Family update

We've been slacking a bit on our posting so here is a family update:

Ella: Ella is a whopping 10+ pounds. She loves to eat and has gained 3 pounds in her first 6 weeks! At this rate, she'll weigh 8000 lbs. by age 13. She's a bit fussy, usually at night, but other than that, she is a good baby.

Maddie: Maddie will be 2 years old on March 4. It's hard to believe that; she's growing up so fast :-(. She has developed a love for music and loves to dance, no matter what style of music is playing. She is also learning to sing and loves to pretend just about anything is a microphone. She still loves Larry Boy, Mickey Mouse, Handy Manny, and Little Einsteins.

Kate: Kate is back on the treadmill and running again. She can't wait for the weather to warm up so she can run outside. She loves staying at home with the girls. She is part of the MOPS group at church and helps lead a small group of freshmen girls.

Eric: Eric is staying busy at work. The middle school director quit in December so he's been leading high school and middle school since January. He is also leading the search team to hire a new middle school person. In February, Student Ministries held their annual winter retreat, ECHO. There were over 100 students and 30 leaders at the weekend. The church is also looking for a senior pastor. This week we have a candidate coming and Eric has lots of meetings with him. Eric is hoping to get on a softball team this summer.

Doing Great

Ella has been home over a week now and continues to do great. She had her 1 week check-up yesterday and is back up to her birth weight of 7 lbs. Maddie is loving her little sister, but loving the fact that Gram is here more (at this point Maddie likes Gram more than me :)
Here are a few more pictures...

Coming home

Kate and Ella came home today. Both continue to do great! Elway will be coming home tomorrow as she's been with her dog friend all weekend. She should be very tired.

ELLA RUTH RAWDON

Welcome Ella Ruth Rawdon to the world! Ella was born this morning, January 12, 2008, at 11:26am. She weighs 7 pounds even and is 19 1/2 inches long. As you can see, Maddie loves her new little sister. Both mom and baby are doing great!!

In the hospital

We are in the hospital, waiting to have this baby. We got here last night around 8:30pm. Kate went from 2 to 4 cm in an hour, but didn't change all night. This morning, they started her on pitocin and the doctor just came and broke her water. We'll keep the progress posted as much as we can.

Christmas "vacation"

I had a few days off after Christmas. Instead of taking it easy, Kate put me to work and we painted the girls' rooms. We also moved Maddie's crib into the baby's room as Maddie got a new crib/toddler bed for Christmas. Maddie's room is the purple one and the baby's is yellow. Who ever thought I would have a purple room in a house I owned??

Christmas 2007

Here are a few pictures of Maddie on Christmas morning:

Sermon #2

This past Sunday I gave my second message in "big church" at CBC. If you want to listen to it, click HERE to find it.

Survivor finale

Congratulations to Todd for winning Survivor China. He was the most deserving of the final three. However, Todd owes Amanda a very nice dinner because she lost the game and gave it to him. Todd was the only person that could beat Amanda with the jury. Amanda had 3 or 4 chances to vote him off but never did. Why she took him to the finals I'll never know.

What a day!

Last Saturday we got about an inch of snow along with some freezing rain and regular rain. At night, the rain froze, making for some icy conditions. Today, we got an additional 4 or 5 inches of snow, which I love. We live on a hill which isn't too bad because we have a 4-wheel drive vehicle. Unfortunately, we found out today that the 4-wheel drive is not working!

It started when I came home for lunch. I was having trouble getting up one hill so I decided to try another street because the plows had just gone by. I managed to get up that hill (slowly) and got to our street and headed down the hill. When I got to our house, a friend's minivan was blocking our driveway as our friend was stuck (Kate watches her son a couple mornings a week). Because I couldn't get in the driveway, I went down a bit further and parked in the street. Not a big deal since I had 4-wheel drive (or so I thought). After eating lunch, I thought I'll go get the Blazer in the driveway. I went to turn around and the fun began. I got stuck in a neighbor's driveway, where some of the ice was built up. Another neighbor lady came out and helped us push the Blazer into the middle of the street. We began to push the car up the street as Kate steered and spun the wheels on the ice. It was then I noticed that the front wheels weren't spinning. That meant the rear wheels were giving all the power but all the weight is up front. We pushed a little more, mostly in vein. Then the neighbor lady said she had a 4-wheel drive truck. So I went and got that and pulled the Blazer up to our driveway, but we couldn't push it in. Then a guy with a Bobcat came and pushed the Blazer the rest of the way. It only took us about 2 hours to move the Blazer a hundred feet or so.

The one good thing out of the day was that we got to take Maddie out for a quick sled ride. She didn't enjoy it too much because she was cold.

If you were wondering what to get us for Christmas, you can just send money to our "Fix the Blazer" fund. All donations are tax-deductible (ok, not really).