Larger than Life

	Recently, Daniel has really gotten interested in Legos (thanks to the influence of his best friend, Drake). Due to his intrest, he got some Lego sets for Christmas, has bought some with his own money, and got some as gifts from family and friends. We have really enjoyed putting these creations together. Daniel and Maggie have also just started making their own creations and playing with them.
	At Christmas, Daniel wanted to buy Drake some Legos for Christmas (since he knew that he liked them), so we went to an outlet mall that had a Legos store. We have since been back several times. The store has a Darth Vader made out of Legos so we were excited when we saw that they were going to be building an 8' R2-D2.
	It was a three day event and the kids were able to help out by making Lego "bricks" for the R2 made up of numerous little legos put together. Daniel and Maggie made several bricks.
	Once they made some bricks they turned them in to get a coupon to take to the Legos store for a certificate of participation. While we were there we learned that the R2-D2 would be completed the next day, left on display for an hour before being taken down to travel to the next city.
	So we decided to go back the next day to see the finished product and get our picture taken with the larger than life Legos R2-D2.

Two Months

On Monday Joshua turned two months old. Yesterday I took him to his two month check-up. He now weighs 13 pounds and 7 ounces and is 22 and 3/4 inches long (short and stocky and very cute). He also got his first round of immunizations. It was great that they had this combo shot that had DTaP, polio, and Hib all in one, so he only got two shots rather than the four our other kids got. He was a bit fussy and uncomfortable during the day, but he gave us our first 5 and a half hours of sleep in a row last night. He is sleeping in his crib a good portion of the night and napping in there during the day (unless I feel like snuggling at my nap time). It's amazing the difference a month makes. Now if only I would go to bed at a decent hour and get up and ready before the kids I might feel more like a productive human being (I'm taking baby steps).

All he wants for Christmas . . .

I took Daniel and Maggie to the dentist in January. It was there that I discovered that Daniel's two front teeth were getting loose. I had no idea before the hygenist pointed it out because we don't go over his teeth everytime he brushes now, and they just barely wiggled. Fast forward to March and the loose teeth are looking kind of rough. They are getting discolored and cadywonked. My friends Kim and Rachael offered to help pull them out but Daniel said no thanks and I got the heeby jeebys thinking about it. Well, finally I couldn't take it anymore so I asked him if I could use the floss on it and after several attempts I managed to get one out, but then he didn't want me to do the other one because it hurt a little.



So this morning with my new found tooth pulling confidence I asked Daniel if I could give it a try on his other tooth. He reluctantly agreed. After just two tries I managed to pull out his other tooth.
















So now he just needs his two new front teeth.

Snowy, snowballs and stats

I thought I had put a picture of the aforementioned snowman named Snowy in the last post, but aparently I'm not as techno savvy as I previously thought. So here is a picture of the snow configuration that Davis, Daniel and Maggie made on our snowday.

Here's a picture of Maggie and Daniel with some freshly made snowballs. Daniel looks like he is about to let his fly. Daniel managed to get one into his daddy's coat pocket.

Joshua is snug inside the house during the snow storm of 2009. At his one month check up he weighed 11 lbs and 8 oz. He's also grown an inch since birth. He's a solid little guy complete with double chin.

Let it Snow

It snowed here yesterday and the kids absolutely loved it. You would have thought it was Christmas day with how excited they were. Once we made it safely home from church we bundled them up and sent them out to play in it. They decided to build a snowman which Daniel named Snowy. Joshua and I only went out long enough to get a picture. The rest of the time we stayed inside making brownies and hot chocolate. Daniel and Maggie were soaked and frozen after playing outside for over an hour so we ran a hot bath, put on dry warm clothes, and drank hot chocolate while watching a movie. It was a really lovely and wonderful day.

Bears and Babies

Uncle Bennett holding his newest nephew next to his oldest nephew. It's always great to have a bunch of Hipps men together.

Maggie adores her Aunt Lynley as evidenced here by wanting to sit on her lap at the same time as her holding Joshua.

Joshua with his Vermont Teddy Bear.

The teddy collection. Uncle Bennett continues the tradition by giving Joshua a teddy bear just like he gave to Daniel and Maggie after they were born. It is one of the sweetest gifts and we just love that the kids will have them their entire lives.

