Jazz and Paper Lover

Besides Mommy, Daddy, Lucas and food, there are two things that Grace seems to love more than anything else: music and paper. She enjoys hopping into Dad's lap while he's sitting at his office computer and listening to music. She especially likes it when he manipulates her arms wildly, as though she was directing the orchestra or ensemble.

The other great love is paper. Whenever she can get her hands on it, it goes in her mouth.

Here's a short video that proves her love for both (for those who can't hear the music in the background, she "bopping" to Dave Brubeck jazz).

Because It's February 29

How often do you get to blog on February 29? My next opportunity is when I'm 39 years old (if I make it that long!) so I better grab my chance while I have it.

My sister Beth and nephew Nathan arrived yesterday afternoon by train. Lucas has enjoyed having the "other Nathan" around (he has two cousins named Nathan). While the younger (and closer) Nathan is still his "little buddy," Lucas is excited to have a bigger boy around. Lots of laughing and jumping around. I've mentioned the past couple days - more than once - that the Apache Indians have the same word for "boy" and "lightning" (perhaps that's an urban legend). Anyway, if it is indeed true, the perceptiveness of that connection has been unmistakable in our household over the last 24 hours. Not much inactivity!

Don't believe me? Check out this video!

Lucas Music Videos

We haven't been able to capture any of Lucas' spontaneous singing on video, but you can rest assured that he likes to sing. He's becoming even less camera shy, as he realizes the fringe benefit of seeing himself on the family blog. Hopefully we're not preparing him for a future in Hollywood in front of the camera!

Here are a couple of his singing treasures from the past two days.

In the Bleak Midwinter

Winter continues to hold us in its cold clutches, though it was actually a tad warmer today. Many places not too distant have experienced an all-time record snowfall in the past months. We probably haven't had it quite that bad, but we have had a steady succession of storms and cold. We will be happy to smell the thawing earth in the weeks ahead, a happy portent of the coming summer breezes and days in the warm sun.

Even in these still-dark days our children provide light to our lives. Lucas' verbal skills continue to improve and increase on a weekly basis. Grace is able to scoot across the floor with ever-increasing agility and speed. Lucas had a passing fancy helping his Mom and Dad play Yahtzee; he still enjoys assisting during rousing games of Battleship. Grace had a fussy period for a couple weeks. We were uncertain of the origin (teeth? ear infection?). Finally Tarren began to wonder if perhaps she was hungry. We began to increase her caloric intake, and it has seemed to do the trick. She's once again the smiley, cheerful chirper to whom we had grown accustomed.

I'll add a couple pictures, just in case you forgot what they looked like! I'll also insert a short video for your viewing pleasure.

Those Stairs

Now that Grace is crawling, she's finding new places to explore. One of her favorites routes is to come around the corner from the living room into our home office. She's like a little train, as she "blows her whistle" (hooting and hollering) announcing her impending arrival. Her favorite hang out, however, is the landing of the staircase that leads upstairs. She will crawl over to it, pull herself up and spend several minutes listening to her little voice echoing up the stairs.

Though she's not as noisy as she can be, here's a video of little Grace exploring her favorites digs.

Back to Frigidity

After spending nearly a week and a half on vacation in relative sunniness and warmth, we have returned to breathing arctic air. We were greeted by temperatures in the teens and wind chills in the below-zero category. But we do have sun! The drive was relatively uneventful, besides the day of driving in rain (sometimes quite hard) yesterday, and my spilling coffee on our portable DVD player, which seemed to render one of our two screens unusable. We'll see what happens after it "dries" out, but I'm not hopeful.

We had a wonderful time visiting family and friends. The highlight of the trip was seeing all three of Tarren's living grandparents. Naturally, they all had the opportunity to reacquaint themselves with their great-grandchildren, which was nice. It was a busy set of days without much down time. The biggest drawback was having children sleeping next to us nearly every night, due to Grace's unwillingness to sleep in a pack-n-play. It will be nice to have her and Lucas in their own beds tonight; we won't mind being in ours either.

Perhaps I will get a chance to post a few additional pictures in the coming days, but I thought I'd share a couple right now (one with some of the children I've had the privilege of baptizing in the past 3+ years and another with Tarren and her godchild Hanna).

Checking In

It's my understanding that, even though I have been quite delinquent in posting anything new, there are still some people who check this blog out from time to time. Perhaps more feedback from "viewers" would encourage me to blog more often (do you see how I managed to blame YOU for the lack of news on this page recently?).

