Sikorski Saga

Tim got the ultimate guide to outdoor grilling from Uncle Phil! Luella loves her new art easel. Luella wearing all her presents she can - Tinkerbell pj's, princess dress-up, Bob the Builder belt, and swimming back pack. Luella snuggling with her daddy and singing teddy bear from Great Grammy. Katja awake for a little bit of Christmas morning. First one to fall asleep had to wear the head band. Good thing she's cute enough for it! Santa gave Luella moon sand to build sand castles. It was all she wanted and she played for hours! Honestly - a two-year-old playing with one toy for multiple hours!

Luella and Katja after the family service. Luella and best girl friend, Sigrid Evers , smelling the poinsettias . Our traditional Scandinavian Christmas Eve dinner! We shared the night with Uncle Phil and church friend Doug. Kyla with her girls! Luella opened her early present from Grammy and Granddaddy. She got Tinker Bell jammies and fuzzy crocs ! The Christmas tree!

Luella entertained herself for 45 minutes by playing with her new friends. We all love a good game of ring around the rosy.

Yes, Katja is the result of Mommy kissing Santa, but not the Santa in the following photos! After waiting in line nearly 45 minutes (which I hear wasn't bad), we got this photo with Santa. We are so amused. They let parents take two shots with their own camera, after they took three with their cameras. Of course I don't have the fancy flash that takes out the mall skylight shadows.

Katja now screams as a form of communication. Luella alternates between shushing her and putting her hands over her ears. (Yes, Kirsten, this one's for you!)

I think we need a big red cross on our house. Tim's lung turned out to be 20% collapsed and it was too much for just forced oxygen to fix. So Wednesday afternoon we went to the ER and the doctors put in a chest tube and admitted Tim. We visited him Thursday morning and he was really out of it, but had a miraculous recovery about the time he got a CAT scan and he was discharged Thursday afternoon. He can't lift more than 25 pounds or fly for 2 weeks. I guess it's a good thing we decided to stay here for Christmas. Friday morning we woke up to Luella vomiting. She got the viral bug going around. We took her to the clinic and said she was on the brink of a trip to the ER for an IV, or getting better. Luckily she only vomited once more after that and really picked up. She had 10 hours of being really sick. Crazily, Luella gained an inch in height in three months since her two-year check up. She's now 37" tall! So Saturday night Kyla got Luella's bug. She got it ...

Katja is 24.5" long and 15 lbs 11oz, which makes her 50% for height and 90% for weight. She's developing just fine...just like Luella. We have to go to the County Health Dept for her HIB vaccine. There is a nation-wide shortage of the HIB and our clinic only gets 5 vaccines a month. Two months ago we were 135 on the wait list and never got called. Go figure. Tim, on the other hand, isn't doing so well. Tuesday morning his company played 22 nd Tec Escort (the unit he just left) in a "friendly" game of flag football. The refs were there to make sure no fights broke out, and apparently tackling was allowed. Tim got hit hard and saw the medics. Yesterday they thought he strained a muscle but had him get chest x-rays today to see if there was anything else going on. There was - Tim has a partial pneumothorax . If you remember back to Luella's birth, she did too. So we're going to the hospital today for him to get on bed rest and forced oxygen to reinfl...

Katja turned 4 months old on Saturday! She rolled for the first time from front to back! Katja is such a jolly baby that Kyla couldn't resist getting her this adorable Santa suit! Tim has been working hard tiling. We bought our Lowe's out of tile. We all can't wait to see the finished product! A smile for the camera, but a "hey, I'm working here!" look, if I ever saw one.

Kyla's mom was on the phone and told her to open her Christmas present early. Yeah! Lefse for Christmas!

Katja kind of showing how she can roll!

Katja at 16 weeks with Goobers. Either the cat grew or Katja isn't as big as Luella at 16 weeks. Kyla happy she only has one chin in this picture - even though you can't see her enviable head wear . Katja and Luella sporting their adorable Christmas headbands. Goobers adopted Katja's teddy bear that Santa gave her at the FRG Holiday Party.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! This year we decided to “go green” with our Christmas greetings. If I have your email address, I sent you this letter electronically. If you are related, usually send us cards, or live overseas, I sent you a regular snail mail version of this card. We started 2008 by finding out that Kyla was pregnant! Fast forward many months to August 13, 2008 at 9:45 am EDT, Katja Johanna Sikorski made her grand entrance! She weighed 7 pounds 1.5 ounces, was 19 inches long, and very healthy! She is truly a happy baby. As I write this the second week of December, she has hand-eye coordination, rolled over, coos and giggles with smiles. She looks a lot like Luella did at this age. Our house allowed Tim to become quite the handyman. In January he installed hardwood laminate floors in our dining room and hallway. Luella loved helping Tim pick out the floor planks. She also learned how to jump on the new floors and get air under her feet! On Leap Day (February 29, 2008...