One Month and Counting

Here is a picture of Joshua when he turned one month old (Friday February 23rd). The time has really flown by. It seems that the more children you have the faster it goes. So I guess if we have any more children we will have officially hit warp speed (we are currently in fast play). I will say that as much as we adore Joshua and love having a sweet baby in our home, it has been a more difficult transition than I expected. I just thought I would be out and about all the time since his food source is with me all the time, I am ready with the baby sling, and the older kids are great helpers (plus they can strap themselves in). But, alas, we have been house bound for over a month (except for a few outings and doctor appointments). I am so very thankful for our awesome church family that has been providing us with delicious meals for the last month. It has been an incredible blessing to not have to worry about meal preparations during this time. I was shocked when I saw that they would be feeding us for the entire month of February, but now I am just so very thankful (although we could stand about six more months of it). I really do think that we are starting to get the hang of things and I hope to start visiting friends and making it to outings with the kids. Overall, life is good. I thank God for our three amazing children!

Full Joshua Birth Twitter Timeline

my wife has a whole lotta contractin' goin' on. I'll keep you posted if this turns into something. 11:06 PM Jan 22nd from twitterrific

Looking like it's turning into something. I'll update when there are updates to give. 5:15 AM Jan 23rd from twitterrific

At the midwifery for a labor check. 9:23 AM Jan 23rd from twitterrific

is headed from the labor check to Hospital check-in. 9:30 AM Jan 23rd from twitterrific

In the delivery room, awaiting our delivery. 10:08 AM Jan 23rd from twitterrific

In the bigger, better delivery room, still awaiting. 10:19 AM Jan 23rd from twitterrific

Update: contractions 2-4 min apart, dilated 5+ cm as of 9:30. They won't chk again till antibiotics kick in for baby, or pushing starts. 11:36 AM Jan 23rd from twitterrific

Also, 80+% effaced. And she's trying to nap now. http://twitpic.com/1683f 11:45 AM Jan 23rd from twitterrific

contractions closer together and more intense. That's all we know so far. 1:01 PM Jan 23rd from twitterrific

we've been told antibiotic has been in long enough, so no more need to try to delay things. 1:43 PM Jan 23rd from twitterrific

frequent. intense. Surely it won't be long now. I think. 2:09 PM Jan 23rd from twitterrific

Angie is tidying up the delivery room btw contractions. :-) 2:18 PM Jan 23rd from twitterrific

just checked again, not progressing as hoped. Frequent, intense contractions but still 5cm & 90% effaced. Please pray. Thanks. 3:14 PM Jan 23rd from twitterrific

Born. 7:08 7:10 PM Jan 23rd from twitterrific

thanks everyone for your prayers and well-wishes. I'll post measurements when we get them. 7:52 PM Jan 23rd from twitterrific

Official Stats - Joshua Michael Hipps, born 1/23/08 7:11pm, 7lbs. 14oz., 21" long. Pics to follow 10:15 PM Jan 23rd from twitterrific

Pics http://twitpic.com/16git, http://twitpic.com/16gj2, http://twitpic.com/16gj7 10:16 PM Jan 23rd from twitterrific

Meeting Daniel and Maggie http://twitpic.com/16pyg about 23 hours ago from twitterrific

Hospital wireless is "down for the weekend." dang! We were gonna watch the Lost premiere that we missed the other day. about 18 hours ago from twitterrific

Woohoo! ABC is re-running the Lost premiere! We don't need no stinkin' hospital wireless! about 16 hours ago from twitterrific

will hopefully be leaving the hospital in about an hour. Hooray! about 4 hours ago from twitterrific

is headed home with our newborn about 1 hour ago from twitterrific

is home with the baby, and is taking the tweets off of public. Thank you all for tuning in and being so encouraging! Now for a nap! 6 minutes ago from web

Baby Updates

We're currently in the NICE delivery room. Progress reports are
available at http://twitter.com/davishipps. We'll post pictures when
they're available.

Getting Ready

Now that the holidays are over and all the decorations are put away we are getting ready for baby #3's arrival. I have done so many loads of laundry that I have lost count, but all of those itty bitty adorable baby clothes are clean and put away. We have had to shift some things around in the house to make room for the newest addition. Daniel and Maggie now have a hanging closet organizer so that we could empty Davis' childhood dresser for the baby's clothes and accessories. We had to rearrange our bedroom a little to make room for the crib. All I have left to do is a cleaning of the house and pack my hospital bag (I have actually washed and laid out the clothes in the crib, I just need to put them in a bag). We have our neighbors on alert and my wonderful mother-in-law is waiting anxiously for our call. Tomorrow, Maggie will turn 5 years old! I can't fathom that I am on the verge of having another baby when my "baby" is turning 5. I will be delivering this child in the same hospital as I delivered Maggie. The kids are getting excited and they have taken to giving my large abdomen hugs and kisses at night and telling their baby brother good night before going to bed. I think that they are going to be such loving siblings and good helpers. In the picture above they are wearing some t-shirts that my friend, Erin, gave me. Not only is she quite crafty, she knows lots of crafty people so she always finds such neat things to give as gifts. It was such a sweet and thoughtful gift from her that I thought it would be great to put a picture up on the blog of the kids wearing their big brother and big sister shirts. Thanks, Erin!