Just a few updates before I add a lovely video of the kids ... Grace saw a allergist yesterday, and it was determined that she's allergic to peas and nuts and probably to dairy products as well. Tarren will be eliminating all dairy and soy from her diet over the next couple weeks to see if there is marked improvement both with Grace's reflux and chronic congestion. Both the doctor and nurses wanted to keep her after the appointment; she wins them over pretty easily with her quiet charm. She's also begun to crawl in the past couple days, so we need to be a little more vigilant about what we leave lying around now. I suspect that she's going to be a quiet mischief maker (unlike Lucas, whom you can hear coming from a mile away).

Lucas continues to be the doting big brother (you'll notice his fondness for Grace on the video). We've registered him for two days of preschool beginning in the fall; we're pretty sure that he'll enjoy that and benefit from it.

It's cold today, with the prospect of even colder temps tomorrow (highs in the single digits!). It's about time to go someplace warm for a few days!

Here's that video:

Christmas Preparations

As is normally the case with parish pastors, the last several weeks have been extremely busy as we travel through the season of Advent and prepare for our celebration of Christmas. Besides my normal pastoral duties, I've had Wednesday evening services added to my already busy schedule. Add in an unusually snowy December (and my snow-shoveling duties), and my schedule has been really quite busy. So here I am after a nearly one month hiatus getting back to the family blog.

I can report that in the past week and a half Grace has managed to begin sitting very regularly and steadily (I'll drop in a picture at the end of this post to illustrate). She's offering more and more chatter almost by the day, and we're beginning to wonder if she'll be as noisy as Lucas is, who talks constantly! She's also beginning to exhibit pretty routine separation anxiety from Mom and Dad. She'll even cry for us when Lucas is still in the room with her, which is unusual since Lucas tends to be her number one form of entertainment. Her mother and I continue to be of the opinion that she's the most lovely baby we've ever seen, but perhaps we're biased.

Lucas is ready for Christmas to come, though not in an overly-eager way. He has spent several weeks dreaming about the different Thomas the Tank Engine toys that he may receive as gifts. Dad has been scouring Ebay for a couple months finding some ridiculous deals on a whole host of items. He should be pleased, if not somewhat overwhelmed. He won't be getting the things I've purchased all at once. One thing that has perhaps kept Lucas from becoming impatient as he waits for Christmas is that we haven't really put any gifts under the tree yet. Without that visual reminder/temptation, it doesn't seem quite as imminent.

We wish everyone a very blessed Christmas. For those on our Christmas letter list, you should be receiving your letter and picture from us soon.

Jesus Loves Lucas

Update on Lucas

I realize that it's been a few weeks since I last blogged. It's not because there hasn't been anything happening; just the opposite. A busy few weeks for me personally and family-wise. So I thought I'd jot down a few lines while my confirmation kids take their quiz on the Ninth and Tenth Commandments.

Lucas has been eagerly awaiting the time when the leaves would begin to fall and snow to fly. The reason for this is quite simple: his father has been reminding him that Christmas won't come until the leaves fall off the trees and the snow begins to make its annual appearance. Both events have transpired in the past few weeks. We held onto our leaves longer than normal, it seems. A late fall provided for that, no doubt. But when they began to fall, they fell quickly. The church provides for a lawn service, for which I am truly thankful. The men worked for more than three hours this past week cleaning up our front and back yards (which aren't large), and they had all the necessary power tools to do so. If I had done the job they did myself, it would have taken me at least twice as long. Then on Thanksgiving Eve we had our first real snowfall. I didn't really think that we would see any accumulation based on what the weather folks were saying, but as it turned out we did have a sprinkling of snow that stuck. When I threw up the curtains in Lucas' room on Thursday morning, he got a glimpse of our newly-whitened neighborhood and declared that it was now time for Christmas. Naturally, I had to break the news to him that he would need to wait, but that Christmas was getting closer. I always try to use any mention of Christmas by Lucas to remind him about the Christ Mass. He seems to be catching on.

