And a little child will lead them.

Isaiah 11:6 says, "...and a little child will lead them." That is what we celebrate at Christmas. A little child is the whole reason we celebrate Christmas. Though we have all but taken out Jesus from our American Christmas, it was true for me this year.

As every other year, we've had things to do to get ready for all of our Christmas events that we will go to in the next few days. Presents for everybody, videos made, presents wrapped, food prepared, and all the other stuff that goes into getting ready for Christmas. Bottom line, that consumes all of my efforts that I have left after work. I don't imagine that's much different from anyone else.

But this is the first year that Nathan has really been able to enjoy Christmas. Last year, at 8 months, he was crawling, but certainly not really able to take in what's going on around him. This year, however, we went to see the drumline at Bellevue Square. Which he loved! Of course, he pretty much thinks he's a professional drummer already. Then of course, there's the tree lights. But the little nativities around the house are what seems to be capturing him the most this year. We have the new Veggie Tales nativity set (picture above) which we all love. Who doesn't like vegetables dressed up as Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the cow, the palm tree, etc. But we also have the big people's nativity set up, among many others.

He'll push the stool over to our hutch, climb up, and stare into the nativity. He'll call one of us over and point to the baby and say, "Jesus", then he says, "Mommy" as he points to Mary, and "Daddy" as he points to Joseph. It's not the fact that he can point out the characters that struck me. It's the fact that he climbs up to the nativity two or three times a day, every single day. I might glance at the nativity and notice that it's there and that's about the extent of it. But Nathan seems to want to enter into what is going on in this scene. This is the part of Christmas that we often forget until the night Christmas Eve when all of the stress and preparation has died off. But Nathan... he sees it every day. And that is what he taught me this year.

So when seeing this verse in Isaiah 11:6, to me, not only is it referring to Jesus who came to lead us, it's also reminding me that Nathan has led me deeper into Christmas this year by being in awe of what I forget that I should stand in awe of.

Boys Night...

Every Wednesday night, Nathan and I have, what we like to call... "Boys Night!" This is the night each week that Beth goes off to her small group and Nathan and I do what all boys like to do together. Though it differs every week, we do things like watch Cougar basketball, go down the slide, play Texas Hold 'Em, play in the ball pit, enjoy cigars and scotch, watch Elmo or the Wiggles, and work in the garage.

This week however... it was air hockey. I introduced Nathan to the game of air hockey this past week and he loved it! We've had this air hockey table downstairs for a long time, but it usually has it's cover on it and Beth's puzzles on top of that. This time, I thought it necessary to remove the cover and open the door to a whole new world for my aging boy. There's a certain time of life when a father must pass down to his son the rights of passage to becoming a man. And clearly, at the age of 21 (months), it was time to teach him air hockey.

He loved it. The air. The puck. The paddle. The chair he had to stand on to reach the table. And he was fascinated by hitting it back and forth to me. He did however get quite distracted after he realized if the puck goes in the hole it comes out the side. That slowed our game down quite a bit as he scored on himself just to watch it come out the side.

We played deep into the night (7:15pm) and then it was time for boys night to end. But I thought you might enjoy knowing of our favorite night of the week.

Still a boy...

It's confirmed... Doc says it's still a boy. We went in for another ultrasound to check on the placenta and make sure the baby's still growing normally. Yep... looks like it's growing just fine in all the right places. The boy isn't huge by any means, they estimate that he's 1.1 lb, based on the measurements they took, etc.

The boy was VERY awake during the ultrasound and we saw him moving all over the place, flipping, we saw him yawning, and could even see him clapping and pumping his fists to the Cougar Fight Song. He's obviously on the right track.

The quote of the day was when we got back in the car and Beth said to me, "Nobody's ever told me to eat MORE." Yes, the doctor wants her to eat more and in particular, protein and folic acid. I wish that was the kind of homework I used to get. Eat more meat! I could have gotten good grades in that one.

