not so graceful motherhood moments

In case you were wondering, I'm quite prone to having "not so graceful" moments in the course of my motherhood journey. Tonight was one of them. Matt left for a meeting about 6pm, so it was just me and the girls on the bedtime journey. No problem, we'll clean up dinner, read a few books, change into pjs and it's off to dream-land, right? Not quite.

The dinner clean-up was curtailed by a hungry, fussy Lydia (the dishes are still in the sink as I write, but we did managed to get the table cleared). I changed Lydia into her pjs and sat down to feed her. Lydia's just getting started when Julianna announces she needs to potty. Potty training is going exceptionally well, but when Julianna wants to go, I generally move pretty quickly to ensure success!

Soooo, Lydia's nighttime feeding comes to a quick halt - I shift her to a fairly precarious grip under my left arm and the three of us hustle off to the potty. As we round the corner, I bonk Lydia's head on the doorframe... her eyes fill with tears but on we go. [I mainly let Julianna wander around the house in just panties... that way she can manage the potty on her own. But it's quite chilly again, and she had on more clothes, so she needed my help.] So, with a crying Lydia under my left arm I help Julianna get through the layers of clothing and onto the potty. Success!

Back to the girls' bedroom and Lydia starts to eat once more. This time she manages to get a full belly, and into her bed she goes! Julianna followed a short while later (with no mishaps).

All in all, it was actually a pretty smooth evening. Of course, Lydia might have a different take on things! But, I've had much worse, trust me! Another day behind us. On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give it a 7, even with the head bonk. I just brewed a pot of decaf and I've got about 5 hours worth of computer work to squeeze into the next 120 minutes, so I best cut this short.

I have photos to post from Matt's birthday party last night and from today (we got a rare but fun snowfall!) So, stay tuned.

oh yeah, and my apologies to the North Dakota crew. Apparently my online weather source was mistaken and the days are quite balmy now - highs in the teens. At least they are in the double-digits!!

Happy Birthday Matt!

Today is Matt's birthday! He was definitely the center of attention at the house this morning... after a few days away, we all want his attention! We had cinnamon rolls for breakfast, talked to family on the phone, and played here for a bit before he headed to campus.

There was a short but intense hail storm this morning about 8 - maybe in honor of this North Dakota boy's birthday?!? It snows here only once every few years, nothing like the frozen tundra of North Dakota (I just checked the weather for ND tomorrow - the forecasted high is NEGATIVE 7!)

Here he is with his cinnamon rolls ...


Lydia skipped the cinnamon rolls, but celebrated with her FIRST BITE of rice cereal. She played with it a lot, but also managed to consume some.



And, here's one more photo I took a few days ago - the girls got these outfits from Grandma.




We love you Matt!! Happy Birthday!

no more cold weather

Well, our cold weather worries are over, at least for now. A week ago today we wore out outdoor gear indoors, and huddled next to the heater to keep warm. Today was gorgeous - high temps near 70, clear and sunny.

Lydia's photo shoot this morning went well - I'll get the photos next week, and be sure to post a few for you to admire. She was pretty dang cute, if I say so myself!

Matt leaves early tomorrow morning on a short out of town trip. He'll be back on Wednesday night (and if his flight isn't delayed, he'll be home before I fall asleep)! These trips always remind me that God did not create me to be a single-parent! Even when Matt is gone on short trips, I miss him terribly - and I really miss his help during the 6 to 7pm crunch! Anyways, he'll be taking the computer with him, so no posts for a few days.

In celebration of my Dad's upcoming trip and Lydia's 6 month photo shoot, I'm posting this shot of the two of them together. My memory isn't too clear on all the details, but I'm thinking Lydia was less than an hour old when this photo was taken.

continuing a tradition

When my Dad was about 6 months old, his mom took him to a photo studio and had some pictures made... which were then compiled into a composite frame and hung on the wall in the house where he grew up. The same thing was done for each of Dad's four younger brothers. When Dad and his brothers started having kids, my grandmother continued the tradition - same photo studio, similar poses, similar composite for all the grandkids.

In May of 2006, it was the third generation's turn to visit the studio. We were in NC with Julianna, went to the studio and had photos taken of Julianna. Now, Lydia's time has arrived. Unfortunately, we're about 12,000 miles from the studio. Never fear, we've found a solution. We're getting photos made here, and then sending them back to the studio where my Dad was first photographed 60 years ago - where the photographer will create a similar composite using Lydia's digital prints. The big photo shoot is tomorrow morning. I'll let you know how it goes!


here's a picture of the my Dad's composite (on the left) and mine (right). These photos (and my brother's) hung over my parents bed when I was little.


