Of Basketball Games, Chainsaws, and Christmas music...

Greetings!
Alas, no pictures this week!  We will redouble our efforts next week!

But this week was full of excitement and adventure.  Mari's alumni event for basketball players was this weekend.  The highlight for Jonas and Elsa was the ability to run and play with lots of other kids.  There was a moment where they both almost ran on to the court during the middle of the PLU Women's game but that was narrowly adverted!  In the fieldhouse (a large open sports practice facility, Jonas and Elsa ran, ran, and ran some more.  It was a great night and they were tuckered out!

The next morning Jonas and Dan went shopping.  They went shopping for a chainsaw.  Jonas was in hog heaven as they walked around two large home improvement stores looking for it.  After no luck but lots of looking at other tools at store #!, they were in luck at store #2.  In addition, store #2 had carts in the shape of race cars so it was a double win.  Jonas was very excited to watch Dan use the chainsaw in the backyard and had his nose pressed up against the window.


We checked out a Christmas video by the wiggles in November.  Elsa has been requesting us to recheck out this video every time we go to the library.  And so it was that the family gathered around the television this weekend and sang along to "The little drummer boy" "We three kings" and several other classic and not so classic Christmas songs!  Elsa loves to sing...and she loves the wiggles!

God Bless,
Mari & Dan & Elsa & Jonas

Making some calls

Greetings!

Wow.  We survived winter storm 2012--nearly sixty hours of no power and we are doing great (now that the power is restored!).  After several days of deep snow, we were hit with ice and wind.  Not a good combination.  We lit our fire and huddled close together and made it through it!  A couple of our students still are without power so we feel fortunate to have everything back up and running!  Jonas and Elsa were great troopers and liked that Dan had to open the garage door with his hands instead of the button.  They also loved having the fire going and having dinner by candlelight!  What a fun and hopefully unique experience for the year!

God Bless,
Mari & Dan & Elsa & Jonas

Snow angels!

Greetings!
The snow has finally arrived to the Puget Sound area.  We had a little bit of snow in December but today the storm actually arrived.  It has been snowing off and on all day.  This morning we went out and (attempted to) build a snow man or a snow fort.  We made snow angels and laughed as we rolled in the snow.  It has been a great day!  Jonas and Elsa really loved being in the snow today and wanted to stay out all day if they could.

It was an otherwise uneventful week--other than the usual excitement that comes with having two three year olds!  There were no doctors appointments or updates on the tooth situation so it was pretty calm.

A fellow NICU graduate celebrated his third birthday this weekend and it was great to see that he was doing so well.  We couldn't make the festivities but we saw some recent pictures of him and he is doing great.  He was next to Elsa and/or Jonas at various times during our stay so we got to know his family and him.  Congrats on the big birthday!

God Bless,
Mari & Dan & Elsa & Jonas

A new year!

Greetings!  Another slow week in getting an update out!  The twins like to keep us hopping!  We had a wonderful weekend celebrating with family and friends.  It is great to see Jonas and Elsa at friends and family's homes playing and interacting.  Such a joy!

Over the break we learned that Jonas may have to have some surgery to help with his sleeping and also found out that he will need to get a front tooth removed.  We are trying to coordinate both of these so that they can be done at the same time.  While not the most fun things to look forward to, we know that they are going to help Jonas in the long term.  We were told that permanent front teeth usually come in between five and seven so he may have that winsome missing tooth grin for a little while after the surgery:)  Otherwise, he and Elsa are doing very well!

More pictures and stories to come with our next update.

God Bless,
Mari & Dan & Elsa & Jonas

Happy New Year!

Greetings!  Happy New Year!  What a great year and what a great year to come!

Jonas and Elsa had an exciting 2011 with lots of highlights and some challenges along the way.  We are so glad that the challenges made them stronger and made the highlights that much more meaningful.  Great year in the books and we can't believe that this time next year our twins will be four!  Wow.  But let's not jump the gun--we are so excited to play and learn with three year olds and couldn't think of a better way to spend 2012!

God Bless,
Mari & Dan & Elsa & Jonas