Happy 2009, everyone! As I write this update we are awaiting news as to where Paul’s career will be leading us next (again), raising a newborn baby (again), and living in a new house (again)! Back in December, Paul finished his 10 days of interviewing for residency programs back in the Midwest. He felt very good about how they went so we are hoping he will get selected by one of his top two programs (HCMC in Minneapolis or Regions in St. Paul). We find out what residency program he will be joining in mid-March. Hopefully the time will pass quickly.
As I wrote in my very brief update about a month ago, our third child Kye Aaron was born on 12/20. It took him a couple of weeks to catch on to the whole nursing thing, but he is apparently doing just fine now as he has already gained 3 pounds in one month. We’ve already got him onto the Nystrom sleep schedule of going to bed at 6pm. Now if he would just stay sleeping all night that would really be something. Kade and Jacey have adjusted to having the baby around better than I ever could have expected. They just give him lots of hugs and kisses and read him a story every now and then. Besides that, it’s almost like they don’t even notice he’s here.
Kade really is quite the big brother. He’s starting to take on the role of mother hen with his younger siblings. Besides the occasional quarrel over a toy, he and Jacey seem to get along quite nicely. Kade is learning to sound out words, and has really developed a liking to singing and pretending over the past few months. Unfortunately he still has his allergy and breathing issues and I got to spend two and a half hours in the doctor’s office with three kids last Friday because he has been coughing and wheezing for the week. We took home a nebulizer machine and have been doing breathing treatments every four hours in hopes that he will get better soon.
Jacey seems to have aged drastically since her baby brother came home. She is doing a lot more on her own (probably because she has no choice when I’m nursing the baby), and is even almost potty trained at the age of 19 months. The last week that my parents were here I got the crazy idea of trying to start potty training her (apparently I didn’t think I had enough going on), and fortunately it has paid off quite quickly. Although it’s a pain to have to remember to take her to the bathroom throughout the day, it is nice to not have to change as many diapers (3 kids ages 3 and under all wearing diapers at some point in the day…you do the math!).
My parents returned from Mexico to join our chaotic household just in time for us to start packing our house up. It was so nice to have them here to play with the kids so we could pack boxes. Then when the baby came, it was again so nice having them here to stay with the kids while we were at the hospital. We had a very low key Christmas and New Years, and then on January 3rd we loaded up the moving truck (twice) and moved all our stuff one whole mile away to a townhouse that we will call home for five months. Grandpa and Grandma again played babysitters while we unpacked boxes. Wit their help we had everything put away within a week! Our new place is not quite as roomy as our last place was, but it will do for the short term. The biggest downfall was going from a big two-car garage to a tiny single stall which only has room for one car and nothing else. As a result, we had to get a storage unit to put all the stuff in that we couldn’t fit in the new place.
Besides continuing to work at his Navy and urgent care jobs, Paul has been spending a lot of his time writing. He is helping to author a book on handling stress in emergency situations that is targeted specifically to emergency medicine doctors. He hopes to have it done by the time we leave San Diego in June. Paul and I also had a chance to do our first writing project together. Back in September we were asked to be contributors to our church’s E-Devotional, which is a daily email that is sent out to over 3,000 people who attend our church to help them to apply the message from the weekend sermon into their lives throughout the week. Between the two of us we wrote one E-Devo per day for five days. We enjoyed writing them and were happy to be asked to write again in December.
I am now spending any extra time I have (which isn’t much) doing taxes and figuring out what we’re going to do with the house we own in VA come July when our current tenants move out. We’d like to be able to sell it, but with the market being as bad as it is I don’t have my hopes too high. I also started up a women’s bible study on Wednesday nights where we are learning about submitting to our husbands. I can hardly believe my stubborn, independent self is actually willing to do a study on the “s” word that almost caused me to not even go out on a date with my husband way back when. However, I’ve since discovered that when taught correctly, it’s not such a bad word after all. The study is definitely challenging, but I think it will help me to make some positive changes.
