Indiana Lesnet Blog

Holidays 2011

2012-01-30T23:15:00.000-05:00

It is mid January and we have finally found a few moments to fill you in on the Lesnet holidays. Since I am terribly behind on my blogging and have a post that I need to get done for a trip to Haiti that I made at the beginning of the month, I'm going to keep this pretty short.

The boys school, "The Little Lamb" had their annual Christmas program. Eli loved being on stage in front of everyone and when his class was done he still kept trying to get up there.

Kai did great on his performance. This is some hang time after the show where Kai is serenading a much taller young lady. Gotta hand it to the boy, he's got skills like his daddy!

Of course what would Christmas be without trips to Ohio to spend time with the grandparents and other family members. We started off our trip with a visit to Bowling Green to see the Eridon folks. Here is a photo of the boys with their grandpa.

Family Shot with Uncle Kris and Aunt Bev.

Next over to Edon to see the Lesnet grandparents. Here the boys are with Grandpa Lesnet.

And a picture with Grandma Lesnet. She is always so focused on being a good hostess that she refuses to stop long enough to take any pictures. This was the best I could do.

Grandpa and Grandma Lesnet are great but the fun really gets going when we head out to the barn. I took Kai up in to the straw mow this year. He thought it was big stuff to go up the ladder.

Eli petting a ewe.

I really feel like I start to feel my age this time of year when I am excited about my "yuck" presents. You know, the ones like socks or underwear that you got as a kid and were disgusted. Yeah, I like those now. My favorite gift this year was a new knife set. Stephanie's favorite was a vacuum sealer for storing food in the freezer. Rock on!!

Christmas with the family was great this year and thankfully we were all sleeping soundly as the ball dropped and 2012 began.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this. - Isaiah 9:6-7

Halloween 2011

2011-10-31T20:05:00.000-04:00

We still aren't able to make the time to blog but we wanted to get some pictures out there for some of you that would like to see they Dyanmic Duo and their super friends.

Here is mommy with her heroes

Caped Crusaders, the Dynamic Duo, Batman and Robin, Kai and Eli.

The contemplative Robin.

Na na na na na na na na na na na na BATMEN BATMEN BATMEN!

Superfriends...EVILDOERS BEWARE!!

the hero and the warrior, the judge and the prophet, the diviner and the elder, - Isaiah 3:2

Eli's 9 Month Pictures

2011-08-07T23:50:00.000-04:00

As you can probably guess from our lack of blogging, our lives have been extremely hectic lately. Life has been good and we are all doing very well.

Time flies when you're having fun, it flies even faster when you're a parent. If it weren't for the sleepless nights and nasty diapers, it would seem like Eli was just born yesterday and now he's getting ready to take his first steps.

We recently took the boys to the photographer for Eli's 9 month pictures. Both boys were pretty happy so we wound up with a very successful shoot. Enjoy!

The wings of the ostrich flap joyfully, though they cannot compare with the wings and feathers of the stork. - Job 39:13

February 5, 2011 Professional Photo Shoot

2011-02-12T20:17:00.000-05:00

On February 5, 2011, us Indiana Lesnets got some professional pictures taken by Amy Harnish at Portrature Studios down in Fishers. She holds the copyright to these awesome pics (and bushels of patience as the Lesnet boys were not very cooperative) so you can look but you can't touch or sell or anything like that.

Our goal was to get some good shots of the boys together and if the boys were holding up okay, go ahead and get a family shot. Well, it didn't quite work out that way because when we first arrived at the studio, Kai was all ready to go.

Kai sitting there quietly taking pictures while Bubba is screaming on the other side of the studio.

Now Kai is starting to get distracted by the commotion so Amy brings in a prop. A very old Polaroid camera. Kai likes this!

All right, Eli has now calmed down and is ready for some picture taking!

He's doing an awful good job looking at the camera while Kai is in full melt-down mode.

Bubba looks like such a little man here.

In these pictures Kai was still angry and Eli was still happy. These 3 shots probably took 20 minutes!

Okay, well...both boys are out of patience and so maybe we can get some pictures if they are with old mom and dad. Fortunately, they both really like us for now.

Now Eli is in full melt down so I toss Kai up in the air a couple of times to distract him from losing it as well. The photographer caught me comforting Kai on film...pretty cool!

Eli is now all better and ready for some more pictures as long as he's held by either mommy or daddy. Time for a couple of more family shots.

Amy had a stuffed pig that she had on her head for these shots. Kai couldn't stop laughing at the silliness!

Kai's turn for melt down so daddy will play with a very content Eli. Again, the photographer liked the baby with daddy moment.

Kai has now been bribed with ice cream after the photo shoot. He is now very cooperative! Too bad we couldn't get Bubba to look at the camera at all during any of these shots.

No one has to look at the camera for a foot shot. Maybe we should have got more foot shots!

Time for ice cream yet?

Does Bubba get ice cream too?

Shouldn't we be eating ice cream by now?

Last picture? Still getting ice cream right? Yayyyyyy!!

But Timothy has just now come to us from you and has brought good news about your faith and love. He has told us that you always have pleasant memories of us and that you long to see us, just as we also long to see you. - 1 Thessalonians 3:6

Christmas and the Blur that is 2011!

2011-01-27T02:00:00.004-05:00

It has been one month since our last post and it has been difficult to find the time to get online to do any of the normal online stuff (like scores, stock quotes, weather) let alone find the time to write a blog for our amazing blog followers.

One thing that I hadn't shared is anything about Christmas. We spent Christmas up in Bowling Green with Stephanie's family so we let Kai open his larger gifts at home before we left for Ohio.

Here is Kai and his new workbench that he received from Grandpa and Grandma Lesnet. Yep, he loves it!

Kai also received this sweet train table from Grandpa and Grandma Eridon. Kai scored a new kitchen as well from Stephanie and I (not pictured).

I want to take a moment to thank Mr. Tom and Mr. Daniel from our small group at Genesis Church came over and put all of these sweet toys together. My dad was still in the ICU up in Fort Wayne at this time and I was driving back and forth after work nearly every day and just did not have the time to assemble these.

Eli did not seem to enjoy opening Kai's presents as much as Kai did.

Whoa! Bubba sure looks like his daddy too!

Brothers posing for a picture. Clearly neither one was really feeling the brotherly love at this time.

During the week of Christmas (Dec 20 or Dec 21), my dad escaped from the ICU and moved down to the Neuro Science area. We were so glad that he was moved around Christmas time so that he could see the boys as they were not allowed to go in to the ICU area.

Kai has not been wanting to go to bed. He will cry and find various ways to stall. Many nights he is up past 10 and is bouncing off of the walls while Steph and I try to do exciting things like laundry or dishes. It isn't unique for us to have to put him back in his bed five times on any given night.

One night when I went to check on him before I went to bed I found Kai fast asleep behind the rocker / recliner in his bedroom. I picked him up and put him back in bed but I keep wondering if I should have just left him there on the floor and saw his reaction the next morning.

Christmas morning with the Eridon's was great. Kai was the present delivery person and he took his job very seriously. I would read the tags on each gift and then he would deliver. He did a great job but he did have a hard time keeping Aunt Kimberly and Aunt Jessica straight.

Kai scored this sweet camera for Christmas. So far he either throws the camera or takes pictures of the floor or ceiling.

The Kit Eridon Family - Christmas 2010

The Indiana Lesnets - Christmas 2010

Maw and Paw Eridon and their 3 daughters - Christmas 2010

Now on to 2011!!!!

2011 has come in like a lion for sure. Stephanie started back to work at the bank during the week between Christmas and New Years. That was a good time for her to start back as it gave us a couple of days to come to grips with our new reality of 2 jobs and 2 boys.

Stephanie and I both work in finance / accounting so the beginning of the year is extremely busy for both of us at work. Deadlines are tight and there is still a lot of things on the home front that need tended to.

Thankfully by this time, my dad was improving and moved from the hospital to a rehabilitation center on January 7th. I went up there to visit him that evening to make sure that he knew that we knew where he was. Unfortunately, there was some freezing rain on the day that dad moved and I bumped in to a semi on I-69 on my way home. It shattered my windshield but I was able to drive my car home. Fortunately I was not hurt, nor was the dude who was sitting in the middle of the interstate with his lights off at 11pm...

Here is Eli and I in the outfits that Grandpa and Grandma Lesnet got for us for Christmas.

Eli with his growth cow on his 3 month birthday!

Aunt Jessica came to visit

Bubba and cow!

Kai's 3rd birthday was earlier this month. His birthday was on a Saturday so we celebrated it all weekend long. We wore Thomas the Train party hats and got designer cupcakes..

Happy Birthday to Kai!

Here is Bubba being cute with a Christmas bear that he got from Grandpa and Grandma Eridon.

On the morning of Kai's birthday we filled his room with balloons. We have done this for each of the past 2 years and he just loves it!

He took his nap with all of his balloons in bed with him.

Kai got this super awesome conductor's costume for his birthday from Grandpa and Grandma Eridon. Kai had got the same costume for Master P for his birthday. I can't wait to see them in their costumes together!

Also in January we got A NEW CAR!! Well, new to us Indiana Lesnets anyway. We bought a 2007 Honda Cr-V that Stephanie's parents were leasing. It is a sweet ride complete with 4 wheel drive and leather seats! If anyone out there is in the market for a pickup truck or a late model Toyota Corolla let me know as they are for sale.

On our way up and back from buying the car up in Bowling Green, we stopped off in Fort Wayne to see my dad in the rehab center. He's looking so good now that he dresses in real clothes and not just the hospital gowns. This totally made his day...such a happy grandpa!!

While up in BG, the January birthday boys celebrated life's journey's together with some cake and party hats.

Grandma Eridon experiencing pure joy while cuddling with her newest grand kid.

Thanks for checking out this epic blog post. I hope that all of you are having a great new year!

Celebrate it at the appointed time, at twilight on the fifteenth day of this month, in accordance with all its rules and regulations. - Numbers 9:2-4

A Stroke of Bad News and a Busy December

2010-12-30T00:31:00.000-05:00

A lot has happened since the last update here with the Indiana Lesnets and people whom the Indiana Lesnets love.

On December 10th, my dad and hero had a stroke while sorting the mail at the post office. His co-workers acted quickly and got him to the hospital in Angola very quickly. He was then taken by chopper down to Lutheran Hospital in Fort Wayne where he is still today.

Since December 10th, I have put over 4,000 miles on the Corolla driving back and forth between the Indianapolis area, Fort Wayne, and the family farm in Northwest Ohio. I have missed quite a few bed times and meals with the family and I have missed Stephanie and the boys very much. Stephanie is doing a great job keeping everyone in line but she is getting tired too.

To pour some salt in the wound, our washing machine (only 1 1/2 year old) broke (fixed now) and Stephanie has started back to work.

I will update more about Christmas and the cool stuff from the past couple of weeks if some time opens up. In the mean time, here is our official Christmas picture

Here is the boys taking their first bath together. So fun!

Test me, LORD, and try me, examine my heart and my mind -Psalm 26:2

The Bird Part 2

2010-12-29T23:50:00.000-05:00

The nice thing about catch and release is that no one is really harmed in the making of the Indiana Lesnet version of The Bird. The unfortunate thing is that you may wind up having your unwelcome guest come back for another visit.

Here I am with my trusty tools of a broom and expandable feather duster, once again hunting down the bird. Once again determined to catch and release him.

I caught him again and released him again but got a good shot of him. If you see this bird outside at your front door, DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR.

Upon further investigation, I found that the bird was setting up a residence in the wreath on the front door. Now that Christmas is over, we should be rid of the unwelcome woodland guest.

And forgive your people, who have sinned against you; forgive all the offenses they have committed against you, and cause their captors to show them mercy - 1 Kings 8:50

First Smile

2010-12-05T14:59:00.000-05:00

Bubba has been a much more challenging little one than his older brother was. We figure much of that is due to the fact that he gets drug around all over creation, gets lots of "love" from Kai, and doesn't have the full-time attention of both parents 24/7.

Bubba has given us a lot of loud, sleepless nights and in return we have received nothing, nada, zilch. No cooing, no smiles, no nothing super cute to give us that little burst of adrenaline that us parents like so much when our kids do something that shows they appreciate what we do for them.

Well, on December 4, 2010 we got our first smile! Fortunately, the camera was out and we were able to catch it on film.

Without any further delay, here is the first smile by Elijah George Lesnet!!

When I smiled at them, they scarcely believed it; the light of my face was precious to them. - Job 29:24

The Birds

2010-12-05T00:48:00.000-05:00

Alfred Hitchcock directed a movie called "The Birds" that takes place in a small town in Northern California. In his movie, birds of all kinds suddenly begin to attack people there in increasing numbers and with increasing viciousness. Well, this ain't no movie!

On Tuesday November 30th, we had a bird invasion. We were already in the middle of a drama filled evening as Kai had just puked up his lunch right before I got home from work. Stephanie had given Kai a bath and got him in his PJs but hadn't yet cleaned up the mess that Kai made on the family room sofa.

I got home from work and cleaned up the mess and was taking the super smelly trash out the front door (Wednesday is garbage day so the trash can was already by the street) when I heard this flapping noise go past my head. I turned around to see this little bird flying in to the house.

Really?!?!?

Here is the bird perched on the light hanging over our breakfast table.

Here the bird is enjoying the view from the ceiling fan in our family room.

Here is a little present that the bird left for Stephanie on her laptop computer.

Armed with a broom, an expandable feather duster, a large bowl, and a plastic grocery bag I was able to capture the creature of the air and safely deliver it back to his rightful home. You know, the one that is OUTSIDE OF MY HOUSE!

Stephanie took the boys down to the basement to hang out while I hunted this thing down. I guess Kai really wanted to help me catch him and was very excited about our new pet.

Then he is to release the live bird in the open fields outside the town. In this way he will make atonement for the house, and it will be clean. - Leviticus 14:53

Finishing off November 2010

2010-12-04T23:54:00.000-05:00

The last couple of weeks of November were pretty quiet on the home front. The work front was a different story as the old 9-5 has kept poppa Lesnet plenty busy and has kept him away from his family and from this here blog.

Here is a great picture of Stephanie and Bubba chilling out.

We did have our good friends, the Feeneys over for lunch one day. The boys had a great time with the Feeney girls. Here is Kai and Alexandria in Kai's ball pit.

We decorated for Christmas. Kai has been helpful in decorating the tree each Christmas but he was even better at it this year. Of course, it is his third time doing it so he's an old pro now.

Garland sure is fun!

Good brother shot here. It is fun watching them bond. Kai loves his little brother and Bubba seems to be pretty fond of Kai too!

On the Tuesday of Thanksgiving week, I (Chad) had to go to Columbus Ohio for work. It was to inspect some cabin refurbishments on airplanes (exciting, right). Anyway, after the inspection was over I had lunch with my favorite great Aunt, Aunt Elaine. Aunt Elaine is my Grandpa Lesnet's sister and lives about 15 miles from the Columbus Airport. It was the first one-on-one time that I have ever spent with her and I certainly hope it is not the last. We had a great time!

Thanksgiving for us this year was with just the 4 of us. It was prepared by The Fresh Market and all we had to do was warm it up on Thanksgiving Day. It would have been waaay cooler to have more loved ones around on Thanksgiving but it was still pretty nice.

Go Lions! Darn, another Thanksgiving loss!

We also took our Christmas card picture. I won't post the one that we're using but here are a couple of shots of the boys with one of their parents.

We tried to do our photo next to the tree while sitting on the floor but 10 seconds wasn't quite enough time to get situated on the floor. This one turned out pretty good except that we're not centered very well. All other photos were pretty disastrous.

I will praise God’s name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving. - Psalm 69:30

Boiler Up?

