Daniel spent two nights with Eugene Peterson last week at his home in Montana. Eugene translated the Message Bible and has written forty-one books, and many of them have really challenged and encouraged Daniel. Some of you have asked about his time--I am sure Daniel will write about it in the near future after he has been able to digest his experience. For now I will share a picture with you. Eugene informed Daniel that several years ago after he concluded his time teaching at Regent University in Vancouver he made a vow to be done with posing for pictures. We are glad he decided to break his vow.  :)

Well I am one happy mama! My 7 month old little (big) man has slept through the night for the past few nights!! This is a major deal in my house considering it has been over 7 months since I have gone to bed and not had to get back up out of bed multiple times in the night. Hopefully now I will have a little more energy to keep up with a few other things in life, such as a blog :) Lord please let this be the new normal!

Daniel is up at theMILL tonight. They meet on Friday nights. We (the kids and I) have made it a fairly regular routine to go up and visit Daniel for part of the evening. I wish I could be up there the whole time but it is just a little bit challenging to make it the whole night. I am sure we could do it but then we pay for on Saturday with tired kiddos.

Lillian has been saying some fun things lately. She cracks me up.  She has turned into my grammatical coach the last few days. A few days ago I was putting her sock on when she informed me that there was something bothering her in the sock. So we pulled the sock off and found a thread in the sock. I pulled it out and we started over again. She then asked me what was in there. I told her "there was a thread in your socks." She stopped for a second and said "No mommy, its sock, it was in just ONE sock." Yesterday I was getting Wilson dressed. When I did this he started fussing at me and I was just rubbing on him and kissing on him and I said "I sorry, I am all done" Lillian looked at me and said "Mommy you are supposed to say I'm sorry not I sorry." Okay then, you are right.

Often times in my journal I right a "Favorite Moment" from my day. Lately my favorite moments have involved Lillian and Wilson just giggling away at each other. Lillian loves to make Wilson laugh and Wilson loves his big sister so they will just be laughing out loud. It is music to my ears!

A Few Fun Lillianisms

I am trying to do a better job of writing down the funny happenings in our house a little quicker or else by the time a "quiet" moment rolls around I have already forgotten. So here goes a few of my latest laughable moments:

1. A couple of days ago Lillian was looking at my Anthropologie catalog. She was enjoying looking at all the pictures and then when she looked at one of the models she said "mommy, she looks like you." I took that as a compliment and it felt nice that she had that thought...until the next day when she was looking at our ESPN magazine and as she was looking at the cover full of pictures of Shaun White she stated, "He looks like you mommy." For those of you who don't know who Shaun White is, let me explain. First he is a MAN! He is the Olympic snowboarder with wild, red, curly hair. So much for soaking up the compliments from my 2 year old! I will remember to take those with a grain of salt.

2. As Lillian sat down to go to the bathroom today she wanted to pull the seat up. I told her that it probably was not a good idea. She continued to inquire about why it wouldn't be such a good idea.  I explained that she might fall in if she sat there with the seat up. She then said that I was right because she "might get flushed down the toilet and then her brother wouldn't have a sister anymore." I couldn't help but nod and smile. 

Anyway, thats it for now.

Just trying to catch up

I have not been so good about updating the blog. Daniel has actually written the last few updates, but here goes. I am trying to catch up. I try to journal as well and often times I find myself wanting to write down the last month's worth of activities. I am not going to try to do that today, but rather just start off where I am now.

I have two kids sleeping. That is a glorious thing. Wilson is still getting up multiple times in the night. Although each night when I lay him down I have hope that this night will be different. He is making improvements, so I have no doubt it will get better. It all started with him getting sick and then the pattern kind of stuck...uugh. He's not mad or screaming just wants mommy to get settled back down. I don't know how people do it when they have like 9 kids. They must have spent a decades of their life getting up with children.

Wilson turned 6 months this week. He is rolling all over the place to get around. He is sitting up now and he cut his first two teeth. He is so peaceful and I feel so blessed to have such an amazing son.

Lillian is an amazing big sister! She loves on her brother all the time. She is sad when he lays down for a nap and thrilled when she hears him stirring and ready to get up. She now has "quiet time" each day. Don't you dare call it a nap, although thankfully most days she still ends up asleep. She loves to play drums, sing, and "play" her guitar. She belts out songs at the top of her lungs and often times I don't have a clue what she is saying. The tune will be to a familiar song and then she is making up all her own words.  It is a hoot to watch, although sometime if she realizes you are watching she gets embarrassed and stops.

Baby dolls are also a favorite of Lillian's. She has the dolls doing all sorts of events with her and she is constantly having us pretend with her. It is a lot of fun to see the little lady she is becoming.

Often times I have to take a step back and just take in the moments of "oh my goodness, I have two kids." Daniel and I now have a family of four! Wow...hard to believe.  I am doing my best to enjoy it all. This is such a special time in our lives and I want to soak it all up!

The Apple of Doom

Greetings from lovely Colorado Springs!

I might have made a very bad decision last week. I bought a  21.5 inch Apple (iMac) home computer. Not a bad decision because it doesn't work well. Rather, it works too well. And though I'll never be a "Mac snob", the guy that makes everyone else feel stupid if they don't have one, I don't think our family will be going back to a PC any time soon.

One of the features we've enjoyed is the built-in webcam. It has turned Lillian into a Skype fanatic. So if you're on Skype, look us up. Lillian would love to see you.

And now for the part of our blog that gets requested the most on a recurring basis: Lillianisms!

1. Lisa and I have set some boundaries on Lillian watching television. She gets to watch one small portion of a show per day. She customarily asks to watch her show in the morning. We always say something like, "You can watch your show now if you like but that'll be it for the day. Do you still want to watch it right now?" It's our first opportunity to teach her about budgeting: are you sure you want to spend it all so soon?