Nathan was at the appointment with us and as soon as the ultrasound screen came on he looked up at it and said, "Baby." It was cute. He then proceeded to say it over and over and over. :) Ah, children. It was actually pretty funny. He manages to charm just about everyone in those doctors offices waving and saying 'hi' and 'bye' to everyone he passes.

We will be going back to the ultrasound doctor on week 28 - 6 weeks from now - to get one more check up on the growth of the little guy. Doc said to bring in a DVD-RW so we could record/burn the ultrasound onto it. Gee, don't you all just want to see that next time you come over? We could watch it right after we watch my knee surgery video that we have. (Which actually is really interesting and not nearly as gross as you'd think. Let me know if you want to someday).

So all in all, both of our little boys are doing great! Beth is holding up well and is still healthy, and me... how could I be anything but good after updates like this. :) I've got a good life.

A Happy Apple-versary!

That's what we called it all day on Saturday. We woke up realizing that we weren't doing anything exciting to celebrate our 6th anniversary. It was a day that was bound to be filled with anticipation and excitement for the 'big game'. Yes we maneuvered televisions, shifted living room furniture, sung the Cougar fight song many times, blew up crimson and grey balloons, and prepared our house for people to come over, not to celebrate our anniversary, but to watch the Cougars take on the UW Huskies in the 100th Apple Cup. And so, we called it our Apple-versary. (Beth is such a good sport)

As expected, it was an evening of doing my best to keep my emotions a little less volatile with our friends over. Though my heart sunk a little more with every Husky first down, I did my best to keep it inside - which I got worse at as the game progressed. Though it also rejoiced jumping off the couch and onto tthe ottoman with every big Cougar play and "...Another... Cougar first down!" My temper built more and more with every time Fox Sports felt it had to mention Jake Locker's name even when he had nothing to do with the play. (I swear they talked about him more than 100 separate times in the first half alone) But in the end, it was the Cougars who stole the show. In the end, it was the Cougar fight song that blared through the living room speakers as we jumped and hugged and celebrated. In the end, it was the Husky fans that quit calling/texting to harrass us Cougars with 31 seconds left in the game. In the end, it was the third Cougar victory in the past four years of this Apple Cup. In the end, we will be celebrating our anniversary on a different night.

Is there a much better way to celebrate your anniversary than with a Cougar win over the Huskies? Well, probably. But this way was pretty fun too!

Happy Apple-versary, Beth! And Go Cougs!

Big Weekend...

In case you didn't realize it, this is a VERY big weekend. It is a weekend full of being thankful, celebration, and either being really happy or really ticked off.

Thursday is Thanksgiving - I'm hoping you've figured that out already. This year we are having two T-Day dinners. One with Beth's family on Wednesday and mine on Thursday.

Friday, well, it's a means to Saturday - but we don't have to work. :) That's always kinda nice.

Now Saturday, this is where the celebration comes in. Saturday is Beth and my 6th Anniversary. Yep, six wonderful years of marriage. After six years, we've never had an argument. Never disagreed on anything. And have never been anything but perfectly happy every day! While that might be a bit of stretch, it's still fairly true. We've had six great years of marriage and we've enjoyed them very much. We have our disagreements, etc, but we love being married to each other. So that is cause for much celebration.

Now, the reason I'll either be elated or ticked, is because Saturday also happens to be the 100th Apple Cup - the annual rivalry football game between God's team, Washington State University, and the symbol of all that is bad, the University of Washington. And kids, I'm sorry, but good does not always triumph over evil. In fact, good has lost many more times than it has won. Yet, we try again on Saturday to prove that there is still good in the world. We will have plenty of Crimson in our house on Saturday as we cheer on our Cougars. However, it looks like we'll have some purple in our house as well because we'll have some UW friends over. Remember, Jesus hung out with the sinners too. But with all the pent up frustration through the year of living in Seattle near the UW as a Cougar fan the emotions run high - and a WSU loss it a tough pill to swallow for me.