2010-12-04T22:02:00.000-05:00

Every parent has a list of things that they hope that their children are able to experience and things that they pray their children will not see in their lifetimes. One of the things I hoped my boys would never experience is them witnessing Purdue lose an Old Oaken Bucket game to Indiana. Unfortunately, this year it happened. Now we can only hope that this kind of rare occurrence never happens again.

Purdue got off to a quick start and the boys were enjoying the beat down and feeling confident that there would be another "P" link in the Oaken Bucket chain

Starting not too look too good.

Kai is devastated by the Boilers ridiculous end of the game melt down by the good guys. Dad clearly doesn't understand the enormity of the moment here as he's just flashing his big dopey smile like everything is all hunky dory.

Because the LORD had closed Hannah’s womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her. - 1 Samuel 1:6

1 Month Pictures

2010-11-14T22:03:00.000-05:00

It is amazing how quickly time passes when you don't waste any of it sleeping. It hardly seems possible that our Bubba is 1 month old.

He is growing like crazy and is putting on about a pound and growing an inch each week thus far. Now some of that crazy growth is probably due to him coming a few weeks early, but I figure that most of it is that this is going to be a big boy.

Grandpa isn't sleeping in this picture but Eli is. Although this shot looks pretty peaceful, it did not make Kai very happy. He does not like to share grandpa!!

A recent shot of the Lesnet family of 4.

The boys with Grandpa and Grandma Eridon.

My beautiful wife and our baby boy. Bubba don't look too cozy here...check out that face!

Bubba's 1 month photo. We will be taking a picture of him with this here cow every month to show how much he's growing. It's a lot.

Baby Cow with a toy stuffed cow.

He looks HUGE in this shot!

Kai holding Bubba after his 1 month photo shoot. Kai still loves his little bro and gives him lots of hugs and kisses every day.

The boys were done with the photo shoot here.

Nevertheless, the righteous will hold to their ways, and those with clean hands will grow stronger. - Job 17:9

Halloween 2011

2010-11-07T23:24:00.000-05:00

The Indiana Lesnets enjoyed a fantastic Halloween as a new family of 4. The boys went Trick or Treating with Master P and Special K on a gorgeous Indiana Autmn evening.

Here is Bubba going Trick-or-Treating for the first time. He could hardly contain his entheusium!

Here are the big boys out getting some candy. They had it figured out this year and used their super powers of being really, really, ridiculously good looking and scored some good loot.

Kai refused to wear the hood on his cow outfit so most folks thought that he was a dalmation. His costume was a little small so I think it was uncomfortable around his boy parts and bottom so we didn't push him to wear the cow head hood. The costume was a 4T so it should have fit, I guess that's what happens when you don't have the kid with you when you buy the costume.

The happy Trick-or-Treaters. By this time Special K had already shed the land shark get up and was just cruising around being Special K.

With the cow head on.

Don't they look happy? Neither boy (or cow) particularly enjoying this moment.

I think that Stephanie looks super hot in that Lesnet Farms hat!

After all of that Trick-or-Treating Kai got to eat 2 pieces of candy. He chose some Dum Dum suckers. 2 fisting...that's my boy!

How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth - Psalm 119:103

Month #1 of the Lesnet Family of Four

2010-11-06T23:12:00.000-04:00

Eli, who has been nicknamed Bubba by Kai has now been with us for nearly 3 weeks and we are getting settled in to our new reality. Adding a child to our already hectic lives has been a huge adjustment as having 2 boys to take care of is more than twice as much work.
At this point, Eli will only sleep at night when he is being held by either mommy or daddy. We are tired but know that we need to enjoy this time as there will come a time where he won't want to be held any more.

Here is the Lesnet family of 4 getting ready to leave the hospital for the real world. Kai was so excited to have someone to ride in the back seat with him that we couldn't get him to sit still for a picture.

Bubba was born during some incredible weather here in Central Indiana. Check him out soaking up some rays!

Although Stephanie and I are still trying to get the hang of this new family structure, Kai is having no trouble with it at all. He is completely in love with his little brother and always wants to know where he is at all times.

Here is Kai doing the piggies with Eli. I love this picture!

Here is mommy doing Kai's bedtime with Kai and Bubba.

Bubba has had a pretty action packed 3 weeks as he has had visitors every weekend. When Aunt Jessica came to visit, we took a lot of pictures in hopes of getting some good ones to use in Eli's baby announcement. Here are a few pictures of Bubba during that photo shoot.

I call this one "Blue Steel"

This one is "Ferrari"

Here is the ultimate. He has already mastered "Magnum"

Hey! Eli says "Boiler Up!!"

Kai's favorite TV show is Micky Mouse Clubhouse and here he is holding Bubba and watching some Mickey Mouse. Eli didn't seem quite as in to the program as Kai.

The Indiana Lesnet boys with Grandpa and Grandma Lesnet

Those same boys with Grandma and Grandpa Eridon.

One morning, we let Kai pick out Bubba's outfit. He was already wearing his new monkey outfit that the Lesnet grandparents got him and was excited to see this monkey outfit in Bubba's dresser. Once Eli was all dressed and ready Kai wanted us to take a picture of them in their monkey shirts.

In addition to visitors, Bubba has already made trips to such fun places as the pediatrician, the playground, a couple of restaurants, and the Indianapolis Zoo for Zoo Boo.

This year we once again went to the Indianapolis Zoo Boo at the Zoo with Master P, Special K and their parents. The Lesnet boys are both dressed up as cows and I'm a farmer / Detroit Tigers fan.

I think I rock that DeKalb hat like a natural, don't you?

Master P the angler.

Special K is cute but too cool for a costume. I hear that she will follow in big bro's footsteps and be a Land Shark on Halloween though.

Kids with giant spider and a poser farmer with his hat on backwards.

honey and curds, sheep, and cheese from cows’ milk for David and his people to eat. For they said, “The people have become exhausted and hungry and thirsty in the wilderness.” - 2 Samuel 17:29

Elijah George Lesnet

2010-10-10T00:36:00.001-04:00

Elijah George was scheduled to join us via a scheduled cesarean on October 20th. Instead he came nearly 2 weeks before that via emergency cesarean on October 7th.

Eli was an extremely active baby in mommy's tummy but on Thursday morning he really slowed down his movements. Stephanie was worried and called the doctor (from the office parking lot) and they told her to drink some coke and lay down and see if that helped and then come in to the office at 1. Steph followed nurses orders but still didn't feel much movement.

While she waited for 1:00 to roll around, she came home and listened to the baby's heartbeat on the at home fetal monitor that we have which helped give her some comfort until her appointment. When she arrived at the doctors office, they gave her a non stress test and then sent her over to labor and delivery. Immediately upon arrival she was admitted. She then called me and I arrived at about 2:05pm.

The doctor was pretty worried about the baby so they got Stephanie in to surgery very quickly and Elijah George was born at 2:52 in the afternoon. He was 18.75" long and weighed in at 6.5lbs. He was born at 37 weeks.

Due to the unexpectedness of our new arrival, all of the early pictures were taken by camera phone. Here is the first one taken with a few more mega pixels.

Stephanie and Eli

Here is Eli being held by Grandma Lesnet

The first picture of the Lesnet family of 4.

Kai is crazy about his little bro!

Here is Eli wearing a Purdue shirt for his first college football game day. Boilers win!

The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it. - Proverbs 27:12

Football Season is here!!

2010-09-11T20:28:00.011-04:00

Can you believe that it is already September? Can you believe that 9 years ago today some radical extremists thought that they could destroy the US by hijacking a couple of planes and crashing them in to different buildings? Can you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God and make Him your Lord and Savior?

That 3rd question is a little deep, but it's important. If you don't know how to answer that question, we encourage you to check out some of the "very important links" over to the right. This blog post will still be here when you're done so go ahead and click now.

Now on to the last month of happenings!

Baby Lesnet (whom Kai has named "Baby Bubba Fire") is scheduled to arrive in 39 days via planned c-section. Since the date is fast approaching, we are working on getting things ready for the new addition to the family. To prepare the house for Stephanie's maternity leave, we have re-painted the neutral beige in the house and replaced all of the remaining original carpet. As you can see, the new color (on the left) is pretty similar to the old color but it is a monstrous improvement!
Kai has graduated from his 12 piece jigsaw puzzles and is now putting together this 36 piece puzzle and a 48 piece puzzle that we bought him. He has both of them pretty well figured out already but he lets mom and dad help a little bit so we can spend some quality family time together (plus he got to climb on to the table).
Another season and another "bucket list" item down as Stephanie and I went up to Notre Dame for the season opening football game. Notre Dame Stadium is really cool and it was nice to be there with about 15,000 other Purdue faithful (although you could barely hear us)...unfortunately, the Boilers didn't show up to play football until the second half.

Here is the Indiana Lesnets all dressed in our Purdue jerseys before Stephanie and I started the drive up North to Notre Dame.

Stephanie and I and Touchdown Jesus.

Here come the Irish ready to play football. We love the pageantry and tradition of college football and really appreciated the atmosphere at Notre Dame (even though we don't like them).
On Sunday evening (of Labor Day weekend), Kai spent his first night in his big boy room sleeping in his big boy bed. He loves his big boy bed and his new room and is excited to move Baby Bubba Fire in to his old room.

Doesn't he look super tiny in his new bed?
So excited for his new bed.
Today we went up to Purdue for the home football opener. Kai was super excited to go to Purdue and to the football game.

Boiler Up!!

Here is the annual family shot of the Indiana Lesnets outside of Ross-Ade Stadium as we leave the game sometime during the first half. We completed the first quarter this year but both Stephanie and I had to let him walk around and check things out (as well as get food at the concession stand).
We bought Kai a new hat while we were up at Purdue. Kai does not like to wear hats but so far he really likes this one, probably because it looks a lot like daddy's.
Today Kai at a lot of food. It started off with a bowl of oatmeal and yogurt for breakfast. On the way to the Purdue game he ate 6 vanilla cream cookies and 2+ 6 count packages of peanut butter crackers sandwich crackers (about 14 sandwich crackers). At the football game he ate a hot dog and after he was done he asked for a hamburger. When we left Ross-Ade, we went to 5 Guys where he at a hamburger (w/o bun) and nearly an entire order of fries (which are huge there). He took no nap and then had another 1/2 hot dog and 1/2 hamburger plus some chips and a cookie at a Ohio State football party we went to this afternoon. It wasn't his normal balanced diet but he loved it!

Here is Kai eating. He spent a lot of today doing this.

A feast is made for laughter, and wine makes life merry, but money is the answer for everything. - Ecclesiastes 10:19

Big Month of Summer Happenings!

2010-08-18T22:52:00.003-04:00

The last month has flown by as we have had a lot going on. We are now a month closer to meeting baby boy Lesnet, Kai is essentially potty trained while he is awake, and football season is upon us.

One of the highlights of every summer is the annual Lesnet / Briner family reunion at Uncle Gary's farm up in Northwest Ohio. Our turnout was a little on the thin side this year, hopefully attendance will be a little stronger in 2011.

Here is Kai with Grandpa and Grandma Lesnet at the family reunion. I think that my folks look pretty good for chasing around a energetic young man around for a few hours.
The weekend after the family reunion, we made a trip up to Devil's Lake in Southern Michigan. I grew up at the lake but hadn't been there since my folks moved down to the farm about 5 years ago. I have been pretty homesick for the area for a while and was thrilled that we had some family renting a house on the lake for a week...I was even more thrilled that they invited us to come up and spend some time with them. There were 15 of us in a 5 bedroom place, very cozy...hope we can do it again next year!

Here is Kai with his cousin AJ playing with their cars.
Here is Kai preparing for his first boat ride. He was pretty brave and even went tubing with daddy. Cousin Jen took some photos of us on the tube, as you can see he didn't really want to go but he warmed up to it and a little bit once we started going a little faster. Of course, once we got done he couldn't stop talking about how much fun he had!
Here is Kai crying and begging not to go. Too late buddy, you said "yes" and so you're committed.
Once we picked up some speed he had a pretty good time!
On August 14th, I hosted the 2nd Annual Old Married Dudes Golf Outing at Pebble Brook Golf Course right here in Noblesville. We had 16 men come out and play 36 holes of golf. I think it went pretty well as everyone had a good time. As the organizer, I tend to focus on the fact that the formats and games didn't work out as I had drawn them up. Either way, a full day of golf, friends, and insanely hot / humid weather is awesome.

Kai helped me prepare for the outing by helping me mark my golf balls. He thought that coloring golf balls was a trip and spent nearly an hour marking most of my dozen balls.
August in Central Indiana is State Fair time! The Indiana State Fair is really awesome as it feels like a ginormous county fair. It is an event that we could have spent several days enjoying but we were limited to about 3 hours so we tried to see the big stuff (like the World's Largest Boar who weighed in at 1,277 pounds this year).

Here is Kai riding Henry the pony. They had elephant rides at the fair as well but he wasn't having any of that!

We haven't taken pictures of Stephanie's growing baby bump. I caught this one kind of inadvertently but here it is.
Another big hit at the fair is the Dairy Barn. Its just an ice cream joint ran by the Indiana Dairy Producers but its one of those places that you have to go to every time you hit the fair. Another good thing about the Dairy Barn is that it is right next to the trendy food item of the year. This year it was the Krispy Kreme Burger, Chocolate Covered Bacon, and Deep Fried Butter. We didn't try any of the signature entrees this year.

2010 has been a great year for my "Bucket List". I'm sure most folks are familiar with the concept of the bucket list which was made popular in the movie by the same name starring Jack Nickelson and Morgan Freeman. Basically they have a list of things that they want to make sure they do before they die and spend the movie crossing items off their list.

Earlier in the year I went to the Super Bowl and now I have broke 80 for 18 holes on a for real golf course. I knew that I was playing well and started to think that it could be a special round about half way through the back 9. As far as items related to golf, I still need to get a hole in one and live long enough to shoot my age.

Here is my scorecard from breaking 80. I shot even par on the back 9. Lots of greens in regulation and lots of tap in pars. "Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; he who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere youth; he who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed. - Isaiah 65:20

Summertime and the Livin's Easy

2010-07-11T20:36:00.008-04:00

I'm sure that each of you would agree that there are seasons in life where the days go by like a blur and then there are others where the days just drag on and it seems like tomorrow may never get here. Right now is a season where time is going by a little too quickly, see we only have 106 days until Baby Boy Lesnet is scheduled to arrive and so many things that we want to do before he gets here. Many of those things are fun adventures that we would like to do before the pace of life slows a bit with a newborn.

One of my favorite things about spring is that black raspberries are in season. Black Raspberries are the coolest because they are delicious and sometimes you can find them growing in the wild. Fortunately for us, there are a lot of black raspberry bushes that grow along the walking paths of our neighborhood. Kai and I took several walks on the paths to eat raspberries and when Grandpa Eridon came to visit, we took him with us.

That was a pretty good find of black raspberries, dad. I think that there are more though.

Grandpa, I will pause for a moment to take a picture with you because you picked black raspberries for me. Now, get back to picking berries!

Black raspberries are delicious but they are very messy.
This summer has been pretty hot but it has also been very rainy. It has been a nice combo as it has made the neighborhood swimming pool a little cooler than it normally would be with all of the heat. Kai is getting a lot more daring this year regarding the water and loves jumping from the deck of the pool in to daddy's arms.
On the weekend of June 26th, I headed down to Arizona for the annual "Golf Endurathon" to play with some of my friends who live down there. I had a great time down there and while I was away Stephanie and Kai went up to Bowling Green, Ohio to visit her family.

I don't know all that went on up there but I do know that Kai had a great time because he refused to take a nap or go to sleep at night. Although Kai had a blast, Stephanie was worn out so she left a day earlier than she had planned. That was okay with me as I flew back on Saturday night from Arizona and was so glad that I got to spend Sunday hanging out with Stephanie and Kai that I didn't mind not painting the baby's room like I had planned.

