Recently in life Category

I like reading aloud. I guess its a sort of performance art, hearkening back to my days as a preschool teacher or as an actor at school.

Most of the books that we read to the girls are easy readers with photos on every page. Oftentimes they are more artwork than story. Jadzia has always been our most voracious reader, and she has slowly been building up her ability to listen.

Last year I read to her a condensed, illustrated version of the Wind in the Willows. She enjoyed it, although after every chapter she would ask "So, what happened?"

Right now we are making our way through Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. This is the real version of the story, not condensed, with a limited number of illustrations. Jadzia really seems to love it, and she also is following the story much better.

The only issue is that Ludi does not quite have Jadzia's patience yet. But she'll come along eventually.

I know it's still a few years off, but I am really looking forward to reading the Hobbit with these girls. (Jadzia occasionally asks me to read little bits from it, but she doesn't totally understand what's going on)

It's a chore everyone hates. We have never owned a dishwasher at Renaud Manor, but that is soon to change. It is our hope to buy one and install it before the baby arrives next month. To do it, I'll be converting some under-counter shelf space into a spot for the dishwasher.

We're still looking into different brands and models to see what we might get. Yoli wants something black, and we both want something reliable. Several Kenmores scored really well in Consumer Reports '08 buying guide. But the problem with diswasher makers is that they change model numbers fairly frequently, making it more difficult to guess a model's longevity given past history of older versions.

Anyway, if anyone out there has dishwasher stories to share, please comment here. I'd love to hear about recent dishwashers that worked really well.

A conversation with Jadzia at breakfast the other day. I was wearing my pajamas:

Jadzia: "Oooh, Daddy, I really like your pants."

Me: "Why, thank you, Jadzia!"

(pause)

Jadzia: "Aren't you going to say anything about me?"

There are no teenagers in our house. Still, I just got back from the Ferguson License Office with a newly-permitted driver.

Yoli!

Today she finally took her written test and passed with a 96. (Somehow I imagine we are the only family of 5 (and a half) to go all together to the Highway Patrol offices so mom can take her test)

Now that she has her learner's permit, we'll be hitting the parking lots and getting Yoli comfortable in the minivan. You might want to stay away from Jamestown Mall for a while; I hear it's a good place to practice.

Ludi has a runny nose, and had a slight fever. This certainly isn't as bad as some other bouts we've had over the years. But it's amazing how just a little sick goes a loooooooong way with these girls.

Some recent development milestones:

• Jadzia can read and write! Last week she made up some valentines that we mailed out to family and handed to our neighbors. I spelled the names, and she wrote them out.

• Ludi is singing really well, and she has quite a few songs memorized.

• Josie is walking, and doing some talking and signing. Best of all, she is sleeping through the night -- and she has moved into the girls' room.

A couple years ago, one of our neighbors gave us her old Fischer-Price Molly cow, much like the one in the photo above.

We tied some yarn to its neck so Jadzia could pull it around. After a while she began to call the cow her "Lassie" (the dog from the TV show). She would lose and regain interest in it over time.

Recently we watched the Wizard of Oz twice with Jadzia and Ludi. Ludi seems to have been especially captivated by it. She asks me daily (or more than once a day) to recount the story for her. I tell various versions, depending on how much time I feel like spending sitting down and talking.

And lately Ludi has begun taking the cow and calling it "Toto." She, of course, is Dorothy. (Sometimes Josie is the Wicked Witch of the West.)

So Molly the Cow has become a stand-in for famous TV and movie dogs.

Josie turned one year old on Jan. 14. We had a nice little party with the girls and their Nanny. Yoli made homemade pizza, which was awesome. Josie got a kick out of it, and she wasn't shy about wolfing down the birthday cake, either.

Keep reading to see some photos from the festivities (and to learn about the bald-day).

We've been tired lately, Yoli especially. Mostly it's Josie who wakes up early and such.

But Ludi has also been waking up in the night. Sometimes it's just that she doesn't want to go to sleep, so we have issues with her getting out of her bed.

A couple nights ago, I came home and found Ludi sleeping on the couch. She had snuck out of her room while Yoli was washing dishes, and fell asleep there. Last night, Yoli heard her crying in the night. She was on the potty!

We are very thankful for that latter development!

In any event, these girls wear us out.

Advertising often sticks with us in powerful ways, whether we want it to or not.

I have always had a mind for jingles, and I can remember a lot of old commercials and songs. But it has always struck me as peculiar that I could remember a jingle for the Dallas Times-Herald.

This Christmas was a lot of fun. Perhaps the best part was having my Nan in town all week, and my brother's family for several days. We went over to my mom's house daily to hang out.

Of all the gifts the girls received this week, this one gave us the biggest laugh. It's a ladybug toy for Josie:

As Yoli removed it from its packaging today, she found the following warning:

Caution: Please be safe. Always select the correct size toy for the type of breed and chewing habits of your dog. Should any portion of this toy break or tear, please remove from your dog and discard immediately. Vo-Toys, Inc. is not responsible for any pet owner's neglect or misuse of this toy.

In recent years I have twice written up a stack of Christmas cards with every intention of mailing them. I even got them into the envelopes and somewhat addressed. Then some thing(s) or other cropped up and I procrastinated to the point that I thought "well, it's too late to mail them now!"

It's embarrasing. (Well, I guess it's only embarrasing now that I've mentioned it here on the blog. Before that, nobody really knew about it!)

But this year, I did put together a little Renaud family letter for Christmas, and I have managed to get most of them into the mail. I have one left, and it will hit the post office sometime tomorrow.

Of course this whole endeavor is a bit pricey, with the cost of having the letter printed and folded, stamps, and all.

To cut costs, I ended up printing in black and white. Also I decided I will send a digitial PDF of the letter via email to many folks.

Maybe that's the way to go in the future. It sure is easier to do. But then again, there's something nice about getting a tangible letter with a little handwritten note (even if it's just a short note).

So the Post-Dispatch recently published a story about Springerle cookies.

I pointed it out to Yoli because I knew she would be interested. How right I was!

The first thing that caught my attention was the recipe's use of "hartshorn," which is actually baking ammonia. This is an ingredient that is not cheap or available in every store.

We happen to have some that we bought in Bolivia, because Yoli has some recipes that call for it. Let me tell you, when you bake with ammonia, it will stink up the house. But once the smell dissipates, the cookies or whatever taste great.

Yoli was excited to try the Springerle recipe, but the problem is molds. There is a local artist who hand-carves them. His carvings are amazing, but at $20-30 bucks a pop, it's a more expensive way to get started than we would like. We are hoping to find used ones at a thrift store or maybe some resin copies ... something more affordable.