So, it is a big weekend here at the Soderlund home. It has already started and we're looking forward to the rest of it. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. Beth, Happy Anniversary. And to everyone else... Go Cougs!

On our way home...

Tonight is the night... the night that we risk our sanity and everyone's around us as we take a 1 1/2 year old on an all night, red-eye flight home. Our plane leaves at 10:30PM (or something like that) and is a straight shot from Kona, HI to Seattle. Nathan will either sleep almost all of the way, or he'll be a wreck because he'll be pulling his first all-nighter. Which of course means that we'll be pulling an all-nighter with him. The last ones of those that I remember were in college the nights before tests where I 'studied' - which consisted of going over everything that I had failed to pay attention to before the test.

In a debrief of Kona, here are a few notes that the average Hawaii traveller might want to know about before coming:

1. The Big Island (where Kona is) is a VOLCANO! The active lava flow is still going, but is a 5 mile hike to where you can see it - the roads are blocked off otherwise.

2. "Kona Coffee" seems to be all it is cracked up to be. The drive through coffee farms are worth the trip, especially if you want good free coffee. They just give you little cups, but a whole bunch of little ones make a big one... or five.

3. Geckos are all over the place. Including in your bedroom on the walls as you're falling asleep threatening to jump on you and bite you as you sleep. (OK the last part isn't true, but they're in the room)

4. There are tiny little ants everywhere and they DO bite. They're crawling on the computer right now as I'm writing.

5. There aren't very many sandy beaches. The ones that are 'sandy' are tiny ground up pieces of lava rock and shells. Not exactly the stuff you like between your toes. Unless you stay at the Marriott Resort north of Kona. They have their own private perfectly sandy beach (that I'm sure was shipped in) for their guests. I know where I'm going next time. Or you can find sand at Huggo's On The Rocks bar where they have a 'barefoot bar' where the floor is all sand - this sand was either shipped in also, or they stole it from the Marriott.

6. The other beaches are all lava rock. While they look cool, they're not very nice to your feet.

7. The food, yeah, that's pretty good.

8. Mai Tais. Mmmmm. But they're not cheap. Unless you go to Sushi En Fuego where they have $2 Mai Tais from 11-5 on weekdays. And yes, I did say Sushi En Fuego. Don't knock the place that has the cheapest mai tais in town. And for the record, they were pretty darn tasty. And stiff too.

9. Houses here have solar-powered hot water tanks that kept on the tops of their houses. Interesting.

10. The "Free" Hawaiian highly acclaimed and advertised show called "Ho'oilina: Beauty, Passion, and Rage" held at the Mauna Lina mall is HIGHLY overrated. If you stumble upon it while you're there, it's worth watching. But don't drive 40 minutes to it and 40 minutes home for the 20 minute show. I promise staying home and letting your child sleep is a much better option. It seems that no matter where you go, "You get what you pay for" applies. Excpet in the Dominican Republic where cigars are really cheap - those are also really good!

The trip has been fantastic and we're on our way home tonight. Nathan's been really good this week and we even finally got him comfortable in the pool. He even finally put his feet in the ocean yesterday without thinking he was going to die. :) We went back to try it again but as soon as we got to the one sandy beach around (not the Marriott - that'll be next time we sneak in there) it started pouring down rain - so we went home.

See you back on the mainland...

Aloha! Or as Nathan has been saying 'Al-low-pa'

On Hawaiian Time

Aloha!

This vacation is 'just a little bit different' than any other vacation we've taken before, especially past trips to Hawaii. Here is a little comparison for you between our last trip and this trip.

