Mid-December Already?

Hello All,

We can't believe it's already the middle of December! How quickly this month is passing! As we look at our string of Christmas cards, it just reminds us how loved and blessed we are to have so many people who care about us. We have just a few quick updates for you.

1. Tim has been wearing a walking sandal instead of his boot for an increasing amount of time each day this week. He has not had any pain in his foot and expects to be able to start wearing regular shoes in just a couple weeks! He'll be phoning in to his doctor on Monday to share his progress and get the official approval though.

2. We are well on our way to renting a house (A HOUSE!) for Tim's last year at the Seminary. There are two we are considering right now, and both seem like they will be ours if we want them. Tim mailed out a credit report to one of the owners today. We were both happy to see that we are considered "very low risk" in terms of credit, so we do not anticipate having any problems.

3. Tim and Norah are both sick with colds. We are all hoping that Jana does not catch it, and that everyone is healthy for Christmas!

4. Jana is 34 weeks pregnant today. Everything is going well. She still feels great and continues to walk most days as it is still plenty warm outside here. We cannot believe there are only 6 weeks left (more or less) until we meet our new baby! It has gone so quickly, especially with all the activities and events in the last 3 or 4 weeks. Once the new year arrives, we will only have a few weeks to get all the last minute things ready!

We also have just a couple things we'd like you all to remember in your prayers:

*Tim's sister, Heidi - She is due around the same time as Jana and is now on bedrest due to complications. She has a 4 and a half year old son to take care of as well.
*Tim's foot - Thanksgiving for healing already taken place and for continued healing
*Jana and Baby - Continued ease of pregnancy and that she would not have blood pressure issues (last two appointments showed slight increase)
*Tim and Norah - Recovery from their colds

Norah's Latest Antics

Hi everyone,

We can't believe how fast Norah is growing up and learning so many things. We wanted to share with you some things she's been doing lately. Some are funny, and of course some are sassy... that's our Norah!

*Norah started shouting, "GODDD, GODDD" in church last night during a responsive reading of the Catechism. SO hard not to laugh!

*We are into lining things up and stacking now. Norah enjoys bringing all her Little People animals and people into the living room and lining them up on the table one by one. Then she moves them to a new place, and on and on for hours!

*Whenever Norah wants a snack, she runs to the kitchen and stands looking up at the cabinet. Sometimes she points and says please, but otherwise we're just supposed to know by her longing gaze at the snack cabinet!

*Norah thinks it is funny whenever we tell her not to do something. If she is really being sassy and hits or something, she'll then make a pouting face and run over to give us a kiss and hug. Then she laughs... but at least she doesn't usually do it again for a little while.

*In this season of Christmas baking, we have to do everything while Norah is asleep or she stands by the kitchen table where cookies are cooling and begs. It's similar to her staring at the snack cabinet, but much more extreme. And if she does get a cookie, you'd think the world was coming to an end by the way she wails when it's gone!

*Norah has helped us "lose" some things lately. We spent a good 15 minutes the other day searching for one of her shoes (that we had just put on her!), and ended up having to change into another pair. Of course, it showed up later. We also currently only have 1 mitten. Somehow Norah got ahold of the hat and other mitten and they are gone. We've been looking for days, turning the place upside down. Every hiding place, drawer, cabinet, and toy box has been searched. We've concluded she must have somehow gotten it into a garbage bag that was taken out to the dumpster. I'm going shopping to get a new hat this afternoon... it's just GONE.

I'm sure there are many more things, but this is all I can think of for now. Life is never dull here, not with Norah! She can sure be frustrating sometimes when she's misbehaving or cranky or tired, but we just have to remember to laugh at all the silly and innocent things she does!

Videos

I've been having some trouble getting the videos to load up to YouTube, but have these three ready to go. I will just post these now and continue to work on the others another time. :)

This Week's Doctor Appointments

Monday - Jana had a doctor's visit. Things went well. We both really like this doctor, and this second visit really reaffirmed that. She gained 1 pound since her appointment two weeks ago, and the doctor was impressed since it was over Thanksgiving. He said that by his "eyeball test," she looks small. However, things looked right on when he used the tape measure. He scheduled another ultrasound though, just to check on the baby's size and confirm dates. Jana has gained 18 pounds now, so she's doing really well in that area.

