For Unto Us

This year we took a whole new approach to Christmas. With all the hustle and bustle that usually surrounds the "season", Jason and I felt like celebrating Christ frequently takes a back seat to making it to the next party, finding the perfect gift and wrapping frantically. Fatigue and frenzy replaces anticipation and joy. And if you're still wondering what exactly I'm referring to just think about any shopping trip you've had to make in the last month and what the parking lot was like...

In an attempt to re-center our Christmas time, we asked our family to postpone gift-giving for other times. No, we're not anti-gifts but felt like our giving at Christmas ought to be others-centered, others who we don't expect to receive back from. And also, that the time that we would usually invest in present procurement and preparation would instead be free to spend with family, in service to others, or in contemplation of Advent and Jesus' birth.

Still with plenty of room for improvement on our unconventional approach, we had a joyful, peaceful and altogether wonderful Christmas. We decorated the house, trimmed the tree, had gatherings with friends, and feasted with birthday cake and all. We enjoyed quiet times of reflection, special moments with family (Jason's folks were with us), the Christmas Eve service, and the joy of knowing that we had given to others we might never even get to meet but who have hopefully been touched by the love of Jesus Christ - as we have.

And we want each of you to know as we celebrated the gift of Jesus, we also celebrated the precious gift God has given us in each of you.

This is our Christmas picture but... soon we'll have an update.

O, Christmas Tree

Tis the season for celebrating the birth of Jesus. And though the original context of Christmas trees is somewhat enigmatic, we have adopted the tradition. In the past, we have unearthed a little tree on the Lattin seniors' property and enjoyed it in our home before placing it back in the ground. This year, being further away, we got to pick out one at a local nursery. It will make the trip back with Jason's folks to the "farm" after Christmas to be added to the fold.

But this year we were able to give special meaning to our tree. It's Nathan's tree and he got to help pick it out. Nathan's Norwegian fir. It was a one-of-a-kind at the nursery and we thought that was very fitting. Seeing it grow through the years will also be a joy, as it will be a reminder of Nathan's little days when he and the tree are much bigger. (Nathan really hoped he could bring home the kitty who resided there too.)

Our entire afternoon centered around this exciting event. We ate lunch at one of the local favorites, then leisurely strolled around the nursery looking for the perfect tree, and finally made it home and to the backyard with our prized evergreen. Why the backyard? Well, since it's a live tree, it can only be indoors for a shorter period of time. It has since then made the transition to inside. Nathan seems very proud of this new acquisition and has yet to try to eat it, climb it or knock it down.

At this special time of year, there are many reminders of Christ that the tree brings into our home. Amidst winter's starkness and chill, we enjoy the evergreens here on the west coast. In that way, may the life of Christ be always vibrant and enduring during every season of our life. And may that Life be seen by those who are searching. We also have a favorite folktale called the Tale of Three Trees, which poignantly describes the presence of three trees in the life of Christ. Knowing that Jesus gave His life on a tree is a sober reminder that we celebrate His birth with a living tree while we celebrate His sacrifice with wooden beams. But indeed we do celebrate and the tree is a festive reminder of the joy of Christmas.

Merry Christmas to you all!

ps- Click on the picture for a bigger view.

The Blue Screen of Death

A few of you may have noticed that we've been eerily silent for the last couple weeks. Well, I guess it's bound to happen to any computer user who is plugged in. And who has a camera, printer, skype phone, slide scanner, palm, web cam, and iRiver all plugged in too. The blue screen of death. We had sensed the increasing instability of our computer for several weeks. Then, the smoke clouds could be seen and we had to take cover. Thankfully with all our important info backed up, Jason was able to gingerly coax our machine back to health, complete with fresh installation of the operating system (which he had to modify to include all the new updates). Jason said it was the most challenging tech support situation he has ever faced. And it came during one of his busiest operating weeks thus far (including a 13 hour case one of those days!) At least he didn't have to face it alone... He had three (one being rather incognito) fans eager to be cheering him on. As you can see in the picture, Nathan was particularly helpful by pointing out where he thought the problem was. And now we're back- good as new. (The office was even moved to our bedroom in order to have a room for our new arrival.)

First Words

I imagine someone out there has studied the deep intricacies of first words and how they divulge personality. We don't have any such insights but have loved to find out what Nathan's first words are...

"Light"- though a fascination for most babies, Nathan has yet to outgrow his. While sitting at the kitchen table he will oftentimes stare up at the light fixture over the table. We point up to it and say "light!" and sure enough one day he did too.

"Sasha"- this one came out second but it quickly superseded the first. Jason's folks have an adorable golden lab named Sasha. A few weeks ago we were up to visit and Nathan found a new best friend. He says her name many times a day with the utmost fondness. It worked like magic on our last car trip up to Portland. If he was getting grumpy, we'd just ask him about Sasha and in a cute little high pitched voice he'd start jabbering...