Here is Kai with his Grandpa Eridon, I love the way that Kai looks at his grandpa.
July 4th fell on a Sunday this year which meant that many folks were able to enjoy a 3 day weekend. Unfortunately, I had to work on Saturday and Monday in order to close the books at good old Republic Airways so Stephanie held down the fort at home. Since it was a 3 day weekend, Stephanie thought it would be a good time to do "potty training boot-camp" with our 2 1/2 year old boy. Although he did a pretty good job, I'm glad that she chose a weekend where I was gone.

One thing that is funny about Kai and going potty is that he likes to do it outside. Maybe to be like Kiki the beagle?!?! Anyway, here is Kai making stinkies on the front porch. I'm sure glad that I was home to experience this!
On Sunday the 4th of July, we went up to Noblesville to go to the parade. We went along with Master P, Special K, and their folks. Kai loved the tractors and the fire truck. He also hauled in a pretty impressive amount of candy. It was pretty warm but everyone had a great time.

Here is Master P hugging Kai. I know that this looks cute and innocent but really he is just buttering up Kai hoping that he will share his bubbles.
On Monday (July 5th), the law firm that Stephanie uses at work invited us to go to an Indianapolis Indians baseball game. It is no secret that Stephanie and I really enjoy going to baseball games and we were excited to go and see how our young son would behave at such an event. We got to the park a little early to slather sun screen on Kai and get some good ballpark fare (Monday's are dollar food days at Victory Field)...but to our joy, we learned that our tickets were to an air conditioned and catered suite!

Here is Kai "watching" the baseball game...
Here is Kai after he ran down about 10 boxes and through a different suite to the lobby area. It was hot and the A/C felt great (especially after chasing him through the stands and under the railings that separate the boxes).
Here's Kai getting some exercise. Fortunately, the home team was getting whooped so we weren't missing much on the field.
Stephanie got the idea from somewhere that it would be neat to make some cookies with the boys and take some of them to the local fire station. Master P's mom agreed that it was a great idea so on Saturday (7/10) cookies were made and cookies were delivered to Noblesville Station 6 (the station that would come to our house if something would happen...momma didn't raise no fool). The firemen were glad to see the boys and thankful for the cookies. The firemen took the boys to see their new truck and gave them some fire hats and badges. The boys were excited to see the truck up close but were terrified of it once they got inside.

The firemen (both of whom are dads) pulled out all of the stops to try and comfort the boys. They even offered to let them sit in the drivers seat and work the lights. Even that didn't work (although us parents wanted to sit behind the wheel and run the lights...but we were all too big of wimps to do it).

Those aren't tears of joy...

Although I usually try to keep the blog in chronological order, I am going to back track for a day to talk about a round of golf that I played on Friday (July 9). Eugene and I were able to skip out of work a little early on Friday to get in some golf. Eugene invited his friend Scott so I invited our mutual friend Trevor to join us as well. We played 18 holes together and had a good time. Although it was fun, our friends are not golfers so we were not able to keep our focus on the golf. When we were done with 18, Scott and Trevor had to leave but Eugene and I wanted to play a couple of extra holes so that it could be more about the golf and less about social hour. I am so glad we did as both of us put together the best stretch of 9 holes that either of us had ever played. I have scanned the scorecard for all of you to see.All the birds of the air nested in its boughs, all the beasts of the field gave birth under its branches; all the great nations lived in its shade. - Ezekiel 31:6

It's a ?????????????????????????

2010-06-19T13:17:00.006-04:00

We went to Stephanie's 2nd trimester ultrasound yesterday (Friday June 18) to find out the gender of Baby Lesnet. Of course the 2nd trimester ultrasound is also about making sure that the baby is progressing as they should and to check for any potential issues.

When we had Kai's ultrasound, we were able to learn if he was a boy or girl very early in the ultrasound. Baby Lesnet was much more bashful. This one definitely had a different feel to it as were hoping everything was okay and that he or she would warm up to us and flash us the money shot before we were done.

So, first the update on the health of Baby Lesnet. Baby Lesnet is able-bodied, active, all right, athletic, blooming, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, chipper, firm, fit, flourishing, fresh, full of life, hale, hardy, healthful, hearty, husky, in fine feather, in fine fettle, in good shape, in the pink, lively, lusty, muscular, normal, physically fit, potent, robust, rosy-cheeked, safe and sound, sound, stout, strong, sturdy, tough, trim, unimpaired, vigorous, virile, well, and whole. Here are some photos...enjoy!!

Here is Baby Lesnet looking at you while you look at Baby Lesent

Just in case you couldn't tell that that was a face and belly, the ultrasound tech labeled them.
Here is bashful Baby Lesnet's legs and knees. Still hiding the identity!
So after all of the measurements were complete the tech mixed up Stephanie's belly a couple of times and finally got the shot that we were waiting for...

Without further delay, Baby Lesnet is a BOY!!Baby Boy Lesnet is also mooning you in this shot. Not sure if you noticed, but either way, you've been mooned!!

the Angel who has delivered me from all harm —may he bless these boys. May they be called by my name and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, and may they increase greatly upon the earth." - Genesis 48:16

Is Blogging "Lame"?

2010-06-13T21:56:00.005-04:00

As life gets busier and busier and free time becomes shorter and shorter, the way that I spend what time I have is analyzed more and more. As you who follow this blog have undoubtedly noticed, it clearly is not as as much of a priority to get online and make posts as it was in the recent past.

On an episode of CBS's "How I Met Your Mother", which is one of Stephanie and my favorite TV shows, they made a lot of jokes about a lame blog. With the blur of busyness that most days are right now, I may have missed out that blogging is now considered "lame" and I never would have known it if I didn't faithfully follow at least 1 TV show.

Alas, I have come to the conclusion that; yes, blogging IS lame but I'm going to continue to try and make it a priority to get on and archive our lives out here in blogosphere for now. I have also come to the conclusion that I am lame also. Fortunately, my wife and son (and baby on the way) are most definitely NOT lame. And I have also dubbed our beagle, Kiki as VERY LAME.

Last weekend we went to the Indy zoo for the first time since they opened the new Cheetah exhibit. Kai loves going to the zoo and I love to go too (that's probably lame).

Here is Kai and I checking out some animals.

Here's Kai looking at some silly looking birds near the Cheetah exhibit.
We made it through the zoo without incident but Kai bit it on the sidewalk after lunch and bumped his head pretty good.
Kid is tough, you can hardly notice the goose egg next to that awesome smile!
This past weekend was action packed as we took Kai to gymnastics, the farmer's market, and the neighborhood pool on Saturday. Today (Sunday) was church, lunch at Chipotle, 3 hour nap, then hang time with Master P and Special K complete with burgers on the grill.

A baby Lesnet update:

Stephanie will be 21 weeks tomorrow and the 2nd trimester ultrasound will be on Friday. At that time, we will hopefully find out how to decorate the baby's room. Kai is no longer saying that he would like a "baby cow" but is now on board with a baby brother. Each night when we say our prayers Kai suggests that we pray for baby brother along with his friends, grandpa, grandma, Master P, God, and Jesus. Stephanie went on record saying that she thinks that this one is a girl and I think its another boy. For those of you keeping score, the official Indiana Lesnet baby gender vote as of June 13: boy = 2 (Kai and dad) and girl = 1 (Steph).

I've had a lot of people tell me that they hope that I have a girl. I will be absolutely thrilled to be the father of a girl but I really have no idea why so many people feel as strongly as they do about baby Lesnet's gender. I am not a very macho man, I work a desk job, drive a Toyota Corolla and spent this past weekend doing laundry, washing dishes, and making about 200 pancakes for the freezer. I guess even with all of that I must simply ooze machismo. Maybe I'm not lame...

Yeah, I'm lame.

No man who has any defect may come near: no man who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed; - Leviticus 21:18

May Today, June Tomorrow!

2010-05-31T21:09:00.008-04:00

Today is the last of May and we are nearing the midway point for the arrival of the newest Lesnet. Today Stephanie is 19 weeks pregnant but you would never know it as she is still looking good! We ask Kai from time to time if he would like to have a baby brother or a baby sister and he replies that he wants a baby cow. In the short term we think he'll be a little bummed but over time I'm sure he will warm up to the little human baby.

May has been an action packed month as evidenced by my lack of blogging. During the month, Stephanie and I went down to Lexington Kentucky and left Kai at home with Aunt Jessica then Grandpa and Grandma Lesnet. Kai had a great time while mommy and daddy were gone!

Stephanie went to Dallas for a week to learn some stuff at training and to go to a conference and left us boys to fend for ourselves. We did great without her, but are glad to have her back!

The remainder of this blog post will be mostly pictures and commentary:

Sometimes it is just hard to be 2.

Kai is such a great helper. He loves to help mommy and daddy cook and clean up. As you can tell, he also likes hitting the weights; look at those guns!

Mommy and Kai washing dishes.

Here is Kai teeing off. He's already got a better swing than his old man.

Kai was trying to take his shirt off but hasn't quite figured out how to do so yet. I asked him to put his hands in the air so the he would look like The Great Cornholio. Cracks me up!!

While mommy was in Texas, Kai and I were ambitious and had 5 yards of mulch delivered and picked up a flat of flowers. Kai was a big help!

On Memorial Day weekend Grandpa and Grandma Eridon came down to visit. Here is grandpa and Kai playing some No Limit Texas Hold-Em. Kai bet his dozer and grandpa bet all of the cash in his wallet. I'm not sure who won this hand but I do know that Kai still has his dozer and Kai's piggy bank is a lot heavier.

On Monday, Kai's buddy Master P came over to paint some pictures.

Kai paints with his left hand and Master P paints with his right. Kai still hasn't figured out which hand he prefers but P does everything with the right.

One of the best ways to unwind after some strenuous painting is to blow some bubbles.

I am so proud of my family and I am so humbled to have such an amazing wife and son. Every day Kai learns something new and every day is one day closer to meeting our new little one. Most of the time I feel like I'm living a dream and I keep hoping the the alarm clock doesn't go off and make it all come to an end. Thank you God for these blessings.

The fear of the LORD is pure, enduring forever. The ordinances of the LORD are sure and altogether righteous. They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb. By them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward. - Psalm 19:9-11

The Uber Conference?

2010-04-25T00:59:00.007-04:00

Disclaimer: The views expressed on this particular posting may not be shared by the entire Indiana Lesnet family.
I am up late suffering from allergy induced insomnia. Before bed tonight I spent a little time researching the potential expansion of the Big Ten Conference and read a pretty interesting article written by a student at the University of Texas regarding the addition of Texas to the Big Ten. You can read the article yourself here.

Anyway, since I am a proud member of the Purdue Varsity P Club and a Purdue football season ticket holder I feel that I can let the blogosphere know my thoughts on the expansion of the Big Ten conference. Mr. Jim Delany, if you read this and it helps to sway your thought process, you do not need to give me any credit.

I think that the most important thing is to make sure that any school that is added is an "it" school like the current schools in the Big Ten. All of the current schools in the conference are kind of like that guy in school who is the all-state athlete who carries that perfect 4.0 while dating the prom queen. By that I mean, the current members of the Big Ten are all ranked in the top 75 academic schools in the country and of course they all have big time athletic programs.

Here is my list of "it" schools that are currently NOT in the Big Ten (in no particular order):
1. Stanford
2. Notre Dame
3. Duke
4. Vanderbilt
5. Cal-Berkeley
6. UCLA
7. Virginia
8. USC
9. North Carolina
10. Wake Forest
11. Boston College
12. Georgia Tech
13. University of Washington
14. Florida
15. Miami (FL)
16. Maryland
17. Pittsburgh
18. Syracuse
19. Georgia
20. Clemson
21. Texas A&M
22. University of Texas
23. Rutgers
24. UCONN
25. Brigham Young

In order to be included on my list, the University had to have a respectable athletic program and be rated in the top 75 on US News & World Reports list of National Universities. There are some others in the 76 - 105 range that could be good candidates if the Big Ten cannot fill their expansion efforts with the 25 schools listed above (Va Tech, Colorado, Baylor, Auburn, Iowa State, Alabama, Kansas, Nebraska, Florida State, Mizzou, and Arizona).

Although any of the above 25 schools would be decent fits in the new Uber Conference, I believe that some schools should stay put. I think that the SEC and the ACC should stay as they are and the PAC 10 should grow and add a couple of schools from the WAC. With that said, any school currently in those 3 conferences should stay put.

I think that the Big East and the Big Twelve schools would be open to moving to the Uber Conference. The reason that I feel that the Big East is open is because it is quite frankly a conference without an identity as not all of the schools compete in football. The Big Twelve is a relatively new conference that tried to blend the Big Eight with the Southwestern Conference to create a decent regional athletic conference. The main problem with the Big Twelve in my opinion is that the academic prestige just isn't there as only 2 schools in the conference rank in the top 75 national colleges (with another 6 that rank below the lowest rated Big Ten school but still rank in the top 105, leaving 4 schools in the "Tier 3" or "unranked" category). I feel that the opportunity to align with other prestigious universities would be a better situation for the following schools:
1. PITT
2. Syracuse
3. Texas
4. Texas A&M
5. UCONN
6. BYU
7. Rutgers
8. Notre DameClearly the school that makes the most sense and has been invited before is Notre Dame. I believe that Notre Dame is a great fit for the conference and would easily keep its identity as a national program if they joined the right conference. Do I think that they'll jump? Well, I think if the schools from the Big Twelve in my list would defect, then Notre Dame would be forced to join.

Which brings me to the other 2 schools that would complete the new 14 team Uber Conference:

Clearly Texas is the crown jewel of the Big Twelve and getting them alone would make an extremely strong 12 school conference. Bringing along the Aggies of Texas A&M would make the move more politically palatable and would make at least one of Texas's biggest rivaly games a conference match up.

Here is my Uber Conference
East Division:
Indiana University
Michigan
Michigan State
Notre Dame
Ohio State
Penn State
Purdue

West Division:
Illinois
Iowa
Minnesota
Northwestern
Texas
Texas A&M
Wisconsin

These divisions would keep most of the protected rivalries and may make it possible to have protected rivalries in basketball. This is definitely an amazing affiliation of fantastic universities. The only negative that I see here is the Indiana's football team may never win another conference football game again.

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God. Philippians 1:9-11

Big News - New Lesnet Coming "Soon"!

2010-04-24T22:19:00.005-04:00

The Indiana Lesnets are due to grow by one on or around October 25th! Stephanie is in her 14th week of pregnancy and everything seems to be going well. This pregnancy is eerily similar to Stephanie's time with Kai as she has had the same severe nausea and fatigue. The big difference this time is that we have the Energizer Bunny of 2 year olds running around so it is difficult to find time to rest (or make it to the bath room for throwing up).We have also fenced in the back yard. Kiki is trying to figure out how to escape from it and Kai enjoys throwing stuff over the top and making daddy go and get it.

I took Kai up to Purdue for the Dave Rankin Track Invitational. There is a reunion each year at the meet so Kai and I headed up there while mommy went to work. Kai loved running on the track and although I don't want to admit it, I really enjoyed chasing him.

While we were at Purdue we went over to Ross-Ade Stadium to check out some of the football team's spring game festivities. They had a giant Drew Brees bobblehead doll. Pretty neat!

Mommy works a lot in April and so Kai was forced to live with a lot of daddy duty. This evening Kai really wanted his mommy. Such a sad little boy!Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaints? Who has needless bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes? - Proverbs 23:29

Wicked Awesome!

2010-04-11T20:46:00.008-04:00

This past weekend we went up to Northwest Ohio to visit family and go see the musical Wicked. As always, we had a great time and Kai got to see both sets of grandparents as well as some other friends and family members.