Lucas' anticipation of Christmas, however, has more to do with his looking forward to receiving additional pieces for his wooden train set. His favorite pasttime remains looking at Thomas the Tank Engine items on "Dada's computer." He pulls out his "train map" (little flyers that come with each engine) or his "train book" (the larger catalog) and works his way through requesting to see on my computer just about everything he finds in those. His memory is pretty impressive, and the fact that many of the engines are numbered has also helped him in identifying his numbers. When a cousin, whose not familiar with all the different engines, was calling each of them "Thomas," Lucas quickly corrected, "That's not Thomas; that's Diesel 10," etc. His father and he have become quite the "experts."

Besides his memory, one other thing that impresses us about Lucas is the relative ease with which he expresses remorse. He's a pretty sensitive kid, so when he says, "I'm sorry," it's pretty clear that he really means it. We don't usually have to ask him to express his sorrow about things. What's even more interesting, however, is how quickly he says, "You're forgiven." For instance, when he's been playing on the floor before, I've accidentally swiped him with my shoe as I stepped over him like a klutz. I'll say, "I'm sorry, Bub," and he'll say, quite non-chalantly, "That's O.K., Dada. You're forgiven." I haven't been around enough three-years-old to know whether or not they usually understand the concept of expressing forgiveness so readily, but we're happy to see that he's catching on.

Lucas had lots of fun playing with his cousins over the Thanksgiving weekend. He actually had the opportunity to play with cousins Sarah and Nathan for an extended period on four straight days. He and four-year-old Sarah finally have begun to mesh in their play together, as Lucas has seemed to catch up with her on a imagination level. The past two evenings were spent "going to school" and "making meals" in our downstairs playroom. While there is still the occasional fight over this or that item, those fights have begun to take place much less frequently. It's obvious how much Lucas has begun to enjoy this play time because when it comes to an end he has an emotional meltdown (though he recovers quickly).

That's a little update on Lucas. An update on Grace is coming soon!

Standard Time & Costume Critique

It was nice to "fall back" into standard time the other night. The only drawback these days is that children can't figure out the difference, of course. Lucas was asking to have someone get him at 5:30 A.M. this morning. I broke the news to him that it wasn't time to get up yet. He took it like a champ and kept quiet for another half hour or so (though I'm sure he didn't fall back to sleep). Grace, on the other hand, is still sleeping at this point (my suspicion is that she's going to be the type of girl that we have trouble getting out of bed when she's a teenager). Our two children continue to be a study in contrasts.

When one of the members of my Wednesday night Bible study arrived this past week on the evening of October 31, he gave me some instant feedback on Lucas' Hallowe'en costume: "Lucas was really cute." Judge for yourself. (He's Buzz Lightyear for the "Toy Story Uninitiated")

Reformation Trick-or-Treating

As a Lutheran pastor especially, I always stress that today is first and foremost a celebration of the Church's Reformation, marking the anniversary of Martin Luther's nailing his 95 Theses to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg (October 31, 1517). Naturally, the world knows this day as Hallowe'en or All Hallows' Eve, the evening before All Saints' Day (November 1), when it was thought that the souls of the dead would return to this world and haunt the living (Jack o' Lanterns were put on the doorstep to spook these spirits away). Luther's posting of his Theses was calculated since he knew that the next morning a large gathering would assemble at the church for the All Saints' Day Mass, though these Theses (points designed to provoke debate) were written in Latin and not meant for the common German people. Within weeks, however, Luther's document was translated into the language of the people and circulated throughout Germany and eventually all Europe. The Lutheran Reformation had begun.

With that short history lesson, I will also report that Lucas will be gathering candy this evening masquerading as Buzz Lightyear. Grace will go along for the ride, dressed in a blaze orange outfit with a little black cat on it. Best of all, we'll have some candy in the house!

Perhaps we'll shoot a few pictures and post them in time.

Settling Back In

Our family is settling back in after ten days of vacation. We had the pleasure of spending several days with family and friends in remote places, but we also got the chance to unwind over the past couple days at home. We loved every minute of it. Most of all it gave Tarren and me an opportunity to get away from our very busy every-day lives and to spend some quality family time together. We are refreshed and ready to go.

We had the chance to do plenty of driving and saw some beautiful places in our beautiful country. Many places we visited were beginning to take on the colors of autumn. Surprisingly many of the trees in our hometown remain perfectly green. The weather has been mild, so I suppose that's the leading factor in keeping the trees looking summerlike. We hope to see the dazzling reds, yellows and oranges soon!