He did, of course, learn Da and Ma even earlier. But perhaps the most unique sounds he's learned so far are those near and dear to his two doctor parents - the lung, heart and stomach sounds. :-) We can't say it was really intentional. He has a kids book of anatomy and we just started making sounds for some of the "systems". He loves them!

We're more and more amazed every day at the incredible gift children are. We hope you share in our joy while reading our stories.

The Last Great White Rocker

Most of you are well aware of our constant stream of house projects over the last couple years. We (either ourselves or contracted) re-tiled our bathroom and replaced the fixtures, replumbed the entire house, replaced two large portions of exterior walls with dry rot (and one window casing), refinished the hardwood floors, painted and rewired the baby room, completely renovated the basement apartment - including gutting the kitchen cabinets, scraping ancient wallpaper, rewiring, re-framing the downstairs bedroom, sheetrocking, adding a built in closet, replacing two old windows, adding an egress window, redesigning the kitchen... Truly amazing when you look back at it all.

Our latest project was partially gutting the "finished" downstairs bathroom. Come to find out, the shower (installed when the house was built in the 40's) did not have a shower pan. It was simply a concrete slab at the bottom with tiled walls. For 60-something years it had done the job... until about a month ago. "We have some bad news - the bathroom is flooded!" Our sweet friends who are living there right now had noticed some water leaking in the weeks leading up to that, but it had been an intermittent problem. Now we had no choice - the shower had to go. So much for being "finished". Now the bathroom has a spacious combo tub/shower with all new plumbing, a built-in set of cabinets and drawers, several new walls and nice new trim (again). (The posted pictures are the original and the "finished" version. The most recent will be added soon.)

You might be scratching your head and wondering how a surgery resident, a stay-at-home pregnant mom with no prior home-renovation experience and an energetic toddler can manage such a thing... Well, we have a secret friend.




Good contractors are really hard to find. But if you ever find one, you know you have left the wild and scary world of bidders and may indeed get a project finished. Our secret friend is William Crawford who calls himself "the last great white rocker". I'll explain. We were very fortunate to find William when we were in the midst of the apartment remodel and needed some help getting the walls up. In time, we were able to get on his schedule to work on our "little" project. He did an incredible job and didn't even charge extra for all our questions. Sheetrocking is usually hired out to immigrant workers these days. William is the only white guy he knows that doing it. Hence, he gets a good chuckle out of his self ascribed nickname.

After doing the walls, we found out that he could install counter tops. Next, he somehow offered his services to paint the outside of our house. And many times along the way when we were in a pinch, we'd just call William. So when we got the call that the bathroom had flooded and we were four hours away, we knew who could man the job.

The Lord surprises us all with special people in our lives, and William is one of those for us. We've suggested he might even consider just adding an extra room onto our house, so he can come and stay anytime. Perhaps he'll take us up on it one of these days...

First Haircut

I'm not sure I ever saw myself as the do-it-yourself haircutter... But residency has a way of necessitating learning new skills - there are few places open late at night to get a haircut. After at least a year of trial and error with Jason (with only one session ending in a buzz cut), we finally have it down. Our favorite haircut spot is on the back porch - minimal mess. Though fairly bald for a long time, Nathan now has enough hair to get his cut too! These are a couple of pictures from Nathan's first haircut day.

The Cowboy

It's never easy to get out the door with a little one in a clean outfit and in a good mood at five o'clock in the evening, but we knew it would be worth it. Dressed in a cowboy ensemble, Nathan rode with a "stone cold" stare in the back seat as we nosed our way to church (he much prefers to play in the front seat with the car parked). Only shortly after we arrived did the excitement take hold. Nathan was elated to be in a big crowd with lots of people, especially lots of other kids.

It's hard to believe we took in the entire spectacle without consuming a single piece of candy. Nathan was quite content to just be in the midst of it all. Though a little too young for most of the activities, Nathan found the petting zoo to be a highlight.
His favorites were the rabbit and the guinea pig. He also got to "go fish" (after which we said thank you and returned all the candy). Probably won't be returning too much candy in the future, but we savored the crispness of fall and the cheer of the festival. A delightful time for all!

...who swallowed a fly...

There was a (not-so-old) man who (almost) swallowed a fly... I'm not sure why!

Parenting is anything but passive. Nathan was working diligently as my assistant the other day while putting on a bedskirt. While the matress was off the bed, the box springs provided a perfect spot for climbing... and reaching the adjacent window sill. I had noticed a dead fly in the window a day or two earlier but simply never remembered to go in there and get it. Now I realized with alarm that the fly had gone missing. And my small friend seemed to be munching on something!

