Well today was Kaili's first experience with sledding. I (her dad) took her with my brother Jake to a hill not far from our house. We have a tube that is really used for water tubing, but also works great on snow. The hill is a big, tall, long hill. The first 1/4 of the hill is so steep, it is hard to even walk up that part. At the end of that super steep part there is a little dip in the ground right before a terrace. You can catch some major air off of of this terrace! I was a little nervous about the terrace with Kaili sitting on my lap, but the first 3 runs went just fine. Then Jake took a turn with her. They started off just fine like they were tubing for gold....then came the tarrace....Now one thing you sould know is that my brother is about 50 pounds heavier than I am (not to mention that I think he ate one too many pieces of pizza for lunch today). Well, they hit the little dip right at the terrace and the tube exploded sounding like a shot gun being shot, and sending both Jake and Kaili sprauling across the snow and ice. I ran down the hill and the poor girl had blood and tears pouring down her face. The blood was coming from the outside and inside of her upper lip. When the blood is mixed with those tears, it is like a red Niagra Falls. Then on the way down the rest of the hill while I was holding her, I slipped and fell right on my back completly dropping her. It was an interesting first outing for Kaili to say the least.

Patience.... What does it mean to be patient.... Waiting till lunch time so you can eat that delicious home made beef barley vegetable soup your grandma made? Waiting 60 minutes through a nail biting football game to be totally disappointed that the Packers are not going to the super bowl? Waiting 6 months for your birthday to get that new "thing" you want that just came out? Or could it be trying not to go insane banging your head against the car window as your 3 month old son cries and screams as loud as he can for almost the entire 1 hour 45 minute trip from Omaha to Sioux City? I think that may be the real definition of patience (anyone know how to contact Webster Dictionary to get that in there?) Yes, Noah cried that deep cry that comes from the bottom of his stomach, and then gains volume and decibels as it works its way up and out his mouth for almost the entire trip from Omaha to Sioux City. Both Maria and I had our iPods in, cranked up as loud as our ears could stand, and he was still cutting through. Then the little stinker thinks he is funny because when we got him out he started that cute "how could you not love me" smile. I'm a little worried for when he gets older if he still has this same stubbornness in him. He must get that from his mom. There are times like this when I wish I could be like a 2 year old. Kaili, sitting right next to him in the back of the car, slept the entire way up there. How they can tune that kind of noise out is beyond me. Our windshield has spider cracks in it now cause of Noah!

Well we have had an interesting holiday to say the least. This will be one Christmas we will never forget.

To start off Christmas # 1. We were supposed to go up to Sioux City for Christmas on my side the 21-23 (or sometime during those days). The week before Christmas Kaili had been having minor cold symptoms like runny nose, little bit of a cough, but nothing too bad. She started to get worse on the 21st with coughing and a fever plus Maria wasn't doing good with her fibro either so we didn't get to go up to Sioux City to see my family. Kaili kept getting a little worse over Christmas and then on the morning of the 26 she woke up holding her ear saying it hurt, and there was a bunch of gook coming out of it. We took her into the Dr. and she ended up having an ear infection and bronchitis.

Then Christmas # 2. We were supposed to go to Wayne NE for Marias side the 29-31. Well this time Noah started having a horrible cough and having trouble breathing at night, so we took him in on the 27 and he had RSV. They said they were going to wait to put him on the nebulizer and see if his breathing became any more labored since he was so young and he would probably scream and cry the whole time he would be on it. The Dr. said to cancel any plans we had for the next week or so and to stay close to home in case we would have to take him in or if he would need to go to the hospital. I guess RSV can be very serious with a kid that young. Another Christmas bites the dust. Even if we could have gone up with him being sick, we wouldn't have been able to cause they said he would be contagious for up to 6-8 weeks and Marias sister has a 6 week old.

That brings me to Christmas number # 3. We were supposed to have Christmas with Maria's parents and her sister and husband on Jan 1 here at her parents house in Omaha. We couldn't because of Angie's baby and Noah being contagious. On top of that, Maria's birthday was Sunday and we were going to have a party with her family this weekend, but that didn't happen either.

Kaili is back to normal, and Noah is still sick but seems to be slowly getting better. Slowly.... His coughing is still so bad, it almost hurts us when he coughs it sounds so horrible. Then he is still so stuffed up, he has trouble breathing. We are constantly suctioning his nose out to try to help with that. Plus all he does is cry....and cry hard! We feel so bad for him cause he doesn't feel good, but it is also getting very old having him cry ALL THE TIME for over a week now. The only thing that helps some (and not very much) is you have to be holding him standing up and walking. If you try to sit down at all, somehow he knows and he cries worse. Not sure how he knows but he does. We are just glad his good times keep getting longer each day.

Even though Christmas is not about presents, food or family, it just doesn't seem like Christmas since we spent it all by ourselves with sick kids. And it stinks because most of our families haven't seen Noah yet and this was the time that everyone would be together.

So that was our Christmas. Not too fun.