Our Daughter...

Not content with her nice bed, Annika decided to haul a second bed on top of her other bed. At least I can say that Annika brings a refreshing sense of spontaneity to our lives. Sometimes I just wonder where her ideas come from.

Sorry for the posting hiatus. Advent has been very wonderful around here, and it has been busy. We began a contemporary evening service at the church on top of the other special services, musicals, parties, and other what not. It's been exhausting and rewarding.

We'll post more about our holidays - probably after Christmas. Oh yeah, Sammy is slowly and painfully getting his first two teeth. Poor guy. He's been miserable through it all.

May the peace of Christ be with you this Christmas!

Pretty in Pink

I've been trying for quite awhile to get Annika to try her hand at a sport - any sport. She just hasn't been interested in sports, which just doesn't compute to me. I think I may finally have the solution. Annika now has a pink soccer ball, and she pulled it out tonight to kick with me. I was so happy to kick the ball back and forth. We even picked it up to play catch. She surprised me that she actually caught quite a few of my tosses.

Annika wanted me to take a picture of the occasion for her grandparents, so I'm doing what I've been told.

Thanksgiving - St. Simons Style

Having moved so far from our families, this Thanksgiving was a new experience for us. To begin with, we went to the beach on the day before Thanksgiving. I can't say that I've ever done that before - at least not in swimtrunks. Annika was able to bring a friend with her, and Sammy enjoyed his first prolonged exposure to the sun and sand. Jess and I just enjoyed being out of the house without much to do. I guess it's a different season in our lives.




We were invited to share in the Thanksgiving feast of some friends from church. We were very thankful to spend time with such wonderful people. Being with them took the edge off of not being with our own families this year.

Making friends

Jess posting here. So I had asked some of you to pray especially for Annika during the past months with all of the transitions she's had to make (becoming a sibling, moving, new school, new church). I've been especially hoping/praying that she would make some girlfriends because I hadn't been so good at helping her cultivate those while we were in seminary. Well, this is a thank you post for your prayers. I can say with confidence that Annika is making friends and she has one boy buddy and one girl buddy with a few more in the works. Here's a pic of Annika with her girl buddy over at our house recently for a play date :-) Thanks everyone for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers as we continue to adjust to southern living.

7 months on 11/17/07!!

He has grown so much since his 6 month photo!

30 weeks old, 11/13/07

Having fun helping mom and dad change the bedding :-)

Kirkin' O' The Tartans

Our church held its annual Kirkin' O' The Tartans (Blessing of the families) service this morning. I had the privilege of preaching at this service, and I somehow managed to preach about Monty Python and the Holy Grail, John Knox, and the Sadducees all in one sermon. If I learned nothing else, I now know that many in my church love Monty Python. They seem to be really happy with my preaching, so I hope that I can keep growing as a preacher in such a congenial place.

We wanted to post some pictures of the family at the service for your enjoyment. For those who have taken the PC(USA) ordination exams, you can enjoy critiquing the placement of the church decorations in the sanctuary. As for me, while I may not be thrilled with the implications of having such a "Scottish" service, it was interesting to meet so many new people who came to church just for that service. In the end, I guess that I'm more open to getting new people into church than I am about pulling off a perfectly Reformed service. So sue me.

One more note of interest, my second cousin from Erie happened to be on this island, so there were at least three people with the middle name "Kirkland" at our church today. That was fun for me.




Shhhhhh....don't show this one to Dr. Kay, Dr. Brown, or The Rev. Bill Heming ;-)

Some Sammy updates...

It's been some time since I've done Sammy updates so here's a rundown of the last few weeks...can't believe he'll be 30 weeks old this week! (sniff sniff)

26 weeks 10/16/07


6 months 10/17/07


27 weeks 10/23/07, Sammy is eating like a champ. He loves oatmeal and applesauce especially.



28 weeks 10/28/07



29 weeks 11/06/07, The day before this day, I was helping Samuel practice sitting up. The next day, Troy sat him up and it stuck. He's been sitting like a big boy ever since!

Southern Names: Our Minds are Blown

So, we realized that the move from Jersey to Georgia would take some getting used to. There are just some basic, major differences in culture that we would have never known without moving here. Well, tonight, we experienced a brand new one.

We had thought it strange that when I introduced myself as "Troy," many responded, "Oh, Trey, it's nice to meet you." I just figured that my northern accent just made my "o" sound like an "eh." It turns out that there are a lot of people named Trey around here. There are also people named Tripp and Dru.

Well, what we found out tonight was that Trey, Tripp, and Dru are not names at all. Rather, if your dad was John Smith Jr. and if you were named John Smith III, people will call you Trey or Tripp (short for Triple). If you're John Smith IV, then you get to be Dru, as in quaDRUple. I think being John Smith V would be pretty cool because you could then be Quint. (And I sure don't want to try to guess what you'd call John Smith VI.)

