The ABC's (Avocados, Bananas, and Corolla)

There has been a lot going on with the Indiana Lesnets over the past 9 days since our last post. Since our last post, Kai has added a couple of foods to his diet, he celebrated his 6 month birthday with a trip to the doctor, we survived our first week without a nanny, and we made a trip to Ohio to see both sides of our extended family.

I will try to do my best to fill you in but Kai is being a little difficult this evening and he doesn't want to go to bed.

Since our last entry, Kai has added Avocados and Bananas to his quickly expanding "solid" food diet. We are giving him a new food every 4 days so we can make sure that he isn't having any adverse reactions to the new foods. So far, his only reactions have been some funny faces and some spitting which has resulted in a lot of laughs for his parents and a lot more bibs in the laundry. I would say that his favorite "solid" food is avocados. The 2 pictures below are some action shots from Kai's first experiences with fruit.

This past week was pretty interesting since we didn't have a nanny and Kai had his 6 month doctor's appointment. Max's mom took Monday off of work and watched both Kai and Max. Stephanie took Tuesday off and reciprocated by watching Max. I took Wednesday off and watched a very cranky Kai after his morning doctors appointment, where he received a bunch of vaccinations (he weighed in at17 lbs 0 ozs and he was 26 3/8 inches tall). Stephanie then took Thursday and Friday off to watch Kai.

On Friday (7/18) after I got out of work, we left for Ohio for a family filled weekend trip. We got to Stephanie's parents house in Bowling Green on Friday night and Kai was able to meet Aunt Jessica for the first time. She currently lives in Japan where she teaches English.

Saturday was supposed to be a quiet day as Grandpa and Grandma Eridon were heading up to Holland Michigan for a wedding. It didn't get off to a quiet start though as Grandpa didn't see our little Corolla in the driveway and backed in to it. The Corolla is a beast and came through with some relatively small scuffs. Their CR-V on the other hand took on some pretty good road rash, or is that driveway rash? Other than that early morning excitement, Saturday lived up to its expectations of being a slow day.

Sunday was extended family day. We had a lunch get-together with the Lesnet family at Uncle Gary's farm in Montpelier Ohio (I believe that the official title is a Briner family reunion(Grandma Lesnet's maiden name), but the Lesnet cousins are invited as well [their last name is Bordner...family reunions are funny]. This was the first chance that most of the family has had to see Kai. Kai really enjoyed meeting the family and we think that everyone really enjoyed meeting Kai! There was a really good turnout this year, but I didn't catch the final count. If you are a Lesnet or Briner cousin and you weren't able to make it this year, we sure hope to see you next year! The next picture is of my first cousins and our kids. As you can see, the old Y chromosome is not prevalent in my family either (Stephanie is the oldest of 3 girls and all of the Eridon cousins are also girls).

After the Lesnet/Briner reunion, we came back to Bowling Green to have a dinner with Grandma Eridon's family. We stayed another night and came home after having lunch with Great Aunt Bev and Cousin Kelly. We pulled in to the driveway at about 5:30 or so, and we are very glad to be here!

As you can see, we have been extremely busy since our last blog update. We had a very busy 9 days and this next week is going to be even more hectic than this past week. Melissa, our new nanny, starts this Friday (7/25). Until then, our friends will be helping us by taking turns watching Kai. We would like to thank everyone in advance for helping us and for being answers to our prayers! God has truly provided us with amazing friends and an incredible church family down here in Indy!

My fruit is better than fine gold; what I yield surpasses choice silver. - Proverbs 8:19

PRAISE THE LORD!!

The Indiana Lesnet's have just finished up a very busy and very eventful week.

As I said in our last blog posting, our very wonderful nanny Lizzie had to leave us and her last day was Friday. She did a great job taking care of the boys (Kai and his friend Max). She loved the boys and they were very fond of her. We are sad to see her go, here is a picture of her on her last day on the job.
On Friday, we hired Lizzie's replacement! Her name is Melissa and she will be starting with us in a couple of weeks. Melissa observed Lizzie on Friday to learn the ropes a bit and spend some time with the boys. The boys really like her and we are looking forward to her watching the boys in a couple of weeks. It is a huge blessing to have a new nanny!

Also on Friday, Republic Airways Holdings issued a press release saying that they are going to lay off 500 or so employees. Working for an airline always poses an interesting set of challenges and this is definitely an extra interesting time. I have been told that my job is safe for now and that is definitely a reason to rejoice and praise the Lord!!

Kai turns 6 months old this next week. Kai will celebrate his birthday with some immunizations at the doctor's office so we thought we would take his monthly growth pictures today since he will probably be a little grumpy on his actual birthday.