We left on Friday at a little before 1, which is Kai's nap time. It took a while for him to fall asleep but eventually he dad and woke up right before our first stop at the Lesnet homestead in Edon, Ohio. While we were there Kai not only got to see grandpa and grandma Lesnet, but got to see his great uncle Gary and a whole bunch of baby lambs.

Here is Kai feeding a lamb out of the bottle. Sure bet you didn't know that lambs drink Dr. Pepper!
Feeding lambs sure is fun!
Here's me (Chad) bottle feeding a lamb when I Kai's age. I know that you can't tell from the picture, but I believe that lambs drank Mountain Dew when I was a kid.
Real men (Lesnet men anyway) drive red tractors. Here's Kai getting his first alone time on one. Maybe grandpa or daddy can take him for a better ride this summer.
Until Kai gets a little older, he will have to settle for driving this red tractor around.
Kai with Grandma Lesnet.
Here is Kai with his great uncle Kris and great aunt Bev. They hung out with Kai while the rest of us went to see Wicked.
Here's Kai showing grandpa and grandma Eridon the cool fort that he and great aunt Bev made. I think that they used 5 chairs and several blankets. It may have been the best chair and blanket fort that I have ever seen!
We had a great weekend and we really enjoyed the time with family. The Wicked musical was fantastic and the story line for it was pretty smooth (although it became beyond predictable once I saw Nessarose's socks about 2/3 of the way through). I would highly recommend that everyone goes and sees it performed by an extremely talented professional company as it could be awful if performed by a lesser group than the one that we saw.

We had an action packed weekend but we still made it home in time to catch the entire Sunday coverage of The Masters.

Do not spread false reports. Do not help a wicked man by being a malicious witness. - Exodus 23:1

Bad April Fool's Joke

2010-04-01T01:49:00.007-04:00

Ok, ok, ok, I'm awake! It's nearly 2 in the morning and I am sitting here at the computer instead of staring at the inside of my eyelids.

I have not been making the time to get on here and blog awesome stories about the Indiana Lesnets lately. Frankly, I've just been too busy and the thought of adding something to the weekly to-do list doesn't excite me very much. There is a temporary light at the end of the tunnel coming up on the busyness so there should be more blogging.

Spring is in the process of springing here in Central Indiana and we have been enjoying it to the fullest! I have already played 2 rounds of golf and even got to wear shorts on the round that I played yesterday. I need to knock a lot of rust off of my very rusty swing and the winds need to simmer down a bit.

Kai did not want me to take his picture while we were at the playground but I learned that rapid fire pictures with the camera will eventually result in some good shots. Thank the Lord for digital photography!

Do not love sleep or you will grow poor; stay awake and you will have food to spare. - Proverbs 20:13

Posting Updates Once / Month!

2010-03-27T22:50:00.007-04:00

It is March 27th and I sure better get some quality blogging in before tomorrow or I will have missed an entire month. I'm sure that most of you followers out there have become a little discouraged by our lack of updates and have lowered your expectations to posts coming a little less often. Although I am more than happy to live up to a lowered standard, I feel that updating this thing once a month is doable.

One of Kai's favorite books is "If I Ran the Circus" by Dr. Seuss. I'm not sure if he really likes the book or if he just likes to have mommy or daddy read it to him before bed because it takes a long time to read or if he likes it because it is so difficult to read. Either way, he asks us to read it to him almost every night.

The Murat Shrine Circus was going on down at the Pepsi Coliseum and since Kai likes the Circus book so much, we thought he would enjoy going to a real circus. Kai was very excited about going to the circus and could hardly wait for everything to get started...unfortunately, the Shriners really made the beginning of the show super boring. They spent the first 20 minutes of the show thanking all of their volunteers and pitching some light up toys...Kai was not amused.

The opening act was a trapeze show which Kai really liked. After that they did some magic tricks which seemed like more of a time filler than an actual performance. Well, at that point our son checked out and asked to leave the circus to take a nap.
Stephanie and I were bored too and were happy to take the boy home for a good snooze. A good addition to this story is that it was about 11:30 when Kai asked for a nap and his normal nap time is at 1. Another good point is that Kai doesn't particularly like taking naps.

Of course, March brings March Madness! The Indiana Lesnets enjoyed watching the Boilers make the Sweet 16 again this year.
Kai doesn't like to wear his jersey but he obliged daddy's request on the first Sunday of the tourney. Although he doesn't like to wear it I think he liked all of the attention that he got at church for wearing it.One evening our small group from church met up with another group for a special "state of the church" address by our lead pastor. Unlike our group, the group that we merged with doesn't do childcare so Jen Westberg, one of the moms from our group volunteered to watch the kiddos. It was a rainy day so she sent her husband Andrew and their kids out worm hunting during the day so that all the kids could paint with worms that evening.

Here's Kai checking out all those worms!
What was the media for your latest masterpiece? Paint and worms!
The worms missed a spot.
One thing I want to make sure that I put on here so I can remember later is the way that Kai sings his ABC's. Now Kai knows his ABC song all the way through and can recognize most of those letters as well but he's still a 2 year old so the way that he says things can be funny. Anyway, he calls them "baby c's" Get it? Baby c's and ABC's sound nearly identical...cute.

Well, that's March in a nutshell. We're still silly busy and know that April won't get much better but the blog has not been completely forgotten and I promise at least 2 updates next month.

The LORD will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of mind. - Deuteronomy 28:28

Singular February Post - Whew, Busy Times!

2010-02-28T00:41:00.009-05:00

As February comes to a close I thought it would be a good idea to get one blog post done before the month comes to an end!

As many of you loyal blog followers know, Stephanie and I are both in the corporate accounting business and this is our busiest time of the year at work. Thankfully things should begin to slow down now and I will start making time to update this here blog on a more consistent basis.

In early February, Kai got this sweet bank in the mail that Grandpa and Grandma Lesnet had custom made for him. He loved putting money in to it and suckered me out of over $100 on his first night with it.

Kai loves his piggy
Kai drew some lines on his face at school that day. The lines are pretty straight and make him look like one of William Wallace's men in Braveheart!
I went to the Super Bowl down in Miami.Check out the face value on my ticket. Holy Smokes!!!We had a visit from Grandpa and Grandma Eridon. Kai, Kai's monkey, and Kiki loved story time with Grandpa!
Kai and grandpa played in his ball pit.
Kai and I had a wrestling match. I had the camera and took lots of pictures while he was trying to get me pinned. Here are some of the good ones!

As for the saints who are in the land, they are the glorious ones in whom is all my delight. - Psalm 16:3

Kai Is 2!

2010-01-18T22:15:00.008-05:00

The little boy sure is growing up fast! A few days ago Kai turned 2 and that is what this posting is all about but before the big day we got a big snow storm!
Kai liked the snow but was glad to go in after a while.
Kai getting ready for his pre-birthday haircut. He doesn't look very happy about it does he?
He looks both happy and relieved to be done with that haircut. Sure looks handsome huh?
Making pancakes! Kai loves to help us cook and he loves pancakes. It was a great combo
We celebrated Kai's birthday at school on the Friday before he turned 2! Mommy and I took some popcicles and little goody bags for all of the kids to enjoy after lunch. The kids all loved the popcicles and Kai really liked having both mommy and daddy at school for a little while.

Here's Kai with his birthday cupcake. He couldn't wait for us to finish singing before blowing out the candles.
Kai got to lick the beaters and he really liked that!

Cheese!
Here's Kai and daddy enjoying Kai's birthday cupcakes...yummm!!

Kai scored this sweet whip for his birthday. He loves it and that's a good thing because that little thing was awful to put together. Hopefully presents in the future will be a little easier to assemble.As usual, posts this time of year (now through the first of March) will be quite sparse as Stephanie and I have some hectic work schedules. Be safe and stay patient with us, the updates will come.

If a man is lazy, the rafters sag; if his hands are idle, the house leaks. - Ecclesiastes 10:18

Christmas vacation!

2010-01-03T22:07:00.007-05:00

Many of you know that our blog is written by Chad and is then reviewed and ultimately posted by Stephanie as to make sure all info reported is correct and doesn't have any glaring grammatical or spelling errors. On our last post there was a line promising an update during Christmas vacation. That sentence was added by Stephanie during her review and I have purposely not updated during vacation just to spite her (not really)!

Here are some of the highlights of the time between Christmas and New Years when we were in Indy and Kai's school was closed.

Kai got sick early in the week, which was too bad. On the other hand, it was pretty sweet because he told mommy (dad was at work) that his ear hurt while lying on the floor crying. Stephanie took Kai to the doctor and found out that Kai had an ear infection. We started him on some medicine and he recovered quickly and had several days of feeling good before heading back to school.

Kai has taken an interest in helping mommy and daddy cook. He stands on a chair so that he can reach the counter tops and helps us pour all of the ingredients in to the mixing bowls and also helps us mix everything together.

One morning Kai helped us make some pancakes. He had helped with every ingredient and even helped with the 2 eggs that the recipe called for, so he took them out of the carton and put them in the mixing bowl. He was very proud of himself and pushed the eggs down deep in to the batter.

During our week we had dinner at King Chef, which we believe is the best Chinese joint in all of Indianapolis. King Chef is in the Crosspoint area of Indy which is around 96th Street and I-69 and is not really convenient for us to get to so we don't make it very often. Although it is a little out of the way, it is a place that we should make it to more often.

What kind of vacation is complete without a New Year's Eve eve date night at the Melting Pot? Our time off must have been complete then because that's what we did. Of course, it still wasn't all about us as we picked up Kai's birthday present from Wal-Mart after dinner.

On New Years Eve, we made these silly cake lollipop things. They are insanely labor intensive and are sweet enough to rot your teeth on contact. We made them for a New Years Day get together we were hosting with some of our friends. Fortunately for us, many of our guests liked them.

Our New Years Day party was fun! Most of our closest friends have been blessed with girls and in this gathering Kai was the only boy and the youngest of the bunch. At first Kai didn't want to play with them so he snuck upstairs to play with his legos by himself while the girls played downstairs in his basement playroom. He eventually warmed up to the girls and enjoyed playing with them.

The girls holding their lollipop cake treats high in the air to keep Kiki from stealing them. Even with their efforts, she still got one.

Kai keeps amazing us with everything he is learning. He is going through a phase where everything that is smaller is a "baby". He has a "baby coat" and his big coat. There is a "baby heart" on his stuffed dog and a big heart. He is very good at his colors now and enjoys telling us what color everything is.

Kai is also pretty bossy. He enjoys telling us to do and even points out places on the floor where we should sit while we play with him. He also bosses Kiki around as he sent her to her kennel for jumping up and eating some of his bread. Kiki is currently in Kai's doghouse for that stunt and he wants nothing to do with her. Poor beagle!

Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!' - Matthew 7:23

A Lot to Update

2009-12-28T15:06:00.012-05:00

I would like to start off this epic blog post by wishing everyone a belated Merry Christmas and extend our sincerest wishes for a happy and prosperous 2010. If you were not blessed to receive our annual Christmas card, here is the picture that we used on the card. Check out Kai in his suit...very handsome!There are always so many things to do during the Christmas season that it is easy to spend all of your time focusing on the to-do list and less time spending time with your loved ones (and spend even less thinking about the birth of our savior, Jesus). We spent quite a bit of time making yummy Christmas cookies and some chocolate covered peanut butter balls (some call them buckeyes but they are just too good for a Michigan kid who went to Purdue to give them such an awful name). We made the Christmas cookies for our church's small group Christmas celebration during the day and then had all of the kids in the group decorate them.

Kai loved mixing up the cookies and he was actually pretty helpful!
Here are the kids decorating the cookies. They did a good job decorating. Kai did a good job eating the ones that he was given to decorate...
Here are some of the finished cookies. They were incredible!
The party with our small group was on December 13th. We spent the next week getting ready to head up to Northwest Ohio to do Christmas celebrations with our families. We first went to my parents place in Edon, where we took a stunning Hugh Lesnet family photo.
Grandpa Lesnet helped Kai put together a wooden red tractor. It took longer than we thought it would to put it together and I think that they were both glad when the assembly was over.
The next day we did Christmas with the Kit Eridon family. We had perfect attendance as Stephanie's sister Kimberly joined us via teleconference. There she is seated comfortably on the sofa!
Here is Kai helping pass out the presents. He did a good job but as you can imagine, he got a little distracted when he was to distribute a present to himself.
After opening gifts, we took Kai to the Small (Bowling Green, Ohio's Woodland Mall) to see Santa. It is free to see Santa at the Small, which was good because Kai did not like Santa and would only sit on daddy's lap next to Santa for a photo op. Thank you Santa, you were a great sport!
The next day, December 20th, we woke up and had some breakfast before heading down to Findlay, Ohio to have a Christmas celebration with Stephanie's mom's family. Kai loved sharing his breakfast with his grandpa Eridon!
Here is a group shot of the James and Jean Cornely family members in attendance.
On Christmas eve, the Indiana Lesnets got up early and got on a plane headed for sunny southern California to see my dad's sisters! We landed at Orange County Airport at around 9am California time and were picked up by Aunt Janet in her black convertible. We went and grabbed some casual Mexican at Rubio's which was delicious, then were off to Aunt Nora's townhome for a little rest. That evening, Aunt Janet took us to The Orange County Mining Company for an amazing Christmas eve steak dinner!

Christmas day, we got up and went to the park where Kai enjoyed the sunny skies and the temps in the mid 50's. The temps were about 10 degrees below normal the entire time we were out there but we were fine with that as they were about 30 degrees warmer than the weather here in central Indiana.
After a little time at the park, Aunt Nora took us down to Balboa Island. We changed Kai's diaper on this pier and then he touched the ocean off a pier for the first time.An Indiana Lesnet family picture on Balboa Island.
That evening, we had a fantastic Christmas dinner with Jim and Patty who welcomed us in to their home with open arms. We hadn't met them before but we did have a connection as Jim's sister is married to one of my dad's cousins. Also joining us was Aunt Nora and my cousin Sean (who is Jim and Patty's nephew) and his family.

On December 26th, we went up to Pasadena to Aunt Janet's house. We had a great time up there as we went to see a Rose Bowl Parade float being built and went to the LA Zoo. That evening, Aunt Janet made us a great turkey dinner with all the fixin's. Yummm!!After dinner, Aunt Janet read books to Kai by the fire.

On the 27th, we went to Huntington Beach and had lunch at Ruby's Diner at the end of the pier. The view was amazing and the retro vibe was pretty sweet too. Here are a couple of pictures of us hanging out on the pier.
After lunch on the pier, we took Kai down to the beach to do a little wading in the ocean. Kai is by no means a daredevil so we were a little concerned about how he would like it since the surf was very high that day.

Here are daddy and Kai heading to the water, would he like it?
Wading in for the first time, those are big waves out there and the water is chilly.

Hold on tight to daddy! Those waves are no joke!He loved it and didn't want to leave! We got pretty wet though so we had to go.

We had a fantastic time in Southern California and our days were action packed. We had planned on staying for another day but Kai was having too much fun to sleep and mom and I were getting very tired so we took the redeye flight home last night and got in to Indy this morning at 6. We got home and Kai took a 3 hour nap (so did mom and dad), he's napping again and has been down for nearly 3 hours.

We are looking forward to our week off work this week (Kai's daycare is closed) and will definitely blog about our adventures.

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about." - Luke 2:15

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas!

2009-12-05T22:57:00.004-05:00

It has been a pretty quiet week here for the Indiana Lesnets and next week will hopefully be quiet as well.

Stephanie will be flying out to Washington DC tomorrow afternoon and is supposed to return on Wednesday evening. Kai, Kiki, and I will be holding down the fort in her absence. Us dudes and Kiki do pretty well while mom is away but if anyone out there would like to take pity on us and have us over for dinner...