An update on the children ... Lucas is perfectly potty-trained. He has been accident free for at least a couple weeks and continues to do very well. His logorrhea can be wearing on the nerves (it's a relief to our ears when he finally hits the hay), but his imagination is endless and his boyish enthusiasm fills our family life with joy. Currently his favorite pasttime is to look at Thomas trains on Dad's computer. During vacation he got his first chance to experience bowling; it was a hit (see pictures below).

Grace simply adores her brother. It's funny to listen to her squeal as she is being carried upstairs, watching Lucas climb the stairs right in front of her. For some reason she gets a real kick out of that. Right now she's suffering from a slight cold, but she's obviously developing both physically and mentally right on schedule. Every day she's becoming more nimble in her ability to grab things and manipulate them the way she wants. And her grip is made of steel!

Here's a few shots from our vacation:

Where have you been?

Perhaps some check this blog from time to time, and you've been wondering outloud: Why haven't they blogged? Actually, my wife asks me this question about every other day. I've told her repeatedly that she's can blog herself, but she demurs. So the simple answer as to why you haven't seen anything new on this blog recently is this: I've been a busy man. Conferences, meetings to prepare for, meetings to attend, with pastoral work in between; a visit from my sister Beth; a birthday for Lucas; and two sick kids.

I won't bore you with details about the professional aspects of my life over the past several weeks, but I will expand on Beth's visit and Lucas' birthday. My sister came last Tuesday on the train and was able to be here for Lucas' birthday. We took Lucas to Toys 'r Us so that he could pick out a birthday gift from his aunt Beth. He chose a Thomas the Train set that ended up not being built very well. Tarren returned it the other day, and Lucas picked out a couple wooden Thomas trains instead. Beth's visit was short, but we enjoyed the time we had to spend with her.

Lucas officially turned three. We had a small party the weekend before with Tarren's family; a nice, cool afternoon. Naturally, Lucas got many more presents than he needed or deserved (can someone who is leaving their "terrible two" year behind really deserve anything?). He's at the point where he appreciates the gift he just opened for about a nanosecond, and then he wants to open another one. Once he has all of his unwrapped gifts in front of him he's able to be a discerning judge as to which is his favorite, though I can't honestly tell you what judgment he's made. As of this moment he seems to enjoy the wooden Thomas trains that he picked out last week best. Actually, the gift he asks most about is the Toby train that Tarren and I purchased for him for Christmas when we were at Toys 'r Us. (For the uninitiated, Toby is one of the engines from Thomas and Friends). They had a nice sale, so we decided to buy a few. He wonders daily when he's going to get Toby, and we tell him that he needs to wait until Christmas. So, of course, now he wonders daily whether today is Christmas. He's beginning to make more and more of those types of logical connections these days, and his Mom and Dad are noticing. He's growing up to be a nice, three-year-old boy!

After the birthday festivities came to an end, both of our children received one last "gift," an upper respiratory virus. Grace was running a fever around 102 and had a dry cough. One day she slept for about 18 of the 24 hours, which was a little cause of concern, especially for Momma. But once again, we noticed a difference between our two children. When Lucas is sick, we often have trouble getting him to sleep. When she's sick (granted, this was her first real bout with illness), she sleeps. And even though she was sick, she was quite liberal with smiles.

Lucas got it next, and he developed croup. He sounded pretty bad for a few days, but now he's almost entirely cleared up. One thing that was surprising to me was that the doctor didn't prescribe any antibiotics. I'm not complaining about that, but we've become so used to running to Walgreens in this family that I expected yet another trip. But both children have overcome without any prescription assistance, which is just fine by us!

So there's the update. I'll add a couple pictures since it's so easy to do.

Doctor's Orders

I was gone the last couple days to a pastoral conference, but while I was away Tarren took Lucas to the doctor. He had been quite crabby for the past week or so. Crabbiness is not terribly uncharacteristic for this almost three-year-old boy, but the level of his crabbiness was uncharacteristic. We wondered if it could be allergies or an ear infection or both.

Here was our logic: In the past a rise in crabbiness had often indicated that he was suffering from an ear infection, so we wondered if maybe sinus congestion from allerigies had led to an ear infection, which in turn would lead to his crabbiness. Tarren had been giving him Claritin from time to time.

Anyway, Sunday was the kicker for my wife. Lucas was especially uncooperative in church and later at the church picnic, so we decided it was time to go to the doctor.