I don't have a digital copy of Julianna's composite, but here she is on the morning of her photo shoot... she was 5 months old.

when the day gets long

[I tried to post this yesterday evening, but it didn't work. So, here it is, a little late.]

Yes, the title of the blog is "enjoying our gifts from the Lord", but, let me assure you... I have my days. When my attitude is more like: I just have to survive a few more hours and everyone will be asleep!

Today was one of those days. [how in the world, then, am I on the internet, you ask? because Matt walked in the door, saw my face, and gave me a compassionate break from mommy-life! I just finished reading this really interesting news article on the Chinese firewall. The firewall is a big part of our life. We use a VPN to get around it. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200803/chinese-firewall ] Part of our problem is sleep-deprivation. The fireworks last night were unbelievable. It was like living inside the July 4th celebration at the local fairgrounds. whoa - loud. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. And, Matt has been swamped recently - just really busy with work. He also has at least two, possibly three, out of town trips in the next 3 weeks. That works out to more time on airplanes and at airports than I care to think about.

Right now he's entertaining the girls at the kitchen table - both are giggling. He fed Julianna dinner and we are waiting until after the girls are in bed to eat.

Adding slightly more stress, but also some joy to the past few days is that Julianna has decided it's time to use the potty. She declared herself ready yesterday morning and had a pretty successful day. Today was even more successful! She loves to have an audience on the potty - "Lydia, look at me", she says!

Please never tell her I posted this photo. can you imagine what she'll think when she's a teenager??




Lydia and Matt...

fire crackers, fire crackers

Today is Yuan Xiao Jie - the 15th day of the new lunar year. Basically, what that means is "today is yet another excuse to set off more firecrackers". If you can't tell, I'm having a bit of cultural stress right now! Yes, it's 7:40am. Julianna (up early from all the firecracker noise) is on my lap. Firecrackers have gone off since before 7am. I'm not sure how the girls managed to sleep as long as they did - it is SO LOUD! I'm hoping that the neighbors will use up all their firecrackers early in the day and there won't be any left for this evening :)

Here's hoping today gets quieter and quieter as the hours go by ....

Sunday afternoon photos

We had a fun afternoon playing together as a family this past Sunday. Julianna calls these her "silly glasses".

Of course, Lydia had to have a turn too.




A big yawn from Lydia... (it's still pretty chilly in the apartment, and Lydia had just woken up from a nap, dressed in her winter outdoor gear)




Looking up at her daddy


Julianna loves to kiss Lydia


We love watching the two girls play together. Julianna already understands her role of "bossy big sister" quite well. "No Lydia, don't touch that!", she says. Julianna also has helpful comments like, "Ju-nanna can walk downstairs by self. Lydia can't walk down stairs by self. She's too little." I'm sure Lydia will appreciate these more and more as she gets older :)

riding an elephant

Julianna still likes to talk about riding elephants. We got this photo via email from some friends of ours... you can see Matt hanging on tight to Julianna. Elephant-riding is not for the faint of heart, it's a pretty bumpy trip.

When my mom and dad lived in Thailand, they visited the same elephant camp with my paternal grandparents. That would have been 1975 or 76, I think. Some of the elephants at the camp were over 30 years old, so it's possible that 4 generations have now seen the same elephant!

I made a trip to the local Wal-mart this morning. Yep, we have Wal-mart. And, nope, it doesn't have the same items as the store at home. In fact, I just sent my mom a long list of things I'd like her to send me - and almost all of them are available at her Wal-mart, but not available at the one here. Still, it's a good place to buy non-perishable groceries, diapers, etc. I was mainly excited to find boxes of ultra-heat-treated whipping cream. I use it to make sour cream, whipped cream, and other fun stuff.... it was out of stock everywhere in the city this past fall, so I loaded up! The great thing about UHT stuff is it can sit on the shelf for 6 months.

My mom is sending lots of goodies with my dad in a few weeks. He comes (with 5 other friends from home) on March 8th! We can't wait! It will be like having a live-in playmate for Julianna... she has no idea how fun it's going to be!

flexible holidays

One of the many perks of living overseas is that you get lots of flexibility with holidays. Like my friend Erin Ashley suggested we carve pumpkins.... for Thanksgiving! It was a blast. And, if you pay attention to the time zone difference and play your cards right, you can make your birthday last for 36 hours instead of the traditional 24 ("it's still my birthday in America, you know?")

So, in the spirit of holiday flexibility, I just posted some of our Christmas card photos on the kitchen wall. They were carefully bundled in our most recent package (thanks so much Luther for serving us in this way!) Matt and I had a great time reading all the letters. Julianna loves it. Now that she's an active member of the "I ask questions all day long club" the photo wall is right up her alley. She points and says, "who's that?" every time she catches me in the kitchen.

In the photo you can see our water "tong"... tap water is not drinkable, so all the water for cooking and drinking comes from this big jug. It's a 19 Liter jug of water, and we use one every two or three days, depending on how much I am cooking. When we need a refill, we call the "song shui shu shu" (bring the water uncle) and tell him to bring us a new jug. He brings us a new jug and takes the old jug away. We pay him with a ticket that we buy in sets - one ticket is good for one jug of water. Each ticket costs about 1 USD.

[sorry the photo quality is a bit poor. since I lost the camera, I am using Matt's phone to take photos and video. Matt has a Treo, it's really much more than a phone... it's more like an, well, everything.]

valentine's celebrating

Well, Hallmark hasn't yet managed to penetrate much of Asia, so Valentine's Day passed without much ado around these parts. We baked Valentine's Funfetti cupcakes (thanks Grandma and Grandpa for the fun package!). Julianna was in charge of putting sprinkles on top of the iced cupcakes. She put a double helping on the second cupcake, declared it hers ("this one is mine's") and abandoned her sprinkles-putting post so she could start snacking! I've been enjoying candy conversation hearts that we received in a package FULL of candy from our friends the Montagues :)

We're mostly settled back into home and the girls are healthy. Lydia hasn't needed any medicine since Wednesday! She is busy sitting up and not sleeping very well :( Not sure what her story is, but maybe it's a growth spurt or something?? She wants to eat more than usual and sleep less than usual. This basically translates into lots of demand on mommy.

School is getting ready to start up again, so the pace is cranking up around the Kvernen household. Vacation is officially over.

sitting pretty

Lydia started sitting on her own yesterday afternoon (see the video) and is improving every minute. It's amazing how much better she is than just yesterday. She can do about ten minutes now, without toppling over. Julianna likes to watch Lydia fall, so she pushes on her shoulder and says, "let her fall, let her fall". Apparently a toppling-over little sister is much more interesting than a just-sitting-there little sister!

It's getting a bit warmer in the apartment. We've managed to get the temp in the girls' room up to a reasonable level (despite another one hour power outage last night). We ran two heaters in there for the entire night, and now the temp will hold steady with just one heater on. Our next project is to warm up our bedroom - we've got two heaters running in there right now. Of course, that leaves the rest of the house without any heaters at all - Brrr!! Julianna is asleep on our bed, and Lydia is in her bed, so the girls are enjoying all the warmth while Matt and I brave the cold this afternoon.

the trouble with electricity..

...is that it's so nice to have around, we forget how miserable life would be without it. But, never fear, we had a good reminder last night. Remember how I remarked on how cold the apartment was?? Well, it was hard to heat up - our concrete walls hold the chill and, after three weeks with no residents, it was COLD. All our heaters were going top speed, and progress seemed minimal. Until about 8pm when the power went out. At that point progress on the warm-up-the-apartment campaign screeched to a halt!

The girls were already asleep, but we knew they couldn't possibly stay warm. We decided on the "four bodies in one room" tactic... Matt slept with Julianna in her single bed. We dragged a mattress in and put it on the floor for me to share with Lydia. Let me assure you that no one slept well. Until midnight when the power came back on... and we reverted back to our normal sleeping arrangements. We woke up every two hours to check on the girls, but they were both pretty chilly when we woke up this morning, so we kept them in bed with us for an hour or so to try to warm up.

Oh, and did I mention that the locals are still busy celebrating the lunar new year?? Fire crackers went off pretty consistently for about two hours this morning! oh joy. so good to be home! A nice warm shower helped brighten the start to my day - Lydia is back asleep, and Julianna is enjoying all her toys after three weeks away from home. We're all dressed in our long underwear and the heaters are trying their best.

home home home

Our final few days in Samui were a little tough. Julianna went back to the doctor on Sunday morning, and was given a clean bill of health (also got her second Japanese encephalitis shot and didn’t even cry!) But, Lydia had developed a cough and bit of fever, so the doctor listened to her lungs too – not good news. A quick chest x-ray confirmed a mild case of pneumonia. She was given a nebulizer treatment, some suctioning of her lungs and sent home to recover (it’s a viral infection, so no need for antibiotics). I can assure you that she royally hates having a tube stuck down her nose! On Monday morning she was cleared to fly, and given two more treatments - nebulizer and suctioning (Monday morning and afternoon).

We are so thankful that we caught the pneumonia early on – she responded really well to the treatment, we had great doctors and nurses, and she traveled easily today. In fact, you wouldn’t even know she was sick. In the midst of it all, she cut a second tooth!

Our trip home was fairly uneventful, a two hour delay on the second flight, but other than that, no worries. The girls traveled GREAT. We're home now.... heating up some chicken corn chowder for dinner - I doubled the recipe last time I made it and froze some for times just like this! It's Marilyn's recipe that she gave me when I married Matt - so YUMMY! The house hasn't been lived in for three weeks, and the fridge is empty. Looking forward to unpacking and getting settled back in here.

It's chilly - Julianna keeps saying "I'm cold, I'm cold". Hard to believe that back on Koh Samui it's 90 degrees. I bet it's 50 in the apartment, but I've started the heaters running, so it'll warm up soon.

Whuzzat? Why?? and a new tooth!!

I can’t believe it, but our vacation days are almost gone. Last night Matt and I went out on a date to a Thai seafood restaurant here on the island. One of our favorite features of Koh Samui is that you fly on/fly off (one airport… daily flights to Hong Kong and Singapore, hourly flights to Bangkok and random flights to a few other domestic locations). Anyways, we had a terrific beach front table and looked out over a beautiful ocean, the sky was lit by the stars and every now and then we’d see an airplane leaving. Sad to think that on Tuesday morning one of those planes will carry us away to Bangkok and then home.

We’re determined to make the most of our last few days here…. pool, beach, gobs of sunscreen and lots of friends!

The island is loaded with northern Europeans seeking better weather. Matt met a family on the beach yesterday from northern Norway. Apparently it's quite mountainous where they live (maybe all of northern Norway is mountainous?) and they are currently in a season where THE SUN DOES NOT RISE ABOVE THE HORIZON FOR TWO MONTHS! Wowsers. No wonder they flew to Thailand. The dad said that there is a period of light every day, but they do not see the sun. These Europeans also know how to vacation.... overheard a conversation a few days ago - folks who are here for the next SIX WEEKS!

Anyways, on to some family news.

Julianna talks and talks. Her favorite things to say? Whuzzat? (What’s that?) and Why? She’s also perfecting the “I” pronoun. “I don’t want to”, “I can’t”, “I need it”, “I coming”, “I want some lunch”. She’s also picked up on one of her daddy’s phrases – “How ‘bout that?” In context it usually goes a bit like this: “I want some more cheese. How ‘bout that?” or “Mommy go swimming. How ‘bout that?” or "I go touch puppy's head. How 'bout that?"

Lydia, not to be outdone by her big sister, is making some big leaps of her own. Got her first tooth yesterday and surprised everybody – even me! I had noticed her gums getting a little thin but wasn’t expecting a tooth quite yet. Stuck my finger in her mouth yesterday and, voila, felt something sharp on her bottom gum! Yay Lydia!

college roommates and a baby blanket

well, i am back at the internet bar. I had EXACTLY enough money to pay last time - 60 baht (2 usd) and this time I brought my wallet, instead of just grabbing some spare change and walking out the door.

I am pretty proud of the baby blanket I crocheted for Sara, so here's the photo for all to admire! There is one eensy teensy little mistake but don't tell her (just kidding, she reads the blog! and the mistake isn't quite as little as I wish it was, but I figure an infant won't mind.)



Here's a photo of us three roommates. Leslie (on the left) and me and Sara. Fun fact about this picture: Lydia was born just about exactly 24 hours after this photo was taken.

Still enjoying vacation

Here is a shot of Julianna and I, Matt, visiting the elephants in Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand. Julianna was mostly afraid of them, especially their trunks, which is why she wasn't very happy in this picture. :)

Many people fed the elephants bananas & sugar cane, since these items were for sale near the elephant show. But the elephants also accepted money, tips, I guess, which they dutifully passed back to the trainer. Julianna was scared to give them anything, but she did see what was going on. So now when we talk about what elephants eat she says "manas" - bananas; "uger cane" - sugar cane; and "money." I hope this doesn't cause her to flunk any Biology tests in the future :)


This next picture is taken at the beach in front of the resort where we are staying here in Koh Samui, Thailand. As you can see it's a beautiful beach and island! We are very thankful to be able to vacation here and take it very slow for a while. Though, vacations certainly are a lot different now than they were 3 years ago. :)

finally some photos

Well, I finally got some photos to upload. My devoted readers (all four of them!) will hopefully appreciate my efforts - I've tried just about everything! Here's a photo tour of the last few days!