Here is some highlights from our last few days:

Kai is still completely in love with his Legos. He runs to them as soon as he wakes up, gets home, finishes eating...well, you get the idea.
Kai refused to wear a hat for most of his life thus far. There are times when we could trick him in to wearing one and he would keep it on if it was cold enough that the hat was helpful. That has changed now and he loves to wear his hats. Here he is in his high chair with his hat on. He's also playing with one of his Lego people.
We went to the lights at the Indianapolis Zoo on tonight with Master P and his folks. It was about 30 degrees. The lights were sweet but Kai was mostly disappointed as most of the animals were inside and couldn't be seen.

Since we don't scrapbook, or have a "brag book", I have to brag up my kid here so that I can read up on it later to remember what he was able to do at what age. Kai's language and physical development is so fun. He puts together many 3 and 4 word sentences. He can count to 10 in English, Spanish, and Sign Language. He can jump. He knows several songs the hand motions to Itsy Bitsy Spider, Wheels on the Bus, Row Row Row Your Boat, Who's the King of the Jungle, Jesus Loves Me, Baa Baa Black Sheep.

At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. - Matthew 11:25

Los Lonely Boys

2009-11-30T20:16:00.003-05:00

The Lesnet boys are running the show around here for the next 2 weeks as momma is doing some traveling for work.
Here is a picture of Kai with one of his best gifts ever! A family from our small group at church gave these Lego's and table to Kai as their children are too big for these little kid blocks. Thank you Westbergs!!
Then everyone deserted him and fled. - Mark 14:50

The Void Between Black Friday and Cyber Monday

2009-11-29T20:50:00.005-05:00

Happy Holidays!! It's official, we are past Thanksgiving, survived Black Friday, tomorrow is Cyber Monday, and the countdown to Christmas and the end of the year is on!

This past week we only had to go to work for 3 days! Although we are very thankful for our jobs it is very nice to have a 4 day weekend and not come back to work feeling like you missed a lot. We even got home while it was still light out one evening and raked some leaves.

We had a great Thanksgiving with our families up in Northwest Ohio. We left Thanksgiving morning to spend time with Chad's family. We have a big dinner each year at the First Presbyterian Church in Montpelier with all of the Briner cousins. Our turnout was smaller than usual with only 45 or so but it was still a great time. After dinner, we went back to Grandpa and Grandma Lesnet's for a while.

Here is Kai playing with the bomber airplane that he got Grandpa for his birthday while Grandma looks on.
I did not pack very well so I had to brave the Black Friday crowds at Wal-Mart of Bowling Green early Friday morning. It was completely dead, I saw a couple of folks buying TV's and there was a crowd around the DVD displays but other than that it was pretty quiet. I believe that this is my first Black Friday morning experience and although it wasn't that crowded, I would have rather packed better and stayed in.

On Friday we did another Thanksgiving meal with Stephanie's folks, Auntie Jessica, and Grandpa Eridon's twin brother's family. We forgot to take pictures as Kai napped through much of the hanging out time after dinner.

On Saturday, we dressed Kai in this awesome dress shirt with sweater vest. It is hard to get a picture of Kai without his fingers in his mouth...its also hard to get a picture of Kai with Grandpa Eridon without proud Grandpa Eridon smiling from ear to ear!
Two handsome Lesnet men getting ready for their 3rd turkey dinner in 3 days.
On Saturday we had yet another awesome turkey dinner with Grandma Eridon's sister's family. We always have a great time hanging out with them and Kai loves playing with his cousins. We didn't do a very good job getting pictures of this gathering either but we did score a family shot before leaving.
We left Ohio with full bellies but we also left with various ailments. Kai picked up the croup, Stephanie a head cold, and I have sinusitis. We had to call in sick to church this morning since Stephanie and I were scheduled to work in the children's ministry this Sunday. We spent the morning at the urgent care instead.

After some afternoon naps, we got up feeling a little better and did some decorating for Christmas. Kai was a big help putting ornaments on the tree this year and is soooo excited about having a tree in the house.
This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. - Matthew 1:18

CONTEST!!

2009-11-21T20:05:00.009-05:00

The Indiana Lesnets are big winners and now you all have a chance to be big winners too!

Stephanie won a contest that was sponsored by one of our friend's blogs and we have been tasked to "pay it forward" and have a contest with prizes for ourselves. In the spirit of the Thanksgiving season, we would like everyone to comment on our blog with something (or somethings) that you are most thankful for. Prizes will be awesome and will be based on the things we are most thankful for!

Below is a picture of the plunder that Stephanie won from our friends contest...the prizes for our contest will be awesomer than these but these are pretty nice.
Kai has now been twice bitten at school. This week Kai was minding his own business eating his lunch when one of his "friends" decided that they wanted Kai's milk. Kai used his words and politely told his "friend" "no" that they could not have his milk. His "friend" did not like that answer so they bit him on the arm! The last time Kai was bit, we were able to get him to snitch on the perpetrator, but this time he would just giggle and list each of his friends and say that they bit him. That jerk...er, I mean "friend" left a pretty good mark, I wonder if we could use the dental records to solve this case?

This weekend, we got on a jet plane and headed up to the Twin Cities for a little family get away.

Kai was very excited about the trip and spent his entire morning at school telling everyone that he was going to fly in an airplane. Stephanie and I worked half days on Thursday and picked him up right before his nap time to go down to the airport. He had a great time at the airport looking at airplanes and all of the other trucks and equipment that airlines use at the terminal. He also really enjoyed the flight!
We arrived in Minneapolis at about 4:30 Minnesota time, had dinner at Boston Market (they've closed down most of them here in Central Indiana), and got to our hotel at around 6 or so. The hotel had a pack-and-play for Kai to sleep in but he hated it and refused to sleep in it...yeah, it was a rough night.

We were up super early on Friday morning so we decided to crash the hotel swimming pool. The pool didn't officially open until 7:00 but it was 7:00 somewhere and we had a wide awake kid so we ignored the rules and went for a very early morning swim. We had a nice time in the pool but Stephanie and I would have preferred sleeping a little longer.

There is a free zoo in The Cities! It is called The Como Zoo and it is incredible! It's not very big, but you can get extremely close to the animals. I mean, have you ever stood less than a foot from a tiger?
This baby giraffe tried to get Kai to pet him by putting his head under the horizontal cables that made up his cage. Kai wasn't so sure though and dad was too slow with the camera to get the picture. Great memory for mom and dad though.

Here's Stephanie with the sign for the zoo. We tried to get a family photo but Kai wanted to run in the big grass field instead of taking a family picture.After a fantastic day at the zoo, we all met up with Aunt Kimberly who lives up in there in a suburb called Little Canada. Aunt Kimberly's birthday is today (Nov 21) so we took her to Outback for dinner.Then we went back to her apartment so that her and Kai could have a little hang time. They played with stickers, which is one of Kai's favorite things to do.
Also at Aunt Kimberly's apartment, we were able to get our only family photo while we were in Minnesota.
Friday night was a very long night as Kai was still not interested in sleeping in his pack-and-play (I should also mention that the pack-and-play did have a faint urine odor). We were up super early again but this time Kai was not interested in going swimming so we watched some cartoons and hung out until the hotels breakfast bar opened.

On Saturday (today) morning, we got around and swung by the Mall of America to check stuff out before our flight this afternoon. We had a great time watching all of the rides and attractions at the Nickelodeon area and playing with blocks at Lego Land.

The long nights had caught up with Kai and Stephanie as they slept on the flight home. Aren't they cute?

In closing, please be sure to comment this post telling us something that you are thankful for so that you can be entered in to the contest and maybe win some sweet swag from the Indiana Lesnets. We hope that this is an easy exercise for you because your life is awesome and you have so many things to list that you would run out of room and would have to cut your list short. For those of you who may need some ideas, I have decided to suggest a few to help you get your mind pointed in the right direction:

1. I'm thankful that most of the photos on the Indiana Lesnet Blog are of Kai because he is really handsome
2. I'm thankful that Chad writes his blog at a 5th grade reading level so that I can read it.
3. I'm thankful for people who don't text or talk on their cell phones while driving.
4. I'm thankful for God's Love and all of His gifts.
5. I'm thankful for donuts...mmmmm donuts!

Odd of winning some sweet stuff is 1:10, so enter early and enter often!

I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. - Philippians 3:14

Still Warm in November

2009-11-15T20:43:00.005-05:00

We were blessed to end yet another busy work week with an amazing weekend!

Kai had breakfast for dinner one evening. Pancakes for dinner...yummy!!
The really really ridiculously good weather was back again this weekend. Also here this weekend was Grandpa and Grandma Eridon.

Grandpa and Grandma got to our place at a little after 4 on Friday afternoon. Stephanie and Kai were already home that day because Kai spiked a fever at school and she had to go and pick him up. Kai fought off whatever was causing that fever real fast and was his normal hyper self all weekend long.

Grandpa Eridon and I went to the Michigan State versus Purdue football game bright and early on Saturday morning. We took Trevor and Matt along with us and had another successful tailgate. We had some Irish Banger Sausage with scrambled egg and cheese breakfast sandwiches with brewskies for breakfast and continued to enjoy some great food, drink, and cornhole until kickoff. We also enjoyed the first 3 quarters of the football game until the good guys squandered an 11 point 4th quarter lead to lose by 3.

Here are the boys right before we left for West Lafayette.
While the old dudes were gone; Grandma and Stephanie took Kai down to the Indianapolis Zoo. They had a very good time enjoying the amazing weather and the very cool animals.While they were at the zoo, they ran in to the Miller triplets and Casey Burnett along with their dads. Here is a super awesome picture of Kai with the triplets during the dolphin show.
The rest of the weekend was filled with hang time.

Kai read some stories to Grandpa and Grandma:He got a piano lesson from his Grandma.
Kai helped Grandpa build a huge tower out of legos.

Weekends are always amazing but weekends with stellar weather and grandparents are even better. We finished our weekend by hosting our small group from church. We have an amazing group and we so enjoy their company. I turned down Patriots versus Colts tickets to stay here and hang out...that should tell you something.

When you build a new house, make a parapet around your roof so that you may not bring the guilt of bloodshed on your house if someone falls from the roof. - Deuteronomy 22:8

Sunny and 70...in November?

2009-11-08T20:32:00.007-05:00

Isn't it funny how most beautiful days seem to be on a week day when many folks are holed up in offices looking out the window and dreaming about being outside instead of trapped inside? Well, God threw us a nice curve ball this time and saved some of the best November weather you'll ever see here in Central Indiana for the weekend! Our normal highs this time of year are in the low 50's but the last few days have seen sunny skies and highs near 70! Us Indiana Lesnets aren't the types to stay inside on days like that so we were outside as much as possible and had a great time!!

Our week leading up to this fantastic weekend was definitely action packed and I would be remiss to skip telling everyone all about it. On Tuesday, we all had to get up super early because Kai's buddy Master P was being dropped off super early so that we could take him to school. His parents were on their way to the hospital to have a baby boy...or at least they thought that they were going to have a boy. So now Kai's partner in crime, Master P, is now the proud big brother of a little sister whom we will affectionately refer to from here on out as Special K. The Indiana Lesnets feel very blessed that we were able to help our good friends on such a memorable day!

Now, on to our action packed weekend...

One of our Saturday traditions is hanging our Purdue flag on our front porch on game day. Kai loves doing this and gets very excited when we come in to his room on Saturday and tell him that its game day. We dressed him in his Purdue football jersey, raised the flag, headed off to Chick-Fil-A for breakfast (kiddos eat for free on Saturday mornings there), then off to the zoo!

Here is Mom and Kai with the elephants. See the elephant in the back ground cheesing for the camera...those silly elephants!

Kai and daddy growling like lions by the lion cage.
Here is Kai face to face with Nereus the walrus at the zoo. Nereus has an amazing story as he was orphaned in the wild and raised at the Indianapolis Zoo. He is known for interacting with the kids who come to see him.

We got home from the zoo in time for the kickoff of the Purdue versus Michigan football game. It was a very exciting game with the Boilers pulling out a win at The Big House for the first time since the 60's.On Saturday night, Stephanie and I went out with some friends for dinner then ran some errands while Kai stayed home with a sitter. I think that counts as a date...

Today (Sunday) was even more beautiful than Saturday. It started off great with a fantastic sermon at church. Genesis puts their sermons on the web, you can check out the sermons by clicking here. After church we went home for a some naps but I shunned the nap and headed to the links for a few holes of golf.

While I was out golfing, Stephanie and Kai went down to see Master P and Special K. Special K has her days and nights a little out of whack as most newborn babies do, so Stephanie took the boys down to the park and then back to our house for a little while so the new parents could have a few moments of peace.

The boys liked playing with the pumpkins that are still on our front porch.
The boys were happy when I got home from the course because they wanted to get in a little practice with my clubs out in the yard. Stephanie was glad to see me because the boys were starting to get a little grumpy and she needed a wing man!

Seldom set foot in your neighbor's house— too much of you, and he will hate you. - Proverbs 25:17

I Do It!

2009-11-01T19:14:00.004-05:00

Today is November first. We don't have a lot of new news to share with this post but we do have some good Halloween pictures.

Back on October 20th, Kai's school had its annual Fall Festival where they decorated the school for Halloween and all the kids dressed up in their Halloween costumes. They did a very good job decorating and setting up games. Kai rocked his tiger costume and tore up the ring toss game!

After the Fall Festival, Kai and I played with Kiki out in the yard. She sure is a patient pup!!
On the weekend of October 24th, I was to go to Las Cruces to spend the weekend and play golf with my friend John. Unfortunately on the day that I was to fly down there a tanker truck exploded at one of the busiest intersections in town which forced hundreds of people to miss their flights at the airport. Since I was flying stand by I was unable to get out on the flight that I had planned on taking and did not make the trip. My golf clubs however did make the trip and were able to spend a few days in sunny El Paso, Texas.

Kai's vocabulary is growing so quickly. He continues to add words daily and has started putting together some short sentences like "I do it", "I love you daddy", "daddy sit", "Kiki what?", and many others that I need to keep better track of.

Yesterday was Halloween and Kai sported his Tiger outfit and went Trick or Treating with his buddy Master P.
Here is a Lesnet family photo. Do you notice that dad dressed up as a Tiger too? If you did then good for you because no one in our neighborhood seemed to pick up on it.
As they were emptying their sacks, there in each man's sack was his pouch of silver (or candy)! When they and their father saw the money pouches, they were frightened. Genesis 42:35

Indianapolis Zoo Boo

2009-10-18T20:04:00.005-04:00

Today was a good day.

We started off the day at church where our pastor talked to us about being more service oriented. I guess that is the kind of sermon you would expect from him since he just returned from Haiti. Serving those in need is really a family theme for us as Stephanie and I met while working together serving children in need on Indy's near East side. We are very excited to see how God uses our church to help those with needs in Central Indiana (which is everybody).

After church, we had some fantastic homemade breakfast burritos. Here is a link to the recipe n The Pioneer Woman's website so that you can make them yourself...yummy!!! Kai took a nap after brunch for a couple of hours then we were off to the Indianapolis Zoo for Zoo Boo.

We are zoo members and this is one of the included perks of being a member (although you don't have to be a member to go to ZooBoo). We had a great time and we will be going back next year and the year after that and the year after that and...well, you get the idea.

We ran in to Kai's buddy Master P right at the entrance. Master P is on the left and he is dressed up as a old time golfer and Kai is the tiger on the right.

We got a few more pictures around the zoo with the boys together. Here they are checking out a giant rabbit.
Here they are with some old dude.

A family photo of the Indiana Lesnets at Zoo Boo.

Kai wanted his picture taken with a real tiger. Its hard to tell them apart, but Kai is the one that I'm holding and the real tiger is in the cage.

With hooks they pulled him into a cage and brought him to the king of Babylon. They put him in prison, so his roar was heard no longer on the mountains of Israel. Ezekiel 19:9

A long week, but a great weekend!

