Are You Ready for This?

As you may have read in an earlier post, Santa brought Dude a volcano on Christmas morning.  His one earthly desire.  Santa was thrifty enough to find it at TJ Maxx for $7, which sweetened the deal.  When we got home from Chicago, that volcano (which was nearly confiscated at airport security due to the unlabeled powdery material), was the very first priority for our son.  So much so that we invited Brady to come over to witness the awesomeness.  Video documentation was the only way to truly bring you in, first hand, to the marvels that took place in our garage last Saturday.  See, don't look away for long, and be very amazed.  

Don't Forget...

If you don't live in Colorado, you might have already forgotten about an event that rocked our little community.  The media tends to blink through these moments.  They move on to the next dramatic, "news-worthy" world event so as to keep our attention and our interest in all things astonishing and horrifically mind boggling.  They veer away from stories that get stale and stories that lose their drama.  Let me assure you - there's nothing stale or non-dramatic about the aftermath of the school shooting that took place that Friday afternoon at Arapahoe High School.

We remember.  Especially today as the Arapahoe students and faculty are meeting for the first time since their safe place of learning, growth and community was violated.  Claire didn't survive that tragedy, despite the community's prayers, vigil's, thoughts, fundraisers and hopes.  We raised money. We lit up Christmas lights on our roofs spelling out "AHS." We put cups in chain link fences in support of AHS and Claire.  We hung signs in our car windows.  We prayed.  We smiled at each other and talked about the reality of the world we're now officially a part of.  Students shared stories of where they were that day when the gun fire began.  Parents shared stories of where they were when they heard about the gun fire.  And when they finally got word that their child was alive.  Not well, but alive.  This is all still fresh folks.  Not stale and still incredibly "newsworthy."  There's also a sense of hope and community that you haven't seen in your local news.  This community has banned together, at first for Claire and now for each other.  The Warriors are a strong body and if nothing else, this tragedy is proving that to them.    

I encourage you to keep the Arapahoe community in your mind, even if it's just in the back.  Think about them.  Pray for their piece of mind and their strength.  Consider what it's like for those kids and staff walking down the halls of their school today.  And tomorrow.  And next year.  Try to predict what you would do if it was your local school or heaven forbid, your kid.  You might have to sleep with them for the following weeks just so they can close their eyes. That's the case for our 16 year old babysitter.  You might have to hire a therapist to emotionally walk you through the scenes that are now ingrained in your mind.  You might have to be convinced that it's worth it to walk back into those halls and that fear is a reality that now needs to be squashed, somehow.  Fear is being squashed for those thousands of kids today.  The healing process is at infancy stages.      

Whether we want to believe it or not, fear is now a part of our educational system.  Whether or not we let it dominate our thoughts and actions is another issue and one that needs to be tackled on an individual level.  I would imagine school administrators are now building lists of students to watch. Student who just might be capable of something like this.  That's gut-wrenching to me but I get it.  The gravity of the role of being a school administrator and teacher continues to increase.  As if their task of educating our children wasn't grave enough.  Add "protect them for physical harm" to the job description.  My appreciation for this group of professionals grows stronger each and every day.  

Once you see a legitimate "Lock Down" sign on your child's school door, fear hits disturbingly close to home.  Its taken time to process the details of what our teacher friends experienced, what neighborhood parents and students lived through and what the future holds for our school system.  I have to firmly cling to faith that God has his hand on our kids to aid in overcoming my fear of putting my Dude on the big yellow bus in the morning.  The reality is, he might not be safe and there's nothing I can do about that.  But I trust that our school team is doing everything in their power to ensure he is.  And I trust that God's hand in over them as they venture down that path of protection.  Think and pray.  That's my request.  

                 

How is She Three?

She's three today.  My baby.  My last baby (provided God agrees with our logic of one parent per child). Wasn't it yesterday that we giggled relentlessly over her overflowing chub rolls and edible cheeks?  Oh this little girl.  Her complexity has caused her mom and dad to fall hopelessly in love with her, over and over and over....where would we be without her charm and charisma?  Where would the world be really?  Happy birthday to our little pistol, diva, sweetness, angel, princess, feisty, charming not so baby like little girl.  You really are our sunshine.






Before these Squirtisms fade from our minds, I need to document the little things that make our THREE year old the full of life little lady she is....

She cocks her head, points her eye balls up to the sky and places her hand oh so deliberately on her hip. This pose doesn't last long as she burst into giggles, amused at her own antics.

"Uppee please."  Hands up in the air, eye balls locked onto ours.  This phrase comes out anytime you're near stairs.  Even our own.  Now she's settling for holding hands instead...about half the time.

The second Dude gets home from school, she dashes to his backpack to check the status of his lunch.  She then reports to us how much he ate.  Dude is onto this and yells at her to leave his lunch alone as soon as she makes the dash.  We've had to resort to telling her that it's not her business, all while overflowing with laughter inside.

She told me an elaborate story about Tristan "frowing up" at April's house the other day.  She told me where he did it, who was around, how he laid on the couch and didn't eat hot dogs for lunch.  She explained that his mommy was on her way to pick him up.  Turns out, the entire story was contrived.  Every detail.  As I learned the truth from April the little squirt looked at me from the corner of her right eye and said, "Mommy, are you so happy at me?"  We're in big trouble folks.

Babies are her current passion.  She changes their poop, puts them on the potty, scolds them, places them in time out, feeds them, rocks them, takes them for stroller rides, puts them down for naps...this goes on all day long.

Her current trademark centers around taping scraps of paper to the kitchen wall.  She has figured out how to tear tape off the roll and scrunch it up to where there's enough showing the stick to the paper.  She couldn't be more proud.  It's the most precious unsightly decor I've ever allowed in my house.

She made a purple candle at daycare that we lit once.  I promptly threw it away, which is common hat.  A couple days she was looking everywhere for her "cannle."  I told her I didn't know where it was and she looked me in the eye and said, "Mommy, you frow it away?"  Busted.

She has a deep, husky smokers laugh/chuckle that we hope never leaves.  The opposite of her brother's squeely giggle.

Mommy, we wessle?  Mommy, we wessle?  Mommy, we wessle?  Every day is a good day for wrestling.

Lately, whenever we're in public she is obsessed with whether or not we know the people she sees.  You can imagine how many times the question, "Mommy, we know dat lady?"  is asked in an average outing.

It's rare if we go through a night without the quiet, creepy presence of Squirt standing next to my bedside. Her mere breathing is enough to cause me to sit straight up asking what's wrong.  Nothing.  Nothing is every wrong.  She just wants to say hi and requests a sleeping bag to be placed in her bed for the remainder of the night.  It can't START there mind you.  It's a 3:00am thing.  Tim and I fight over who is blessed to grant her the sleeping bag wish each night.

When Tim or I arrive home from errands or work, she dive bombs to the floor, wherever she happens to be at the time.  She hiding.  Which looks like a 2 year old, face down on the floor with her hands covering her eyes.  Bless her little heart that she believes this position creates an invisible status.  Although, sometimes Dude still believes this to be true too.

You would think that she would realize that we can catch her in the lie of "Did you flush the toilet?"  She hasn't quite figured that one out yet.

We can NOT put clothes on her anymore.  Socks, undies, pants, shoes...everything is under her jurisdiction.  I can still PICK the clothes...thank goodness.

My child will not finish a sweet, baked item.  She'll insist that she NEEDS it and will hand over the remains after she takes her two signature bites.  This will benefit her later in life.

Squirt's window of the car is clearly designated as HER window.  Dude is not allowed to even peer out of it without her scolding him.  I've had to pull over and explain to her that she owns nothing and only Mommy can tell Dude what he can and can't do.  I'll catch her giving him the hand as a secondary way to enforcing her rule.  Little pistol.

At bed time, she often instructs Tim and I to "go sleep" in her bed.  She packs her backpack and goes to work.  If we open our eyes we are scolded.  She reassures us that "she be back after work to pick you up" and comes in and out of the bedroom about 8 times to check on us before we have to end the game.  We adore this time with her little motherly self.

Dude built an awesome and rather impressive creation out of his gear set last week.  A couple days later she walked over to it, disassembled it, looks at him and says, "Me wreck it."  She then walked away with her head held high.  Uh huh. Trouble.  And lots of time outs.

The only time table she understand right now is "last week."  Everything we do is in relation to "last week."

Colors and numbers are posing a problem.  About 1/3rd of the time she can identify the correct color and count in order.  This has caused some concern for her parentals.  Until I realized that if M&M's are involved, she's spot on.  100%.  Uh huh.  Trouble.

Every morning she is allowed in bed with us at 6:30am.  She'll lay there in-between us without a peep for 45 minutes and will offer to scratch my back and face.  I eat.this.up.

Windy City Christmas Part II

Given the geographic locations of Tim's side of the family, it's a rare occasion to find us all in one country, let alone one house.  But we pulled it off this year!  Adam and Carin and their crew flew in from Bermuda, Dad hopped on a jet plane, Marc drove from Alabama and we all met at Nick and Caylei's house in Lincoln Park for a day.  There was certainly no lack of action, food, gifts or entertainment at our gathering.  The kids kept plenty busy in the decked out basement and the adults had the chance to catch up and indulge in anything your taste palette could possibly desire.  We had an awesome day and very much appreciated Nick and Caylei's generosity in hosting our rowdy bunch. 

Squirt and Pearl rival each other for personality, spunk and strong will.  I could sit and watch the two of them together all day long.

The highlight of the day was the Christmas sing-along.  A two person band joined us in leading our clan through an hour's worth of festive songs, complete with a plethora of musical instruments.  The kids went ape with the extra noise makers.  

Gift time was a free for all of holiday themed wrapping paper flying across the room, kids screaming as they discovered their name on boxes and adults lounging behind the chaos to avoid being trampled.

 Chase Dude is just three days older than Squirt.  We wish they could see more of each other!  

 Adam, Nick, Tim and Dad.  We wish this happened more too.  As different as they all are in personality and lifestyle (Bermuda, Chicago, Denver & Vegas), they're quite the group when they're all together.  Tim loved every minute of it.  

 

 Chase found an appropriate home for his new Frontier airplane.  

That wraps up Christmas 2013 for the Vogels.  Hope you had a blessed holiday and Happy New Year!
 

Windy City Christmas Part I

After a smooth trip to Chicago, we packed into Papa and Nana's car and gifted my brother, Ross and his wife, Kira, with our larger than life presence.  For 3 days.  They were very brave and patient and made us feel completely at home through the madness.  My kids didn't whine or fight the entire time, which speaks to the sheer amount of joy they experienced.  It was bitter cold, like 9 degrees, most of the time, which forced us to remain indoors.  The boys resorted to dress up and Lego's a majority of the time, which was lovely for us parentals.  I don't know that I spoke to my son for those 3 days more than telling him to pee, eat and go to bed.     

 This was the costume of choice.  Why?  Note the magic button touching his chin.  Enough said.

Girl time with baby June was treasured by all of us.  We kinda fought internally over who got custody of her throughout the days.  June is easy shmeazy and was a total trooper.

 Meet Torty.  Dylan used his crafty negotiation skills and landed the school pet for the entire winter break.  Way to go D.  

At some point, we needed to get the littles the heck out of dodge, so some of us adults took them to the Botanic Gardens for the train display.  It was magical and a perfect outing.

Gigi is goin' strong and decided to take the trip to Chicago from Michigan with Kyle and Beck.  We were so glad she did!  

 Ready.  For. Presents.  

 Never mind the sleep eye.

 Both girls got baby Stella from Nana and Papa.  Squirt is enamored with hers and June Bug showed genuine excitement over her little friend.   

 Aunt Becky treated the kids to her home made ravioli and enlisted Squirt's help to prepare the meal.  Darling.  Just darling.  

 Our Christmas meal was planned, shopped for and created by my big bro and Kira.  Kyle and Becky were kitchen helpers and MAN did they do good.  Pork tenderloin with horseradish sauce, mashed potatoes, home made rolls, baked vegetables, wine, wine, wine....need I say more?  

Twas a lovely time with my entire family under one roof.  That happens very rarely, so we treasure the times when it works out.  Thanks to Ross and Kira for hosting the chaos and creating a Christmas dinner to remember.  Sure do love you guys.  

Next stop, Nana and Papa's house for the remainder of the trip.  Our time there was quiet and low-key, which was a perfect way to end our visit.  We went to C-mas Eve service at my home church, Hope, which is always endearing for me.  I still treasure that community of people and the building that holds them.  Santa found his way to Papa and Nana's chimney, I'm sure because of the reindeer food the kids sprinkled (dumped in one big pile) on the driveway, so Christmas morning did not disappoint.  Dude got his volcano (minus the remote control) and Squirt got her beloved candy canes and a bonus pack of mints.  Just for her.  Elfie even flew to the Windy City and hid each morning, adding to the magic.

 I would have typically made this little gem of a picture its own blog post, but there are way too many posts needing to be uploaded at the moment.  

My parents live on a pond that attaches to additional ponds.  Given the frigid temps, the ponds were solid ice.  This provided for outstanding outdoor entertainment.  See below.  My Dad thought this revelation of utilizing the frozen pond was so exciting that he up and bought a pair of hockey skates and has been frolicking on the ice ever since.  I envision his pirouetting and lifting his lanky legs in the air, but I kinda think he's just skating.  

 Hey look, it's me!  

This ends Windy City Christmas Part I.  Part II (Vogelzang festivities) to come.