The other day she watched her show in the morning and later that afternoon asked if she could watch another. Lisa declined. A couple minutes later Lillian brought her doll named Alice to Lisa and said, "Mommy, Alice told me she really wants to watch a show." Clever!

2. Lillian likes that I am a drummer and she spends a lot of time on the two drum sets we have. She's getting quite good, actually. To encourage the love of music with our kids, we play a lot of music in our home. She has started asking "Daddy, whose playing drums on this song?" whenever we listen. So I tell her. And when she asked the other day during a Faith Hill song, I explained to her that my favorite drummer in the world, Vinnie Colaiuta, was playing. I could tell that meant something to her because it meant something to me.

When the same song came on during another listening session, Lillian piped up: "Daddy, Vinnie is playing drums on this song." I could have fainted. I did cry.   :)

3. One morning earlier this week Lisa and I were laying in bed with our precious kids. I was holding our five month old son, Wilson, and Lisa was holding Lillian who suddenly let a flatulent slip. We all chuckled a bit. But then Lillian starting doing some odd motion with her arms. Lisa asked her what she was doing. Lillian shot back, "I'm just swooshing it away."

That's all for now. Much love.

Daniel, Lisa, Lillian and Wilson

The Grothe Update/Latest Lillian-isms

Well, the last few weeks have been a whirlwind. We took our first roadtrip as a family of four. We drove 16 hours to see my grandparents in Lapwai, Idaho for Thanksgiving. The kids did great, and we kept a running tally of wildlife we saw along the way:


2 moose
3 bald eagles in 2 states
20 wild turkeys
50 champion bull elk
Hundreds of deer
Over 2,000 antelope (no exaggeration; they are like herds of cattle across Montana and Wyoming. Beautiful!)


Then we drove from Idaho back to Denver (15 hours) and flew from Denver to Tulsa, OK to attend the funeral for my pastor that I grew up with. We spent four days there and then flew home. We were gone a total of 12 days and the kids did amazingly well. 


While in Idaho, my Grandma Weezie (Louise Wilson) and Grandpa Daniel Wilson (whom I'm named after--Daniel Wilson Grothe--and whom we named our son, Wilson, after) sent me home with my maternal great-grandfather's old, oak, roll-top desk. His name was Haralombos Athanasios Asimakopolous. Without speaking a word of English, he got on a boat when he was 12 years old and immigrated from Greece to the United States. And he did it all by himself at the behest of his mother, who thought he'd have a chance at a better future. Upon landing at Ellis Island in New York (the Statue of Liberty), he changed his name to Harry Smith, which was the most common last name in the phone book at the time.


The roll-top desk is nearly 100 years old and is in exquisite condition. I had to disassemble it to get it in the door, and when I did a small piece of paper fell to the ground. I picked it up to find it was a stamp, in mint condition, from 1941 that said "Merry Christmas." The desk, to me, is a symbol of the great family heritage that we are blessed to have.


And now I'll leave you with two Lillian-isms:


1. Lillian recently discovered how to pick her nose. We're trying to break her from it, and it's an every day battle. We've told her how gross it is, etc., etc. When she finds a treasure, she gets grossed out and screams for one of us to take it away to it's eternal doom.


The other day she picked one and screamed for us to relieve her of it. Well, apparently we weren't moving fast enough, so she laid down a serious threat, a threat in that mischeivious tone of voice residing universally within humans ages 1-5. And her threat? "Mommy, I'm going to eat it."


Thankfully, she didn't really care to eat it. She just wanted quick movement. And she got it.


2. Last night Lisa went out with a few girlfriends for a Christmas party. So I was at home having a party with Lillian. We watched Monday Night Football together with our friend, Drew Macalmon, who is a Green Bay Packers fan. As she sat at the kitchen table this morning, she informed her mother that she got to stay up late to watch the Packers play the "Baltimore Raisins."


That's about all. We'll keep you posted! Much love,


Daniel, Lisa, Lillian and Wilson Grothe

Lillian-isms

Our nearly two-and-a-half year old daughter, Lillian, is becoming increasingly well known among our friends for her attentiveness and (very) random statements. Thus one of the reasons for this blog. Here are a few things she has said lately that struck us as funny:

1. Saturday morning, Lillian was sitting at the kitchen table coloring on a piece of paper. We suddenly noticed she was walking upstairs. Here's how the conversation went: "Mommy, I'm going to get a wipe." "What do you need a wipe for, honey?" "I'm just going to get a wipe." "What do you need a wipe for, Lillian?" "Mommy don't look at the table." Lisa then looks over at the table only to find Lillian had been coloring on our wooden table. I guess that's why she needed a wipe.

2. Sunday afternoons are football afternoons around our house. Lisa, being from Chicagoland, is a Bears fan. I'm a Cowboys fan. When Lillian woke up from her nap yesterday, we were downstairs watching the Giants vs. Chargers game. We hadn't said a word about what we were watching or who was playing. Lillian stumbled down in her sleepy stupor to the living room, looked up at the TV and said, "the Giants are playing." We have no idea how she knew that. It was weird.

3. This morning, before Lillian's gymnastics class, she was running around the house in her birthday suit as is her custom many mornings. Lisa looked over to find Lillian touching her naked bottom, so she told her to stop. Without skipping a beat, Lillian retorted: "Mom, I'm just putting germs in it." I guess she thought that would comfort us. She was wrong.

That's all for now. I'm sure we'll have some more interesting stuff in a few days. Much love.

Daniel, Lisa, Lillian and Wilson