To Be Or Not To Be???

Well, the predictions are in... According to the local weather forecasters we're heading for wintertime doom! Unfortunately, experience with Michigan forecasters has made me jaded -- I have a very limited level of trust in the accuracy of their predictions. It seems that every storm that blows in is destined to be "the BIG one" that will cause turmoil, destruction, and a general upset to our daily lives. Usually we get a few flurries and a lot of disappointed kids in school!

But, just in case... Every teacher I know spent the day frantically getting Christmas projects finished so the kids could take home presents for their parents. I spent the day in Kindergarten with two adults doing centers that were origionally planned for Friday when there are 17 parent volunteers who are expected to show up. The day was so crazy I ended up breaking out in hives from the stress! However, we did get everything finished, and the kids did remarkably well considering they are rather excited with only 2 days left of school before Christmas break. Thankfully, the hives have now subsided.

Here at home we have not mentioned the possibility of a snow day. I think both girls would be crushed. Annika can't wait for her 2nd grade Christmas party tomorrow and Abby is excited because Daddy is going to be the special helper in Pre-School. Normally Daddy is at work, but since his semester is done already he is able to come. It's a bit strange to have everyone actually hoping we WON'T have a snow day. That is rarely the case! The only person in our house who might actually appreciate one would be Mike because then I'll be home to watch the kids while he keeps grading finals!

I guess we'll know in a few short hours (possibly before most of you read this!). So, say a little prayer tonight (you decide what for!) and we'll see what tomorrow brings!

"Loosing" my mind

It seems that recently I have just had way too much going in my life because I find that I am failing to keep track of all the many details of my life. Within the last week alone:

• I forgot that I was responsible for making lunch for the teacher's weekly luncheon. I remembered at 6:30 the night before that I was supposed to make soup and dessert. Not a problem except for the fact that we were walking out the door to go Christmas caroling with our church at Raybrook and we wouldn't get home until after 9:00. This resulted in a frantic phone call to a colleage who bailed me out (thank you, Heidi!).
• On Thursday we lost the family Christmas photographs we had picked up last weekend. Actually, we lost them last Sunday, we just didn' t realize it until Thursday when I went to work on our Christmas cards. We spent hours looking for them and almost had Mike jumping into a paper recycling dumpster (luckily we deduced that it was logically impossible for the pictures to be there BEFORE he jumped in). For those of you who follow Facebook my profile update, written while I was quite stressed, read, "Lisa is loosing her mind. She cannot find the family pictures..." Loosing? Oh, dear! Maybe that was a subconcious reference to the fact that my mind is rapidly unraveling! Or, it just reflects that I cannot spell, especially when I'm stressed out!
  
• On Friday Abby was supposed to bring candy for the Pre-K - 5th grade buddy project at school. They were making Gingerbread houses. Despite the fact that we talked about it several times at home that week guess who showed up for school without any candy!
• This list does not include (nor is it possible to recount) the miriad of times I have walked to a destination this week only to forget why I am there, left things laying on counters, tables, etc. and totally forgotten where I put them, and the list goes on and on.

I think I need a vacation! Five more school days until Christmas break. Praise the Lord!

A Conversation with Abby

While eating lunch today at Culver's we had to continually remind Abby that we were in a restaurant and that not everyone wanted to hear her every word. If you know Abby well you will know that she generally talks in only one volume: loud. She also tends to talk or make noise continuously. After several reminders to use her "inside voice" the conversation went as follows:

Lisa: What have Mommy and Daddy asked you to do lots of times today?
Abby (very proud of herself for knowing the answer and practically yelling it): Be quiet!

Glad to know the message was getting through.

Gymnastics

Annika switched from dance to gymnastics this year, with considerable success. While she enjoyed dance class last year, she's much more enthusiastic about going to gymnastics. Her strength has improved, too, even to the point that the PE teacher at school commented on it. Recently it was parent watch day, so Lisa got to go in and observe up close, and she took lots of videos and pictures. Here's Annika's one-legged bridge:

And here's a handstand:



Also, unrelatedly, here's Jake riding the horse in our basement. It's a very old horse, dating back to when Lisa's dad was growing up. All of our kids have ridden it with much gusto. It's a good thing they can hang on tight or else they'd go flying off of it.

Minivan Conversation

Last night the kids had supper with Mark and Liz, and after we picked them up we were discussing what they had for dinner. An argument ensued about whether they had potatoes, as Abby claimed, which didn't make much sense since they had spaghetti. It turns out she meant to say that she ate some tomatoes, so we practiced some pronunciation.