Past Trip: Get up around 7am

This Trip: Get up around 7am and pray that Nathan doesn't wake up for another hour

Past Trip: Take a walk on the beach or something fun like that before breakfast

This Trip: Change a nasty morning diaper, Get Nathan breakfast, changed, and let him run around the house

Past Trip: Get mai tais packed up with towels and snacks, go to the beach, sit quietly in the sun reading and snorkeling

This Trip: Pack up diapers, lots of water, the stroller and drive to a new place and show Nathan things he's never seen before

Past Trip: Lunch - find a restaurant near where we were hanging out

This Trip: Come home, get a nice sandwich and get Nathan ready for nap

Past Trip: Around 1pm - Sit by the pool or by the beach again drinking more mai tais

This Trip: Around 1pm - Put Nathan (& Beth) down for naps. Aaron goes upstairs to watch a movie or sit by the pool at the house

Past Trip: Later afternoon - Enjoy mai tais (yes, that would have been a lot by then) in town walking around

This Trip: Family swim time at the pool at the house. Listen to Nathan scream at the sight of the water, scream louder at the feeling of the water, until finally giving in and realizing he actually likes the water.

Past Trip: Go to a fun dinner wherever and whenever we wanted.

This Trip: Dinner at the house and then out for some kind of evening activity Nathan can enjoy too - like the Dolphin Quest exhibit at the Hilton where he saw dolphins for the first time.

Past Trip: Go to bed around 9pm

This Trip: Put Nathan to bed around 8pm and watch TV or a movie and go to bed around 10pm

It has been a blast so far on our Hawaiian vacation with Nathan and Nana and Papa. It's just a little different pace now that we have a child. Nathan has been fantastic on this trip. He's handled everything so well and loved taking in the new places and the new people. He's smiled more in the past few days than we've ever seen - and if you know how much he smiles normally, that's really saying something. But then again, who isn't happier in Hawaii?

We hope you are all doing well and look forward to seeing you soon back at home. Of course, it would be more fun to see you in Hawaii.

Phew... We Survived

Well, it wasn't how WE had planned it to go, but it went pretty well considering. We got to the airport in plenty of time as we're supposed to be to see almost nobody in line at check out or security. The security was great. They were even overly helpful. Then... the plane ride from Seattle to Maui. The first hour: Great. The second and third: Decent. Hours 3-6 got a little more difficult. We were expecting him to fall asleep at this point. But it seems we forgot that Nathan 'napped' for 20 minutes on the way to the airport in the car. So as far as he was concerned, he'd done his nap. Shoot.

Honestly, if you asked the people in our neighboring seats how Nathan did, they said that he was 'great'. They all said how great he did and how proud we must be. He really didn't cry or yell much. It was more so that Beth and I needed to get over the mental hump that he wasn't going to fall asleep. The cure: More movies. Nathan watched about 3 1/2 hours of movies on our little personal DVD player. We just bought it two weeks ago with this (and future) trips in mind... and it turned out to be what saved the day for rows 32-37. Wiggles and Elmo were the hits. What did parents do before portable DVD players? I'm glad I'm a parent in today's technology.

The only 'bad' part was that with his carseat thingee in the plane seat, his feet perfectly stuck out to the chair back of the seat in front of him. So needless to say, he pushed it with his toes and moved the chair back and forth for a lot of the flight. We apologized to the lady in advance before we left and told her we'd buy her a drink. She took us up on the offer. :) But was very nice about having her chair rattled for 6 hours.

By the time we landed in Maui, he was done. Unfortunately, our trip wasn't. We had an hour layover before a 30 minute flight to Kona. In this hour, we found him wandering off in many areas he shouldn't have been in, like behind the deli counter at the restaurant with all of the workers. (They made a terrible sandwiches, by the way). Then it was off to the plane again, where he reluctantly sat in his seat, and as soon as the plane pushed back - promptly fell asleep. It was 10:30pm by his internal clock on a 20 minute nap for the day. Ugh.

Nana and Papa were at the airport to pick us up and Nathan was thrilled to see them. Beth and I, we were thrilled when we saw the bed we could collapse in.

But, we made it. We're here and enjoying sticky, humid air. Geckos crawling in the room around the bed. And soon... Kona Coffee.

It's always worse for the parents, I'm sure. And it got stressful. But so far so good here. We're enjoying this little part of Paradise.

Nervous...