Tim got Kyla a new computer for Christmas. We're in the middle of burning CDs of all the stuff saved on the old computer before setting up the new one. Videos take up lots of space and need lots of CDs ! One fun part of saving old files is finding oldies and goodies like this one! This is Kyla when she was about 2 years old.

On Sunday, Katja tried her first "solid" food. Rice cereal. Yum. Katja has to take a thumb break. She didn't know what to think about swallowing food from a spoon. Look at that spoon action!

Luella and Katja start the day watching Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade on tv . Luella starting in on dinner. Notice no green beans on her plate. She kept eating them out of the serving bowl! She still loves her green beans! Uncle Phil, Tim, Luella, Katja and Kevin around the dinner table. Kyla was so excited to use the wedding china, she pulled it all out! Kyla with the crowd around the table. Tim got the honor of carving the turkey. He did a great job! Katja slept all through dinner! If she had teeth, man she'd be missing out.

This weekend Tim got the bathroom drywalled. Although the blue mold/mildew resistant drywall is making Tim rethink the slate. The remaining steps are another layer of mortar on the shower floor and curb, then tiling and grouting and putting the fixtures back. Then Kyla gets to paint, probably with Luella's help again! Katja is making progress rolling over! She can get 90 degrees of her 180. She just needs a little more leverage with her hips! Luella has a cold and is hanging out quietly on the floor with Katja .

Time to play!

It's snowing here in lovely Maryland. Luella remembered to catch the snow on her tongue. Sister secrets. The snow isn't so cold if you're playing!

Luella went poopy in the potty chair this morning! We're so proud of her! Not the prettiest of milestones (like first words and steps) but a huge milestone of equal importance! Here's the censored picture for my sister. If this is the worst Luella's embarrassed by us, we're doing pretty good.

Luella really does love her little sister! Katja getting her close-up. Luella's in the mood to never sit/stand still enough for her close-up.

Luella helped Kyla make brownies. She got to lick the rubber scraper! Luella tried eating hot buffalo wings for the first time. She definitely has Tim's love of spicy foods. She tried it, drank all her orange juice and wiped her tongue clean. Then she asked for more! Here she's pulling all the meat off the bone. (That's Kyla's phone receiving a text message at the end.) Kyla finally took Luella to Toys-R-Us for her birthday surprise since the coupon expired Friday.

Luella! What are you doing?! Oh, you're painting the wall like Mommy told you! Kyla helped Luella finish painting the wall. Kyla was tired of looking at that wall with five shades of white. Now it's one shade - Moose Mousse. Tim is doing his/master bathroom in slate. We compared it to the girls' bathroom paint color and we really like it - so much we'll redo the girls' bathroom in slate too!

Katja turns three months old today! She's adorable! (Even though I know I'll need to break this thumb sucking habit, eventually.) Five female soldiers that served with Kyla in 1st Engineer Battalion were featured in a documentary named, "Lioness" for the missions the females did with male Infantry, Field Artillery and Marine Corps on our location in Iraq. All 25 women in the battalion went on these missions, but 5 were featured. It will be shown on PBS at various times over the next week, starting tonight at 9pm. Check your local listings and don't let the little ones watch it yet. Kyla ordered the DVD to show the girls when they are much older what their mommy did in Iraq to support the war. Don't worry, Kyla wasn't involved in any firefights on her Lioness missions.

You never know what your catch phrases are until your two-year-old says them back to you!

Katja is such a sweet baby, especially when she's sleeping!

Luella is a cheese ball ! Katja actually kept the headband on all day! Tim got everything totally ripped out and started rebuilding the wall, floor, and shower pan. Kyla picked up a new table that was on sale at IKEA . We feel so grown up with a big dining room table. It gets even bigger!