Thankfully, with a mouth full of teeth, Nathan understands "spit it out" and promptly produced the dead fly in two pieces. Why, o why? Oh my!

Miss L- is learning to tap dance and likes to practice her kung fu moves. I think she's figured out that the weighty object that sometimes pounces on her may require some seriously tough little sister skills once she's out of the womb. She's 27 weeks today.

We are excitedly awaiting the Fall Festival at church tomorrow. Nathan has his cowboy outfit all layed out and we've heard they're going to have a petting zoo. He'll be all smiles and all legs when he catches on to the commotion. Should be quite a sight!

the Toddler

The anticipation is intense. You hold your breath, not sure if the next step brings success or just another chance to try again. Nathan's walking! He moves like a little stick man, one peg leg at a time. You can't help but smile. The little steps are so akward and yet with every try the movements become more certain and steady. It's a whole new experience to walk into the kitchen and see him cruising around upright. Our Little Guy is getting big.

One of our favorite, almost daily activities is going to the park nearby. There are a few slides Nathan can go down by himself and he's becoming an avid slider. Initially I had to coax him down, but now I race to the bottom hoping he doesn't go flying off the end. When Jason and I both get to take him, he gets to ride on some of the big slides... A picture's always better than words.

Miss L- continues to grow. She is a real wiggler, especially at bedtime. Jason and I like to say she's fluffing her pillows. Miss L- is going to have a big brother who is her greatest admirer. Today Nathan was giving kisses to a four-month old in our playgroup. She would kind of giggle and he was fascinated. I think he'll really turn on the charm when he realizes that he has his very own sister. What new and exciting things await us!

Little Miss L-

The sensation is surreal. The little dark room. Me, Jason and the ultrasound tech and... (drum-roll) there SHE is on the big screen. Peering into the small but growing cocoon where this precious one is growing day by day gives you a glimpse of what only God can see any other time. And even taking a peek to see what little parts are there. Now we know that our next Little Lattin is a girl. She looks healthy and is right on track for her growth. A tremendous blessing. We can't wait to meet her and introduce her to all of you!

Crater Lake

Spectacular! The water shimmers a brilliant aquamarine blue. The lush green trees, sparkling white snow, and azure waters starkly contrast one another and dazzle the onlooker. About two hours drive and 6000 feet elevation gain brought us to the caldera rim of Crater Lake. In the vast cavity left in the earth (almost 2000 feet deep) after the eruption of Mount Mazama, a magnificent lake has formed. Fed only by snow runoff and rain, the level of the lake remains constant with mere evaporative losses and no outflowing streams. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crater_Lake)


Our dear friends Kyle and Alison came to visit from North Carolina, and we enjoyed the day trip together. A 3.5 mile hike (up another 1000 feet) gave us a birds eye view of the captivating scenery. The historic lodge which sits on the edge of the lake was a great place for lunch and a little exploring for Nathan. To top it off, we stopped at a little cafe called Beckie's for a famous pie to enjoy once we were home. A wonderful day - great friends and glorious creation, both of which we are immensely thankful for.

Cinnamon Rolls

Up the road from Grants Pass, there is a little town called Merlin. In a very inauspicious building, there is a German bakery that has been family run for five generations. Handmade baked goods only on Friday, Saturday and Sunday - and only until they're sold out.

Last Saturday, Jason took me (and Nathan) there for a breakfast date. We caught the wry little man that was working that day just before he took off with a special delivery. There in the back of his old brown van, he had a metal box full of the gastronomic delights. Two pastries and one breadstick later, we could only smile as we got back in the car. Contagious friendliness characterized this cute German man who had run back into the store to get the breadstick as a gift for Nathan. The cinnamon roll and berry pastry were delicious! On first glance, you might not expect that these artisians have baked for several presidents and get special orders from fancy caterers in California, but on first taste you would. We look forward to sharing them with any of you that drop by. What a great date!

Envy

You may wonder what has got us interested in having a blog... envy. Some of our fun friends have started posting family info on their blogs and now we just can't resist.

19.5 weeks pregnant (almost half way!). Still not too much to show for it, but the belly is starting to fill in. And the baby is getting really active. Nathan is adding personality day by day. He is a destroyer of blocks, a devourer of all fruit, an analyzer of all things electronic (genetic for sure), and a splasher in all liquid (especially the bath).


Our latest- we had a great time with Anna's family in Colorado and then Jason's family in Grants Pass. Jason seemed to have quite an effect on his family (sister Julie and clan) - they returned to Mexico after their Oregon vacation with one less appendix and a couple less tonsils. Our adventures thus far have included a scouting trip up the road that parallels the Rogue River (which runs through Grants Pass) and a jetboat tour of the Rogue River too. Next in line is a trip to Crater Lake!