Poolside fun!
Breakfast by the gulf of Thailand


Julianna and her buddy, Kayleigh, eating a picnic lunch on the porch.


family shot on the front porch of our bungalow. Our next door neighbors are our long-time friends, Will and Lam. They have a little boy Julianna's age and a little girl Lydia's age. We know about 10 families at the resort, and the kids are having a great time playing together (so are the adults!)

Two of Matt's buddies buried Matt in the sand this morning - Julianna took a seat on Matt's sand covered chest!




Ok, that's all for now. I'm at an internet bar and I think I may have just logged more time on the internet than I have money to pay for! Hmmm, not sure how I'll handle that one. Anyone know how to say, "I'm sorry, can I come back and pay later" in Thai?? Actually, mom and dad, you probably do! Too bad you aren't here to help!

missing a party

On Saturday (in America) my college roommate Leslie co-hosted a baby shower for my college roommate Sara. I should have been there. But, I wasn’t. I’m in Koh Samui, Thailand… about 30 hours (by plane) from the baby shower. Rats.

Sara is expecting her first baby, a little girl, in late March. I crocheted a baby blanket for her little girl. Here’s a photo:

[ok, bad idea about the photo. the internet is really slow. but I was proud of the blanket! I'll post a photo later and you can admire it!]

A friend at the Thailand conference hand carried it to America and then shipped it to the shower for me. Sara, if you’re reading this, I really wish I could have been there! Happy Baby Shower!

We are having a great time here. Julianna is feeling better and we're having a great time as a family. Eating LOTS of seafood and yummy Thai cuisine.

Vacationing on Koh Samui, Thailand

We made it to Koh Samui (direct flight from Chiang Mai) yesterday at about 12:30pm. And we've enjoyed our first day and a half here. The pace has already slowed considerably from our time at the conference and taking the class in Chiang Mai. We're staying at the same resort that we stayed at last year (The Smile House - on Bo Phut Beach) for those of you who want to check us out on Google Earth. :)

Unfortunately Julianna is a little sick. She has had a bit of a fever and some coughing and a runny nose. I, Matt, took her to the hospital this morning to see a doctor and get some medicine, including antibiotics. We are again impressed and grateful for a modern, efficient, and wester-style medical system here in Thailand. We are praying that God will work through the medications (or despite them) to heal Julianna. We are grateful for progress already, as this evening she has felt cooler and seemed happier than she did yesterday evening.

We'll post again soon. And hopefully have some recent pictures too.
- Matt

camera confession....

Well, this is not good news. I lost the camera (it was stolen?) earlier this week at the pool. I’ve put off sharing the news with the remotely held hope that it might possibly turn up somewhere, but the hope is gone. I feel terrible. I LOVED our camera, and used it almost every day. In the few days we haven’t had it, I’ve turned and reached for it so many times, only to remember it’s not there. The only small speck of good news is that I had just uploaded our photos (so we didn’t loose any) and the tape was brand new, with only a few minutes of footage.

I borrowed the Huffman’s camera yesterday and took some photos of the girls, but I need a special cable to upload them to our computer, so it will be a few days before I can post them. We’ll buy a new camera, and have my dad bring it to us in March.

Today is the last day in Chiang Mai. Julianna headed off to childcare and Matt is in his last day of class. I walked down to Starbucks for my final decaf latte and am getting ready to start packing. Matt had one last northern Thailand mountain bike ride planned for this afternoon, but it’s rainy this morning, so he might have to cancel if the sun doesn’t come out.

In lieu of an up-to the-minute photograph, I’ll have to post an older one… here’s Julianna from last week – sharing her snack with Jing Jing (the panda). Jing Jing made the trip to Thailand, of course, he’s quite the international traveler. Jing Jing gets his name from BeiJing, the city where Julianna was born. Likewise, Lydia has a bunny rabbit named Carolina, who sleeps in her bed at home. Lydia isn’t too attached yet, so Carolina remained at home for this trip…. But something tells me she’ll be on an international flight some day soon.