The Caterpillar

Okay, I am the ultimate "talk tough" parent. I say that my kid(s) aren't going to be like the typical spoiled American child. Nope, my kid(s) are going to know the meaning of a dollar! My kid(s) are definitely not going to know what it is like to have everything they want. My kid(s) will walk 5 miles to school every day just like their mom and dad did (oh, and it's uphill both ways without shoes [and they'll like it]). I held tight to that belief for a whole 101 days of actually being a parent...ugh! At this time, I would like to introduce to you; THE CATERPILLAR:

Behold, Kai's first material request. On Saturday (4/26), we went to Babies R Us to purchase some new bottles for Kai. As we were walking around the store, I would show various toys to Kai to see his reaction (bad idea). I probably showed him about 20 different toys while we were walking around and he was not interested in any of them. I was very proud of myself and the way that I am raising my son, since it is my great parenting skills that has prevented my son from being materialistic. My pride came crashing to the ground like a ton of bricks when we walked past the hanging toy section. I picked up the above caterpillar and showed it to Kai. His face lit up like the 4th of July. He smiled and cooed at the toy. I was putty in Kai's hands and the caterpillar went in to the cart and it is now in our home. Moral of the story? Dad is both a hypocrite and a sucker!!

We had a very eventful Saturday in addition to our eventful trip to Babies R Us. On Saturday we also cleaned the garage (we can now fit all 3 of our cars in to our 3-car garage!), cooked and froze a lot of food (2 pans of lasagna, 39 pizza burgers, 29 chimichangas, 2 meatloaves), and Kai laughed for daddy. On Sunday, we made it to church, cooked more food (seriously, our chest freezer is almost completely full), went for a walk around the neighborhood, and still found a little time to relax (maybe 10 whole minutes).Last night we had a bit of a scare with Kai. He fell asleep while mom was holding him instead of in his crib last night. After a while, it was my turn and Kai slept on my chest (as pictured above). While he was sleeping on my chest he started screaming like he was in a lot of pain. We took off his clothes and found that his feet and lower legs were bright red, swollen, and really hot to the touch. It was both of his legs so it probably wasn't a bug bite. We called the doctor and stumped him. We were able to get the swelling to go down a bit by keeping his legs elevated above his heart. Once the swelling went down, he fell asleep.

This morning, his feet were still a bit red but other than that he was pretty much back to normal. Stephanie chose to work from home to stay close by. She decided to take him to the doctor for a visit. The doctor checked Kai out but didn't see anything that he was concerned about. At the visit though, they weighed Kai and he is now tipping the scales at a whopping 14.5 pounds.

because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace. Luke 1:78-79

7 Awesome Days Without Golf Makes One WEAK!!

Spring has most definitely sprung here in Central Indiana! The weather has been unbelievably nice, as we have had sunny skies and highs in the upper 70's to low 80's every day this week. Now that the weekend is here, the weatherman says that we are supposed to get a bit of a cool down with temps peaking at right around 60 with scattered showers and thunderstorms.

So, we've had some awesome weather and all of the Indiana Lesnet's made it through without any one of us getting a sun tan. This is Stephanie's 2nd week back at the old 9-5 and it has been pretty interesting as things are starting to get busier for her there as it is quarterly earnings time for her clients. I've been extra busy at work lately as well because a couple of weeks ago (April 11th), one of my customers at work, Frontier Airlines filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

This awesome weather and too busy to play golf...ugh!!

This is Kai's second week with our nanny as well. Kai really likes Lizzy and we are very happy with the care that Lizzy provides to him. The only thing that is a bit rough (other than leaving our baby boy every day) is that Kai doesn't eat very well for her. Since he doesn't eat very much during the day, he is starving and grumpy when we come home in the evening. We spend nearly every moment that we are home feeding him. Even though we spend nearly our entire evening feeding the boy, we have been able to go for a walk around the neighborhood nearly every night this week. Fortunately, he is still sleeping through the night. If you are looking for something to pray for, you could pray that Kai would eat better for the nanny and that Stephanie and I would figure out how to make our hectic schedules work.

Last Saturday (4/19), we Raced for the Cure!! It was a bit chilly and it was raining pretty heavy in the morning. We planned on walking the 5k route, but we had Kai with us and we didn't want to risk getting our 3 month old little boy sick so we left once the race started. Now, we did park about over a mile from the starting line so I'm sure that we walked every bit of 3 miles while we were down there.

Also on Saturday, Stephanie and I went to the wedding of one of my co-workers. Stephanie and I left Kai with the nanny. It was a nice date night, but we were back home before 10pm.

Here are some pictures that Stephanie took of Kai today.
Ain't he tough?!?!