Beth and I are only a little bit concerned about how this trip is going to go tomorrow. We're off to Kona, Hawaii in the afternoon on Monday for the first LONG plane ride with a little boy. He went on a plane to Sacramento to my friend Scott's wedding, but he was only 6 months old and it was a 2 hour flight. Now, on the other hand, he's 1 1/2, has his own opinion, knows how to run down isles, and with our luck will find the booze cart before anyone else and will be passing it out to everyone - you know how he likes to give people things.

Well, either way, we've done all we can do to prepare for this. We've got movies and the movie player - not that he's ever worn headphones (we'll see how that goes over). We've got a bag of toys, food and a change of clothes in case he throws up all over them or something. I suggested War and Peace, but Beth didn't think he was quite ready for that. He's bring Clifford the Big Red Dog instead.

He'll probably be just fine. I figure if we let him just wander the isle beforehand, everyone will fall in love with him and then they won't care when he cries for the next 5 hours. OK, I'm depressing even myself now. I'm sure he'll be just fine and we've just heard all of the horror stories. If you have horror stories, don't tell us until we get back. :)

I'll try to keep updating this while we're off on our little tropical vacation, having mai tais by the pool or something exotic like that.

I'll let you know how the plane ride went. Who knows maybe he'll sneak a couple of those booze bottles for himself and he'll cash out for the whole trip. :) Of course I'm kidding. That would be terrible. I think. Maybe. Hmmm. I'll let you know.

Aloha!

Happy Halloween!

As of last night, Halloween has totally changed for us. It's no longer a night of getting to hang out with friends, rent scary movies, or whatever... it's now walk around the neighborhood with the boy and let him get all of his loot - while making sure he says 'Thank You', of course.

Nathan came to my office yesterday for Trick or Treating around to all the different agents' offices. He was a little skeptical in the lobby with taking something out of a big bucket and putting it into his. But by the second person, he had this Halloween thing down pat! By office door number two, he opened his bag up, reached his hand in the person't bowl of candy, grabbed a couple (which we made him put one back), and then dumped in his own bag. Followed by a little "Dah dyu" ('Thank you' - to the lay person), he smiled and walked off often turning around and yelling "BYE!" at what seemed like the top of his lungs.

So come the actual night, he was a pro going over to all of the neighbors. I think that he was so enthrawled by this new system of people giving him stuff, he forgot how to 'Roarrrr' which he had trained for and perfected during the week. Oh well. Nobody seemed to care - they would have given him anything he asked for. Ahh, the power. This boy had so much candy by the end of the night. (see picture above) He doesn't even like candy. Hmmm... What ever will we do with it then?

But let me tell you the even better news of the night. After that whole 'more protein' talk yesterday, I convinced Beth that Halloween was a great night for a pizza. Yes sir! Pepperoni & Sausage. (Please note, we realize that is not the healthy protein the doctor was referring to, but just be excited for me - Beth's pregnancy has left her not liking pizza much lately). And the OTHER exciting revelation I figured out last night is that I no longer have to worry about buying too little candy for the kids at the door and for me to have enough leftovers. We have Nathan's! And the next couple years, we'll have the new boy's. What a system. We buy for the neighborhood kids, Nathan brings home for mommy and daddy. That's what I'm talking about!

We got some video of Nathan roaring in his lion costume, but I'm still trying to figure out how to get it on here. When I figure it out, I'll post it. But for now, the pictures are going to have to do. I never claimed to be really tech-savvy. I've got a brother-in-law for that.

Mama Called the Doctor and the Doctor Said...

Apparently this is his face... looks like an alien to me.

A hand...


The news is finally in... In the pictures above, just look for the arrow pointing to the PROOF that Nathan is going to have a little BROTHER! That's right, we don't have to go buy new girl clothes, pink carseats, froofy lacy stuff, Suburban-Girl Barbie, or a bat to keep all of your boys away. Yep, another boy means that we get to use the same hand-me-down clothes that Nathan wore (sorry kid, but at least he's well dressed), I get another wrestling partner, and most importantly we'll have two children playing on the Cougar football team in 19 years or so.