2009-10-18T19:53:00.012-04:00

There are a few things that parents should never be without. Of course, there are many and more than my list here, but here are some items that come to mind:

1. A washer and dryer
2. Hot water
3. An emergency babysitter
4. A muzzle for unruly children

Well, this week we had times when we were without any of these things (we still haven't secured a good call at any time babysitter...one of several disadvantages of living in a different state than both sets of grandparents and all aunts).

On Monday, our washing machine and dryer were moved from our laundry room to our garage as the contractors started the work on fixing up the water damage caused by some faulty installation of our new set that we bought on July 4th weekend. Our contractor(s) did a great job and finished up everything in just a few days.

On the day that our contractor(s) were finishing up, we were blessed because we had a hard time finding the wall paint for the contractor to use for paint touch ups. Not being able to find things is always frustrating and is rarely a blessing but sometimes God uses these types of delays to save our bacon. Stephanie and I had both been down to the basement searching for the paint a few times and weren't able to find it. I gave up and decided to take Kai to school and continue on in to the office. After I left, Stephanie went back down to look one more time and saw that our water heater was leaking (she also found the paint). The water was really spewing out but she was able to contain the water with towels before it damaged any of our awesomely finished basement. That day we were also blessed by our awesome plumber friend who came out and replaced our (under warranty) water heater before we got home from work.

That same day, Kai got bit at school. We didn't witness the incident, but the story goes something like this; he was on the climber at school and a little girl wanted to get on there. Our speed demon, Kai didn't move fast enough for her so she leaned over and bit him. His teachers have taken the oath of silence and therefore won't tell us who bit him, but we asked him about it that night and he said "Audrey" "bit" "No, No", so we think it was Audrey. He was injured in the incident as she drew some blood but he's a quick healer and the tooth mark is almost gone.

A little comic relief to the biting story is that when Kai says "bit", it sounds a lot like "b*tch". He continues to tell us about "Audry bit" and it just cracks his dad up.

On Thursday, I picked Kai up from school and he had a lot of waxy discharge around his right ear. Of course, us rookie parents freaked out and assumed that his tube had come out and that we were going to have to get those redone. We tried to make an appointment to see his pediatrician on Friday but they are just packed with flu patients so we took a deep breath, relaxed, and called Kai's otolaryngologist. They said that the discharge was normal, that he had an ear infection and that the tubes were doing their job by letting that junk drain out. They called us in a prescription for some ear drops and he's doing great!

On Friday, Grandpa Lesnet came down to visit us for the weekend. Kai was elated to see him and gave him a hug right away (our boy is not a hugger)! Grandpa brought down some gifts from him and grandma including a new raincoat. Kai does not like wearing coats but he loves this one! Last weekend Kai would not wear his coat (it was cold), so Stephanie had a great "mom" moment. After the third time of Kai unzipping his coat and leaving it on the driveway, she put it on him backwards, and zipped it up. Kai did not like the hood in his face or the zipper on his back. She turned it around and he kept it on the rest of the afternoon.

Kai loves his new fireman coat and wore it all weekend.

Grandma and Grandpa Lesnet also gave him a great new toolbox and I'm not sure who had more fun playing with the tools - Grandpa or Kai.On Saturday, Chad took grandpa and several other friends (Trevor, James, and Eugene) to Purdue for some Big Ten football. We had a great tailgate complete with pancakes, beer, sausage, beer, burgers, beer, Hawaiian brats, beer, and beer (really not that much beer). We also enjoyed the game as Purdue whipped Ohio State!

Stephanie and Kai had a great Saturday hanging out without Grandpa Lesnet and I. They went to the Farmers Market and for a walk with friends. Kai wore his new Superman shirt and really wanted to get some pictures in it. Kai takes great pictures all the time but good photos are so much easier when he asks you to take pictures of him.

Cheese!!

Kai was so glad to see me when we got back from the game that he tackled me and wouldn't let me up.

Here's what Kai looks like from my perspective when he's sitting on my chest.
Though they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, there I will hunt them down and seize them. Though they hide from me at the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent to bite them. - Amos 9:3

Kiki Run Away??

2009-10-18T19:50:00.003-04:00

This past Tuesday (10/13) was a sleepless night here at the Indiana Lesnet estate as Kai woke up terrified that Kiki had ran away.

He was completely inconsolable and just kept saying "Kiki run away?" over and over. Kiki had not run away and was doing a great job sleeping through all the commotion. She was pretty irritated when we kept calling her to us to prove to our young son that his precious beagle was safe and sound at home. Kiki received no sympathy from Stephanie and I though as she sleeps all day long!

Kiki is a great dog but is a lot of work. She is a lot more work than Kai and we have thought about giving her away several times. She is great with Kai though and he loves her very much.

I think that this picture is worth more than 1,000 words, it shows pretty clearly why Kiki is going to continue to be a part of our family.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. - 1 Corinthians 13:4

Rock-Tober!

2009-10-10T20:56:00.009-04:00

Holy smokes is it chilly outside here in Central Indiana these days! The average temps in this area this time of year are in the low 70's and I don't think its climbed over 55 degrees for over a week and the lows are hovering just above freezing. Throw in a lot of rain and most folks just choose to stay inside...but of course the Indiana Lesnets play outside no matter what.

Stephanie ditched us last weekend to spend some time down in Brown County, Indiana with a bunch of her friends while Kai and I (Kiki too) held down the fort up here in Noblesville. Kai and I did great (more on that to come) and Stephanie had a great time hanging out with her friends for a much needed girls weekend. She wanted me to add in that they "had a wonderful time celebrating friendships and that her friends are amazing women" (I agree that her friends are amazing).

October is a very busy time for both of us at work as it is time to once again close out the quarterly books and report the numbers to the SEC. Unfortunately, we are also running out of food in the freezer. In order to help get us through the busy time and restock our chest freezer with yummy meals, Stephanie's sister Jessica came to visit for part of the weekend and did our freezer cooking for the next several months. She also had watched Kai while I got in some time at the office on Saturday. We are very thankful for Aunt Jessica and her culinary skills.

Here is Kai tickling the ivories in his old man pajamas. I personally think that old man pajamas look stellar when they are covered with basketball dunking gorillas! Would you agree?

Kai and I went to McDonald's for breakfast while mom was gone.

On Sunday, the boy and I went shopping and got some new toys for Kai. I was on a mission to get Kai a basketball hoop for his basement playroom but we picked up a set of golf clubs and some legos instead. Toys-R-Us is celebrating "Block-tober" this month and have all of their blocks on sale and I just can't resist a bargain. Kai loves these new toys, especially the legos. He has kept us on his toes with the golf clubs as he hits mom, dad, Kiki, the wall, and whatever else he can reach along with the golf balls.

Stephanie took Kai to the doctor this week as he had / has a ugly sounding cough. He was diagnosed with croup (he's better now) and found out that he now weighs 28 pounds. He has grown a lot these past couple of months and has caught up with and passed many of his friends.

Kai's vocabulary is also growing quickly these days. I really need to get a little better at keeping track of his words but here are a few that stick out. He knows some colors, specifically black, blue, and yellow. He says animal, blanket, Kai (sometimes if you ask him his name he'll tell you). Thankfully he hasn't picked up any questionable language yet but I'm sure its just a matter of time.

Kai is also doing some cool new stuff. He is learning yoga at school which is pretty neat but Stephanie and I don't know much about Yoga poses, I guess we will learn. Kai has outgrown his size 7 shoes and is now in a size 8. He is still a mommas boy but is happiest when all 3 of us are together. He is also a fantastic hugger and has started giving squeezes if you ask. I love being a dad!!

Although he is growing up very quickly, he only gets to drive on the weekends.

Now on to this weekend (er, I guess today).

This morning we started the day with a pancake breakfast. Stephanie has a great recipe for blueberry banana pancakes that are fantastic (the secret ingredient is almond butter). After breakfast we went to the farmer's market right here in Noblesville. We picked up some mums, pumpkins, mustard, barbecue sauce, and some apple butter.

After the farmers market, we went to Stony Creek Farms Pumpkin Festival. While we were there Kai:

Rode a pony
Went on a hay ride (we refused to ride the one with the green tractor...us Lesnets are red tractor folks)
Spent some time in the pumpkin patch
Stopped for a few photo ops On that day there will be no light, no cold or frost. - Zechariah 14:6

Cheese

2009-10-01T20:35:00.002-04:00

We have had some feedback from our last blog post, and that feedback is that my writing is a lot better when accompanied by photos.

So, with this post, I am going to merely caption photos...it will probably be our most popular one yet.

Kai really wanted his picture taken on the evening that this was taken. He kept asking for more and saying "cheese" at the camera. Taking pictures like this is much easier.

We bought Kai a tricycle. His legs aren't quite long enough to pedal it yet but he loves it anyway.

Here is Kai and daddy making monkey noises.
When the people heard these distressing words, they began to mourn and no one put on any ornaments. - Exodus 33:4

If You Could Vacation Anywhere in the World?

2009-09-20T13:35:00.005-04:00

I bet you would choose to vacation right here in Central Indiana. Well, the Indiana Lesnets agree with you 100% and will be spending the next week vacationing right here in the Greater Indianapolis area. I will give you all a preview of this little stay-cation so that you can be jealous all week of the cool things that we will be doing.

We're starting off this weekend with cleaning up the garage. Currently it is not a super clean, organized, eat off the floor type garage that any man would be proud of...in fact, it is pretty much the opposite of that right now. It is currently storing some items from the other house, has floors that haven't been washed for years, and has no decent organizing system. All of that is about to change...stay tuned for some before and after pictures.

On Monday, Stephanie and Kai are going to have a play date in the morning. I may get in a tee time (this is vacation, right!). On Monday evening, we are planning on doing a little landscape maintenance. A light day of vacationing!

On Tuesday, Kai has a follow up appointment for his ear tube surgery in the morning. After that we will head down to either the zoo or the Children's Museum. Stephanie is going to have a dinner with her buddies. Ahh, nice relaxing day!

On Wednesday, we are back to the garage as we're getting some new garage organizing items. Also, we are planning on spending some time straightening our planning desk in our kitchen and our home office. I think that everyone has their "dirty secret" areas of their home and now our secret is out...our planning desk and our office are pretty neglected!

Thursday is a free day and Friday is a day to work on our basement.

Our weekend is filled with a trip to the zoo on Saturday and a house warming party (which is during the Purdue vs. Notre Dame game) which will be amazing! Sunday both Stephanie and I will be teaching Sunday School at church and then we have small group at our house on Sunday evening...back to work on Monday morning!

We'll see how we do! Lets keep our fingers crossed for some good weather!

And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. Genesis 2:3

Whew! What a Crazy Couple Weeks!!

2009-09-07T20:00:00.011-04:00

This week has been a week of much rejoicing as we finally SOLD (signed, sealed, and delivered) the first Indiana Lesnet Homestead that we purchased right before we were married. Those of you who know us personally know how much stress this house has caused us through our 2 separate "lease to buy" sales. Two days after we were finally able to put it on the MLS open market, we had an accepted offer! The Lord blessed us with amazing friends who helped us get it ready for sale and list the home and were again blessed with such a quick non-contingent offer. Here is a photo of the home, it was a great house but it will not be missed.Kai has really been on a tear learning new words since his ear tube surgery. He has some great ones like; airplane, bike, amen, and animal. I guess that learning new words is a lot easier when you can actually hear them...what a concept!

It is hard to believe that summer is really officially over since today is Labor Day. We have tried to make the most of it with a trip to the Indianapolis Zoo (we skipped church to go...shhh, don't tell anyone) with Master P and his folks. It was great to go with them as they go quite a bit and were able to show us around. We had a fun time there and we will most definitely be going back as we are not only clients of the zoo but now we are members.

In additon to the zoo, we attended a chuch picnic for child care workers and Sunday school volunteers at Forest Park right here in Noblesville. The park is amazing, it has a "Tom Thumb" miniature golf course, sweet playground equipment, swimming pool, shelters with grills and volleyball sand lots, picnic areas, tennis courts, horseshoe pits, the "Little Beauty" Carousel and the Indiana Transportation Museum. The fellowship with our church friends was great but there was an added bonus of discovering such an amazing park right in our back yard. Oh yeah, Kai rode the carousel but was a little scared and had a white knuckle grip on his pony. After the ride was over he wanted to go again though...our little thrill seeker!

Last week Kai and I were able to spend a little manly quality time together as mom ditched us for a few days to go to Boston for "work". We did great without her but we were most definitely glad to have her back.

Kai's school was closed on Friday so that the teachers could have an in-service day. That sounds a lot more like a 4 day weekend to me, but sure...in-service, why not! This week we were blessed to have Auntie Jessica come down and hang out with Kai while school was closed and mommy and daddy went to work. She said that watching our little angel was easy but Kiki was a pain in the booty. Yep, it looks like Kiki is an equal opportunity pain in the booty!

We went to the Purdue football season opener on Saturday and Kai had a great time. He lasted through one quarter and two minutes into the second quarter. I think he could have made it longer but the good guys were up 21-0 over Toledo so he smelled a rout and wanted to go walk around campus instead. He enjoyed the big crowd and all of the noises and sights (especially the train whistle and the Boiler Up cheer). He also really likes his new Purdue fooball jersey.

We then drove straight to the Toledo area (a little irony) to see Stephanie's family and enjoyed some family time. We had this on the calendar for a while as Aunt Kathy and Leah were scheduled to come in to town from Washington state for a while but their plans changed. Hopefully they will be able to come soon as we had a great weekend together and enjoyed the holiday.

Kai would like to once again thank Sam who let him borrow his Cozy Cruiser for the weekend. He loves this "bike" and spent hours driving up and down grandpa and grandma's driveway.

The above picture shows Kai and his grandpa playing with some blocks. This picture is great but you need to notice Kai's threads. He is in a Detroit Tigers outfit that his grandpa bought for him when he was at Comerica Park for a Cleveland versus Detroit baseball game. Grandpa is a big Cleveland fan but he clearly loves his grandson much more than his Indians...such a big softie!

So that all men he has made may know his work, he stops every man from his labor. - Job37:7

Busy weekend!

2009-08-23T20:47:00.004-04:00

Lots of big things happened this past week and weekend.

Kai used two words together which is a big developmental milestone - they were working on it at school and he said "more please". It's fitting that our big eater asked for more food!

Then, on Thursday night, Kai sat on his potty chair and went to the bathroom! It was pretty much a coincidence, but we made a big deal of it. He likes to sit on his potty every night before bath time and says potty, so we'll see if it continues.

Friday morning we had surgery to have tubes put in Kai's ears. We had to report at 6:15 am and surgery was at 7:00 am. Stephanie and I did not sleep well the night before as we were afraid we would miss the appointment and we were up well before the alarm went off - the sun is not even close to rising at that hour :) Kai left with the nurse at 7:05 and we were holding him by 7:25. He cried when she took him away, but the anesthesiologist said he stopped crying as soon as they turned the corner and he just watched what he was doing the whole time - even when they put the mask on him. The doctor came to see us and said "his ears were a mess!!" You never want to hear that from someone who does this all the time. He said we would notice a big difference immediately - and we did! Kai has said several new words this weekend - including "mine" and he has so much more energy. Coming out of the anesthesia was really hard as Stephanie was holding him, but he just kept screaming for "mama". They say that it is the common reaction when kids come out from under the drugs, but it was very heartbreaking. He took a nap and by 11:00 was good to go.

We headed to the state fair and had a great time walking around and enjoying the beautiful weather. We forgot the camera, so no pictures this year, but a fun tradition to start.

I also got to play some golf Friday (may have broke 80 for the first time ever if I could have got the putter to work) and while in the middle of my round, my dad texted (yep, he's hip) to say they were thinking of coming to visit. It was a great surprise and they were here Saturday and Sunday. Kai had a wonderful time and it was especially nice they were able to babysit and Stephanie and I went to Symphony on the Prairie. We sat at a table of Purdue alum - we were the youngest by about 25 years, but had a great time getting to know them.