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

Here are Daniel and Maggie in their Christmas outfits. Every year the grandparents buy them a wonderful Christmas outfit to wear. These are some mighty fine looking children. Behind them is our sweet little Christmas tree. We have yet to convert over to a pre-lit artifical tree. I grew up with an artificial tree, but after I married Davis I got to experience Christmas with a real tree. Not sure what we will have next year since we will have a crawling child in the house again, but I am sure our home will be filled with joy. As I hope yours is this Christmas. Merry Christmas!

Best of the Home Movies

In my last post, I mentioned watching some home movies this past weekend. The best of these, by far, is the video that my super-talented brother, Bennett, made for Christmas of 2003, when Daniel was about 1 and a half years old. Daniel's big present that year was a First Act acoustic guitar, so Bennett set the video to "The Guitar" by They Might Be Giants. Enjoy!

         

Daniel Christmas 2003

Ghost of Christmas Past

This weekend we pulled out some home movies from the past few years and watched the excitement unfolding on a few different Christmas days for Daniel and Maggie in their slightly younger years. I tend to be hesitant to watch home movies, largely because it can make me feel nostalgic for the days when we were all a little younger. My main problem with nostalgia is that I can become depressed, feeling like my best days are behind me. This is why I never look at any old yearbooks, and why I tend to shy away from investing in many rediscovered old friendships on Facebook. I don't want to reminisce about the good ol' days because, in my mind, that implies that the new days won't be as good.

Having said that, I actually thoroughly enjoyed the Christmas home movies that we watched this weekend. Seeing the joy and wonder on the faces of the kids as they took in all that was happening on Christmas morning was an absolute joy. I think part of the reason I was able to enjoy it this time was because I know it gets better from here. Daniel and Maggie are old enough now to get excited about Christmas well before it arrives, so their enthusiasm and appreciation continues to reach new levels. And, if I long for the cute sweetness of a new baby just discovering Christmas, we've got one due to arrive in late January that will get to experience all of this next year for the first time. And so, for the first time, these shadows of things that have been brought me only happiness, relishing memories of good times past, and eagerly anticipating those to come.

Favorite Christmas Movies

Today, in keeping with my "Christmas Favorites" series that I started yesterday, I was going to discuss my favorite Christmas movies. But then, as I was checking the blogs today, I noticed that our friend, Angela, beat me to it. So, I just commented on her post instead. You should, too!

Favorite Christmas Books

Every year when we bring the Christmas decorations down from the attic, there is a box of Christmas books that comes down as well. My favorite, without a doubt, is A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. I always read it first to make sure I've got enough time to finish before Christmas. It may be a little unadventurous of me, I suppose, to pick a universally acknowledged classic as my favorite, but I can't help that. It's a great story, and I love recognizing the parts that don't make it into the movies. Of these, my favorite is the line at the end that "he had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards;" that one always gives me a chuckle. There are some other great Christmas books that I enjoy as well. Next on the "gotta-read-it" list is a relatively recent addition by Dave Barry entitled The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog. This is a short but excellent story that may really have happened to Dave as a boy. I base this on the fact that it's extremely similar to a humor article he wrote back in the '80s about his own boyhood. The only other book that I absolutely try to get in is The Autobiography of Santa Claus as told to Jeff Guinn, mostly because of the clever way in which it's written, and all of the fascinating little-known facts about the history / mythology of Santa Claus. Very well done. So that's it. I just thought I'd share that, and also pose the question: "Do you have a favorite Christmas story?"

Postage-Free Christmas Letter

We got our annual copy of the Fatzinger Christmas Letter yesterday, written by our dear friend, Amy. It may sound a bit corny, especially since I talk to them almost every week at church, and thus have at least a general sense of how life's going for them, but I absolutely love reading that thing. Every year, Amy is able to recap the big events of their year and their current state of affairs with that same infectious joy and hope that she exudes when you talk to her in person. I get to the end of it and find myself wishing, once again, that I'd sent a Christmas letter to our friends and family this year. Of course, it's probably getting to be a bit late in the season for that, so I thought I might take a crack at it here on ye olde bloge.

