We were also excited to be in Michigan at this time because my Freshman roommate Mark just had a baby. Well, his wife did. He wasn’t the Oprah sex-change dude who was pregnant. Mark and I were placed together by the Res Life staff at Trinity and didn’t know each other going in. We lived with each other 3 out of our 4 years together at Trinity and were in each other’s weddings. It’s been a great and providential friendship, and it is really cool to be on the other side of it now–the ones making decisions on who should live with who and where. Here’s Gabe and I with Mark and Eddie. (They are also The Brinks over on the right if you’d like to see many more pictures of the little dude.)

We also spent a day with Renee’s extended family out at Muskegon State Park and partook of some excellent boating adventures. Jonathan went tubing for the first time and loved it. I celebrated my Third Annual “Get Drug Out of a Lake on a Wakeboard 30 Times Until You Make It Up” Ibuprofen commercial. And Renee didn’t get in the water at all. We always have a great time hanging out with the Van Den Berg crew and mooching their boat. We had a blast up at Renee’s brother Jon’s land one evening as well. A picnic outside and 4 wheeling around the property was a fun and relaxing end to the trip. We made the treck back down to the South and survived the 14 hour car ride…barely. Of course the kids both finally fell asleep when we were driving up the mountain to the college…

More pictures here.

Yes, we had a new baby a month and half before the last update.

Yes, our friends and family are mad at us because they haven’t seen any new pictures of Gabe.

So, here they are.

Our trip to the Midwest (first Chicago, then Wisconsin, then Michigan) began well because we were breaking in the 2004 Odyssey we had purchased two days earlier. I’m a big believer in minivans. Though selling our Saturn Vue was hard, we definitely enjoy the room, leather seats and wireless headphones (!!!) the new car has. We could put music or movies on for Jonathan and he could sit back there and listen away while we didn’t hear a thing. Beautiful!

In Chicago we invaded Doug and Kim’s house again, where Jonathan proceeded to have the kind of temper tantrum you can only have after 1 nap in 8 days. First time he went to bed without dinner. We went to Lincoln Park Zoo, a wedding, and breakfast with some other great friends of ours from college. Chicago was great, but rushed.

After that we drove up to Wisconsin and stayed at Papa Phil’s house. We had a great time just hanging out with family while we there, and I was able to spend a bit of time out on Papa Phil’s boat fishing. We didn’t do great, but I did catch the biggest Sheephead (freshwater drum) I have ever seen. What fun to bring that in on a 6 foot perch pole!

Jonathan and Gabe (mini-Phil) loved playing with the cousins and being around Aunt Katie and Uncle Josh, as well as the rest of the extended family on the 4th of July. Jonathan had his first experience with sparklers (or “sticks with fire” as he called them), and we watched a bit of the fireworks from Nanny Linda’s dock. It was a fun, relaxing trip and we look forward to being back over Christmas/New Years. More pictures from the trip here. More pictures and part 2 of the trip coming soon!

Do you ever feel incredibly busy, yet also feel like you are not getting anything done? That describes my life the past couple of weeks. The boys are doing great, but there is just so much more work with two. A friend described it this way: with one child, the parents are able to employ a “double coverage” defense; with two you go to “man to man”; and once you have three or more you go straight to a “zone/prevent” defense. Really, we’ve been doing great, but it just takes us twice as long to get anything done.

Dad was able to make it out for a long weekend a few weeks back (you may recall me saying something about the Eagles!!!)

We had a great time relaxing and explored Lookout Mountain a bit. We took a ride on the Incline Railway, the steepest passenger railway in the world. Jonathan loved it (surprised?) and everytime we drive by it at the bottom of the mountain he has to look for “that new fun train.” He’s really been quite a trip lately. Though he is going through a bit of a whiny/needy phase, he just says and does some of the funniest things.

We’d really like to video some of the things he does, because they are much more hilarious when they are caught in the act, rather than described in words. Just yesterday I gave him a little bag of Cheezits and he offered one to me. Then he kind of held his hands out, palms up, and said in an apologetic voice, “They’re all squares, Daddy. There aren’t any rectangles.” I tried not to be too disappointed, as rectangular cheesy crackers do taste much better than the boring square ones, but I managed.