Here are some pics from Kai's weekend with his paternal grandparents:

Oh yeah, we still have our dog. I don't think that she has had any mention in here for a while.
Here is Kai with his grandparents right before our breakfast at Perkins this morning!
Everyone in this picture has the same middle name and the same last name. 3 studly Lesnet men!

Sunday was busy at church, but did include breakfast with Grandpa and Grandma. All in all a great weekend!

And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: - Genesis 9:12

August Already?

2009-08-16T21:17:00.010-04:00

Another month since our last blog post...life is busy.

Here is Kai's 18 month picture - this is the only one that turned out...he only wanted to run around and did not want his picture taken.

We had a good month spending some time with family and at a family reunion for the descendants of John Elmer Briner [Chad's family] (bounce house included!!). Kai got to meet his great aunts from California (it was close to nap time and the end of our visit when we tried to take pictures, so he wasn't very happy).

Kai playing Redneck Golf with Grandpa Lesnet

Kai meeting his newest cousin; Melissa.
Kai with cousin McClain
Here is a couple with Grandpa and Grandma Eridon

Kai continues to grow taller and eat constantly - he's not gaining any weight, but the boy can eat. A typical day includes a peach for breakfast, all of his lunch at daycare and then constant eating from the time he gets home until he goes to sleep (pasta, blueberries, zucchini and 15 oz of milk). He is also starting to talk more and more and repeat what he hears. It's very cute when he says "Amen" after we pray at night, and not as cute when he repeats "out, out, out" when he is done sitting in his highchair. He definitely has an ornery streak in him (not sure what side of the family he gets that from...maybe both).

The CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) we joined this year has been lots of fun and we are receiving many vegetables that we would not normally purchase. Stephanie has had fun each Monday researching what we should make with our share. This past week we made a rice dish with okra and a squash and zucchini casserole with fresh garlic and tomatoes as well. Kai likes okra - even if its not fried.

On Saturday Kai attended a birthday party for a couple of his friends. It was a princess party and there were lots of little girls and only one other little boy. Kai pretty much ignored everyone else and plays on his own as you can see below; he's the one in the back in the blue shirt.

Kai goes in to get tubes in his ears on Friday. We found out that he has some hearing loss in his right ear from all the fluid behind his ears and all the ear infections since March. It should be totally reversible, and we are looking forward to seeing him feel better.

On Saturday, Stephanie heard Kai talking after his nap and then he got quiet, so she thought he went back to sleep. Then she heard more talking, so went up to get him out. Surprise!! He took his diaper off. Luckily there was nothing else in the crib with him, but we will definitely have to make sure he always has shorts on over his diaper in the future. He likes to run around without his clothes on before his bath - this week he wanted socks on, but nothing else. Here is a good shot of the shenanigans (Mom's call on this one little man, daddy tried to keep your nakedness off of the Internet)!

He fled naked, leaving his garments behind. - Mark14:52

Happy 18 month Birthday Kai!

2009-07-16T11:58:00.006-04:00

Dear Kai,

You are becoming such a big boy and have grown so much over the past few months. You wear size 7 shoes and 18 - 24 month clothes. Most people comment on your hair when it's longer and the nurses at the pediatrician ask to touch it because it's so cute. They also comment on your eyes and long eyelashes. You rub your hair when you are tired and it is very comforting to you.

Your dad has given you three haircuts and you have 12 teeth. You do not like to get your teeth brushed, but this has started to get better as we are singing the ABC's while brushing them. You have grown so much taller in the past few weeks (drinking 10 - 20 oz. of milk before bed each night). You eat constantly from the time we pick you up from school until bed time and you love any fruit, apple butter, applesauce, hummus, chickpeas, couscous, hamburgers and you eat homemade blueberry waffles for breakfast every morning. You still use your pacifier, but only at bedtime and nap times. In the morning, you throw your pacifier back in the crib and wave "Bye-Bye".

You have a very sweet, laid-back personality. You sit back and observe everything around you before going to play. You give lots of hugs (with arm pats) and have started giving kisses (complete with sound effects). You have a great belly laugh and mom and dad love laying on the floor with you and laughing and wrestling. You love it when daddy throws you in the air and catch you. You would much rather run everywhere and like playing outside and going to the pool. If you want to go outside, you run over and try to climb in your stroller until we get the hint. You love the slides at the playground and have amazing balance when playing on wood bridges. You like swinging and start crying if we take you out before you are ready. You like swimming, but are more interested in walking around the pool and picking up the toys and shoes on the side.

You love sitting on mom and dad's lap to read books. Some favorites are "Moo, Baa, La La La", Curious George goes fishing, Is Your Mama a Llama and Red Hat, Blue Hat, Green Hat, Oops, and Guess How Much I Love You. You love dancing - especially to Alice the Camel and the ABC's. We read I Love You Through and Through every night before bed and you love the little boy in the pictures since he looks like you.

You definitely have a mind of your own, but save your temper tantrums for mom and dad. I asked your teacher at daycare (Ms. Cassie) if you ever throw a tantrum at school, and she said she could never imagine you doing that. Mom found you playing with the toilet plunger in June and you looked up at her and said "No, no" and then walked out.

Your are a man of few words, but have started saying more in the last 6 weeks: Dada, Mama, Kiki, no, this, ball, balloon, Detroit, bird, truck, school, happy, baby, book, squirrel, dog, more, blue, purple, apple, bye-bye.

You love your school and bring us our shoes each morning when you are ready to go out the door. You give Kiki a treat and clap when she takes it. You then stand by the garage door and wait for us to open it so you can get in the car. Your teachers have been great and we are so thankful that you are happy and learning and playing during the day. This summer the school has had two petting zoos (loved the bunnies), water day every Wednesday, the Westfield fire department (you liked Sparky the dog) and puppet shows. You eat all your food every day at school and love to play outside and help the teachers pick up the toys. You are a great helper at school and all your friends say "bye Kai" when you leave.

Kai - we love you more than you can imagine and God knew exactly what he was doing when He blessed us with you.

David, wearing a linen ephod, danced before the LORD with all his might, 2 Samuel 6:14

The Indianapolis Zoo

2009-07-07T19:10:00.007-04:00

Kai and mom went to the zoo for the first time on June 27th. They went with our friend and neighbor Jenna and "P".

Kai and P are the same height, but there is about an 8 pound weight difference. Kai enjoyed riding in the wagon with P pushing him, but was not as happy when he tried to push P and couldn't move him anywhere.

We spent the week before reading lots of animal books and working on animal noises, but we're still not sure what sound a bunny makes. Kai enjoyed seeing the ducks and fed some crackers to the ducks. We also saw a rhino, giraffes, polar bears and komono dragons.

Kai loved the dolphins and had a lot of fun running around the area with the dolphins above him. He did not like the dolphin show since mom did not let him run around the stairs and bleachers like he wanted to. He threw himself on the ground and started screaming. Stephanie dropped her cell phone and it broke apart with the battery flying underneath a wheelchair. As Kai continued to scream in front of the entire crowd (several hundred people), Stephanie crawled under the wheelchair and searched for her phone. After picking up a screaming Kai and carrying him to the top of the bleachers, he decided he did not want to stay until the show started and they left to go see the walrus. Looks like the terrible two's may be starting a little early.

Kai said "bear" for the first time and really liked the bunny and goats. He did want to go swimming in the shark petting tank, and Stephanie decided the day at the zoo was done.

Both boys fell asleep within 2 minutes of being strapped in their car seats and slept for 3 hours. It was a wonderful day and we will be getting a family membership.

While the zoo adventures were occuring, I was in Arizona for a guy's golf and poker weekend. I played 54 holes of golf on that Friday and managed to only burn my ankles and one spot on my legs.

4th of July weekend

2009-07-06T15:00:00.001-04:00

The Lesnets had a great 4th of July weekend. We spent Friday as a family as Kai's daycare was closed. Grandma and Grandpa Eridon came into town around lunchtime and we all went out to lunch. This is a big deal for Stephanie's family as it is probably only the 5th or 6th time she has been out to eat with her parents.

Kai had a great time with his grandparents. He loves having Grandpa read him books and snuggling with Grandma before bedtime.

I spent most of Saturday at the old house with my father-in-law working on lots of projects. We accomplished a lot of the "to do" list, but there is still more to do. I replaced the light in the dining room - the house is looking a lot better and we are praying it sells quickly.

We also gave Kai his 3rd haircut this weekend.

It's amazing how the haircut makes him look like such a little boy. He rubs his hair when he is tired, and it took him a while to get used to how short it was on Sunday.

We had a great cookout with friends and it was a momentous occasion as it was the first party with kids attending. There was only one other little boy, and Kai just watched all the girls play together.

We avoided any meltdowns (by being the first to leave). It was wonderful to catch up with friends and see them as parents. Thanks to Eugene and Kim for hosting and letting our kids "childproof" their house.

We also had to say goodbye to the first appliances we purchased when we got married.

The washing maching has been smoking for the past few months and we decided to make a preemptive strike and purchased these:

Stephanie has been breaking them in this weekend and is a big fan!

It was a busy weekend, but great to spend time with family and friends.

It's July already...

2009-07-05T19:56:00.014-04:00

It's been a long time since our last post, so here is a brief summary of our lives since March Madness.

- We went to Ohio to see the grandparents in March - Kai got to meet some lambs and a cat.

- Stephanie was diagnosed with mono in early April after 3 different sore throats and antibiotics. She still may need to get her tonsils out, but it was a rough quarter 1 end at work. Kai had 2 ear infections and croup and I probably had mono, but didn't go to the doctor. Everyone is healthy now. Stephanie only missed 2 days of work and Kai missed 4 days of school.

- Stephanie had a birthday, she had to work on her birthday, so I went to a Purdue Track&Field reunion with Kai. He wanted to run on the track, and not be held by dad. The next day, I took Kai to the Lesnet Easter celebration in Bluffton, IN.

- Dad gave Kai his 2nd haircut.

- Stephanie went to Boston for a few days in May for work, and the guys had fun at home playing basketball. Kai also said four new words while mom was gone. He also started blowing his nose in a kleenex when I asked him too.

- Went to Ohio to see the grandparents in May and attend cousin Molly's baby shower. We can't wait to meet baby Melissa in August.

- We turned Kai's car seat around in June - he loves facing forward and seeing what mom and dad look at through the windows.

- We watched all of the Stanley Cup Finals...stupid Penguins!

- Kai had a 104 degree fever in June and erythimae multiforme (really bad skin rash) and missed another 4 days of school. We had fun reading books and spending cuddle time at home.

- We have been swimming at the neighborhood pool several times already. Kai really enjoys walking around the pool vs. swimming in it.

- Stephanie and I celebrated the nine year anniversary of the first time we talked (June 24, 2000), well I think we talked before that, but Stephanie doesn't remember it.

- We had to evict our tenant from the Brownsburg house and I have spent every spare moment trying to get it ready to sell. All the carpet and flooring needs replaced, inside and outside painted, mulch and landscaping updated and some other minor repairs. We hope to put the house on the market July 13th. Thanks to all the friends and family that have helped get it ready to sell. Please pray for a quick sale.

- At the same time, my airline purchased two other airlines and work has not been "slow"

- Stephanie and Kai went to the zoo (see a post later this week) and I went to Arizona for the golf "Endurathon" in June. We were all planning to go, but since Kai got sick, I made the weekend trip by myself. I have played 6 rounds of golf so far this year and am looking forward to the "Old Married Dudes"outing on July 18th.

- Stephanie has become more crunchy and green - see a post later this week on cloth diapering and a CSA.

It's hard to believe so much time has passed since we last blogged, but look for several posts later this week. We are thankful everyone is healthy again and look forward to life slowing down after we sell the other house.

March Madness

2009-03-15T22:17:00.003-04:00

March has been a very action packed month but not necessarially in a good way.

Kai started preschool on Monday, March 2nd. He has transitioned very well to the classroom except he has picked up a bug. He has had a day off and a couple of half days but we are confident that he will pull through it and thrive with his new friends at school!

Although this post will be dated March 15th, it is actually Easter Sunday today so I am just going to go ahead and sign off on this post and let you all enjoy the photos of kai during the first half of March.

Here is Kai with his favorite food in March, apple sauce. He has now graduated to grapes and bananas.

One of the neighbor girls won this glove and gave it to Kai. He should get a lot of use out of it if he winds up being right handed!

This will be a great picture to show his prom date!

His stocking hat is awesome!

Kai loves his animal book!
So let my lord go on ahead of his servant, while I move along slowly at the pace of the droves before me and that of the children, until I come to my lord in Seir." - Genesis 33:14

Daddy's Going to Teach Him to Hurdle

2009-02-24T21:18:00.004-05:00

This post was started on Wednesday, February 24. Hopefully it will finally be completed here on March 1.

Today, Kai and I went down to the playground which is about a quarter mile down the road. We took a stroller down there as we usually do. After about 30 minutes of running around, Kai was done playing so he stated walking towards home. Kiki and I followed him and gave him some direction when he would start getting off track. I never thought he would make it all the way home, but he sure did! Here is a picture of him after his journey today:

This has been one crazy week as Stephanie has had to work late every night except Friday night so I got to spend a lot of 1 on 1 time with Kai. We spent a lot of time playing. We took advantage of the warmer weather in the middle of the week and spent a lot of time outside.
On Friday evening, we took a family trip to the grocery store and ran a few other errands. One of our errands was grabbing some dinner so we went to Chipotle. It was a good meal, Kai threw his quesadilla on the floor but he really likes their tortilla chips. Kai wanted to be like mom and dad so he dipped his chip in to the hot salsa and got a big chip full of it, then stuffed the whole thing in his mouth. Needless to say, he was shocked and started screaming. We offered him some sour cream as dip and he LOVED it! He got it everywhere, too bad we didn't have a camera with us!

On Saturday, we all had grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. Now, that may not sound particularly news worthy, but no one living in this house had ever actually made a grilled cheese sandwich! I made the sandwiches and they were delicious!

Last night Stephanie and I had a date night while Kai played with Master P and his parents. We met up with a lot of friends and had a fantastic time! Our friends invited over 9 other couples for a night of dinner and games, Stephanie and I are so glad that we went. No one brought a camera though, I'm kind of starting to see a theme here that we need to do a better job bringing our camera with us wherever we go!

Kai has his first day at school tomorrow. Please remember him (and his parents) in your prayers as this will be a big change for all of us!

God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill? - Numbers 23:19

There's a Light at the End of the Tunnel!

2009-02-22T20:12:00.004-05:00

You know, when you start off a blog post with a super awesome picture of such a handsome young man, you really need to use good words and try to make this the most eloquently written blog post ever...either that or you just put in more pictures and not take the chance of sullying up the cool picture with inadequate words.

We just got Kai's 1 year photos taken. We have had a family picture taken at each of Kai's quarterly photo shoots. I am surely biased, but I think that the Lesnets are one good looking family!

Kai got in a fight with an end table in our family room on Friday. He and Melissa, our nanny, were chasing each other around and Kai tripped and face planted in to the table. Kai split his lip and got a bloody nose but barely cried..he's one tough hombre!

I am sure that several of you loyal readers out there are hoping for a progress report from last weekends "divide and conquer" home improvement marathon. Well, I had high hopes for the weekend but I was only able to complete the master suite. Stephanie and Kai were impressed though and that's all that really matters.

Here is kind of a before picture of our master closet. I had already removed 1 of the wire shelves but I did remember to take an "almost before" picture. That's not so bad.

Here is our master bath before weekend home makeover.

Here is the after picture of our master closet. Pretty smooth huh?"
The after shots of the master bath. Notice the snazzy new vanity lights?
Although I did not get nearly as much done as I had planned, I do know that I wouldn't have completed anything if not for all of the help that A.J. Smith gave me on Saturday. He is such a great friend and we work very well together on projects.