For a couple of weeks the weather was crazy nice here. I actually took the kids to the beach last week and it was almost hot! Not quite hot enough to go in the freezing cold water though. We also spent a nice long day outside with our friends from Phoenix over the long weekend riding the trolley and visiting Old Town and Seaport Village in downtown San Diego. The weather was absolutely perfect! Boy are we gonna miss these San Diego winters when we move back to the midwest!
As I wrote in my very brief update about a month ago, our third child Kye Aaron was born on 12/20. It took him a couple of weeks to catch on to the whole nursing thing, but he is apparently doing just fine now as he has already gained 3 pounds in one month. We’ve already got him onto the Nystrom sleep schedule of going to bed at 6pm. Now if he would just stay sleeping all night that would really be something. Kade and Jacey have adjusted to having the baby around better than I ever could have expected. They just give him lots of hugs and kisses and read him a story every now and then. Besides that, it’s almost like they don’t even notice he’s here.
Kade really is quite the big brother. He’s starting to take on the role of mother hen with his younger siblings. Besides the occasional quarrel over a toy, he and Jacey seem to get along quite nicely. Kade is learning to sound out words, and has really developed a liking to singing and pretending over the past few months. Unfortunately he still has his allergy and breathing issues and I got to spend two and a half hours in the doctor’s office with three kids last Friday because he has been coughing and wheezing for the week. We took home a nebulizer machine and have been doing breathing treatments every four hours in hopes that he will get better soon.
Jacey seems to have aged drastically since her baby brother came home. She is doing a lot more on her own (probably because she has no choice when I’m nursing the baby), and is even almost potty trained at the age of 19 months. The last week that my parents were here I got the crazy idea of trying to start potty training her (apparently I didn’t think I had enough going on), and fortunately it has paid off quite quickly. Although it’s a pain to have to remember to take her to the bathroom throughout the day, it is nice to not have to change as many diapers (3 kids ages 3 and under all wearing diapers at some point in the day…you do the math!).
My parents returned from Mexico to join our chaotic household just in time for us to start packing our house up. It was so nice to have them here to play with the kids so we could pack boxes. Then when the baby came, it was again so nice having them here to stay with the kids while we were at the hospital. We had a very low key Christmas and New Years, and then on January 3rd we loaded up the moving truck (twice) and moved all our stuff one whole mile away to a townhouse that we will call home for five months. Grandpa and Grandma again played babysitters while we unpacked boxes. Wit their help we had everything put away within a week! Our new place is not quite as roomy as our last place was, but it will do for the short term. The biggest downfall was going from a big two-car garage to a tiny single stall which only has room for one car and nothing else. As a result, we had to get a storage unit to put all the stuff in that we couldn’t fit in the new place.
Besides continuing to work at his Navy and urgent care jobs, Paul has been spending a lot of his time writing. He is helping to author a book on handling stress in emergency situations that is targeted specifically to emergency medicine doctors. He hopes to have it done by the time we leave San Diego in June. Paul and I also had a chance to do our first writing project together. Back in September we were asked to be contributors to our church’s E-Devotional, which is a daily email that is sent out to over 3,000 people who attend our church to help them to apply the message from the weekend sermon into their lives throughout the week. Between the two of us we wrote one E-Devo per day for five days. We enjoyed writing them and were happy to be asked to write again in December.
I am now spending any extra time I have (which isn’t much) doing taxes and figuring out what we’re going to do with the house we own in VA come July when our current tenants move out. We’d like to be able to sell it, but with the market being as bad as it is I don’t have my hopes too high. I also started up a women’s bible study on Wednesday nights where we are learning about submitting to our husbands. I can hardly believe my stubborn, independent self is actually willing to do a study on the “s” word that almost caused me to not even go out on a date with my husband way back when. However, I’ve since discovered that when taught correctly, it’s not such a bad word after all. The study is definitely challenging, but I think it will help me to make some positive changes.
For a couple of weeks the weather was crazy nice here. I actually took the kids to the beach last week and it was almost hot! Not quite hot enough to go in the freezing cold water though. We also spent a nice long day outside with our friends from Phoenix over the long weekend riding the trolley and visiting Old Town and Seaport Village in downtown San Diego. The weather was absolutely perfect! Boy are we gonna miss these San Diego winters when we move back to the midwest!
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