We did actually come across two Springerle "boards" at 309 Antiques here in Ferguson, but they are $50 each. Apparently, many folks collect these hand-carved molds. Yoli just wants to bake with them.

Anyhow, anyone out there have any local Springerle resources?

Today I decided to try and help the girls make up their own stories and write them down. Here are the first fruits of this labor. The following stories are by Jadzia, with some prodding by me.

We interrupt your regularly-scheduled afternoon tea to bring you important updates on the status of the Renaud Empire.

While other nations continue to struggle with job losses and brain drain, the Renaud Empire is pleased to report that all its citizens are fully employed:

• Josh: Emperor, dad, newspaper designer
• Yoli: Empress, mom, librarian
• Jadzia: Princess No. 1, pretender
• Ludi: Princess No. 2, player
• Josie: Princess No. 3, wake-up-in-the-night-cryinger

Additionally, there has been no brain drain. Our heads of state today celebrate six years of holy matrimony, so neither is going anywhere anytime soon. The rest of the population is happily employed (and unable to drive, and therefore leave). But we are not content to stand pat. If we are to achieve global domination, our population must increase.

And so it is that we are pleased to make this public proclamation: We are expecting our fourth child, who will be born in April!

Today, Yoli's Tio Adonai died.

Though he had been struggling with some health problems for a long time, this turn for the worse happened very suddenly. We had just begun talking about how it might be possible to go down to Bolivia sooner than planned in order to see him.

But it wasn't to be. God took him home early.

Unfortunately, it seems certain Yoli will not travel to Bolivia. His burial will take place tomorrow. Deaths and burials are not handled the same down there as they are here. When someone dies, they don't wait around -- mostly because they aren't able to. It's a tropical climate and almost summertime right now.

Tio Adonai was a very special man, and it's almost too sad for me to even write. We will miss him. We are sorry he didn't have the chance to meet Josie.

If you have time, please pray for Yoli's family, and especially Adonai's wife Miriam. This is a devastating loss.

Speaking of recipes, Yoli has some recipes she's been saving for almost 20 years. Many of them are hand-written or cut-and-pasted into a little notebook.

Last night she decided to try a recipe that she had wanted to make for a long time. The recipe was written in Portugese, and it was called "Torta de Chocolate," although it really looked more like a pie than a cake. She had found the recipe on the street back in Bolivia and had always wondered how it might taste. Now was her chance to find out.

(And yes, Yoli knows enough Portugese to be able to prepare this recipe)

But there are always some monkeys to throw wrenches into things. In this case, the monkeys were named Jadzia, Ludi, and Josie.

All the girls wanted to be in the kitchen watching Yoli as she cooked. Ludi was standing on our step ladder, Jadzia brought in a stepstool from the bathroom, and Josie was just crawling and doing whatever.

When Yoli went to fetch a pan from the basement, Ludi sprang into action. She took Yoli's good vanilla, and poured all of it into the mixture for the torta's filling. The cap fell to the floor, where Josie eagerly picked it up and began licking it. Jadzia the eager spectator didn't bother to call for help.

Suffice it to say that Yoli threw all three out of the kitchen, cleaned the mess, and continued cooking.

I got to taste the torta last night. It was very mousse-pie-like, but the crust was like a very firm cake rather than a pie crust. Very tasty, but it had enough vanilla flavor that it almost had an alcohol taste.

Reason #82 I don't want kids to grow up:
In their eyes, my "dancing" is on par with Baryshnikov's.

Reason #139 I want the kids to grow up:
The Terrible Twos have arrived for Ludi.

Beautiful weather left me with no excuse to avoid raking leaves today.

The girls offered their "help" which lasted for a while. Mostly they wanted me to make piles that they could play in.

Ludi was the best helper, probably, grabbing small handfuls and putting them into the yard waste bag. But she's not quite tall enough to reach in, so she would have to pull the bag down.

Jadzia, on the other hand, could grab a nice big clump of leaves, and she was plenty tall. But she wasn't all that interested in working.

(Josie offered moral support, and mostly just enjoyed being outside)

I finished the front yard, but the side yards and back yard remain. I also have 4 ornamental grasses that I need to trim for the winter.

And, as usual, the tree in the front yard is still loaded with leaves. It's going to be a loooong fall.

By which I mean to say that the day I turned 30 had some humbling moments. (The age itself really doesn't faze me, and I haven't given it much thought)

Our journey to Washington D.C. was a lot of fun, but it was marked by moments of constantly being lost.

We traveled across 3 states yesterday (Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee) and stopped just inside the border of Virginia to stay with my uncle Jerry and aunt Thelma. We had a great time last night eating spaghetti and telling family stories.

The trees have been very lovely everywhere (except Illinois, which was somewhat drab), and now that we are in mountainous country, everything is so scenic.

This morning uncle Jerry took us to a lovely park in Bristol and later we took a walk through a wetland, which the girls really enjoyed.

We are all in one piece, and the girls did amazingly well yesterday. The hardest part of the journey is over. Today we continue on to Harrisonburg!

At long last, Yoli made some perfect salteñas.

A few days ago we invited a friend over for a dinner of various Bolivian delicacies. On the menu were: salteñas, cuñapes, and mate to drink.

(Check out some pics from the dinner)

Over the years Yoli has had trouble baking salteñas. They are pretty difficult to pull off.

Ever since we've had a bookshelf, the little girls have been inclined to pull all the kids' books off the kids' shelf, several times a day.

First it was Ludi. Then she outgrew it. Now it is Josie.

Today I moved the kids' books to a somewhat higher shelf. Not so high Jadzia and Ludi can't get to it -- but, I hoped, high enough that Josie wouldn't go after it anymore.

Yoli emailed me this photo while I was at work tonight. My efforts have failed.

It was almost two years ago that I got in touch with Ed Richter.

He was a first cousin to my great-grandpa Frank Becker.

At that time I had made a lot of progress in developing my Becker family tree. As I was looking at all these first cousins, I realized that Ed was still living. On a whim, I wrote him a letter, and asked if he would be interested in some of the family history stuff I had uncovered.

I was excited to hear back from him and eventually to meet him in person. As it turns out, he lived only about 15- minutes away -- just a straight shot down Chambers Road.

We talked on the phone and met at his house several times. He remembered quite a bit about his aunts and uncles on the Becker side, even though he wasn't especially close to them. I learned things from him that never would have turned up in old censuses or church records.

During the time I knew Ed, he was diagnosed with cancer. At the end of March 2009, he died. But I didn't know about it until recently -- and I feel pretty bad about it.

The time is nearing for the shearing of Josie's locks.

We wanted to get a good family portrait of us all before Josie becomes a pelonita, so we enlisted the talented Elie Gardner from the Post-Dispatch to help us in our quest.