Wednesday - Jana had an ultrasound. Baby is growing and moving well and had the hiccups. That was fun to watch! They estimate the size to be 4 pounds 2 ounces, which they say is a week ahead. We all know how accurate ultrasounds are though, so we'll just wait and see. The baby was also head down, face down already. The technician said that babies are tough to get to change position from this point on, so it seems like he or she is all ready to dive right out! (If only it were that easy!) The other thing that was funny is that the technician had Jana look away while she measure the femur since it was near the "boy/girl parts," but the baby had its legs crossed so even the technician couldn't see anything. It must be a modest little girl!

Wednesday - Tim had a doctor's appointment to get more X-rays for his foot. They looked great, and showed a lot of healing! WOO HOO!!!! Tim does not have to use his crutches around the apartment anymore and only needs to use them if he's doing a lot of walking, like at a mall. Also, he gets to start transitioning into the walking sandal in two weeks and should be back in regular shoes by the time the baby was born. Great week all in all! :)

Christmas Pictures

We took pictures today of Norah in her Christmas dress by the tree for our Christmas cards, crafts, etc. It took two "sessions." The first was right after Norah woke up this morning since we needed to change her/get her dressed anyway. It didn't go well... After her nap it worked out much better and we ended up with some pretty cute pictures! Here are a bunch of good ones. (We are only sending out Christmas cards to our family this year. We plan on doing a big baby announcement mailing with a family letter at the beginning of February. So don't worry, we didn't forget you! We're just trying to save a little on postage!)

Not quite awake yet!

This was a little better. Too bad Norah was so far from the tree.

Look at my pretty dress!

How about a kiss?

It's baby Jesus! (Also, notice how Norah's dress is missing the flower on the ribbon? She yanked it off the pin as I was getting her dressed and I didn't have to time hot glue it back on yet!)

Baby Jesus is comfy!

This was a "YEAAAHHH!!!" shot.

This one won for our Christmas card! Norah even decided to fold her hands!

Mommy was probably doing something silly or embarassing to get Norah to smile. It worked!

Uh, I'm just going to open this one now, okay?!

Our "Vacation"

We recently house-sat for some members from Peace for 10 days. They live out in the country and have two little dogs and TONS of room to run! We had a wonderful time. Here are some pictures from our mini vacation. :)

Of course, Norah spread her toys everywhere. I'm not sure why she has no shirt on, but she has on her favorite bucket! The bucket is supposed to have some bean bag type things in it, but she only likes to dump them out so she can wear it as a hat!

Oh, Tim loved using the grill. He would have grilled something every meal if I let him!

They have a beautiful patio area with a lot of plants and flowers. As you can see, they were still in bloom at the end of November.



Norah and Daddy loved walking down to the garden and to visit the horses next door. By the way, notice Tim NOT using his crutches? BUSTED!

This is Molly. She is the younger dog. Norah loved chasing her around. I'll bet Molly is glad to have us gone, now she can rest. :)

Along their driveway, these little fruits grew on some bushes. We had no idea what they were, but Norah enjoyed picking them up and throwing them all over the place. Turns out they're some kind of semi-tropical fruit. They were pretty tasty! You don't find them in stores though because they only way to know if they're ripe is when they fall off the plant, which makes them bruise. I guess that makes them not as appealing to look at, so people won't buy them... hmm.

There were still a lot of peppers and things growing in their garden. We picked some while we were there. Norah enjoyed touching every single pepper!

Oh, what a temptation for Norah. She couldn't be near the piano without plunking on it. She also figured out (in about 5 minutes) how to open it if we had the keys covered.

Norah tried to climb up on the stools at the kitchen counter more times that I know how to count. We finally let her eat a meal there, and she ate more french toast than I did that meal!

The main family room area is filled with all kinds of things the family has hunted. I bet there were at least 10-15 deer heads in the house, and various birds, and other small mammals. There was even a badger! Norah didn't mind at all!

P.S. Yeah, yeah, we're working on the videos. Maybe tomorrow... (but then again there are two doctor appointments, a soup supper, and an Advent church service so don't hold your breath)

Jana's New Doctor

Well, I was supposed to visit a new doctor on Friday. However, she called me in the morning and told me she would not be able to "take care" of me because I'm considered high risk. Now, I don't know why I would fall into that category. It kind of took me by surprise. Anyway, so I was without a doctor again. I spent a good portion of the morning on the phone with the insurance company and calling many doctors here in Fresno. I finally found one who would take me at 29 weeks and who does VBAC deliveries. Once again, I'm in the process of transferring medical records, etc. I have an appointment on Monday morning with this new doctor. The receptionist was very helpful and kind, and mentioned that this happens more often than I think. She said they get women "in limbo" all the time who find out they need to get a new doctor partway through their pregnancy. Since Tim has off on Mondays, he'll get to come along to meet Dr. Dickinson and help me remember all the questions I want to ask. We're hoping and praying it goes well!