We're pretty excited (and a little relieved) to be having the second boy. Beth has always figured she was going to be a mom of boys. So far... she's right.





Nothing overly exciting about the ultrasound other than that. The baby was awake during the ultrasound, so it just kept moving all over the place as we watched it. It has all it's arms and legs, and such, so that's good. The only thing is that the umbilical cord isn'tconnected to the placenta in the middle as is normal, it's on the side a bit. So the baby might not be getting all of the nutrients that it would if it was connected normally. However, he said at this point it's nothing to be concerned about and this happens regularly, but if it's not getting all of the nutrients, Beth just has to eat more protein... And we all know what that means... STEAK!!! Any excuse for more meat is fine by me! Maybe we can get Meat Lover's Pizza instead of Cheese tonight. (Kidding... Sort of)





Anyway, that's the exciting update from us about the newest member of the family! We'll let you know if/when anything exciting comes up! Thanks for getting excited with us.





Happy Halloween!

New Nathan Pictures

A couple of weeks ago we had Nathan meet with a photographer that let Nathan just run around and do whatever he wanted while she took pictures of him. Here are a few of the results. We were really pleased with how they turned out. But with a kid that is as cute as his daddy, how can you not have great pictures? Hope you like them! If you want the name of the photographer, let us know and we'll get her name/phone number to you. She was great to work with.

Nathan is off to be his lion all day today for Halloween at the Windermere office and of course around the neighborhood to get all that candy for himself (or us, we'll see who wants it more).

Happy Halloween!

Preparing for the big day...

Nathan has been going through a tough training regiment to prepare for Halloween. Last year's Halloween as a chili pepper (not the Red Hot ones) did not rate very high on Nathan's list of favorite days of the year. But this year, he's a Lion and is quite excited. The training program for this year's Halloween consists of lots of carbs - toast, pasta, and cereal, high amounts of protein - any kind of meat, constant exercise - running around the house all day without stopping for more than a minute in one place, and voice training - working on that "Rooooar!" - Which he's getting down quite well, I might add.

The pre-Halloween week has been filled with celebrity events in addition to his regular weekly training. When asked if he liked having to go to all of these events, Nathan said, "Nope". But when I asked if liked the treats when he went, he replied, "Yeeeeaaaahhhhh!" The funny thing is that he doesn't even like them. He'll just give them to someone else. We tried giving him cake and ice cream last night, took one bite of each and said. "Nope. All done." He didn't get that from his parents.

He'll be quite the sight on Halloween night with his little Lion costume and we'll be sure to add some pictures of him on here for you.

Off to the Doctor...

We're headed to the ultrasound place one week from today, where we will find out whether this little nag in Beth's belly is a boy or a girl. Oh yeah, I think they check to make sure the baby has all it's limbs and stuff too. But seriously, we're pretty much there to find out if we're going to name the kid Chester or Minerva (if that is any of your names, I wasn't.

Hopefully it won't try to keep itself hidden or anything. If ever we've wanted a exhibitionist for a child, this is it.

We're excited about finding out since that will make this whole we're-having-another-baby thing more real. We get to then paint the bedroom, etc. I'm thinking that if its another boy, we'll take the already green walls and make it into a football field. If it's a girl, Beth wants to do some polka dots.

Anyone got any bets on what this kid's gonna be? What about name ideas? Leave a comment belwo with your thoughts...

Welcome to our New Blog

We wanted you to have a way to keep up with the current Soderlund news, so we created this blog. Especially since we have these two little people in our family now, we needed to keep you updated. Let's face it, you're all a little more interested in them than Beth and I anyway. We've come to grips with it. It's OK.

Well, here's your chance to always know what's going on with the new things Nathan is doing and saying, how the new baby is coming along, and just because you might care a little bit, what Beth and I are up to also.

Bookmark this page and check back periodically and you should get your new updates! It's also a really easy way for you to see new pictures of the kids!