It's a pretty interesting system of names, I must admit, although it makes me wonder how many peoples' nicknames I know without having a clue that their real first name is something like Cletus Pepper III. I guess that knowledge will come with time.

Halloween is Crazy

Things have been quite busy lately, and so we haven't had much time for posting. We're sorry if you've missed us. In the last couple of weeks Jess and the kids made their way back to the Midwest to visit some family and friends in Chicago and Michigan. They also really enjoyed experiencing some good ol' northern fall - with changing leaves and crisp weather. They enjoyed themselves, but I'll let Jess give the details when she wants to. (I painted the remaining rooms in the house while they were gone. It's a relief to have that done!)

Before too much time passed, I wanted to write a little bit about Halloween on the island. It's nuts. Where I grew up, we would have a couple of hours of trick-or-treating, and that was about it. We enjoyed it, but it was not an event. On the island, people go all out. We took the kids to a nearby neighborhood where some of our church friends live. They were having a cabana party, as were many others in the neighborhood. We were treated to dinner, dessert, candy, and more. When trick-or-treating got going in earnest, there were hundreds of kids and parents roaming the streets of this neighborhood. We weren't the only interlopers. People were parked all over the place, many of them driving to the island from Brunswick to catch the party. Many of the adults were wearing professional costumes. (I know I felt underdressed and rather uncreative for not wearing one.) Many of the houses were decorated with spider webs, pirate themes, and disco balls. One house even had an inflatable haunted castle! (See the photo above.) I had heard about how crazy Halloween was here, but never did I imagine this. We even ran into several groups that dressed up corporately as characters from nursery rhymes, like Little Red Riding Hood. It was a lot of fun, I must admit.

Annika had a really good time. I thought she looked really cute in her mermaid costume. She really is measured in how she approaches events like this. Even though we walked through a good bit of the neighborhood, she would only stop at the best decorated houses. She came home with a few dozen pieces of candy, which makes me really happy. We can let her have it without quite so much oversight. (My parents are probably smiling when they read about my having to oversee candy intake. Whoops.)

That's all for now. Hope y'all are well.

Sammy 25 weeks, Ani 4 yrs 4mths 10/09/07

It's fun to see our kids beginning to interact with each other!

Sammy 24 weeks 10/02/07

Call Steve Jobs: The iBook Inspires Crawling

Sammy is two days shy of six-months-old, but he's already beginning to crawl. He loves hanging out on his tummy, spending a lot of the day spinning in circles to play with toys. Now, it seems as though Sammy is really motivated by our iBook. Below is a video of him attacking the Mac. Thought you'd enjoy it.

Spoonman

Samuel started trying solid food the other day. He's not so sure about the food, but he does love playing with the spoon.

Samuel's Baptism

Samuel became the newest baptized member of St. Simons Presbyterian Church during our 61st church anniversary. He smiled and stuck out his tongue for much of the ceremony, and we were really excited to commit him to a life in the church. It was a wonderful day.

Bath time fun

Here's a PG version of Annika and Samuel taking a bath together. Sammy still isn't quite so sure about baths in the big tub yet, but he thought it was fun trying to get his big sister's hair wet.

Two tough guys :-)

23 weeks, 09/25/07

Showing some sass!

Ms. Domestic

Annika saw kids on tv making fruit kabobs, and she wanted to give it a try. Here are the "fruits" of her labor (I know, lame pun!).

22 weeks 09/18/07

5 months old! 09/17/07

Snakes

One of the things about coastal Georgia that I could do without are the snakes and spiders. Just this past week, the Brunswick News ran an article about how the venomous snakes in the area get very active at this time of year, since they're breeding. This wouldn't be a problem, except that there are SIX types including copperheads, coral snakes, timber rattlesnakes, eastern diamondback rattlesnakes, pigmy rattlesnakes, and cottonmouths. What is worse, Little St. Simons Island, just to our north, has more rattlesnakes per acre than anywhere else in the U.S. I don't think I'll be going there any time soon. The paper recommended wearing chaps or long boots if you're going to be anywhere near tall grass, but I had one question when I read that: Who owns chaps and actually wears them in Georgia?

For the second time, I have now seen a snake in our backyard. The first was easily three feet long and green. I can't find a picture of this snake anywhere. Must be undocumented. Anyway, today, I came across this snake:


Now, I realize that this is merely a garter snake, and he can't do any damage to me. It's just a little freaky every time I tend to my yard, I get a reptile or arachnid adventure. Ministry won't kill me, but the snakes just might. Welcome to paradise.

Jumping King

Check this out:

21 weeks, 09/11/07

St. Simons Sunset

As we returned home this evening from another night at church, we were stunned by the sun as it set at the end of our street. This picture hardly does our view justice, since it didn't pick up the steam rising from the street after the rain, but the Spanish moss and the trees silhouetted against the blazing yellow sky look nice.