Dear Friends and Family (and anyone who may have stumbled onto our blog),

This has been quite a year for the Hipps family. In some ways, it seemed longer than last year, but in other ways, it just flew right by. This year we went on our first real family vacation to the beach, Daniel lost his first tooth, and we found out that we're expecting our third child, another boy! And, while at times the wallet looks a little thin, we have managed to move our net worth about $10,000 closer to becoming positive this year.



I'm sure I've left out a lot of great things, but this year we started blogging again after a four year hiatus, so a lot of the high points have been covered right here! What else can I say? Our family is healthy, our children are smart and beautiful, we're about to be blessed with yet another little miracle, the election and related advertisements are finally over, and I got good music on my radio!

Merry Christmas to one and all,
The Hipps Family

Sunday School Lesson

In Maggie's Sunday School class, the lesson today was about John the Baptist, and how he prepared the way for Jesus by telling people that the Savior was coming, and that they should repent of their sins. While I do believe it's important that children know about that, I was a little surprised that this was today's lesson, since the overall theme of these weeks leading up to Christmas is "Preparing for Christmas." John preparing the way for Jesus struck me as only loosely related to Christmas, since at the time of the first Christmas, John was maybe 6 months old, according to the Gospel of Luke.

Anyway, later in the day, Maggie was playing with the craft she'd made in class. It's a paper plate with a drawing of water on it and 2 Popsicle stick puppets, 1 man and 1 woman. The plate is cut so that you can stand the puppets up in the water. Not having been one of the teachers today, I asked her what her craft was. She said, "This is John the Dunkinsman, and this is the lady he's dunking. And then they get married." Okay, so that probably wasn't exactly the lesson from class, but hey, at least she got that he dunked people and not doughnuts. Lesson learned, as far as I'm concerned.

Continuing Education

Today, Daniel and I were checking the weather on my iPhone (yeah, I totally just said that to sound cool), and the temperature was 45 degrees. So, I sang to him that it was "fowerty-fahve degwhees," which is my crude rendition of a line from the song "Beds Are Burning" by Midnight Oil. I'd never realized it before, but as I thought about the words to the song, it occurred to me that a) Midnight Oil is from Australia, and b) Australia probably measures temperature on the Celsius scale. From that, plus the fact that the full line from the song is "the western desert lives and breathes in fowerty-fahve degwhees," I concluded that 45 degrees is probably pretty warm to them. So I Googled it (you can view the process here), and sure enough, 45 degrees Celsius turns out to be 113 degrees Fahrenheit. Definitely not the chilly western Australian desert I'd previously subconsciously imagined. I also learned for the first time in my life exactly what the conversion process between the two systems is. It's just C = (F - 32) x 5/9, or F = (C x 9/5) + 32. I'm not sure how I failed to learn this in school, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was taught but not extensively tested because the teachers knew we'd never need it. It definitely didn't feel like, "Oh, yeah, I remember this." It felt like completely new information. Which is fine. Now that I'm an adult, I am a lot more interested in the type of information that I'll never have a legitimate use for than I ever was as a student. Like all that Base 6 stuff in math class. Raise your hand if your using that in your current job. Exactly. I can see no hands. There you go.

Tea Readings

Angie's been sick this past week with a horrible cold, and as such, she's been drinking a lot of tea. While I wait for the tea to steep, I like to read the box. Most of the tea boxes have some little piece of prose on the sides. It tends to be this very flowery, exotic-sounding language describing the blissful surroundings from whence the tea has been plucked and basically making tea sound much more like a relaxing weekend vacation in an English garden than a cup of hot water turned brown by a bag of leaves. Celestial Seasonings is probably the most entertaining, including quotes from philosophers in addition to the more standard pastoral scenes. The Bigelow folks have their own blog, and a catalog that reads like a poetry recital at a flower show. Even the generic "Publix" brand boxes have something to say, giving an extremely brief history of tea, worded as follows: "Tea originated in ancient China more than 5,000 years ago, and ever since has provided the world with a relaxing pause of refreshment." And, with that, I think I'll take a relaxing pause myself.

