Consider This Our Christmas Card...

I've never been a mom before. 10 years of marriage and I don't think I've ever sent out Christmas cards. It's been too depressing. It seems like getting a repeat update of "Lori's still working. Brent's still working" would get a little (or a lot) old after a decade. So I spared us all and avoided the cards. Thank you to my dear friends who still sent me cards anyway. I keep them all. You know who you are.

Today, I'm a mom. So here is the update that I've always wanted to be able to send.

I have two beautiful children. Lexi is 2 1/2 (her birthday is July 15th and not in August like we were told).

She's about 3 ft tall and right now she only weighs 22 lbs. She used to weigh 34 lbs. She got very, very sick this last month. She ended up in the hospital with a parasite in her intestines. She's passed that now and is keeping down food and getting stronger every day. Right now, she's a very beautiful, recovering, skinnyskinnyskinny little girl. She does still have some trouble in her bowels that will require surgery when we can get her home and unfortunately that means she'll have pain until then.

This is a picture of Lexi when Mommy is putting lotion on her. You can see all her bones. There are scabs from bedsores on her spine. She really doesn't feel very well in this picture. However, if you watch through the coming posts you can see her improving even though we were only there a few days.

She likes animal crackers. She hates cheese goldfish.

When she's sick, don't mess with her and definitely don't try to get her to play. She mostly rested in Mommy's arms for a week.

She will only laugh for Daddy and only when she's feeling much better (like on the last day we were there). She sleeps really well and has a healthy appetite when she's well.

She has the most brilliant smile and we were privileged to see it about 4 times while there. This picture was taken the day before we left. I'd dressed her and took her over to the mirror to see how cute she looked. I said, 'So pretty!!" and touched her face and she smiled for the first time.

Nathan is 4.5 months old. He's about 24 inches long and weighs about 16 lbs. He's amazingly happy, cheerful, talkative, giggly, snuggly and beautiful. He's also Daddy's best bud.

He has a head full of babysoft, perfectly stacked, little ringlets and if you pick them out he has a beautiful 'fro.

Some of his other skill sets include cooing, grinning, cackling, yodeling and sucking his right thumb.

He sleeps a LONG TIME at night (sometimes 12 hours with only a 4 oz bottle in the middle somewhere) and is generally just happy.