Month #1 of the Lesnet Family of Four

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

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!!

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!

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