I did not get any of the work done in the kitchen or mud room that I had planned. It may be a little while until I get up the ambition to get started on that!

In other news, our nanny Melissa is going to start working with another family next week so this is our last week with her. We will miss her. She has done a great job with Kai. Please pray for the Indiana Lesnets as Kai starts going to school every day. This is going to be quite the transition for us and we can most definitely use the prayers.

He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy - Job 8:21

Quick Update

2009-02-09T21:22:00.004-05:00

We have been busy here in Indiana - lots of snow, then it all melted and it's going to be 60 degrees tomorrow. We did our taxes and are getting a refund :) Mom and Dad have been busy with work, but still managed to do some home improvement projects. Unfortunately, Kai has been fighting some sickness for almost 2 weeks now, but hopefully we have turned a corner.

To celebrate Valentine's Day, I will be cozying up with some paint and painting our master bedroom, bathroom and closet and possibly the kitchen and laundry room. Stephanie and Kai will be going to Ohio to visit her parents and some friends. I will hopefully have some before and after pictures to post over the weekend.

In the mean time, here are some recent pictures. Kai is an observer and likes to watch people. People in the grocery store and Menards are always trying to make him smile or laugh, and he just watches them. One person even said they felt like they were being judged on their job.

Here is Kai playing with his Little People toy he got for his birthday - he likes to pretend he is Godzilla by walking through the village knocking over buildings. He has also figured out how to press the button and make them sing the "Little People" song. He will press it for 30 minutes in a row. Mom, Dad and Melissa, the nanny; are wondering how long the batteries will actually last.

Dr. Smith helped build some awesome shelves in Kai's playroom. Kai is very thankful (and so is mom!)

Kai likes power tools and was a big help to Dr. Smith and I while we built the shelves.

This last one is from Kai's birthday weekend - our friends came over to drop off a gift and we got a cute, er...I mean manly picture of the men.

The visions of your prophets were false and worthless; they did not expose your sin to ward off your captivity. The oracles they gave you were false and misleading. - Lamentations 2:14

The 10 Photo Birthday Extravaganza!!

2009-01-18T20:05:00.003-05:00

This has been a very crazy week here in Central Indiana. It has been COLD, I mean 40 below with wind chill type cold. To start off the week of interesting weather, we had a snow storm that dropped a few inches on us. I came home from work early to make sure that I didn't get stuck in rush hour traffic (it took me an hour and 45 minutes to get to work that day) and since I was home in the daylight I took Kai our for his first romp in the snow (temps were in the high 20's that day). He really liked the snow but he was very glad when we went back in to the house.

On Friday, Kai turned one! Mom took Kai to the Dr for his one year check-up in the morning and I went ahead and went to work as mom was going to have to work late. Since it was just Kai and I that evening, we celebrated with this helium balloon that I bought on my way home from work.

This is perhaps the best $2 that I may ever spend. Of course, the worst $2 that I may ever spend was the 2nd balloon that I bought that popped on my way home.
On Saturday, Stephanie and I filled Kai's room up with balloons. He loved that!

The balloons were nearly as big as him!
On Sunday Kai opened his birthday present from his grandpa and grandma Lesnet. He really likes the Caterpillar type thing. It has 26 legs so I'm not sure what kind of bug it is but it is pretty sweet!
Of course, what birthday celebration is complete without some birthday cake! Stephanie and I (but mostly Stephanie, of course) made a carrot cake from scratch.

We think he liked it.
This here cake is pretty good mom and dad!
Thanks mom and dad for the cake!!
Life for us has been busy and will continue to be extra busy at least until the end of February. I will try to continue to update the blog on a regular basis but please don't get concerned if we miss a week from time to time. We will get back to weekly posts in March.

The whole assembly then agreed to celebrate the festival seven more days; so for another seven days they celebrated joyfully. - 2 Chronicles 30:23

Happy New Year!

2009-01-11T20:04:00.002-05:00

Hello and Happy New Year!

The new year is always Stephanie and my busiest times at our jobs and this year is no exception. The good thing about being so busy is that there is not a lot of new news that needs to be updated on the blog...that is also the bad part of being so busy.

We are quickly approaching Kai's 1st birthday and there should be a lot of pictures taken when we celebrate. Since there will be pictures, we needed to clean up Kai's flowing mowhawk hairdo. Kai got his first haircut on January 4th. Here are some action shots:

Here is Kai right after the haircut. He did not sit still and we were both pretty tired by the end of the haircut but he works it pretty good.
Once he saw how good he looked, he was happy again!
Stephanie and I have started doing some decorating in our house. We bought this huge 36" clock. Of course, nobody is going to notice the clock with the two really, really, ridiculously good looking dudes in their sweaters.
Kai only likes to eat if he gets to feed himself. Here he is eating some applesauce with a spoon. He wants to be so independent.We will have a big post with pictures and updates for Kai's first birthday next weekend.

If I say, 'I will forget my complaint, I will change my expression, and smile,' - Job9:27

Last Post of 2008?

2008-12-28T22:21:00.003-05:00

Hello Everyone. Christmas has past and we are now dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Baby's 1st Christmas that hit our living room this past week.

We had a fantastic Christmas holiday and Kai loved spending a couple of days with Grandpa and Grandma Eridon.

Here is Stephanie's present from Auntie Kimberly. Looks like Kai is going to have the best decorated cupcakes for party days at school (of course we know that all things brought to school now have to be store bought)

I have been wanting a flag to hang outside on game days but just couldn't part with the coin to buy one. Now I don't have to! Thanks Mom and Pop In-Law!

There were presents and toys everywhere but Kai was content with a gold box that one of Stephanie's presents came in. We have a lot of pictures like this, but this was the only one where Grandpa is adjusting his hearing aid.

Auntie Jessica sent Kai a dragon cape all the way from Japan. We may take a picture of him every week in this because it is just so cool!

What is that on your face Kai? Well, its some of my favorites. There is some yams, some apples, Christmas ham, graham crackers, and milk. If you had all of this on your face you would look messy, Kai makes this look good!

We hope that you all had fantastic Christmas times with your families.

Please accept the present that was brought to you, for God has been gracious to me and I have all I need." And because Jacob insisted, Esau accepted it. - Genesis 33:11

Christmas Morning!

2008-12-25T12:12:00.003-05:00

Merry Christmas! Kai is taking his Christmas morning nap so we thought that we would put out a couple of pictures of Kai's first Christmas morning so that the grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, and acquaintances didn't have to wait.

We video taped everything as well but we'll need to spend some time editing the footage. Hopefully we will have the time to do that in time for our weekly post on Sunday.

Here is me assembling Kai's truck on Christmas Eve. I have to make sure I get it done quick, according to the NORAD Santa Tracker, we have to get to bed soon because Santa is getting closer!
When Kai got up he went straight for his new truck which was unwrapped under the tree.

Here is Kai with his wrapped present from Santa. He ripped off some paper then took the pieces of paper and ran throughout the house. Awesome!
Kai figured out his truck pretty quick!
Merry Christmas from the Lesnets!God Bless us Everyone - Tiny Tim

Kai Meets Santa

2008-12-22T19:19:00.002-05:00

Today was amazingly cold here in Central Indiana. When we woke up it was in the single digits and I think it only got up to 18 before wind chill.

I don't know if you have noticed but it appears that the days of the enclosed mall is all but over. They keep building these open air "lifestyle centers" malls all over the place. They are very nice in the summer but it makes waiting in line to see Santa completely insane!

Anyway, after 2 trips to the "lifestyle center", we were finally able to get Kai in to Santa's little workshop for a picture.

So, here is Kai with his new buddy Santa.

I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. - 2 Corinthians 11:27

Merry Christmas Eve Eve Eve Eve

2008-12-21T20:16:00.006-05:00

The Indiana Lesnets have had an extremely eventful week.

On Monday (12/15), Stephanie and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary by taking Kai to the Macaroni Grill. Although our meal was great, Kai ran out of patience about 3/4 of the way through dinner. We were able to keep him calm enough for us to finish our meal but it took a lot of effort. By the time we left, we were completely exhausted! I think that is the last anniversary dinner that we will be taking Kai to for a while.

Tuesday was Kai's 11 month birthday. Unfortunately I had to work a little late on Tuesday and Kai was a little too tired to take his monthly monkey picture by the time I got home. On Wednesday, we took Kai's 11 month picture. Hopefully he didn't grow too much over night and he was the same size on Wednesday as he was on Tuesday.

Also on Wednesday, we took our Christmas pictures. We got a sweet tripod from Grandpa Eridon last year for Christmas and so we were able to take pictures of ourselves. We took a lot of pictures because it was hard to get everyone to look at the camera at the same time. None of these pictures are the "Official Lesnet Christmas Picture", but they are good pictures and we thought we would share them with you all.

Here is Kai and his mom all dressed up for the holidays

Here I am with Kai and Kiki trying to be good while we wait for Santa to come. Kiki has on a special holiday collar but you really can't see it in the picture.

This picture is the first runner-up for this years official Christmas picture.

On Thursday evening, Stephanie and I celebrated our 7 year anniversary in style! We both took half days off of work. We met our estate attorney for lunch and signed our wills, then went to the stores to finish off our Christmas shopping. After braving the malls, we came home real quick to give Kai lots of hugs and kisses then we headed to Flemming's for an amazing steak dinner! It's a pretty costly place as we had a $100 gift card that I got last year for Christmas and we still had to add a Grant to get out of there.

On last week's post, I mentioned that I had made the playoffs and that I had my boss in the first round match up. I won huge in the first round which takes me to the championship game. Unfortunately my opponent this week is just on fire this week and it looks like I'll have to settle for being second place (or 1st loser) and the much much smaller cash prize.

This week is Christmas week and we will be staying close to home. Our nanny is on vacation for the week so I will be on daddy duty this week on Monday through Wednesday while Stephanie holds things down at the office.

Kai sure looks like a stinker in this picture. I think he gets this look from his daddy!

Isn't There Anyone Who Knows What Christmas is All About?

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. - Luke 2:8-14 as recited by Linus in "A Charlie Brown Christmas" in response to Charlie Brown.

A Quiet Week

2008-12-14T12:18:00.001-05:00

This week was quiet from a news stand point but it is most definitely not a quiet evening. Kai is crying and refuses to go to bed. We have been trying to get him to go down for an hour and a half so now we have decided to let him cry himself to sleep tonight.

The irrigation folks were out a lot this week and got everything finished up today. Greg, the irrigation guy fixed Kiki's fence as well by running new wire all around the perimeter of the yard. Kiki was very surprised to find that her fence is up and running again.

Stephanie had to work all weekend long so Kai and I got to hang out a lot. We made a trip to Lowe's and Kai loved looking around at all of the stuff. He made friends with nearly every associate in the store. Other than that, we hung pretty close to home and tried to keep Kai on his daily schedule.

We went to Stephanie's holiday party on Saturday night. We got all dressed up for what I think is the 3rd time since Kai has been born. We had a great time getting to know Stephanie's new co-workers.

This year I joined my first fantasy football league. I am in a league with a few guys from work and I am the only person who is only in 1 league and I am most definitely the only rookie in the league. I finished the regular season in 2nd place and this is the first week of the playoffs. There is a cash prize for 1st through 3rd places. All I have to do is beat my boss-man this weekend and I'm going to the 'ship!

This coming week is going to be HUGE. Tomorrow is Stephanie and my 7th wedding anniversary. I find it hard to believe that I was smart enough 7 years ago to make such an intelligent decision. Stephanie, I love you so much, thank you for marrying me!

Also this week, we will celebrate Kai's 11 month birthday. Its hard to believe that he is nearly a year old. We will be sure to take a picture of Kai with his monkey and put it on our next blog post.

Greet one another with a kiss of love. Peace to all of you who are in Christ. - 1 Peter 5:14

A Winter Wonderland

2008-12-07T23:20:00.001-05:00

We are "enjoying" an extremely cold weather pattern here in Central Indiana lately. We have had a couple of snow storms that has left it looking a lot like Christmas around here!

We have all spent the week battling whatever bug that is going around while getting very little sleep. Kai has a stuffy nose and he cut 2 more teeth this week so he has been keeping mommy and I up.

I have scored an amazing Christmas present this year from my incredible wife! The Indiana Lesnet Estate will now have an automatic irrigation system. They started installing it on Friday so our yard looks really funny with a lot of pipe sticking out of the ground. The only negative to the install is that the irrigation installers cut Kiki's underground invisible fence. Now we have to keep a close eye on her all the time so that she doesn't escape!

Kai scored a sweet electric guitar (I call it his "axe") from his Great Aunt Nora out in California. He really likes all of the lights and music. Mom and I dig the whammy bar!

On Sunday, I was able to go to my first Colts game at the brand new Lucas Oil Stadium. It is a pretty awesome facility complete with retractable roof. The Colts won big over the Bengals. I also learned where my company's tickets are, and I like them very much! In order for me to go to the game Stephanie had to cover for me teaching Sunday school. Her topic was on "Why Can't Countries Get Along?". She did an awesome job and I hear that the kids like her better than me so I may have taught my last lesson!

The new Lucas Oil Stadium is adjacent to the old RCA Dome where the Colts used to play. They have deflated the dome and it is set for implosion pretty soon. Also in this picture is Jared from Subway who lives here in Central Indiana. I didn't mean to take his picture but it's pretty funny that he could just as much be the subject of the picture as the old dome.

Although we put up the tree last weekend, we didn't actually put any ornaments on it until this past weekend. Kai really enjoyed watching us and running away with the ornaments and garland. We made sure that there are no ornaments within his reach but we're still afraid that we will have a big Christmas tree accident this year from an elusive, mobile baby boy!

It's amazing how fun it is to put garland on the tree when it is a big game of chase around the tree! Daddy may be a little quicker but Kai has waaaayyyy more endurance!

C'mon dad, hurry up! I see a place on the tree that needs garland!

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. - Luke 2:16

Happy Holidays!

2008-11-30T19:01:00.000-05:00

We have been reminded by a few of our loyal readers that we did not update the blog last Sunday. I'm sure that many of you were concerned that Kai and daddy didn't make it until mom got home and have been anxiously awaiting the next blog update to make sure that everything is still okay. Well, we are happy to report that we are all just fine and we are ecstatic that the holidays are here!

We had a great Thanksgiving and we stayed away from the stores on Black Friday!

We left Thanksgiving morning for North West Ohio. Our first stop was Montpelier for the Briner Family Thanksgiving celebration. I'm not exactly sure what the final official count was, but I believe that it was around 45 people.

Kai loved eating some new foods with grandma and grandpa Lesnet!

Kai had a good time playing with his cousins! Here he is with his second cousins; Elaine, April, and Kelly.

Stephanie and I had our first overnight date since Kai has been born on Friday night. We went up to Detroit to catch a Red Wings game and try to catch up on some sleep. Grandma and grandpa Eridon watched Kai while we were away. I have been a Wings fan since I was 8 or so and I had not been to Joe Louis Arena before. I have such an amazing wife who likes to do things like this with me! Don't we look like super fans in our jerseys?

On Saturday evening, we met up with Stephanie's extended family and ate some "no more turkey". Kai had a good time playing with his cousins and especially enjoyed exploring Uncle Jack and Aunt Pat's house which is all decorated for Christmas!

Doesn't this look like it could be grandpa and grandma Eridon's Christmas card this year?

After hanging out with the extended family on Saturday evening, we drove home. We pulled in to our driveway at about 11:30.

Kai had a rough night and Stephanie was up with him quite a bit throughout the night. I tagged in from time to time but we are both pretty tired after a pretty restless night.

Today we put up the Christmas tree and have started doing some decorating for Christmas. Kai helped daddy put the lights on the tree!

These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng. - Psalm 42:4