Lisa: "Say 'tomato'..."
Abby: "Tomato"
Mike: "Say 'tornado'..."
Abby: "Tornado"
Mike: "Say 'torpedo'..."
Abby: "Torpedo"
Mike: "Say 'portedo'..."
Abby: "Torpedo"
Lisa: "Say 'tortito'..."
Abby: something like that
Mike: "Say 'tortilla'..."
Abby: "Tortilla"
Mike: "Say 'quesadilla'..."
Abby: "Quesadilla"
There's some general noise from everyone, including Jake, when we get...
Annika: "Say 'smell my butt'..."
Mike: "Annika!" and it all degenerated from there, eventually leading to a discussion about what cooties are.

Halloween

Halloween! After coming home that Friday to find a vehicular behemoth in the frontyard and a stove in the garage that we thought was getting installed that day, the candy haul began:

Jake was a bunny and got mistaken for a girl a few of times:

Abby was a pumpkin:

And Annika was Violet Incredible:

The night before we carved pumpkins. The girls were considerably different in their gusto for pumpkin guts. Annika touched them a little bit, but Abby got elbow deep:

The finished products were a cat and a happy face:

We stopped my Grandpa and Grandma Dekker's church to do some trunk-or-treating first, and then hit our neighborhood. The girls toughed it out for a while, but didn't dare go to the "scary house" that was down the street from ours. They each came away with quite a bit of goodies.

Below is the behemoth I mentioned. The main underground power line in our neighborhood is getting replaced, which is a good thing, but we were the lucky ones that got this 20,000 pound lawn ornament:

This thing drilled a horizontal hole for new power line that extended more than 600 feet underground. It left nice ruts in the lawn, too, but those will be fixed eventually. And the next day Dad and I installed the stove, so we're fully functioning in the kitchen again. Unceremoniously, I think broccoli casserole was the first thing cooked in the new oven - oh, but we may have had cinnamon rolls first, to the girls' delight.

Electronic Tattling and Other Things

When we neglect our blog so severely I always feel like our first returning post should be stellar, so I apologize if this isn't.

Lisa's at the CEA convention in South Bend for a couple days, so I'm home with the kids. I didn't have to head to Ferris today (a Thursday), which was convenient enough. Tomorrow will involve more babysitters, though.

The other day I was home with Jake and Annika, and I was upstairs while the two of them were occupied on the main floor, albeit a bit too quiet. I was busy putting together a new bookshelf though, so I didn't go check them out. Later on I came down and Annika immediately reported that Jake had been messing with our computer. He really enjoys getting on the chair and pressing buttons on the keyboard. The worst part is the fact that our keyboard has a button that automatically puts the computer in sleep mode, but it registers each press of that button, so it has to go through the wake-up-go-to-sleep cycle for every button press. Now, Annika didn't bother to come get me while Jake was on the computer, but rather grabbed my cell phone, which was sitting by the computer, and instead documented Jake's activities with the phone. So, I now have shots of Jake playing with a calculator, pushing the sleep button, pushing other buttons, and even shots of the screen showing the results of Jake's button pushes, like a string of typing in a Word file that was open. No great damage was done, but Annika certainly can be a character.

If anyone wants to rake leaves, we have plenty.

We're still without an oven, since our old one was a built-in, and the most basic replacement would be around $800 (which is dumb, considering how cheap a basic freestanding range is). I was going to cut out a spot where our old one was, but enough issues arose that I decided not to go after that myself. So, someone came and checked it out today and will give us an estimate on that tomorrow. We already bought a basic freestanding range from Sears - a discontinued basic model with a ding or two, but it was only $160! Never used! Unfortunately, it's white, which should go awesomely with our black dishwasher and bisque fridge. Oh well - maybe I'll find buried treasure in the backyard soon and we'll redo the whole kitchen.

Well, time to finish my night - nothing but the World Series and probably a fine brew await me.

Raising Them Irish

It figures that after all the blog neglect we would have two posts in one day (so don't miss the one below). Along with all the busy stuff, we went to South Bend last Saturday - it was gameday! We made it on campus, saw the band, the golden dome, the basilica, and our old favorite Americanized Mexican restaurant, Hacienda. We spent the day with our friends Joel and Julie and their daughter Natalie. Julie found some kid-sized ND football jerseys at TJ Maxx, so all of the girls were suitably decked out for gameday. After campus, Jake took a good nap, ND beat Stanford and we drank homebrew. Yay! Here are the girls:

Guilt

So, I'm feeling rather guilty because ever since school started we've done a pretty lousy job of keeping up on our blog. It's not that interesting things haven't happened -- we just haven't had time to write about them!
One of the most life altering items recently has been the demise of our oven. On Sunday it decided that it didn't want to shut off anymore or stop heating up. We've had to keep the circuit breaker off in order to keep it from burning down the house. The repair man came this morning and basically told Mike that it wasn't worth the money it would take to repair it (bye bye $60 for the wonderful news delivered after looking at the oven for a whole 2 minutes). So, now we have to decide what to do since we don't actually like the oven placement on our kitchen and would prefer not to spend ridiculous amounts of money to replace it when we hope to move it someday anyway. We also have to figure out when in the world we have time to go shopping for a new one! I guess for now we keep grilling and having crock pot meals -- I'll be very thankful to have my stovetop and oven back!
In other news....Annika is loving second grade and has an absolutely wonderful teacher. She's reading up a storm and finally starting to actually learn her math facts! Abby is enjoying Pre-K again and is looking forward to a field trip tomorrow and one next week Friday (which I get to go on too!). She's really much more grown up this year in there. It's fun to see! Jake is a busy, busy, busy boy! He's into everything! He's trying to say more and more words and spends lots of time pointing to things and jabbering at us with great expression trying to get us to come/go/move or in someway do what he wants us to do! Mike and I are both very busy with work (too busy!) but we both are thankful for our jobs and the satisfaction we get from them. Overall, life is moving fast, but we are feeling very blessed for our family, friends, jobs, home, and countless other gifts from God!

Things Annika Will Take For Granted Someday...

The End is Near!!!

This past week I have been struggling with the reality that the end of summer is upon us. I have spent the last several days getting my classroom set up and working on school paperwork and scheduling. While it's good to be back and get excited about seeing my students there are also a feelings of panic (I'll never get it all ready in time), regret (I wish we'd spent more days at the beach), excitement (like when Annika got her letter in the mail telling her what class she was in!), acceptance (thus begins another new season in our lives), stress (trying to cope with being a mom, wife, teacher, friend, etc.), and thankfulness (that I have been blessed with so much that I actually have these things to worry about, be excited about, panic about...). Next week brings intense craziness as Mike returns to Ferris to start his pre-semester meetings and I return to Millbrook for in-service days. Then, on September 2nd, we're off!! The new routine can officially begin! I think overall we're ready for some routine, but I sure will miss the nonconformity of summer days!

Vacation Part Two: Columbus

Lisa's off to San Antonio, so I'm doing part two. We spent three days and two nights in Columbus, staying at Nick and Beth's. Here are the highlights:

The girls and Uncle Nick do "a funny one" on the front porch:

A big highlight for the girls (OK, and me too) both here and at Greg and Katelyn's in Lexington was playing Wii. Mostly, they played Mario Kart (I played LEGO Star Wars), and both of them improved their skills considerably over the week.


We spent one day at the Columbus Zoo. Nick came with us. We were very impressed, as the layout of the zoo and the animal exhibits are very well done. It was good fun. Here Jake points at the black rhino and says "Kitty!":

The girls get close to the penguins:

Lisa and Jake on the boat ride through the Pacific Islands loop of the zoo:

Abby and one of the many gorillas:

Other zoo highlights: the manatees, a roaring lion, elephants, Chinese food for lunch (so much nicer than a cruddy old hot dog again), and great weather for the whole day.

We also met the newest member of the Dekker family while we there. Here the girls hold their new cousin:


And here's probably the best picture we could get of the four Dekker grandkids (to be outdated in about two months), taken at the park whose name I can't think of:

Overall, it was a great trip - we hit North Market, and Lisa went to Trader Joe's for the first time too. The ride home was relatively smooth, too - or, as much as it can be with kids this age. The highlight on the way home was stopping at a rest area that was highly populated with cats.

Now Abby's begging for breakfast, so this must end.

Vacation Part One: Lexington

Our family enjoyed a fabulous vacation last week as we went to visit family in Lexington and then Columbus. Since there is so much to share I decided to break the blogs down into more than one part! This will be a rather picture heavy blog since there were just so many cute shots and I wanted you all to be able to enjoy them!

We enjoyed several outings while in Lexington many of which are chronicled on Dan and Rebecca's blog. Below are some pictures of us enjoying the many outdoor activities Lexington has to offer! Here Jake flies his first kite at Jacobson Park. He loved watching the kites fly (especially Uncle Dan's stunt kite).

Here Abby and Aunt Katelyn watch everyone fly the kites. Abby and Annika both took turns flying the kite too. Annika even tried the stunt kite. It was pretty tricky to control!

We went blackberry picking one morning. It was beautiful outside and the berries were great! After picking we enjoyed a lunch at the orchard's cafe and then the kids played on the playground connected to the orchard. That night Rebecca made Southern Blackberry Cobbler - delicious!