We met up with Elie early last Wednesday at the Missouri Botanical Garden, one of our favorite haunts.

For nearly eight months I have been laboring on and off to finish (that is: apply stain and polyurethane) a set of bunk beds for the girls. At long last the project reached completion.

I did make a few mistakes during assembly that led to disassembly and reassembly of certain parts (and 2 or 3 broken dowels that had to be drilled out). Also, I almost broke Yoli's foot.

But the finished product looks pretty good in my opinion and the girls have loved it.

Recently, we went to a celebration of the anniversary of "Parents as Teachers" Florissant Civic Center that featured all sorts of fun activities for the girls -- including face-painting.

For her participation in the Ferguson Library's summer reading program, Jadzia received two free tickets to a Cardinals game. Actually she has gotten these tickets for the last few years, but has never been able to use them (or know of their existence). This year we decided she was finally big enough to try sitting through an entire baseball game.

As always, Jadzia was excited about her birthday long before it was anywhere near time for it. One day Yoli brought home a book of different cake designs. Jadzia found a monster cake, and announced that that was what she wanted for her birthday. Her resolve never wavered, and weeks and months later, Yoli made her a monster cake.

Here are some photos of Jadzia, Ludi, and Josie with their friend Claire in their favorite domain: the front yard.

(by which I also mean the neighbor's porch and the neighbor's driveway)

Josie speaks.

Apparently she said "moooom" today.

This year was my dad's 50th birthday. My mom began making big plans for it ahead of time. The centerpiece of her plans were to have a golf outing for my dad which would involve he and his brothers, as well as me and my brothers. Also in the works was a trip the next day to see a Cardinals game.

Still playing catch-up here on the blog... Someday all my websites, bunk beds, and projects will be finished and we'll be up to date.

Ah, who am I kidding?

Anyway, here are a few choice pics from our trip to San Antonio.

Nan holds Josie in her living room.

Here at the Renaud Empire, there has been no shortage of stories to tell the world at large. There has been, however, a shortage of time in which to write said stories. So, yet again, I am apologizing for a lack of updates here.

A few days ago we returned from a trip to San Antonio to visit family and relax. It was really wonderful. The weather was hot and dry, although we were thankful to see the parched land receive some rain while we were there. My Nan's pool was loads of fun, and all three of the girls greatly enjoyed it.

On Thursday we made our way to that which is at the center of nearly every St. Louisan's heart. Not time in St. Louis would be complete without it. Of course I mean the brewery tour.

Wednesday morning we made our second excursion far outside of St. Louis, this time along I-44. Our first stop was Meramec Caverns, which I haven't been to since I was in 5th grade.

Tuesday night my mom came over to watch the girls so that Yoli, Don Hector, Doña Lucila and I could go to the Cardinals game.

Across the river from downtown St. Louis is the Malcolm W. Martin Memorial Park. This year they finally completed a scenic overlook tower from which you can take great photos of the Arch and the St. Louis skyline. This past Sunday, we took Yoli's folks and the girls to grab some photos from there.

Despite our lack of blog posts this week, rest assured we are going full-bore. Together we have visited quite a few places this week, ranging from the Malcolm Martin Arch viewing platform in East St. Louis to a Cardinals baseball game to Meramec Caverns to St. James (where my brother Justin lives).

Also, Don Hector has helped me continue on with my bunk bed finishing project. I finally finished staining all the head boards, and Don Hector did most of the first coats of finish on the non-headboard pieces.

Photos/videos will be coming sometime soon, whenever we can find time. :)

This morning we will be off to the Anheuser-Busch brewery.

Today, the Ferguson Farmer's Market had its pie contest. Yoli really likes these dessert contests.

Check out photos from the last two days!

Here are a few photos from the first week of Yoli's parents trip to the United States.

We start off by taking them to the Delmar Loop for lunch at Fitz's, followed by a look around Plowsharing Crafts, where Yoli once worked years ago.

It was Tuesday night and Yoli and I were a bit exhausted.

We had been running around for days, making preparations for the arrival of her parents from Bolivia. Perhaps the biggest of these was the purchase of a minivan, which required a test-drive, offers, counter-offers, and a used car inspection.

Yoli's parents should be here late tonight.

This morning, I got the title to our "new" minivan: a 2000 Mercury Villager in really good shape. For those who care about such things, it is a dark green color. It should be of great service to us while our family temporarily grows to 7 people.

I still need to take care of inspections, etc. Hopefully it will be drive-ready Wednesday or Thursday.

As far as the house goes, we have made a lot of progress, but much remains to be done. I guess I better stop typing and get back to cleaning while the girls are still asleep!

We've spent the last week slowly making progress toward getting ready for the arrival of Yoli's parents.

A few things we've accomplished:

• clean sun room
• make curtain rods and hang curtains in sun room
• make tentative deal for a minivan

Of course we've been doing other stuff, too. Today we hit the farmer's market and bought some peaches (and soy candles). Later I took Jadzia to the library for a presentation by the Butterfly House about ladybugs, which was very good.

Yoli also wrote up a 4-page step-by-step guide for her parents on how to traverse the airports and airplanes from Santa Cruz to Miami to St. Louis. We hope they make it with no problems. Thankfully speaking Spanish is not an obstacle in Miami, and in St. Louis all they have to do is follow the crowd to the baggage carousel.

Tuesday night will be here before we know it. Now all we have to do is clean the rest of the house.

Today was the culmination of a lot of work Yoli and I and her family have been doing in recent months: Yoli's parents received tourist visas so that they can come to America!

This is not a particularly easy process for Bolivians. It requires paperwork, making an appointment online with the embassy, and traveling to La Paz. That trip is no trifle: it is an extremely long bus ride, and it is high in the altiplano. Since Yoli's parents are older and because they live in Santa Cruz in the lowlands, we were very worried about altitude sickness.

They left Monday from Santa Cruz, and traveled first by bus to Cochabamba. Cochabamba is higher than Santa Cruz, but not so high as La Paz. They spent a day there sightseeing, in order to help their bodies acclimatize before continuing on.

They had to wake up early this morning (Thursday) in order to make sure they were at the embassy before the 8 a.m. appointment. I understand that Yoli's dad was on his knees praying much of the night! We all had a very real fear that they would be denied the visa. After all, when it comes to the embassy, you are guilty of wanting to become an illegal immigrant unless you can prove otherwise. We have heard many horror stories.

When they got to the embassy at 7 a.m., there were already 10 people in front of them in line. Ah, the benefits of age: the embassy folks moved Yoli's parents to the front of the line. Apparently they were treated well and not asked very many questions during the interview.