The doctor indicated that his ears were clear and that he may be suffering from some minor allergies, but he strongly suggested that we stop giving him Claritin, as they can lead to behavioral problems.

Then, interestingly, he proceeded to give Lucas a short lecture about listening to his Mom and Dad. Lucas cowered but didn't cry. He wondered what we did when he misbehaves. Tarren told him that we put him in timeout. How long? For three minutes. Not long enough, said the doctor. Put him in his room and make him stay there for thirty minutes.

Tarren's conclusion: I really like this doctor!

Sunday School? No Problem

This past weekend Lucas had another first: his first time in Sunday School. He was excited about going, especially since he knew the other children that would be there (though cousin Sarah wasn't there due to illness). He was the youngest one in the class; not actually three just yet with a birthday coming up in the couple weeks. But his teachers reported that he did well. He wasn't at first interested in sitting with the class as they went through their lesson, but eventually he joined them. Several times throughout the class he commented that it was "time to go see Momma now," but he never became upset when told that she would be coming in a little while to pick him up. All in all it was a successful endeavor, and of course we relish the fact that he is beginning his formal education in the truth about our Savior Jesus and the salvation he provides. We pray that he will continue to gladly hear and learn the Word!


Just look at this smile of anticipation and joy before Momma dropped him off for class! You may notice that he's standing in front of his father's bookshelf (Lucas' Great-Grandpa Prange actually bought this bookshelf to hold his pastoral books). Now this bookshelf holds, among other things, several multi-colored volumes of Luther's Works (Lucas' Grandpa Prange actually bought these back in the day and gave them to me when he retired). It will interesting to see whether or not Lucas ever has any interest in having me hand any of these things down to him some day.

Other Pictures

Here are a few other pictures for your enjoyment, the first three of which are from our visit to the Z-O-O last week.

Motherly Concern

Tarren is worried that those of you who look at our blog will be so enamored with the video of Grace that you'll fail to notice my blog entitled "A Father's Love." So after you watch the video below, make sure to scroll down further and read my other entry from today!

"Punka" Video

Here's a video of Baby Grace, or "Punka" as I call her (short for "Pumpkin Pie"). If you can view the video, make sure to have the sound up on your computer, so you can hear the sounds she's making these days! You'll notice that she's also rolling over, though Momma has to give her a little help in this particular video.

A Father's Love

Lucas made his first purchase last night at Barnes and Noble. We had gone there after dinner so that he could play with the Thomas and Friends trainset that they have set up in the children's department. Naturally, they also have their display of Thomas trains for sale right next to the trainset. When there was no Thomas engine available for play, Lucas noticed with excitement that there was a Thomas available in the box. His father played the part of the ogre by telling him that we couldn't take Thomas out of the box because we would have to pay for him first. Besides, he already had a Thomas engine at home.

Within a few minutes it was time for us to leave, but before heading out of the store I decided to stop off for some Starbucks. As I was putting some half-n-half into my coffee, Lucas noticed a penny on the floor. He picked it up and ran to me with a bright smile: "Look, Daddy, now we can play (sic) for Thomas." Tarren and I looked at one another, realizing that his penny wouldn't cut it, but reluctant to undercut the sheer joy of his "good fortune."

We went back downstairs to where the trains were, and he selected an engine by the name of Salty. We escalated back upstairs to the cash register, Lucas proudly plunking his prodigous penny on the countertop with profound pleasure. When papa provided his "two cents worth," Lucas was the proud owner of a new Salty engine, and he had a nickel's worth of change to spare! What a deal!

On the other hand, when one considers what our heavenly Father has graciously given us, there is no comparison. Besides freely giving us everything we need for this life (all things, from the food we eat to the air we breathe to the life we live), he also graciously bestows his greatest gifts of forgiveness from all sin and eternal life, purchased and won solely by the precious blood of his only Son. All these things he gives us, though we stand before him completely penniless, empty-handed, spiritually dead (Ephesians 2:1) and destitute. "But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions - it is by grace you have been saved" (Ephesians 2:4,5).

I became twelve bucks poorer to purchase a train for my son which will give him hours of joy and happiness. Christ Jesus surrendered all riches for you and me (2 Corinthians 8:9) to purchase and win for us an eternity of bliss and freedom from sin and death.

"How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! ... This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins: (1 John 3:1; 4:10).

A picture of Lucas and his new engine Salty: