Happy Birthday, Grace Christy Lengel

Labor began on Thursday, December 18th and 27.5 hours later, Grace Christy Lengel came flying into her Daddy's hands. The doctor did not make it for Grace's entrance and the nurse came in at the tail end. Daddy and Doula Mary did a great job, but Patrick has not been induced into a career change. :0)

Official stats:

Date of Birth: Friday, December 19th, 2008

Time of Birth: 5:53pm

Weight: 8 lbs 3 oz

Length: 21.5 inches

Looks Like: Big sister Elyse, they even sport the same cleft in their chin like their Daddy.

Grace is a wonderful baby. She is sleeping well and nurses like a champ. We are all in love with her (our Australian sheep dog, Pepper appointed himself Grace's guardian the moment she came home.) and the kids are always wanting to hold her and play with her. What an amazing Christmas gift we have received this year. I am so thankful to have baby Grace. She has brought great joy to all of us.

St. Nicholas Day 2008

Here are some pictures from our celebration of St. Nicholas Day (December 6th). St. Nicholas Day is a European holiday; one that Patrick's Father and siblings grew up celebrating as their mother was German/Austrian. We decided to incorporate this holiday into our Christmas celebration a few years ago and have really enjoyed it.

St. Nicholas was a real person (a bishop) who used his wealth to serve God and others. He was a very generous and loving man and a wonderful example to us as we remember the reason for this Christmas holiday-- God's generous gift to us--His Only Son.

On St. Nicholas Eve the children put out their shoes and in the morning they are filled with small treats (this year they found gum, fruit roll-ups, water paints, glue sticks, chapstick, etc). We don't focus on the Santa Claus aspect of the holiday, but more on the aspect of giving. We try to come up with a way the kids can give to others on this day. This year we made sugar cookies and decorated them and the kids shared them with the men who were putting new siding on our house.

Doing the cookies together was a great deal of fun for all. This was Noelle's first year making cookies with us and she got right into it like she had been doing it all of her life. Most of her cookies were rather unrecognizable after she cut them out but she sure was enjoying herself. Elyse was very much into the decorating part and put her all into adding her special touch. Mack very much liked the cookie dough and I had to keep reminding him that if he ate it all we could not cut out very many cookies! :) He was also a champion cookie cutter outer and icer.