Jake also experienced his first every mini-golf lesson (there were lots of firsts on this trip). We went to a biblical golf course where they had three courses to choose from: the Old Testament, the New Testament, and Miracles. We played the Miracles course. We weren't sure if that meant it would take a miracle to do well or if that meant the course was full of miracles and therefore we might all do better than usual. As it turns out, it just means that all the holes are based on biblical miracles! What a hoot!
Abby and Annika took the lead as the rest of us followed them around the course. Other than the heat (we were in KY after all!) it was great fun!

The highlight of the trip for the girls was our day spent at Southland Aquatic Center which is located just a couple blocks from Dan and Rebecca's house. This public pool has two large pools designed for family entertainment. The largest pool features a zero depth entry, water mushrooms, a diving board, and a water slide. There is a smaller area designed for children under 8 which is anywhere from 1 to 1 1/2 feet deep and has a child-size water slide, water fountains, and endless water showers. The kids LOVED it! Jake was fearless as he tromped through the water and waded into the fountains. It was a riot to watch!

One of the best parts of vacation was just hanging out with family. We all enjoyed getting to spend time with Greg, Katelyn, Rebecca, Dan, Deacon, and Sunny. Our children enjoyed playing around with their aunts and uncles and seeing where they lived and spent their days. Mike and I enjoyed seeing their homes too and seeing all the preparations being made for the newest member of the Dekker family.

We feel so blessed to have such a wonderful family and so grateful that they would open their homes and welcome us in! They were very gracious hosts and we look forward to being able to return the favor someday!

Stay tuned for more to come when we travel on to Columbus...

Chicago

Last weekend my Mom and I took the kids to visit my grandparents who live near Chicago, IL. It was a wonderful visit! We were blessed to have my cousin, Sarah, visiting at the same time. Although Sarah is technically my cousin, she is only two years older than Annika. As you can see from the pictures, the girls look like they could be sisters!

The highlight of our trip to visit Grandma and Grandpa was our trip to downtown Chicago. The girls had never been downtown before (that they could remember) so I knew this would be quite the experience for them! We started our trip by taking the commuter train downtown. The girls LOVED it! Below is a picture of them waiting for the train.

Although they loved riding on the train they weren't so sure about all of the noises while waiting for the train. An Amtrak train came by while we were waiting and scared both girls pretty good. It's interesting because there is nothing separating people from the tracks so when the train comes flying by the wind is intense and the noise is deafening. As you can see, this wasn't Annika's favorite part of the trip!
Once we were downtown we took the trolley to WaterTower Place where we had lunch and then headed over to the American Girl Place. Neither of our girls owned an American Girl Doll (they have knock offs) but they both have Bitty Baby which is the baby version of the doll. My intent was to let Annika pick out an American Girl Doll as a special gift. We were going to get Abby an outfit for her Bitty Baby. It didn't turn out quite that way. Abby fell in love with Elizabeth and wanted her so badly my mom and I found ourselves unable to say no. Her puppy dog eyes were like none I had ever seen before. Annika took much longer to pick out her doll. She wanted one that looked like her but there were at least two that fit the bill! She finally decided on a Just Like You doll which has blond hair, fair skin, and blue eyes. She named her doll Felicity. The girls were able to pick out a special outfit from Great Grandma and one special item each for their dolls. Annika got a dog named Coconut and Abby got a dress for her doll. They also picked out some special outfits which they will get for Christmas. It was a very fun afternoon that I suspect the girls will remember for a very long time!

The Whirlwind

Last Wednesday (July 2), it rained. And then it poured.

We've just been getting into many of our summer activities - tutoring for Lisa, swimming lessons for the girls, and then this past week or so started. Apparently a lightning strike hit a telephone pole carrying a key transformer for the electric service to our house and burned it to the ground, so we were without power for a day and a half, starting around 4:30am on Thursday morning. Some bedswapping occurred when the kids freaked out a little. Later that day, I did some work at Mom and Dad's, swimming lessons were canceled (the pool is outdoors) and Lisa took the kids to the zoo with Lizzy. We had to move the contents of our fridge and freezers, too, but we were a bit too late on the freezer and lost some food. The girls spent a night at Lisa's parents', which was conveniently planned before the storm, while we spent the night at Mom and Dad's. That night, while Lisa and I were watching Knocked Up, of all movies, Nick called and made us an aunt and uncle for the first time (so Mom and Dad weren't home). On the 4th, power came back and we had dinner with friends but bailed on seeing the fireworks, since the next day Dan and Rebecca were in town for a baby shower (the kids were crabby anyway)! Lisa and the girls attended that while I had an all-around excellent lunch with Dan and some of his buddies at Founders. The next day was Abby's 4th birthday, so we went to church, had a party and threw some Aerobies around the park behind our house. On Monday Lisa started one of her two weeks of teaching summer school at Millbrook, for which she's been preparing mightily, since one of her topics for the week is "Fun with Gases". She's been practicing experiments at home, with has been an interesting and smoky experience. Monday night the power went out again but came back the next morning, but not before I carted the freezer contents to Mom and Dad's again. And we had more swimming lessons. And Lisa and another teacher practiced an experiment today that went a wee bit wrong and resulted in so many flames that Annika, who saw it all, was left weeping.

