Welcome Sawyer!!

It's true. During the course of my pregnancy, my sister-in-law was pregnant, had a baby, then got pregnant again! On October 24th, we welcomed the latest edition of the Voss family into the world...Sawyer Chester Voss, weighing in at 7lbs 14 oz, measuring 18.5 inches. Congratulations Corey, Irene, Ashton, and Cullen!!

Today was one of those days where I realized at 6pm on my way to a church meeting that I had not brushed my teeth all day. I didn't have a spare moment, as sweet Myles was quite demanding all day long. I cannot imagine having three! But I'm sure I'll get a glimpse of it very soon...

We are so happy that Myles has so many boy cousins close in age. I'm not sure if this photo will download, as the blogger is giving me the usual headache, but if it does, it shows my dad in his new 'do...otherwise known as a hat. 10% of those on his type of chemo lose their hair so we didn't think he'd lose it, but I think you'll agree that he looks surprisingly handsome bald. Smarter, I think.

Hey, you know what's really fun for us? When some of you make comments to our posts! So just do it.

Off to the Races!

On Myles' 9 month anniversary of his birth, he finally got the crawling thing down. Here are some photos from his visit to Grandma's house last week, you can see him in push up/plank position (yogi extrodinaire), and on tummy. Today I leave for the Gandhi King Conference in Memphis, where I am scheduled to be one of many workshop presenters. Unfortunately, WAND was late in buying the ticket and it was too expensive for Seth and Myles to travel with me. So for the second time ever, I will spend the night away from Myles. I will miss him! I get back Saturday night. I'm sure he will be crawling circles around the house by then. Presently, he is under the desk getting into my work folders, which are far more interesting than the many toys that litter the floor...

Inch Worm

Thankfully the blogger is fixed this morning and I am able to treat you to these cute photos. See Myles in his new/used winter bear coat and hat, like a little stuffed sausage. Yesterday we went for ice cream (it's the season of pumpkin ice cream at the hop) and to the pumpkin patch on the lawn of a nearby church. We picked out three, a little family of pumpkins and hopefully we will find time (when?) to carve them before Halloween. Myles has been more vocal lately. We like the repeat consonants, but the throaty demon scream/gurgle is a little much, especially at church. To listen to it you would think he was in a great deal of pain, but when you look at his face he has a huge smile. He's still not crawling in the traditional sense of the word. But he is inching along to his destination with a combination of being on his hands and knees, scooting his knees, then belly flopping forward. He always gets exactly where he wants to go. We're still expecting the full on crawl to erupt any day now and send him flying around the house, but who knows when. The teeth we thought were coming on several occasions due to drool and fussiness have still not appeared. For now he's our fat little inch worm.

Punkin at the Pumpkin Patch

This is the first moment I've had to update the blog in over a week, and yet the system is having problems and won't let me upload the cutest photos you've ever seen of Myles at the pumpkin patch...will try again tomorrow.

It's the end of a very busy week. Last Sunday and Monday I went to Tennessee to see my sister and my sweet nephew Kaleb. My sister is due with her second child on Christmas Eve, and she looks great! My nephew dressed up in his dinosaur Halloween outfit, which Myles was very interested in, and talked about his new, soon-to-be-born brother, Finn. We also got the chance to see my brother and his family. My sister-in-law Irene is due at the end of this month with their third baby, and she has been having lots of BH contractions, I am expecting the phone call any day now. Yet she's still slinging around Cullen (who my parents call the tank because of his sweet baby fat), doing everything a mother of two has to do. I don't know how she does it!

It was a busy week at work for me, because I preached this morning and led the service. Lots of additional work goes along with this and in my 20 hours per week, that means other things get left undone. On Friday, we drove back to Knoxville for the Race for the Cure. We saw my dad's freshly shaved head (go dad!). Only 10% of folks who take his type of chemotherapy lose their hair, and he's in that percentage. It took me a moment to get used to it, but by the end of our time together I decided that I really liked it. He looks great...who knew when I shaved my head all those years ago that I was paving the way. His take on the shaved head is: "it's cold!" My mom thinks he should get a stocking cap to wear to bed...Anyhow, on Wednesday he will have another chemo session and this time with the two chemicals. It will be his second time getting two chemicals and he had a rough week the last time he got both. So we are praying that he will have a better experience this time around. Did I mention that he and my mom have turned over a new leaf with nutrition and are eating a largely organic, raw, vegetarian diet? I am very thrilled about this, and greatly respect their willingness to shift their lifestyle in order to build up my dad's immune system.