Anyway, this is exciting news. We aren't 100% sure when the visas will take effect, but we should know in a few days. Our assumption is that we will be able to have Yoli's parents visit beginning some time in June.

Family history isn't all dusty books and blurry microfilms.

Lately, I have re-discovered salsiccia.

Salsiccia is an Italian sausage. My memory of it is that my Grandpa Renaud would always cook it as part of his big Christmas breakfast spread each year. I remember as a kid not being thrilled with the taste of it.

Well, it was on sale at Schnucks a few weeks back. Because of the family connection, I thought I'd give it another try after many years. And it turns out we all liked it quite a bit. It wasn't too spicy that the girls complained (which they sometimes do depending on the variety of sausage).

So we got another batch this week. We ate some today as part of a simple meal: some salsiccia, broccoli, and corn on the cob.

Tonight I was reminded in an article on St. Louis-style barbecue on Wikipedia that salsiccia is pronounced around here "suh-zee-tsa." I had been saying "sahl-see-cha," which is similar to the Spanish word for sausage (salchicha).

As soon as I read that, it was like lightning resonating in my brain. It was as if I could hear the voice of my Grandpa or my Aunt Carol using that pronunciation in my mind.

Anyway, please share your food-related family stories. I'm sure there are quite a few!

This morning we took the girls out for "transportation day." It's a special event in Florissant put on by Parents As Teachers. We were there last year, and Jadzia really liked it. The girls got to explore all sorts of vehicles: police, ambulance, fire truck, motor home, refrigerated 18-wheeler, dump truck, front loader, snow plow, golf cart, tractor, Big Foot, etc.

In a very strange coincidence, later in the afternoon three of those vehicles would converge on our street. First, a police officer pulled over a driver for some sort of infraction. This is unusual on our street, as traffic tends to be light. Moments later, a fire truck and an ambulance pulled up to a house on our street, lights flashing and all. A woman was led away on a stretcher.

It was as if the transportation fair had followed us home.

After Yoli came home from work, I thought it might be nice to get some Mexican food. I hadn't remembered it was Cinco de Mayo, but once Yoli mentioned it, I felt sure that's what we should do.

We headed over to El Palenque. Pretty much all of Ferguson was there.

We got into a booth right away, but the ordering process and getting our food took forever. But the miracle of miracles is that not one, not two, but all three of our daughters were well-behaved through the entire evening. Jadzia and Ludi ate most of their food, too -- always a plus. It was an evening that had all the ingredients for disaster, but by God's grace, we averted it.

(this article's title is in reference to Jadzia. I tried to explain cinco de mayo to her at the restaurant. She insisted that today was OCHO de mayo)

The outlook for our "weekend" (Tuesday-Thursday) trip was not good. It had been raining and the forecast called for more of the same.

But this was our last, best chance to take advantage of my four-day work week and the three days off it afforded us.

Yoli and the girls colored eggs on Easter Eve. They kept it simple, using regular food coloring, rubber bands, and crayons.

The eggs turned out beautifully, but the only problem was the girls wanted to eat them right away!

I am retro-dating this post, since the photos in it took place in the middle of April. Sorry for the long delay.

In this sequence, watch as the girls sit unknowingly on the neighbor's step. Quietly, a giant horse-dog approaches from behind ...

Jadzia loves this video called Baby Ballet, which teaches kids how to do various ballet movements. She takes it fairly seriously. Her nanny recently purchased a genuine ballet outfit with slippers. Jadzia absolutely loves to put it on and dance.

And then happy the next ...

These photos are from a trip to the Botanical Garden.

Pay no attention to the baby behind the curtain!

Yoli and Jadzia are putting together a flower arrangement. It actually has lasted quite a while and is still up on our mantle.

Yes, that's pretty much how one can summarize the life of a baby. If she's not being swung in someone's arms, then she is more than likely laying down on a bed or somewhere.

Jadzia now can draw things we actually recognize!

The warming weather has thawed an innate desire within my oldest girls: playing outside.

Now when we get home from a morning spent at the doctor or at church, they immediately run to the little playhouse in our neighbor's driveway. But I have to drag them away crying and screaming because it's nap time.

We got a stack of books from the library this week, two of which we have read before: "Three by the sea" and "Three up a tree," both of which are excellent. While we were at the library, I also noticed "Miss Nelson is Back," another book I remember from my youth, so we added that to the stack.

Ludi doesn't quite have the patience to sit through "Miss Nelson is Back" when I read it for the girls. But she likes to take all three books and "read" them aloud by herself.

I know the pace of this blog has been a bit slow lately. There's a couple of reasons for that. The first is that I now work a four-day week. On those four working days, I have far less free time. The second is Josie and the girls. Josie has been quite fussy the last few weeks, and the harness has undoubtedly exacerbated that to some degree. When she's crying, she only calms when we hold her a certain way and rock her, and it can be exhausting on nights where she won't go to sleep.

But thankfully we've also had some really nice peaceful times with Josie. I think we are getting better at caring for her.

Of course the other girls continue to be demanding, too, always wanting to be in action, especially with the recent spate of warm weather.

One way to take care of everyone is to go for walks in Ferguson, which tires out the girls, and lets Josie sleep on my chest in the baby carrier. We went to the library and Walgreen's yesterday morning, for example, and ran into a friend on our way back home.

Right now all three girls are sleeping. I'm enjoying a bit of time to import some video of a family history interview I shot earlier this week during my furlough from the Post-Dispatch. The subject is Mr. Richter, who is the only living first cousin of my great-grandfather, Frank Becker. A couple days after our interview, he had an operation to remove some cancer. If you think of it, please pray for his recovery.

Jadzia loved doing the advent calendar in December, so after Christmas we bought a magnetic calendar that we change every month. EDIT: So my mom and dad got Jadzia a cool magnetic calendar for Christmas. Every month we change the days and set up the holidays and appointments.

As you can see, Jadzia has set herself an extremely busy schedule in March.

One problem of blogging is deciding how much personal detail is good to expose in a public medium.

In the case of our little princesses, I have generally not discussed medical issues, etc. Not that they haven't each had their own unique challenges, it's just I haven't seen fit to describe them publicly.

This time, I think I will make an exception. Our little Josie apparently has some hip problems ... mainly her hip sockets are a little to shallow and in one of the hips, the ball is protruding out of the joint a little too far.

The doctor detects this by moving the legs and listening for a clicking noise. In our case, she sent us to have an ultrasound which confirmed Josie had hip dysplasia.

Because she is only 1 month old, this is a very fixable problem. She will wear a fabric "Pavlik harness" to hold her hips in the correct position. She has to wear the brace 24 hours a day for the next 3 months. After that time, she should be completely fine.