Somehow, we're nearly as busy as we are during the school year, but it's much more irregular, which can be harder to deal with. Fortunately, I'm not working, so that's a big help. The future holds a trip to Chicago for Lisa and the girls, a week and more for all of us down to Columbus and Lexington, a 4-day excursion to Madison for a math conference for me, and a trip to San Antonio with friends to see friends for Lisa. It's busy, but it's all good stuff. And now I should go to bed.

Tickle Warfare

I recall getting roused from bed on numerous occasions by tickle bombs dropped by Dad. The girls and Jake have all experienced those attacks too, but I've expanded the range of tickle weapons. Jake gets the full assault here:



We were at the lake the other day and I debuted tickle torpedoes, too. Jake was more concerned with the whole lake experience. By the way, in the video you can see my short haircut and the blue living room, too.

The Shack

This past week I enjoyed a very fun trip to Shipshewana, IN where we enjoyed a day of shopping at the flea market. For those of you who have never been, I highly recommend it. It's great fun and there is no end to the interesting and sometimes crazy things people try to sell there. During our two hour ride down we spent considerable time talking about good books we had recently read. Several members of our gr0up mentioned the book, The Shack by William Young. While none of them had actually read it they all said it came highly recommended and one person even had a copy at home that was in her "waiting to read next" pile. I had a gift certificate to Family Christian Bookstores so I stopped by there and picked it up. It was incredible. It is a work of fiction but I found myself wishing several times that it was real. I even had to go back and check several times to make sure it wasn't real. Although it is a work of fiction it is chock full of theology, but it's so well written that you don't feel like you are being hit over the head with it. You just end up being amazed at how profoundly well the author explains some of life's most difficult experiences and God's relationship to us within those experiences. I was moved beyond words by some of the images in this book and am anxious to share the thoughts and ideas presented in this book with others. I highly encourage anyone who sees this to read The Shack. For more information you can check out the book's website. I hope that reading this book will bless you the way it has blessed me.

As Requested...

Per the requests we received after the previous post, here are pictures of Jake with his first haircut, taken while horsing around on our bed.

Here's the sideview, as he high-fives Lisa, with Abby doing something ridiculous in the background.

Here's where I can't think of anything to end the post!

A New 'Do, Part Deux

Saturday was a day of haircuts, as 60% of our family got shorn.

In the morning, Jake got his first haircut, at the Alger Barber Shop, by the one and only Harm Faber, who has now cut the hair of at least one member from 5 generations of our family - Jake; me, Nick, Dan and Greg; Dad and Uncle Dan; Grandpa Dekker, and Grandma Dekker's dad, J.C. Lobbes. I believe I have that correct, but there may very well be more people I could list. Jake did quite well once he settled down on Lisa's lap with a pacifier and the toy mouse that Harm keeps for kids. He looks much more like a little boy now, as opposed to an infant that happens to be a boy.


In the afternoon, inspired by Jake's haircut and Abby's transformation a few weeks ago, Annika wanted to get in on the fun (and she needed a trim anyway). She got much more than a trim, however:


A few of us (including me) had the initial impression that she looks like someone we know. Any guesses?

Finally, in the evening, Lizzy buzzed me shorter than I've ever been, since birth. A couple times my hair clogged the trimmer. It's nice not teaching in the summer and then messing around with my appearance. My current goatee is only 2 and half weeks old, too.


Finally, we finished painting our living room last week. Here's the "before" picture, after the wallpaper border came off. I called the color "peach vomit," although it looks yellowish in the picture.

This is the finished product, Woodlawn Juniper, with new crown molding. The flash makes it look much lighter than it is. That should make a better background for the Dekker family Christmas photo if we gather in our living room again this year.

Surprise Prayer Request

Last night, after I helped Abby say a prayer that wasn't unintelligible, Annika's bedtime prayer went like this:

"Dear Lord, thank you that we can go to Frederick Meijer Gardens tomorrow, and thank you for everyone in the world, help all the people that are sick to get better, and the people that are injured to get better, and, ummmmm -- long pause as she thinks of something to say -- and help Tiger Woods to get better with his knee surgery. Amen."