When a king's face brightens, it means life; his favor is like a rain cloud in spring. How much better to get wisdom than gold, to choose understanding rather than silver! - Proverbs 16:15-16

Happy 3 Month Birthday Kai!!

Hello All,

Today is Kai's 3 month birthday. We celebrated this birthday as we have celebrated each of Kai's other monthly birthdays; we took his picture with a stuffed monkey!! Since we have not put any pictures of Kai and his stuffed friend out here yet, here is a month-by-month pictorial of Kai and his little friend.

In the first picture, he is just 11 days old. Each of the other pictures were taken very close if not on his monthly birthdays.
Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. 1 Peter 2:2-3

Monday Monday

Today is "Black Monday" here at the Lesnet home. Today, Stephanie went back to the old 9-5. She held up very well and got most of her emotional breakdowns over with last week. She is trying to ease back in to it, she will be trying to work half days on Mondays and take a planned vacation day every Friday until the end of June.


This past week has been very busy as we have been trying frantically to remove items from our to-do list before Stephanie's first official day back at the office. Last week, Stephanie got a hair cut (this is a major to-do for women I see), got Kai's birth certificate at the courthouse, finished our 2007 tax returns, inventoried our closets, finished decorating the nursery, got caught up on thank you notes (for all of you who have given us gifts and or provided us with meals, thanks again!!), changed the oil in the car, picked up the dog poo from the winter, and even made it to church for our first Sunday service as parents!

This whole week is huge for us. Along with Stephanie returning to old PwC, Stephanie has to go to Cincinnati tomorrow (Tuesday) for work, Kai will have his 3 month birthday, Stephanie will have a birthday on Friday (4/18) and we will be attending a wedding and reception for one of my co-workers on Saturday.

Since Kai's 3 month birthday is on Wednesday, we will post some pictures of Kai with his stuffed monkey later this week. We take a picture of him each moth with the Monkey so that we can see how much he has grown. In the mean time, here are some pictures of Kai's room. The quilt was made for him by his Aunt Janet and it has the names of 7 generations of Lesnet men embroidered on it. The letters were purchased pre-cut but I painted them and hung them on the wall. Enjoy!






From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. - John 1:16

April Already?!?

Today, God blessed us with a beautiful spring day. It was sunny and I think it got up to 70 degrees. We took 2 family walks, the first one was about 4 miles and the second was only about a mile at dusk. It is great to finally go outside after the long winter and feel the sunshine, see your neighbors, and air out the house.

This week's highlights include; Kai's first cold, Kai's play dates, a visit from Grandma and Grandpa (they said that may want to be called Granny and Gramps [well, at least Grandma wanted Kai to call Grandpa "Gramps"]), eating our freezer meals, a sorry start by the Tigers (0-5, are you serious?!?), and a confirmed blog readership of 10 (Sweet! We'll get more hits than ESPN.com in no time)!!

Kai caught his first cold on Friday. It probably wasn't really all that bad, but for neurotic new parents, it is big deal! Kai has been pretty social the past couple of days and it looks like it may have caught up with him. Kai had 2 separate play dates this week with 5 germ infested children. He also went to House Church (small group) where there were many children and adults that were crawling with germs. Oh well, he's feeling much better and we are now comfortable using the "snot sucker"!!

Grandma and Grandpa Eridon came down this weekend. It was good to have them around to keep us calm with our sick little boy. We had an awesome steak dinner on Saturday evening! I grilled corn on the cob for the first time and it turned out very well. It was nice to end the week with such an incredible meal! We ate like kings all week as we started eating some of the meals that we froze last weekend. They were all delicious, especially the lasagna that we found on The Pioneer Woman's website.

In case you are wondering, I still have a job! As you have probably heard, there were several airlines that closed their doors this week. One of them was Indianapolis based ATA. I had several people ask me and several others asked Stephanie if I was still employed. In case you like to keep up with aviation news, I work for Republic Airways Holdings, which is a holding company that owns 3 different operating airlines that fly smaller regional aircraft for major network carriers (United Express for example). We were voted the 2008 ATW Regional Airline of the Year (obviously we rock!).

Okay, my Tigers are off to the same start that they were when they lost 119 games a few years back. They are now 0-5, and currently down 7 runs to the Chicago White Sox. Can you believe that?!? I haven't watched a game yet, but with all the firepower they have up there, starting off with 6 straight losses is ridiculous!! C'mon boys, get it together!

We have 10 confirmed "Indiana Lesnet Blog" readers! I think that breaking in to the double digits is a big milestone! Of course, our parents make up a large percentage of our readership. Thanks Mom and Dad and Mom and Dad! We need more confirmed readers. Could you please let us know if you check this thing out?

Here is a picture of Kai and Grandpa and Grandpa and Kai...

And one of Kai and Kiki...

God Bless you!