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.