I had the US Open on this past weekend (and multiple times I was stunned at what I just saw, mostly when Tiger made improbable shots and putts), and I even got Lisa to get mildly interested in the outcome on Sunday. Annika is well aware of who Tiger Woods is, and yesterday afternoon I had my most recent Sports Illustrated, with Tiger on the cover. I mentioned to Annika that he ended up winning on Monday, and she was happy for him. Then I mentioned that he was having knee surgery and couldn't play the rest of the year, and she got only slightly irrationally mad about that. Anyway, it obviously stuck with her. We'll see if her prayers are answered.

Who Dat?

Mike and I have thoroughly enjoyed listening as Jake is quickly picking up more and more language over the past few weeks. It totally cracks us up to hear him talking in practical baby gibberish sentences as he goes about telling us his thoughts with varying pitch and volume. Some of his newest words include: shoes (when he wants to go outside), dis? (this), and our new all time favorite: whodat? (which is his name for Grandma and Grandpa). We were a bit confused by this strange name for Grandma and Grandpa until Mike pointed out that the first thing we do when we see a grandparent is to point and say to Jake, "Who's that Jake? Who's that? That's right, it's ____!" Apparently we're talking too much and all he's catching are the first two words! So now, when he sees one of his grandparents, he excitedly exclaims, "whodat!" Well, at least we know he definitely recognizes them and is happy to see them!

Toss the Toaster

Probably the strangest thing we inherited in our new house was a toaster built into the wall below the window by our kitchen table. The toaster pulls out like a drawer, around knee height. We tested it once, and it heats up, but doesn't pop up and turn off. On Tuesday morning I was home with Jake and Abby and went upstairs to brush my teeth. When I came down I noticed a burning smell. The gas dryer was running so I thought it might be that, but the smell was strongest in the kitchen. After a minute I discovered the toaster was on, still retracted in the wall. Abby said she didn't push the switch down, so it must have been Jake (it goes down pretty easily). I don't know how long it was, but it was burning hot. I pulled the toaster drawer out and opened the window above it to let it cool down. We have the instructions to it somewhere so I went over by our computer to look for them, in terms of disconnecting or removing the cursed thing (that's the 2-syllable "cur-sed"). While I was looking, Jake suddenly started screaming - he had made his way back over to the toaster and burned himself on it, as I hadn't blocked it off. Amidst his crying I tried to figure out where he burned himself, but I couldn't find anything on either hand, and eventually he calmed down a bit and started playing again. About 20 minutes later I found the burn - a bright red vertical line from the middle of his lower lip and down his chin. That panicked me enough to call Lisa, and we eventually got him to the doctor. We've tried to keep some bandaids on his chin, but that's only been somewhat successful. None of this has lessened his love of pacifiers, either, so it can't be too bad. Ultimately, he should heal up without any noticeable scar, but this is certainly the worst negligent father incident I've ever had (don't worry, I've finished beating myself up over it).

A New 'Do

On Tuesday, Abby went with me to get her hair cut. Getting it cut short is something we always talk about with the girls but they usually end up begging us not to do. Annika, in particular, is always worried that she'll look like a boy! Abby, on the other hand, agreed to give shorter hair a try. So, here's her new look. Doesn't she look fabulous?

A Picture Post

Here are some highlights from the the past month:

While I stayed home with an ailing Abby, Lisa took Annika and Jake to Tulip Time in Holland with Mark and Lizzy. We have an outfit that fits Annika and was quite appropriate for the occasion. Can you guess the main ethnicity of her ancestry?

Jake, sporting six teeth now, gets his teeth brushed for the first time:

It's been interesting to see what sort of landscaping we inherited at our new house, since we moved in during late fall. We did get a few nice bushes. This azalea bloomed nicely some weeks ago, while two large rhododendrons are doing their thing in the backyard right now.

There's been a lot of activity in the yard as the weather warmed up. We are somewhat centrally located among the houses that have kids in the neighborhood, and we have one of the flattest front yards. At my last count, there are 2+2+3+3+2+4 = 16 kids in 5th grade or below on our relatively short street, and our neighbors have 4 kids, but in middle school and above. Here's a scene from a recent T-ball game in our front yard:


We started and finished T-ball at Millbrook already, too. Abby was a little young for it, but finally managed to run the bases without any help during the last game. She didn't frequently feel the need to hustle from one base to the other, but she made it eventually. Once she made it most of the way from third to home hopping on one foot. Annika, on the other hand, has officially graduated from Millbrook T-ball. She was easier to get nice pictures of:


Lastly, I've been mowing the lawn, and got some help from the girls this day. Watch for both of them to pump their arms and say "Choo choo!"



Other than that, Lisa and the girls have less than 3 weeks left of school. I'm mostly at home, we've started a few house projects, and we're making vacation plans.