The race for the Cure was awesome! Over 12,000 descended upon downtown Knoxville. Our friend Karson is a breast cancer survivor, and so friends from all parts of the country came to Knoxville to walk/run in honor of her. I saw friends from Baltimore and Philly and Atlanta and Louisiana and all over the place. It was a wonderful reunion, and Karson looks beautiful with her short hair. Seth ran competitively and came in 5th place. It was a 5k and his time was 18 minutes. He gets mad when I talk about how incredible his running is, but it's true!

Well, I'll sign off and try to get on tomorrow to post photos of sweet Myles. Sweet dreams for now!

Mr. Serious

Well, here we are after voting in our city council primary (photo graciously provided by our beloved former landlady, Heather Rayburn, who also brought her Jack Russel to the polls). The voter turnout was pathetic, or apathetic...but we were still pleased with the outcome and it was fun to show Myles how to vote. It has been a Mr. Serious week around here. Seems like Myles woke up with a new personality this week, he has been tight-lipped, and we are so used to seeing hundreds of smiles. He's been a bit cranky, so we are wondering whether he's teething (no signs of it when we look or feel his gums) or perhaps he's just frustrated with this crawling thing. He gets up on his hands and knees, and can move both is legs and now his arms, but hasn't put it all together yet. He has the energy to be crawling circles around the house, but is hard at work on the skill and I imagine it's a frustrating place to be. Today was the first cool day of the year, with temperatures not reaching 70 degrees. Fall! We are happy it's finally arrived. Myles wore his new/used hat today for the first time, and we realized very quickly that he needs some mittens and boots to go with it!

Fall rolls in

The leaves are starting to change and Myles is wearing pants every day, I love fall in the mountains! Today was a very rough day for Myles. It began with me accidentally scheduling a meeting during his Kindermusik time, so I asked Seth to cover for me and forgo his lunch break. Seth agreed but forgot to check his calendar. So when he finished the class (Myles on hip) at 10:15, he realized he was missing a meeting. So he took Myles along. Myles typically naps for an hour or two at 9:00 or 9:30am...After that Seth had another meeting at 11 so I rushed Myles into his morning out program, letting them know he should be extra tired. He didn't fall asleep there until 12:30, and I came at 1:00 to pick him up. In the afternoon he resisted and resisted all attempts to put him down for a nap. So we went shopping! (I have some extra time this week after the weekend WAND conference in DC) And I bought him the cutest winter coat and hat you've ever seen, got them second hand at the littlest bird in west Asheville. Then we decided to swing by the Burnets, at which point he began getting fussy. From there we picked up Seth at work and came home and he was asleep in the car. When I took him out of his car seat he woke up angry and proceeded to scream for a good half hour, alternately choking and looking up at me despairingly. He refused the pacifier and mama's milk, so all I could do was lay beside him and try to help him calm down. Seth went for a run and Myles finally conked out, so I started cooking dinner. About a half hour into dinner preparations, he woke up with a scream and again was inconsolable for about 15 minutes. They seem like very very long minutes. In the middle of his tirade, the timer went off and Seth was still on a run so I had to haul him out of bed, down two flights of steps and shut off the oven. He's finally asleep. Whew! Never again will I let him skip the afternoon nap...lesson learned.

Did I mention he's starting to crawl? He gets up on hands and knees and rocks back and forth. He moves his little knees forward, then reaches out his arms and falls on his face. He's working at it. But he can successfully move himself around the room with half crawls, rolling, and scooting. What should he be for Halloween??? Suggestions welcome.

In other news, we are just back from the WAND conference in DC. This happens every other year, and it always reminds me why I do the work that I do. We had several women announce their run for higher office at the conference (by design, half the participants are state legislators). I had the opportunity to speak on a panel, and you can read my remarks at www.faithwand.org if you want to see what I had to say about the cost of war. Seth and Myles had a fantastic time, Seth ran on the mall as the sun was rising, they visited a museum and Union Station...by the way, did I mention that Seth won first in his age group for an 8k he ran on Saturday morning? He's back in the game...

And a special shout out to Michelle Kaiser, whose birthday is tomorrow. We love you Michelle and can't wait for the pumpkin potluck!