She has had the brace for one night so far. She has been fussier since getting it, but she is still sleeping well, and she has some stretches of being calm. Hopefully she will adjust to it very soon.

The harness is all fabric and velcro, there is no metal. It fits under her clothes and works with diapers ... but because her legs are up, some clothing (like onesies) might not work well.

I have mentioned this publicly simply because I'm sure people are going to notice Josie's harness ... or at least notice her legs are always up in a strange position. But it is only temporary, and right about the time that Josie will be ready to start rolling over, she'll be free to move her legs again.

Here's a quick update with some great photos of Josie and the girls. Hope you get a kick out of them!

Jadzia has been waiting all winter for us to get enough snow that she could make a snowman. Finally the moment arrived. She and Ludi came out with me and we began working on a snowman. But the fun didn't last very long.

There have quite a few bits of life that I intended to post about here, but with Christmas and work and girls and babies and everything, I never got around to it. Now I am making up for lost time, and here are some photos we took when we visited the renovated Magic House on New Year's Eve Eve with my friend John. Unfortunately the lines to get in were far longer than we expected them to be. But the girls had a lot of fun once inside (and thankfully it was totally freezing outside).

So we've gotten through the first night with three girls. It has been a bit strenuous keeping up with all these girls. The older two are more than enough to keep us occupied, for sure. But they have given us some brief periods of tranquility from time to time.

They are very curious about the baby and like to touch her (or slap her), kiss her, look at her, etc. So far Josie isn't capable of doing anything to raise their ire. However, the baby is quite a capable crier and pooper. She really kept us up last night. Thankfully, though, we are getting a bit of daytime napping in the last 2 days. In fact, I am quite thrilled to report all four of my girls are still sleeping right now!

Because Josie still doesn't "do" very much, life in the house in many ways is very similar to what it was before. We still have the same problems of girls getting picky about eating food, fighting over toys (or fighting to have space on the carpet in which to dance), screaming, doing things we just told them not to do, etc. But when we see Jadzia and Ludi have nice sisterly moments, it does give us a hopeful glimpse of what life might be like for these three girls in the future.

We had a brief incident at the hospital yesterday as we were leaving. Yoli was sitting in a wheelchair holding Josie, while a nurse stood by. They waited for me to bring the car around and come in to the lobby with the car seat. Josie was dressed in two layers of clothes (too big for her tiny body) and a beautiful white blanket made by Maud Lawrence, one of my Nan's relatives. I came in toting the car seat and two little rolled-up blankets to support Josie's head. A lady standing nearby came over to tell us that the baby wasn't dressed warmly enough for the frigid temperature outside. I told this woman that the car itself was warmed up and that there were more blankets inside, but this didn't assuage her. She began accusing us of child abuse and berating the nurse who was helping us, as her husband stood by quietly. She said she would call security, etc. It blew my mind. In any event, the nurse was quite kind with us and knew what she was doing, and got Josie installed in the car seat quite nicely.

What a great way to welcome a new baby to the world. And what a wonderful feeling it gave Yoli and I as we prepared to start our new life with this new addition. Seriously, I'm sure this lady's intentions were good, but her execution left much to be desired.

It goes without saying that Josie survived the drive home.

Here's the second of two videos I shot on Wednesday. This one shows my parents, my brother, sister-in-law and nephews when they came over to the hospital to meet Josie. With four toddlers/preschoolers running around the room, there was potential for much havoc. Thankfully, serious damage was avoided. I'm so glad that Justin and Becca could come up with the boys.

So here's a bit more about our new girl, Josie Míriel Renaud.

Yoli began having her serious contractions in the night. She woke me to let me know what was happening, but said they were still very irregular and that I should try to sleep. I did eventually, but I had a hard time of it because of adrenaline. Around 6 a.m. we called my mom and asked her to come over. Thankfully she was able to leave right away, despite the fact that Wednesday is normally a Café day for her.

As soon as she arrived, we set off on the long journey to St. Luke's. Unlike the last time we had a long trip to the hospital for a baby, Yoli didn't spend the whole trip pushing. But she was still very close to being ready to deliver.

I can't say enough good things about St. Luke's. They took us right in at the ER and wheeled Yoli right into her room. The nurses attended her and helped her get going, without bogging us down with a ton of paperwork.

The birth itself was natural and pretty fast, like the other two. Actual pushing took around 15 minutes. I think Yoli was hurting a lot right at the end, but she seemed very relieved and relaxed as soon as Josie was out.

There were a few little hangups at the beginning getting Josie to nurse, but it sounds like she is an old pro as of this evening.

I'll have more photos and videos posted in a while, so keep watching.

Already I can tell that it's not easy juggling three kids!

Yes, that's right, the third child arrived early this morning -- 7:49 a.m. to be exact (that's for you, Caesar) -- at St. Luke's Hospital.

At the moment the girls are upstairs; Jadzia is watching Mr. Rogers and Ludi is eating cereal. So I only have enough time right now to say that the delivery went very well. It was hard for Yoli, but it was short. Both mamá and bebé are in good shape.

Our new baby is a girl! She weighed 7 lbs and was 20.5 inches long. Her name is still a work in progress. Hopefully this evening we will have decided and I will post it here.

One of my new year's resolutions: get caught up on video editing. Yesterday I imported all the video thru Thanksgiving, and hopefully I can get most of it edited before the baby arrives and life gets more complicated!

Anyway, here is a video I shot of Justin and Dad throwing the football around at Thanksgiving. I am sure they will be happy to see it.

A story from Yoli:

A few days ago, the girls were listening to Christmas music, when the song "Happy Holidays" began playing.

Ludi heard the word "happy." She lifted her head and opened her eyes wide and began saying "appy appy appy," which is her way of telling us she wants to sing "Happy, happy" (a Christian preschool song).

Yoli began singing the song and changed the lyrics to include Ludi's name: "Happy, happy, happy happy happy. Happy is my Ludi, my Ludi, Lu Luuuuu..."

Then Jadzia asked Yoli to sing the song with HER name, too. Yoli complied.
"Happy, happy, happy happy happy. Happy is Jadzia, Jadziiiia Marieeeee..."

Jadzia began screaming.

"No, you're doing it wrong! I'm not happy! I'm sad!" she exclaimed. "Sing it with 'sad!'"

Yoli asked "Why are you sad?"

"Because somebody pushed me."

"Who pushed you?"

"I don't know. Somebody!"

Jadzia likes to employ her powers of suggestion throughout the day. Her requests usually run something like this: "I think you can take us to the Whistle Stop for ice cream."

It doesn't matter how many times her dreams are denied. The requests will keep coming. And coming.

Yoli thinks Jadzia is destined for a future career as a lobbyist.