Spring Rain

There is something so lovely about the sound of a gentle spring rain. Part of the joy comes in the fact that you can hear the rain now that it is warm enough to have the windows open. I love the sounds of birds chirping, wind rustling, and raindrops simultaneously gently glancing off the leaves on the nearby azalea bush. And if the sounds are not enough for you, a little breeze filters through the open window bringing with it the scents of spring: dirt, rain, and blossoms. To me, this is the sensory definition of serenity.

Dance Recital

Last week Saturday was a busy day in the Dekker household as we enjoyed watching both girls participate in the Hearts In Step dance recital titled: Journey to Freedom. The recital was three hours long and told the story of Leah and how she came to see God in her life and rejoice in Him despite her struggles and heartbreak. It was very well done and provided ample opportunities for the full range of emotions! Both girls performed in the 11:00 show and Annika performed in the 5:00 show. During the dress rehearsal photographers were present to take photographs which you can now purchase on line. We were surprised to learn that Abby is the link to the Tuesday night rehearsal pictures! If you would like to see the pictures of our girls simply follow the link above and go to page 7 for Abby and page 17 for Annika. There are also a couple of pictures of Annika from the Thursday night rehearsal on page 11. These pictures will only be available until June 1 so take a look before they are gone!

How Can You Stay Mad?

This evening Jake demonstrated once again how absolutely adorable & mischievous he can be all at once. As I was making dinner in the kitchen I watched, practically in slow motion, as he picked up the dish of cat food and proceeded to dump it all over the floor. Simultaneously, I could see Mike grasping for the dish and hear him yelling, "Noooooooooo!" as he tried to stop the inevitable from happening. As Mike got down on the floor and began to pick up the tidbits he looked at Jake to scold him. Jake leaned over and gave Mike a huge open mouth kiss on the cheek before he could finish reprimanding him. It was so sweet. He didn't want Daddy to be mad at him! And after that, how could anyone be?

Hanging Out At Home

Last Sunday was a beautiful day. Mom and Dad D came over for lunch, and then we walked around the neighborhood, pushing Jake in his new "buggy".

Later we just hung out in the front yard. Jake practiced walking outside:



It actually felt a little, um, white-trashy, too. I was wearing a somewhat thin white T-shirt that I had under my good shirt for church, Annika was mismatched, and the girls ate a snack, using the box from Jake's buggy as a table:

Later the girls and a friend rolled the box back and forth across the yard with one of the three inside (where's Annika?):
This past week was Lisa and the girls' spring break, too. Later that week Jake and Abby ran laps while I helped Annika practice the piano:



Yeah, I had a white T-shirt on then too (it was under the sweater I wore to work!). We've reverted to some cold and rain again, but more 60 degree temps are in the future. We started thinking about what to do with our yard, too. More of that stuff might happen once I'm done with school: just over 3 weeks!

Praise the Lord

It's spring break --the sun is shining, Jen is recovering well, we are all relatively healthy (I have a minor lingering cough), Jake is taking a nice long nap, and the girls are having fun playing with the neighborhood girls. Life is good. Praise the Lord!

Health Report

How sad is it that the most blogable material in our lives right now is the current health condition of everyone in our family? Pathetic! Anyway, Abby, Annika, and Mike are all on the upswing. Annika continues to have a nasty morning cough but after being up a bit and drinking some juice it's much improved. Abby's nose has stopped running and now it's just her legs doing the running (all over the place!). Still in need of more repair are Lisa and Jake. Jake's rash is much improved and the doctor declared his ear infection all better. He still has a really runny nose which we are attributing to teething though and now he is also suffering from a bad reaction to some shots he got at the doctor Monday. His right leg is swollen, hard, red, and warm. Poor kid! I am still struggling with breathing issues. I tried not taking my inhaler and cough medicine today to see what would happen. Unfortunately, all the old symptoms came rushing back. Apparently I'm still not over whatever it is I have! It hurts to breath and I'm worn out - bummer!

In other health news... this week we have added another member of the family to care for. My sister, Jennifer, was involved in a head-on collision on Monday afternoon. She totaled the car she was driving when some woman turned left in front of her causing Jen to hit her. Jen broke her right knee and severely bruised her left knee when she hit the dashboard. She also hit her head on the steering wheel (no airbag) and has a nice black eye. It's been two days now since the crash and all of her body is aching from the trauma of the accident. She is slowly developing more and more bruises and looks like she's been through a war zone. She needs lots of prayer as she works hard to recover physically and emotionally. We're so thankful that she was not hurt more and that we all live nearby to help her as she mends.

Home Sick

So, after a weekend of being sick it seems we are not quite all put back together again yet. I am still struggling with my breathing and being tired. I had planned to tough it out today and go to school but Annika woke up with a wicked cough and a sore throat. There's no way she should be spreading all those germs around school! So, we're home today. Jake stayed with us and Abby went on to preschool for the morning. Hopefully she'll be OK since she's not been at the top of her game either recently.

On a side note, Jake has switched to walking at least 50% of the time now! It's so much fun to see him toddle around! He's getting so big!

Attack of the Germs

In a matter of one week we have gone from being a healthy family to being one rather sick group of people! I think it was the snow again last week -- it brought back the germs!
It all started last week Sat. morning when I experienced some really intense chest pain accompanied by several other fun symptoms like shortness of breath and sweating. I assumed it was heartburn (the joys of getting older!) but was still rather shaken up by the incident. I ended up sleeping for several hours after the pain finally subsided and have remained rather tired and short of breath ever since. Since my family has a history of heart disease I thought it best to contact my doctor on Monday morning just to get her take on things. What I got was a stern lecture and directions to get myself to the emergency room immediately! I was teaching and had Abby and Jake to worry about so after climbing a snow hill (and falling in up to my waist!) and physically bringing a wayward student down from the top of the hill (all the while thinking that my doctor would kill me if she could see me now) I arranged to get my kids taken care of and left for the ER. My mother was kind enough to accompany me. I could not believe how busy they were there! Still, our wait was quite short. Heart concerns get things moving. They hooked me up to several machines and then did an EKG and promptly informed me (as if this was astonishing news) that I was not currently having a heart attack. Considering that I felt mostly fine except being a little tired and short of breath I was not real surprised. They took chest x-rays and did blood work and finally concluded that I appeared to be fine. Their best guess was that I had some sort of heartburn issue on Sat. and that I would be fine. They did order a stress test though just to be safe. So, four hours later (not bad for an ER visit) I was back home and anxious to have the whole incident behind me.
On Tuesday morning, Annika woke up with a croupy cough. Five kids had been out sick on Monday from her class and she was sure she needed to stay home. We pushed her to go to school and promised to come get her if she couldn't make it. She made it, which was good, since now we needed to deal with Jake. Jake had developed a diaper rash on Monday which seemed to be getting worse and worse despite our generous use of diaper rash cream. We attributed his rash and rather crabby nature to teething and assumed it would improve. By lunch time on Tuesday his little bottom was actually bleeding and he screamed bloody murder anytime we tried to touch it (poor guy!). I called the doctor and they had us take his temp. Since he had one we had to bring him in. It turns out his rash was infected and on top of that he has a bad ear infection too! That explains why he's been so crabby! So now Jake is on multiple meds.
In the meantime, Abby's cold is back. It looks like it may be another sinus infection (she had one a few weeks ago) as it is not clearing up. The child oozes green snot! We're just a real mess here.
On the bright side, I had my stress test today and everything looked great. My heart is healthy and doing everything is should. Unfortunately, I am still having breathing problems which seem to be getting progressively worse. My doctor has ordered a visit to the pulminologist and I am scheduled to go see her tomorrow morning in hopes that we can discover something before I go see a specialist. Let's all pray for warmer weather, more sunshine, and open windows to air out the germs! Our family needs the respite!

That's it,...we're moving!

When I look out my computer window all I can see right now is white. The snow started around 10:30 this morning and hasn't stopped since. The Husky's who walk the track behind our house look like they're in heaven. Everyone else thinks we're somewhere else! All the local Good Friday services have been canceled as have sporting events. Boo for Michigan weather! We're ready for spring!

Jake's Wonderful Head

Today Jake had his last appointment at Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital. After five months he is officially done with his helmet and his plagiocephaly is considered to be "cured". His scan revealed that over the course of five months he had a 6.1% change in the ratio of his head circumference which places him now in the average range for head shape. Although we still notice a slight area where his head is flat, overall, we are delighted with how well his helmet worked. Most people will never know this was a part of his life.






This is the scan which shows the before and after look. The red is his initial head shape and size. The blue shows the changes. The goal was to keep him from growing on the sides (which is did) and to allow him to grow in the back. He also grew a bit in front which is OK. Jake's flattest spot on his head was actually above the scan line so if they had been able to show that on the picture you would see a more dramatic change.


This picture show's Jake's head as we prepare for the final scan. I wanted to show a before and after picture but it turns out the before pictures are on my mom's camera so we need to get them from her.









And this picture shows Jake enjoying a well-earned celebratory Chocolate-Chip cookie!








We are so delighted to have our little boy's head back. It will take a lot of will power on everyone's part now to keep him from going bold with all the kisses and rubs his little head is getting! The process was well worth it but we're thankful to be done!