Jonathan is also starting to give up his afternoon naps. Which he is not allowed to do, because afternoon nap time is also known as “halftime” in the aforementioned game of parenting. We’ve told him that if he doesn’t want to sleep that he can bring some books into bed to read, but he needs to be in there by himself for a while every afternoon. Normally we’ll hear him playing with some cars or trains on the bed and telling one of them not to be mean to the other one or they will have to go sit in the naughty spot. I took the following picture when I went in to wake him up from an actual nap.

He had gone down from his bed, went over to his bookshelf and then brought his piggy bank, bulldog paperweight, and a stone polar bear back to his bed, presumably played with them for a bit, and then lined them up looking at him while he took a nap. Seriously, our child is the strangest kid I’ve ever been around. It’d be great to have an invisible camerman just follow him around to capture everything, because he turns into such a ham when we turn the camera on him. He gets loud and starts speaking gibberish and wants to see the video played back on the screen. (Aside: isn’t it unbelievable that kids under 10 don’t even understand the concept of taking a picture, and actually having to wait several days/weeks until finding out what it looked like?) Anyway, he’s a really good big brother and helper.

Gabe is doing great, he just went for his month/six week checkup and was a whopping 9lbs, 12oz. Jonathan was 9lbs, 3oz at 2 months. We’ve got a porker on our hands. The picture to the left is of Gabe snoozing in Mommy’s arms shortly after giving himself a hickey on his arm. He’s definitely going to be a thumb sucker when he has the brain power to actually remember where his thumb is and take it out of his fist and get it to his mouth. He’s been such a good baby though…sleeping pretty good, rarely fussy, eats well. We think he’s starting to smile, which is encouraging. When you have a 3 year old who won’t stop talking (seriously, he talks in his sleep), it sometimes feels like nobody’s home upstairs with Gabe. But he’s starting to interact and it’s fun.

Ahhh. And Rover. So, I was on my way to WalMart with Jonathan the day Dad was leaving to go get him the new Eagles CD (since, you know, we saw them two days earlier), and as I get down the mountain and am driving on the 45 mph highway, a dog darts across right in front of me, ran into the drivers side door and got clipped under the back tire. I didn’t know what to do-Jonathan asks me what happened, I said there was a bump in the road, I see the dog rolling around on the road before getting up and limping off. I couldn’t bear the thought of stopping to scrape the stupid mutt off the highway with Jonathan there, unforgiving because I killed a dog, so I kept going. I ended up going back–there was actually a Sheriff Deputy right near there (not the nicest part of Chattanooga) who heard from someone who saw it that the dog went home and the owner took him to the vet with what looked like a broken foot/leg. Sheesh. No fun. What would you do-traumatize your son or leave the dog with a death wish to suffer the consequences of his foolish decision?

Anyway, Renee’s mom came down here for a week because I leave tomorrow to go to a Student Development conference in Cedarville, OH. It will be a great time of hanging out with our staff, being challenged with new ideas, networking, and being around other folks who truly do understand what your job is-even if you can’t succinctly sum it up in a two sentence description. I’m looking forward to it.

New pictures were added here.

At 9:30 am today, April 18th, Gabriel Drew Litscher was welcomed into the world at 7 lbs, 12 oz & 20 inches long. After months of waiting and praying, Baby Brother was finally introduced to his family. He’s got a good bit of red hair and the general consensus is that he closely resembles Papa Phil. Renee had an appointment for an induction at 5:00am this morning, so we got up dark and early and made our way down the mountain to the hospital. By 6:00 she was started on pitocin, by 7:00 she had her water broken, by 8:00 she had an epidural, by 9:00 she was pushing, and after a couple big pushes Gabe made his appearance.

Renee and Gabe are doing great…she feels 20 times better this time than she did after Jonathan, and Gabe has been a good eater and sleeper so far. Jonathan was SO excited to meet his baby brother and absolutely adores him. He was so good holding him and stroking his face and giving him kisses. He wants him to come home to play cars with him Both the boys are doing great and we can’t be more thankful. Well, enough with the story…here’s the rest of the pictures from Gabriel Drew’s Birth Day!