The last few days Jadzia has been getting sick. She's had trouble sleeping, calling us at various times through the night. She isn't really running a fever, but she has a runny nose and a cough, and she isn't herself.

She still seemed excited about going to the FamilyWise service this morning. We thought we'd take her to that, but not take to her regular children's ministry class where she would be handling toys and playing closely with other kids.

But just as we were suiting up to leave, Jadzia decided she no longer wanted to go. So we ended up staying home from church. She spent the next several hours laying on the couch, moving in and out of sleep, listening to Christmas music and Bible readings.

It's always tough to watch the girls be sick. We want them to heal up soon ... and we also want to make sure they don't infect each other or us.

There may be one bright side out of all this, at least for Ludi: She's been totally free the last two days. Free to run around without her older sister bossing her, taking toys from her, pushing her, etc, etc. She seems pretty happy about it, too.

I've been a little off-kilter the last couple weeks with a new work schedule and the big Thanksgiving holiday. I'm now try to play a little catch-up. Here are some photos from my family's trip to pick out a Christmas tree, the day after Thanksgiving.

This weekend Yoli and I celebrated our fifth anniversary. Ours is a little atypical ... the celebration spreads out over 3 days since that's how we got married. Day One, the wedding ceremony in Bolivia; Day Two, the flight back to the U.S.; Day Three, the actual legal marriage in Coral Gables, Fla. and the start of our honeymoon.

It's always fun to remember those times and laugh about all the visa paperwork, the way I massively sunburned my legs the day before the Bolivian ceremony, and how cold it was during our honeymoon at Clearwater Lake in Piedmont, Mo.

Five years later we've got our own house, two beautiful girls and another baby on the way, good jobs that we enjoy, and family and friends we love.

It's probably appropriate that our anniversary is always so close to Thanksgiving. Indeed we have so much to be thankful for.

Yoli has found a use for our sun room in the winter time: walk-in cooler for cakes and pies. If you go in there on the right day of the week, it's almost like being in the Wonka factory.

Most of you know that we are a very reading-oriented family. We have a mamá who works at the library and a papá who works at the newspaper. Our house has many, many books, as well as two girls who love to read and be read to.

These same girls also are very hard on their books, Ludi especially. She loves to rip and tear and pull things. That's why it's handy to have a mamá who has been trained in the art of book repair.

'Twas a beautiful day ... perhaps the last beautiful day of the year. I knew I had to take advantage of it, so I embarked on a mow-n'-rake. Took about two hours or so, but I got about 90% of the leaves. It felt good getting it accomplished.

But one look up into our trees afterward was almost enough to quash that feeling of joy. There are bags of leaves yet to fall.

There wasn't much of a wait at the Ferguson License Office. I was in and out in about 10 minutes. Sweet!

Jadzia got a kick out of seeing me put on the new plates.For the record, I'm not a fan of the new design. What a missed opportunity.

Trying to enjoy the last hurrah of warm fall days. I took the girls to the park again, and we had fun on the swings and the playground. Jadzia even met a new girl. I had to remind her how to introduce herself, because she said "Look, what's that girl doing?" and started yelling "Hey girl, what are you doing?" The girl's name was "Aniya" (not sure of the spelling), but Jadzia needed to be reminded many times to call her by her name. She sure wasn't shy, though. Jadzia immediately began telling her "This is my sister, Ludi" and launched into some fantasy play about making plastic things with wood chips (or something like that).

I used to joke that my birthday was so big, it needed to be International Josh Week, not just International Josh Day. But in recent years, it has sort of stretched out into a longer celebration.

One of many neat things about doing family history research has been getting in touch with so many family members that I hadn't talked with before. For example, I have enjoyed calling and visiting with Aunt Gertrude and Uncle Jerry who were my great-grandma Becker's siblings.

Another good story is a man I met named Ed, who is (as far as I can tell) my great-grandpa Becker's only still-living first cousin. His house is just 10-15 minutes away, in the little north neck of St. Louis city along the Mississippi riverfront. I didn't know that Ed existed until I began doing this research.

It was a pleasant surprise to make his acquaintance. We have invited him over several times, and it's fun to be able to share food and folklore with him.

He didn't know his Becker relatives that well, but still he is able to remember some things from childhood and share some stories. In fact, I have been able to tell HIM some stories that he didn't know, like how his uncle John Becker was murdered. He knew something about that vaguely, but had never been told the details.

He has also told us stories about living through the great tornado that hit St. Louis in 1927, about life in the heavily-German area of north St. Louis where he grew up, about serving in Italy in World War II, about his time in the fire department, etc.

Ever since I got back from Bolivia, one of the hard disks inside my PowerMac G4 was getting ready to fail. When it became clear that it was a physical problem, and not just a software issue, I decided it would be good to upgrade to two larger disks - 500 gigabytes each. Add that together, and that's a total of one terabyte of storage. Now we have a lot more room for digital photos and (especially) digital video editing.

And to think, at one time all I had was an Atari 800 with a cassette tape drive for external storage. Wowsers, we've come a long way.

This has been a wild year in the race for president, what with the surprise outcomes of the primaries and now the back and forth between Obama and McCain.

For us, there has been a local twist. Two friends of our family are each running for spots in the Missouri House of Representatives: T.R. Carr, who is running in the 78th district, and Randy Jotte, who is running in the 91st district.

This morning we saw in the the newspaper that the Post-Dispatch was endorsing both of them! I know both families have been working hard campaigning, so I'm sure this must be quite exciting for them.

If you'd like to learn more about them, just click their names above. Or, if you'd like to learn more about the other candidates in those two races, click below:

• Margo McNeil - 78th district
• Jeanne Kirkton - 91st district

Saturday morning we went to the Ferguson Farmer's Market and had a good time. I returned with a stroller heavily-laden:

• 10 lbs of lard
• 2 lbs green beans
• 1 lb romano beans
• 10 jonathan apples
• 2 soy candles
• 1 sleeping baby

And here's what we used the apples for:

A while back Yoli found a cookbook called "Great British cooking: A well-kept secret." Last night she tried her first recipe from it: a sort of baked apple-cinnamon pudding, using the jonathan apples from the farmer's market.

It turned out quite delicious. We ate it fresh at 2 a.m. and it was wonderful. Our second helping, reheated this afternoon in the microwave, was just as tasty (and not a bit soggy).

Ludi lets us know very clearly when she is enjoying some food. Her mouth gapes open wide, her way of saying "shovel in the food, now!" In the photo above she was enjoying apple pie. She really, really, really likes apple pie and would probably never stop eating it if we didn't make her stop (or run out).

Jadzia is not quite so keen on apple pie. But she does love chocolate pie, which is on the menu for today.