The Kanzes Visit California

Here are some pictures from my family's recent visit to CA. We took them to Santa Cruz, a couple beaches, and Yosemite.

Medical Business...

Tim had a doctor appointment on Wednesday for his foot. This was just to do another set of X-rays to see how the healing process was going. Well, it turns out that it's not going well. Tim's fracture is worse again! This time the fracture extends farther into the bone in his foot. The positive thing is that the fracture is not wider. We're not sure how this happened since Tim has been relatively pain-free and has done a decent job of staying off his foot, using the crutches, etc. Since our insurance will not pay for the bone growth stimulator until there has not been significant progress for 90 days, there isn't much we can do right now except wait. So we'll wait! And hopefully when Tim goes back in about a month things are looking better. We were sure hoping that there was healing already since this type of fracture takes so long to heal. Our goal is to have Tim's foot healed by the time our new baby joins us at the end of January. We'll be pretty close on that time frame with the way things are going now, so we'll just wait and see.

I also have a new doctor now. I was really unhappy with how things went at my last appointment, so I finally made the decision to look elsewhere for OB care. I have an appointment next Friday with a regular family physician who specializes in OB care for her medical group. Everything has gone really smoothly with this pregnancy, so there is no special reason she shouldn't be able to provide care for me. We're all hoping and praying that she's a better fit for us. It's hard enough being relatively alone all the way out here in CA, so I feel like I really need a doctor I'm comfortable with who I can trust with my health and the health of our baby.

Please, would you take a moment and say a prayer for Tim's foot and my new doctor?!

5 YEARS!

Yesterday was November 5th, which means Tim and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary of when we "officially" started dating. Tim had arranged for a lady from church to sit at our apartment while Norah napped so we could enjoy a late lunch. We went to The Cheesecake Factory and it was delicious! We were so stuffed that we ended up bringing home most of our cheesecake. That was a delightful snack before bedtime!


In some ways it is hard to believe that we've been together for 5 years already... the time has sure flown by. But it also seems like it has been much longer than that since it's hard to remember a time when our life wasn't OUR life. We had a great time reflecting on all that has happened in the last 5 years. We are surely blessed and look forward to many more years together! Can't wait to see what God has in store for the next 5 years!


Here are a few "vintage" photos of us... hehe.

Pumpkin Patch Fun

This morning we went to a pumpkin patch. We decided not to go to a pumpkin farm since it would be hard for Tim to get around on his crutches. Norah had a lot of fun anyway. At first she was kind of unsure of what was going on, but once I showed her you could touch the pumpkins she was alright. Then she had to go up and down the rows and touch all of them! She even kissed one of the pumpkins. We found her a perfect, Norah-sized pumpkin! They also had a small bounce house that Norah liked going on. She didn't quite get the hang of jumping or running around, but had fun sitting and being bounced and hitting the floor part of it. When it was time to go, Norah was not real enthusiastic about getting out... until I gave her a Tootsie Roll. I don't think she'd ever had those before, but she sure loved it! :-D Here are a few pictures.

New Ultrasound Pictures

Hi Everyone,

Jana had another ultrasound this afternoon and the technician said everything was looking good. I guess they were able to take a look at everything they couldn't see before. We got four pictures form the appointment, two of the face and two of the feet. Jana and I both agree that the baby has her nose. Her next checkup is on October 28 and she has to do the glucose on Monday. It will be a busy week.

New Pictures

We can finally sit outside and enjoy our patio now that the weather is cooler!

Oh, was she ever pleased with herself for this new feat. :-D We're at the Civil War Reenactment in this picture.

What a face! Norah was not too happy about the peach yogurt all over her face.

This is another face we see a lot. This follows the "Noooooo" face, but we haven't gotten a great picture of that one yet.

Loving the new jammies!

Norah went for a swim at the end of September on our patio. She loves to see herself on the camera screen.

24 weeks