The pace of our lives has really picked up recently, and we're enjoying being here and doing what we're doing. It seems like all of us live at the church. Annika is there six days a week if you count pre-school, which she loves. (She's already learned how to write her name with lower case letters in the first week.) While we're still getting to know people, it has been great to see how happy Annika is to be at church, especially because there are so many caring adults and neat kids there. The church is beginning to feel like a home, I'm happy to report.

We'll keep posting soon, especially with updated photos and videos. You should see Sammy in his jumping contraption. He's got hops, but it's too bad his genes won't make him tall enough to be a basketball player.

20 weeks 09/03/07

Chicago's latest recruit :-)

Troy the Destroyer

One of the added bonuses of living in the South is the vast array of bugs that can destroy your home. Just this past week we had Terminix install bait stations to protect our home against termites. The previous owner of our house didn't do so, but our house was termite-free when we purchased it. We weren't willing to take that risk, so while our wallets are now lighter, we assume we can rest easier at night.

But it was at night - last night to be exact - that we saw a nasty carpenter ant had made its way into our bedroom. I had just started to fall asleep, when Jess started screaming, "Ewww...ewww...ewww!" She proceeded to kill the ant and discover all sorts of tiny ants crawling around the baseboards.

This morning I headed over to ACE Hardware, and got to know my pesticides. As of lunchtime today, I have sprayed our entire home with pesticide meant to protect against ants, roaches, etc. as well as to ward off the little nasties that kill the grass. (You wouldn't believe the wildlife that hides out in our grass. I saw a spider that was at least an inch and a half long, grasshoppers, lizards, and more.) I also brought home some extra-strength carpenter ant killer. I used the entire bottle, but your should have seen those suckers writhe in pain. Not in my house, ants!

I hope the message spreads to all insects, Troy the Destroyer now lives here. You've been warned.

19 weeks, 8/28/07

Getting stronger!



Samuel sporting his nighttime diaper (yes, it is bulky but bulletproof) :-)

New Week, New Motivation

I've been in a bit of a SAHM (stay at home mom) slump so last night I said to myself, "Self...it's a new week. Let's have a new start to this mommying thing." So today, instead of surfing the internet first thing, I got up, fed Samuel, did two loads of laundry, fed Samuel again, put Samuel down for a nap, helped Annika select an outfit, did a coloring/cutting project with her, worked with her on learning her address and phone number, made some tuna salad, fed Samuel. That was all before noon :-) Then the afternoon was a little less productive. Annika has a strong love affair with the movie Cars so she watched that...I'm sure I fed Samuel a few more times and he took another nap. But the two highlights of the afternoon (pic below) were receiving "fluffymail" (code for cloth diaper paraphernalia) and making "chocolate stuff" with Annika in the crockpot...yummy! The first two pics are of Annika helping and the last pic is Sammy in his new wool soaker from Harper of Mom's Boardwalk

Our two cuties

I (Jess) have a really hard time capturing photos where both kids are looking cute, have their eyes open, etc...That's why I'm excited about this one. Enjoy!

Waving? You Decide.

Jess caught Samuel on tape figuring out how to use his hands. He seems to be favoring his left hand, which makes Jess love him all the more. I certainly don't mind if he's left-handed. Most Major League clubs would love another lefty around this time of year.

18 weeks, 08/21/07

4 months old 8/17/07!

CaaaARGH!

We made our first trip down to Jacksonville today (to the Regency Square Mall for our Jax contingent). Since we live in a nice, but small locale, we now need to trek to Jax for a JCPenney portrait studio, a decent-sized mall, Costco, etc. I figure we'll get there about once per month, assuming our car will make the trip.

That's the problem, though. Our #@!& car has had an issue with its rear brakes since we bought it brand new, and no matter what we try to do to remedy the problem, we fail. A good friend of ours who is very knowledgeable with cars helped me change the cars pads and rotors in February this year, so I figured we'd be in the clear for a couple of years.

I was wrong.

Today, as we were pulling into the mall, we heard a nasty grinding noise coming from one of the wheels. We took the car to Sears, and after a full inspection, they declared that both real calipers need to be replaced because they were seized up. The 6-month old rear brake pads were already worn down to the metal. What is even worse, it seems that Mazda not only has supplied us with a defective brake system, they charge over $400.00 per caliper to replace them.

So, yes, I'm mad at our car. I'm trying to figure out if I can do these repairs myself for a whole lot less, or if we should just sell the car and cut our losses.

The silver lining in all of this is that, even before they knew of our duress, a couple from the church called and left a message on our machine, offering to let us borrow a car as much as we wanted over the coming weeks. Praise the Lord, it's already parked in front of our house. If only the repair could go as smoothly.

Ode to Annika

We didn't want to go too long without posting some pics of our magnum opus #1, Miss Annika. Here's a pictorial taste of what she has been up to the past few months...
Celebrating her 4th birthday!!



Enjoying our last time in NYC (for some time) at Alice's Tea Cup


Writing her name during her last day at the Dupree school


Riding the merry-go-round at the Brookfield Zoo


Embracing the girly side of herself (balanced of course with a primal scream)