Jadzia is very excited because we finally got her some toddler toothpaste. Now she is big just like her mamá and papá, brushing, spitting, and doing everything we do with toothpaste.

For anybody who cares:

Hazelwood West is a Suburban North football power this season! They are 5-0. Last week they knocked off Hazelwood East for the first time in 30 years. Yesterday they defeated the only other undefeated team in the SNC, McCluer.

You can read stories in the Post-Dispatch about the McCluer game or the Hazelwood East game

The West-East game story was written by my friend Joe Harris. Joe also had the opportunity to do a broadcast of the West-McCluer game. You can listen to the the archive of this broadcast (for free!) at prepcasts.com

On the way out: We begin our day-long journey to Bolivia at 6:10 a.m. this morning. We should arrive there at 10 p.m. (Bolivia time). That could make for a long day, so please keep us in your prayers. While we are in Bolivia, we will be posting updates and photos to our Bolivia weblog NOT here, so please check there frequently!

On the way in: The Renaud Empire continues its expansion. We are pleased to announce that we are expecting our third child, who will arrive in January!

This month Yoli has been taking a "fondant and gum paste" class. No, that's not a chemistry course at UMSL … it's a cake-decorating class at Fischer's!

So on Thursdays I've had the girls to myself for an extra two hours.

My great-uncle Bill (William) George died this morning.

I didn't know him very well, but the times I remember meeting him, I liked him.

I remember once visiting his house in Arkansas probably when I was in my teens. Turns out that he and aunt Betty liked Star Trek. They had recorded "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," my favorite movie of all time, once when it was broadcast on CBS. This was a big deal to me. I already had the movie on VHS. But the network broadcast had included a lot of deleted scenes (they used to pad out movies to make them fill a longer time slot) which I had never seen before. Thanks to Uncle Bill and Aunt Betty I got to! It was many, many years until I could see that stuff again, when a "director's edition" of the movie was released on DVD.

After my Papa died, I realized how much uncle Bill reminded me of Papa: his face, his voice. This was somehow comforting to me.

Uncle Bill was a pilot and flew his own planes. I always hoped I could fly along with him someday. When I was in my teens I was fascinated by the notion of getting a pilot's license myself. Unfortunately I never got to go up with him in a plane.

He also liked to buy old houses, fix them up, and sell them to make money. I remember that for a while he was doing that with my mom's sister, my aunt Karen.

On Saturdays when Yoli's not working, we like to walk around town. We start off by going to the Ferguson Farmer's Market and picking up some veggies. A lot of times there are food/cooking demos going on, which means free samples. And there's always good music. In this photo, Yoli's telling me not to take the picture because I'm taking it from the wrong angle (the sun is behind them).

People always seem surprised to learn that we don't have cable, high-speed internet access, cell phones or a digital camera. After all, we are a highly computer-literate family, and I am a lover of technology. Well, now you can knock one of those off the list: we got a digital camera. But I wouldn't bet on any of the othe rs changing anytime soon.

Today I was with Jadzia and Ludi at the school, playing on the playground. As things were winding down, I was talking with Jadzia about airplanes, reminding her about our upcoming trip.

"We're going to take TWO airplanes. We'll take one from St. Louis to Miami. Then we'll stay in Miami a few hours. Then we'll take another plane from Miami to BOLIVIA!"

Without missing a beat, Jadzia replied, "No, we're not going to YOUR 'ammy.' We're going to MY 'ammy!' "

Jadzia and I went shopping at Aldi's this morning. As we were bagging our groceries, she saw a kid whose hair was cut into a mohawk. "That's a horse," she said. Thankfully she dropped the subject pretty quickly.

We had a mini-celebration for Ludi's first birthday earlier this week. She turned one on Wednesday.

Unfortunately, late July and so far in August has been a time of hustle and bustle. We were in Houston the two days before Wednesday, staying overnight with our friends the Zanders so that we could do a bunch of paperwork at the Bolivian consulate in that city. Fortunately we completed everything we needed to, and now we are set for our trip to Bolivia at the end of August.

So Wednesday arrived and we knew we wanted to do something for Ludi, since it was her day. We had already settled on a trip to the Whistle Stop, but I thought it would also be fun to go to the Botanical Garden first.

It had been raining, so that scared away a lot people and we got a great parking spot. (This accords well with my "Six Flags Strategy": Plan your trips to Six Flags on rainy days, that way the lines are short and you get to ride the rides more times.)

Jadzia loves to be outside. It makes no difference if it's hot; or if she has eaten; or if she's wearing pajamas; or whether it's raining. Under almost any conditions, Jadzia would rather be outside.

Of the many things we do outside, one of her favorites is to walk up to "the school." This refers to Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, which is just down the street from us.

On Monday and Tuesday, we spent a 1.125-day vacation in St. James, Mo. where we visited my brother Justin and his family. His youngest son Keaton was celebrating birthday Numero Uno.

Today I finally got to play the elusive doubleheader that had been rained out twice before. It was a good day for me personally. I went 3-for-4 with 1 RBI in the two games. But my team, the Roid Ragers, still lost both games. We ended the season unvictorious.

Yoli and the girls came out for the first game. It seemed like they enjoyed it. Jadzia really got into the "picnic" aspect of it. We brought a little food she and Ludi to snack on and a blanket for the girls to sit on. It was nice to be able to come over and say hi to them between innings. Jadzia also got into the spirit of the game, yelling whenever she would hear the players yelling something. (Of course her father was probably one of the biggest yellers on the field)

But out in the field it was hot! The high temperature for the day was 99° according to the Post-Dispatch. Thankfully there were breezes much of the time, and a lot of shade behind the benches. But those same breezes kicked up a lot of dust. I was a muddy mess later in the evening when I hit the showers.

Between games I had to shuttle Yoli and the girls back home to take their naps. I had just enough time to eat a bit of peach pie before heading back to play in Game Two.

All in all I enjoyed the season. I wish it had rained less so that we wouldn't have had such an erratic schedule. I probably would have played better. But I feel like I made a lot of progress in the last few weeks: I ended the season on a 6-for-10 tear (if you count a practice game we played one of the Sundays we got rained out).

Most of all it was fun to hang out with friends, and, gasp, have some physical activity.

I can't believe I just wrote that last phrase.

Hear Jadzia, the world's future music superstar. She belts out the classics, like "Twinkle, Twinkle," and mixes in some of her own new material, like "Mary had a Donkey Kong."

For Father's Day, my daughters got me "The History of the Hobbit," though neither of them probably knew that until after I opened the gift.

The differences between siblings are a source of neverending amazement and bewilderment. Jadzia has been picky for quite some time. But Ludi? She eats almost anything. These days she is eating a ton ... probably a growth spurt.