Breaking the Chains (and the Rules)

Ask anyone that I work with to describe me in 3 words or less, and the odds are good that, to a man, the answer you'll get is: "compulsive rule-breaker," particularly if I've had a chance to coach them on what their response ought to be. This post is only one example of how well-deserved that reputation really is. We've now been tagged twice, once by our friend, Angela, and once by our friend, Wes, to post seven (7) random / weird facts about ourselves. The actual wording of the rules for this are as follows:

*Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.

*Share seven random and/or weird facts about yourself.

*Tag seven other people at the end of your post and link to their blogs.

*Let each person know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

So far, you've read through my complicity in the first rule. What follows will be my adherence to rule #2. After that, though, I'm goin' rogue, baby. Look out! There will be no further tagging or linking. I don't know what may happen to me if I break this chain, but I'm willing to take the chance.

Okay, really, I just don't know 7 bloggers who haven't already done this. I'm getting into the game late, and all the good taggees have already been taken. So, without further ado, 7 random facts about Davis (Angie may do one on herself later, but she's tired now. Pregnancy will do that to you.)

1) Okay, I suppose one odd thing about yours truly is that I don't mind the chick flicks so much. I truly enjoy the Jane Austen movies that we own, and have even been known to request You've Got Mail without prompting or provocation (we're watching it right now, in fact, at my request). I like the way it moves through the seasons, and since it starts out in the Fall, it puts me in an Autumn mood, with an eye towards Christmas. This oddness does not extend to Sleepless in Seattle, however; I am still male, after all.

2) Immediately after my 7th grade year, I toured Ireland for two weeks (I think, maybe just one; time was different then) with a boys' choir, culminating in a performance in Dublin for the Millennial Celebration of the founding of the city (of Dublin). As I recall, there were maybe 10 people in the audience who weren't with our group. Apparently, the Dubliners did not get the word that they were supposed to celebrate 1000 years of city-hood by watching a bunch of prepubescent boys sing. Still, we sang well, and the small audience of our chaperones and the event organizers was duly appreciative. Also, the rest of the trip was awesome.

3) I always thought I'd make a pretty good father: my dad is and always has been a great dad, and he always seemed to enjoy the role, so I felt confident I would enjoy it, too. Having said that, the day after Daniel was born, I completely freaked out. We got moved from the spacious delivery room to this post-partem shoebox, and I started to go a little stir-crazy. At some point, Angie evicted me from the room, and I went out to our car and cried and prayed for about 30 minutes or so, after which I was completely fine. Okay, not completely fine; still pretty shaken up, actually, but confident enough that I could handle suddenly losing the luxury of being completely selfish, of having *gasp* responsibility for someone who couldn't otherwise take care of himself. I went to the hospital gift shop, bought a teddy bear or a "Proud Dad" pin or something, and re-entered the shoebox content in my fatherhood and ready to help out. I think I may have fallen asleep in a chair immediately thereafter.

4) I have several relatively-recently-discovered food allergies, including: raw carrots, cabbage / sauerkraut, raw apples, certain raw peaches, and certain brands of refried beans (but not Taco Bell's, thank goodness).

5) Another fascinating tidbit about me is that I have recently acquired high blood pressure. At 33. Thirty-three. I'm not sure how this happened. I didn't ask for it, and I'm not sure who I would have caught it from. My cholesterol and all the other little things they check are well within normal parameters. Okay, I'm also a little overweight, but I don't see how that counts, as I have been a little overweight for a large (Ha!) portion of my life without HBP to accompany it. Weird.

6) I am an extremely efficient eater, and I inspire similar efficiency in others! Some folks just touch their chip into dip or salsa; I use the chip as a shovel, a bulldozer, to make sure I deliver as much of the salsa or cheese dip or hummus or whatever into my mouth as I possibly can. Just talent, I guess.

7) I am not terse. In conversation, I take the approach that if a picture is worth a thousand words, I'm looking to fill the Louvre. "Never say in a minute what you could say over the course of an afternoon," that is my motto. This really only tends to affect my friends, as I'm pretty quiet around people I don't know very well. Once I get to know you, though, you get to know me, through stories and anecdotes that tend to take a LOT longer than they would for anyone else to tell. Still, I'm sure it's part of my charm.

Okay, evidently I need to spend a little more time in self-reflection, as it took me almost a month to think of seven things that I even KNOW about myself, much less that might be interesting to others. Still, there you have me. Oh, and for the bonus round: I'm an expert on The Simpsons, seasons 1 through 8. Go ahead, quiz me.