the little moments with your family this holiday.

2009 Christmas card

Merry Christmas!

a little more Christmas in the air...

some snapshots of the holidays in our house so far...plus a little fun bonus...







and oh...what holiday decoration is this?

why, they are 2 holiday eggs of course! and oh look, they are hatching...



cheep cheep! merry christmas from our crazy birds!

little C report...

Little C is just under 2 weeks away from his first birthday. (where did that year go!)

He now is crawling up stairs like a pro and standing up more and more by himself.

Just waiting for what will come next...=)

update on W...

We called into the Gastroenterology office this morning and are happy to report that W's polyp was benign! Praise the Lord for this good report!

We thank everyone for their prayers for us in the past couple of weeks.

and about those kids...

Kid stuff post!


First off is this big sweetie, little C...

• We can't believe he is almost one! He is a busy active happy determined (stubborn =) little 11 month old.
• Some of his new games are repeating certain sounds back and forth with us (dadda says "mmBAA", C says "mmBAA" over and over).
• He can sign "more" and "up," although he has been refusing to sign "more" lately. We know he can, and he knows he can, he just won't. Although "up" has been a really nice one to learn for all of us. G & W never really signed up or even held their hands up as insistently or as early as C is.
• He is pulling himself up on everything - really prefers to be standing whenever he can. He also doesn't like to hold on very tightly. This has led to a number of topples, but has also led to him starting to get his balance and stand on his own for very short periods of time. He is also walking along furniture now, so it won't be long until he is chasing after G & W on 2 feet rather than all fours!
• He is definitely a momma's and dadda's boy. He would rather be held by us, and is always looking to make sure we are there. If we aren't, it takes about 5 minutes to realize that we are gone (even if I am just in the next room) and he loudly lets everyone know that he doesn't like that! Then he will set out to search for us or just be super loud and unhappy until we come back and get him.

Then there is our other big boy, W...

• W has just taken off with letters lately. He has known his ABC's for a long time, but lately he talks about them a lot. He will tell us the sounds that letters make and what letters are at the beginning of different words we say while talking with him. For example, I was talking to him about a piece of paper the other day. He looks up at me and says "puh-puh-puh-paper...that starts with puh-puh-puh-P like PUH-PUH-PUH-Poptorn!" Little smarty-pants! He has trouble saying the hard C and the K sound though, so those sounds come out as "t" usually. Our favorite so far is "too-tie" for cookie. =)
• He is also talking more dramatically, not unlike his big sister, G. If you ask him whether he wants to go and read a book, he says "Yeah! YEAH! That would be SO SO SO fun! I LOVE books, they are WONDERFUL!" It is scary how much he talks like G sometimes.
  
• He has also turned into a boy-boy. He loves Super-Why lately, and pretends to be a superhero-boy a lot. He no longer wants the pink cup or plate or balloon like G, but rather says his favorite color is blue. Playing ball and trucks are still his favorite past-times during the day, although reading books or being read too is a close second!
• W is also still our big snuggler. He is the biggest one out of all 3, and loves to crawl on your lap and curl up. He will crawl into our laps to snuggle often, whether we like it or are ready for it or not.

And then our little princess, G...

• She has learned her left and right. A couple of weeks ago, when we were out running errands, she asked me "how do you tell your left from your right?" (we had already talked what left and right were a while back) I told her to hold up her hands with her pointer fingers pointing up and her thumbs pointing out, and the hand where that looked like an "L" was her left hand, and the other one was her right hand. She got this right away, and so I asked her in the stores a couple times whether we were going left or right, and which hand she was holding things in, and before I knew it, she just got it. No big practicing, no me helping her over and over and over and over, she just got it. And she doesn't use the "trick" I showed her either. She just knows. This baffles me as I still mix up my left and right.
• G is also recognizing more words and can sound out words and spell them with a little help. She loves books too and often sits with books on the couch and now she will say "Look, momma! That word is dog (or cat or duck or whatever)" We love that our kids are so into reading and words and letters! Hopefully this will start a lifetime love of reading...
• She has been into pretending a lot lately, and instructing W or S or I on how we should pretend too - "I am a queen and I love to color, and W, you are a prince who has a dog and is coming to visit me today, but you have to walk over there." She also likes to talk in her own languages or like animals and will tell us how to respond - "When I say 'meow, meow, meOW' that means I would like a piece of cheese. You should say 'MEow' for that means yes."
• She is such a big helper to us each day, but has also started to try to pick both boys up which we don't like, and she likes to "help" C by picking him up and moving him away from certain toys - this has gotten her in trouble. She also helped out so much when we were prepping W for his colonoscopy - she helped us get him to drink a lot of his prep juice by basically playing drinking games with him only she had apple juice, W had his prep juice, and their shot glasses were oversized legos with a straw. =)

Over and over each day with these kiddos, no matter how frustrating at times, we are reminded of how blessed we are as a family!

snow day games...

Today is a snow day...or it would be if we had anywhere to go or if S had to drive further than 1 mile to work...10F with a -15F windchill blowing the 3-5 inches of snow we got last night all over. Ahhhhh...MN winters!

When we were kids and had snow days, my brothers and I often would break out the Monopoly game and play for hours. Well, I guess things haven't changed much in 20 some years:

G asked to play Monopoly Jr when little C went down for a nap this morning, and with W "helping" out when he felt like it, we played for over an hour! G is so competitive that we have really been trying to play non-competitive board games with her lately(like Orchard), but I guess I just have a soft spot in my heart for Monopoly(plus she is learning counting and math and money, right?).

By the way, she totally kicked my butt...=)

a little Christmas in the air...

The day after Thanksgiving S had to work all day. G woke up with the thought of Christmas decorating in her head (we have been telling her for weeks that unlike all the stores, we didn't decorate for Christmas until after Thansgiving). I was not about to attempt getting out our decorations with 3 kids and no S! But in catching up on a few blogs in the am while baby C slept, I noticed this post on Simple Mom that linked to a craft idea for making a "snowstorm" in your window. I thought it was pretty cute, and something that the kids, or at least G, could help me with! We did not have labels and were not going to get anywhere near the stores on black Friday, so we improvised:

1. let G pick out light blue and white patterned paper from my scrapbooking stash
2. used big circle punch to punch out a big stack of circles - G and W both helped with this!
3. G organized the circles in 6 stacks according to pattern
   
4. grabbed pkg of dental floss (yay for having that in bulk from Costco!)
5. G helped me string out the floss and tape it to the kitchen table
6. G & W brought me 2 circles from a stack and chose where they wanted to put them on the strings (with a little direction from me so we could have a random pattern =)
7. placed one circle, pattern side down, under the floss
8. rolled a piece of G's tape (she is scotch tape queen at our house - has her own mega dispenser and everything, thank you again Costco!), and put it over the floss on the circle
9. put matching circle over taped circle, pattern side up
10. when all the strings were done, we detached them from the table and hung them in the big window in the front room

So now we have a little Christmas in the air at our house! The kids love these. They love looking at them from inside and from outside too, and the "snowflakes" move and flutter when the heat kicks in or when the kids blow at them which is really fun. Plus our window smells minty fresh! =)

Now that W's procedure is over and done with, we can focus a little more on Christmas and will hopefully get out the Christmas tree, rest of the decorations, Jesse tree, and Fa-La-Lattes in the next week. May you all enjoy your preparations for this blessed season!


*****Reality check*****
This was a super fun craft to do, but it may not have gone as smoothly as it sounded. Most people could probably do this in less than an hour. It took us ALL DAY! With many tears because I wouldn't let G pick out red and green elf paper, frustration when W rolled his car over the strings and detached them all, grrs from the momma when none of the kids would listen to what I was telling them to do, and 50 million interruptions of just the normal kid things of the day making me crabby because I just wanted to finish the project, and ending with S sweeping in when he got home to save the day and help hang up the strings like it was that easy. =)

update

Just a quick note on W. His colonoscopy is done and everything looks good. They removed the polyp and will send it off for biopsy. Otherwise, the doctor said that everything else was clean and healthy, no other polyps. We survived the prep and are glad to be done with it all and look forward to "normal" meals from here on out. Continued prayers for the biopsy results (according to the doctor, 9 out of 10 polyps in kids this age are benign and there is no further issues).

Thank you to all for the prayers and support.
S and C (and W too!)

how much fiber have you had today?

How much fiber have we had today? As little as possible.

On purpose, though. W has to have a colonoscopy on Tuesday to remove a polyp that we discovered a couple of weeks ago. Polyps like this are not common in toddlers, but luckily, the chance of it being abnormal are only 1 in 10 - this increases the older you get. He will get put out for this so we have to go to the Children's hospital - same place we went when G had her dental surgery a couple years ago. It is not a long procedure, but the preparation for it is the long and icky part as some of you adults may know. And it is hard to reason with our 2 yr old about why he can't have certain foods, as well as having to deal with cleaning his system out Monday, so this will be a rough couple of days!

Saturday - low fiber diet
Sunday (today) - same low fiber diet, and 64 oz of water (if possible),
Monday - clear liquid diet after midnight on Sunday, icky stuff to drink in afternoon that will clear out his system
Tuesday - nothing to eat or drink after midnight on Monday

We are thankful that both grandmas will be coming to help. My mom should be here soon, and S's mom will come tomorrow morning. That will provide plenty of good distraction for W tomorrow, hopefully!

So please keep W (and all of us) in your prayers for the next few days. Pray that the procedure be safe and successful, and that we all have patience and resolve with the preparation for it. We will post an update after Tuesday to let you know how it all went.