And way back over half a year ago...

Tait jumped over to the "big boys" this year. Now that his years can no longer be counted on 1 hand, he's no longer one of the littles.

Tait is so full of love and joy! He loves to make people laugh and is always getting up to some mischief or other with that goal in mind. He loves pranks and practical jokes (and is trying to navigate what kinds of pranks are acceptable and which are likely to get him in trouble...)

He adores his baby sister, often sighing, "Mom, I wish Zoja could stay like this forever!" More often than not, after we turn out the light in the room he shares with Tola, we hear footsteps as Tola climbs into bed to snuggle with her big brother, who always welcomes her and keeps her from being scared!

Happy Very Very Belated Birthday, funny, crazy, mischievous Tait! We love you!

Happy-belated-Birthday, Sweet Tola!

February. You know, as in nearly 3 months ago... Sigh. How does the time go so quickly? This poor blog has sat here silent for 10 months while life has gone on. And on. And on. So many ordinary moments chock-full of ordinary loveliness.

And several not-so-ordinary, once-a-year kind of happenings. I can't possibly go back and capture them all here belatedly. But I do owe a few birthday posts! I've done birthday posts every year for the past 7 or 8 years and I can't just skip over them now.

So, working my way backwards...

Little Miss Tola turned 4. Again, she wanted a pink birthday. Again, pink frosting and pink cake adorned her birthday cake. This year, she was delighted to have a little sister to fawn over on her special day.

This sweet girl fills our days with singing and dancing and princess dresses, lego building, and making her sister giggle. She loves to help mama in the kitchen, peeking into every bowl and asking what ingredients I put in this one... Every day she graces one of her brothers with allowing them to be her buddy that day, and they are all happy to compete for the honor.

She has such a loving spirit and brightens our day with cheer! Happy Birthday, my sweet Tola!

It's a Girl!

I have to admit, I thought it was going to be a boy. So after 20 hours of labor, I was surprised and delighted when my second daughter was placed on my chest.

Latest Family Photo

Chester had wanted to keep this one a surprise after having found out the gender of each of the other children at the time of our 20 week ultrasounds. I wanted to know what we were expecting. He won the coin toss, and so I embraced the mystery of not knowing...

Tola, age 3, meets her sister for the first time.

The children, at home with Oma, eagerly awaited the news of their new sibling's arrival. They thought for sure they would know before bedtime on Sunday June 22.

We headed in for an induction after Mass that morning, thinking we would have a baby by day's end.

Tait, 5, couldn't wait to hold "it."

But this baby had other plans and she kept us waiting until 8:28 the following morning, Monday June 23.

Oles, age 8. Such a tender heart this one has for babies.

 Weighing in at 7lbs, 11 oz and somewhere between 19 and 20 inches. (The hospital said 19. The next day she had stretched to 20 at the dr's office...)

We did not have a name for her yet. She didn't have a name until today, June 25. We needed a little time to get to know her, to stare at her and try out different options.

Biggest brother Ziven, 10, the same age I was when my sister Colleen was born.
He's feeling protective already.

 Each of our children have Polish names, and so we scoured the lists of Polish girl names and tossed a few back and forth. Finally, we realized we kept coming back to one name in particular. And it just seemed to fit this sweet soul.

Oma and Tola with baby girl.

 And so, without further ado, we are happy and proud to introduce our daughter,

Zoja Florence.

Zoja (Pronounced Zoy-ah. In Polish, the "j" is pronounced as a "y") is the Polish form of Zoey, meaning "Life."

Florence was Chester's maternal grandmother, and it means "Prosperous, Flourishing."

Zoja Florence

Welcome to our family, sweet girl! You have 3 big brothers who simply adore you and a big sister who absolutely beams when she holds you. They all want to sit by you and hold you and kiss on you...You are well loved and we are so happy God brought you to our family! May you have a Flourishing Life!

Mountain Madness

What?!? Another blog post? Somebody must have suddenly found herself with some free time. Some post-holiday, post-moving extra bit of time on her hands...


I have to admit here that I'm still not used to my husband having time off. For the last few years, that hasn't really happened much. This year, he had the entire week of Christmas off and we had big plans to take the kids to the mountains for some sledding. The weather wasn't cooperating well, though, and several days in a row we chickened out of tackling the outing with subzero and single digit temps. I know. Wimps. Our time outside Alaska made us a little soft.


Finally, Saturday warmed up to double digits so we quickly piled the sleds and snow gear into the back of the van, loaded up the thermos with some hot chocolate, threw together a couple pbj sammies, and headed up the mountain.

Apparently, we weren't the only family with such a great idea. That hill was crazy, yo. His first run down, Ziven decided the top of the run looked ever so enticing.

  After hauling himself to the pinnacle, he proceeded down the slope with so much speed, he flipped head over heels in a spectacular crash. Or so I'm told. Thankfully, I didn't see the actual crash--I was still getting Tola dressed back at the car--but the scratches on his face and his wet hair told me enough.

We all agreed that halfway up, or maybe 3/4, was perhaps smarter, and we made it through the rest of the outing without any further crash-and-burn episodes. Hallelujah!

Mostly I stayed at the bottom of the hill calling out "watch out!" like a madwoman every time a kid came careening down from the top of the hill with zero control over his sled and the direction it was heading--usually toward a couple of kids still trying to get their feet under them and stand up after their own wild ride.

It was pure madness on that mountain. And maybe that's why the kids are so eager to return again. After all, we all need a little madness in our lives ;)

Summer

A montage of our summer days spent at Oma and Papa's house. We were there for 4 months while we waited for Daddy to get back from Afghanistan, and I had a new camera, so there are many, many pictures. And I'm just getting my feet wet with processing and editing and uploading and downloading... I think after this labor of love, I need a nap! Or a glass of wine.

*edited to add: if you click on the image, the collage will enlarge.