Kai ate his first "solid food" today. He had some rice cereal and he did a good job eating it. We caught it on video but we won't be posting it on the blog. It was just anticlimactic really as he didn't make any faces, he didn't cry, and he kept a pretty good percentage of the food in his mouth. Kai did great at eating with a spoon. Mom and I struggled a bit though. The cereal is pretty much the same consistency as milk and the baby spoons aren't very deep so a lot of the cereal fell off the spoon before it got anywhere near Kai's mouth!

We took Kai to the neighborhood pool for the first time today. He was definitely a little more at ease in the water since this wasn't his first time swimming. We picked him up some new "Body Glove" board shorts and UV shirt a couple of weeks ago. Here is a picture of him modeling his new threads!

But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. - Hebrews 5:14

16 Days Without Blogging?!?!

It has been 16 Days since I have last updated our Blog and it seems like a lot has happened since then. Hopefully I will be able to keep it all straight (and in chronological order).

First off, on June 16th, we celebrated Kai's 5 month birthday. On his birthday, we had a photo shoot and a couple of his pictures were with his monkey "growth chart". They may not show the growth length quite as well as my pictures, but these pictures are awesome, they really show that the professional photographer is much more talented than I am.
Right after we returned from vacation, our nanny called in sick for 3 whole days! Stephanie was too busy at work to stay home with Kai so I got to play "manny" for for a few days. I was also feeling a little under the weather myself and had a few items at work that I needed to deal with (since we were on vacation the prior week) so I was pretty happy on Wednesday afternoon when I got to go back to the office. Kai survived and I think he enjoyed his time with dad, but we know he was glad when mom relieved dad on Wednesday afternoon!

Last weekend (June 27 - June 29), the Indiana Lesnets were not in Indiana anymore. I had a work trip down to the Florida Keys for a golf tournament. My team was not very good but fortunately, the other teams were lousy as well and we came in 3rd. I got a cool trophy and I have it proudly displayed in my office at work. Since I was out of town for the weekend, Stephanie and Kai went to Bowling Green, Ohio to visit Grandma and Grandpa Eridon. Kai met some more of his cousins at a cookout and learned some new sounds and re-discovered his tongue while he was there (probably learned that from the cousins). In other weekend news, Grandma Lesnet turned 60 on Saturday the 28th. Happy Birthday mom!!

On Monday of this week, I played in the Hacker's Golf Outing with 11 other men from church. We played 36 holes with a different game for each 9 holes. Last year, I won my entry money back and a $25 gift card for closest to the pin. This year I didn't win a thing, but I had a great time.

This week, we had our 1,000 hit on our Blog! Thanks for reading! Keep checking back often, it makes the counter go up faster!!

This weekend has also been very hectic. Stephanie and I started cooking on Friday and we have been continuing to cook throughout the weekend. We have made enough food for 3 months worth of meals. We learned that we cannot make any more than 3 months at a time though because our chest freezer is completely full!

On Friday, we received an interesting text message from our nanny telling us that she is quitting to move back home and she was giving us 1 weeks notice. This really rocked our world because we were very comfortable with her and the boys (we share her with another family) really liked her as well. We are still in shock that she is leaving, but we are even more in shock that she quit via text message (seriously) and that she only gave 1 week.

Yesterday, we finally broke down and bought a Dyson vacuum cleaner. We got the DC 25, which is an all floors type with the ball steering mechanism. Very sweet! I was going to post a picture, but a website is worth something like 1,000,000 pictures, so check it out here.

Kai may be sitting up on his own. We're not sure of the definition of "sitting up" so we aren't going to go on record with it yet. Kai can sit up unassisted for a long time, look around, and even play for a while. If he gets startled, he falls over though. Here are some pictures of our boy sitting up...maybe. If you have any official definitions of "sitting up", please comment so we can know if our boy is a certified rock star or just a regular old rock star. He's also started getting up on all 4's this weekend. He can roll almost anywhere he wants to go, I don't think we're quite ready for him to start crawling yet!!

Kai was dedicated at church today. Grandma and Grandpa Eridon came down to witness the occasion. Grandpa Lesnet had to work this weekend so they weren't able to make it. The morning started off well and we even made it to church early. Stephanie was giving her parents a tour of the new church building while I stayed with Kai and talked with some friends. Kai decided to poo (everywhere but in his diaper, including through to the car seat for the first time ever) . Stephanie had the diaper bag, so I ended up covered in poo and so did Kai's outfit to be dedicated in. So..luckily we had an extra outfit in the diaper bag and Kai was dedicated in a Purdue onesie (and God said "it was good"). Grandpa Eridon video taped the dedication and I think he did a very good job. We got a couple of pretty good pictures today that we have posted below. We also have uploaded Grandpa Eridon's video of Kai's dedication. Enjoy!

Then Hezekiah said, "You have now dedicated yourselves to the LORD. Come and bring sacrifices and thank offerings to the temple of the LORD." So the assembly brought sacrifices and thank offerings... - 2 Chronicles 29:31