She can be picky in her own way. If we have oatmeal for her to eat, and we are eating dinner (say, sweet and sour chicken with rice), she won't eat the oatmeal. She wants to share in whatever we're taking off our plates and putting into our mouths.

I have to point out, this fills her mom with joy.

Parades, markets, softball games … It's been an eventful weekend here in the Renaud Empire.

This summer I signed up to play softball. And I have been — every few weeks.

The problem is that the midwest has been inundated with rain all year. We're soaked, soggy, and flooded. And that also goes for the baseball fields where our softball league is supposed to play each Sunday. We've had so many rainouts I can't keep track anymore.

This past Sunday was to be a doubleheader. I called the rainout number before church and after church, just to be certain. The fields were fine. I was very happy: dry fields and beautiful temperatures (mid-70s). It looked like the perfect Sunday for a doubleheader.

So I drove out and met up with my teammates. We were warming up, and my throws were as wild as ever. Four other teams were nearly finished playing their early games. I was just starting to get loose when the sky let loose a soaking rain.

We took cover under a pavilion, waiting to see if the games would be cancelled. Of course, they were. The infield was just too slippery to be safe.

Some folks went home, but others stuck around. Eventually those of us left on my team and the opposing team started throwing the ball again and practicing fielding out in the outfield. After a bit, we decided to play a game just for fun (and badly-needed practice). At first we were going to play "Indian ball" so nobody would have to run the bases, but then we decided to play a regular softball game … but in the outfield grass.

I have to say it was loads of fun. I went 2-for-4 with a double and a run scored — my first hits of the season. I probably could have scored again, but while I was standing on second base another round of rain started up.

I hope we get to play next week. And I hope we have as much fun then as I did yesterday.

For quite a while I've been lurking in the shadows, watching as a new web company called Geni.com developed their site.

What is Geni? It's is a "social networking" site, sort of like Facebook or MySpace, but designed around family trees.

The idea is that you get as many family members as possible to sign up. Their profile pages are actually part of the family tree. You can share photos, news, send greetings and gifts ... lots of fun ways to stay connected with the rest of your family. And of course, everyone can work on the tree: add new branches of the family, correct stuff that might be wrong, add photos or stories of a deceased loved one... the possibilities go on and on.

Anyway, they recently unveiled the feature I had been waiting for ... the ability to import family trees created in other programs. I have been working on my own family tree since last fall, and now I could put it on Geni and invite my own family members to come explore it (and expand and improve it)!

I've been surprised how many have actually responded to the invitations and joined up. Already there have been a lot of fixes and changes.

Best of all, some of my distant relatives (whom I never even knew before this year) are also joining in. I am really looking forward to being able to stay in touch and see photos of their families.

(By the way, if you're in my family and you haven't yet gotten an invite from me, please just drop me a line. I may not have your most recent email address, which I need to invite you to our tree)

My Saturday:

• Walk to the Ferguson Farmer's Market.
  • Buy veggies & goat brats.
  • Girls go to storytime, presented by Ferguson Municipal Library.
  • Eat free Mediterranean food from demonstration.
• Check out liquidation sale at furniture store around the corner.
• Return with food from market.
• Drive up to Fiesta in Florissant.
  • Look for "Bolivian" food mentioned in newspaper.
    • Fail to find any
  • Look for our favorite vendor, Tango, with their Argentine empanadas.
  • Watch lots of dances.
• Take girls home and lay them down for naps.
• Go to the batting cages and hit 60 pitches.
• Come home and get ready for work.

I have fond memories of driving to the old plane-watching lot at Missouri Bottom Road and Lindbergh Boulevard. We would sit up on the roof of the car with lots of other families and marvel as the planes roared right over our heads. In fact, this is one of the fun things Yoli and I did together during her first trip to the U.S.

But then came the billion-dollar boondoggle, as I like to call it; or Bridgeton's Bane, to put a Tolkien-esque spin on it. I am referring to W-1W, the runway expansion plan.

The old plane-watching lot was torn up, major roads were rerouted, and an unnecessary runway and tunnel constructed.

Which brings us to today.

It's a new season at the Ferguson farmer's market, which means more chances for Yoli to enter contests.

You may recall that last year Yoli took second place in the pie contest.

This year there is no pie contest, unfortunately. In its place, the market will hold several contests for different fruits. Saturday was the first: the berry contest. Any "delicious creation" that featured berries was eligible.

My friend Casey got married Saturday out in Waverly, Illinois. Since it was okay for us to take the girls to the reception, Yoli and I thought we might as well make a whole day trip out of it.

We packed up the girls and set out around 8:40 a.m. Saturday for the distant city of Springfield.

Daddies are nothing if not problem-solvers. So it was that I faced a dilemma on Friday …

Goal: Mow the yard on Friday afternoon before work, since I won't have another chance to do it until Tuesday.

Problem: Ludi is awake, but Yoli is at work, so I can't leave Ludi alone.

Solution: Mow the lawn with Ludi in the baby carrier!

Keep reading to find out how it went.

On Saturday, we finally came to possess a substance of awesome power: lard.

Yes, you read that right. Pure lard.

Last weekend, my youngest brother, Jon, got married. I went with Jadzia to San Antonio to attend the wedding. It was a whirlwind trip.

Today was a jam-packed day, leading in to a jam-packed next few days.

I woke up early thinking I had an 8 a.m. appointment for a haircut. Turns out it was 9 a.m. But still, that's pretty early for me. So I went to the barber shop while Yoli and the girls went to Aldi's. After that, we all met up and walked over to the Ferguson Farmer's Market where we ate a corndog, two omelettes, and a biscotti.

Then Yoli went to work and I took care of the girls. I had to do some packing. My brother Jonathan is getting married on Sunday night and Jadzia and I are going to fly down to San Antonio for the wedding. But the girls didn't let me get as much done as I hoped.

Then a coworker called me and asked me to come to work early because she was feeling ill. So I obliged. But I was scheduled for the late shift, so I worked until 12:45 a.m. I still have some packing to do, and I know that my 6:30 a.m. wake-up call ain't gonna be pretty.

Yoli has also had her hands full, trying to make a dress for Jadzia to wear in the wedding. She basically set out to finish the dress in two nights. All I can say is "wow."

I used to be a morning person, back in the old days when my mom worked at the cafeteria of my school. But then came college and working late at newspapers.

So I'm definitely not looking forward to yet another even-earlier wake-up call on Monday morning after the wedding, when we drive home with my folks. It'll probably be 3 or 4 a.m. Yikes.

Today, Jadzia and I were watching Mr. Rogers. Early in the show, Mr. Rogers took us to see how the Postal Service makes postage stamps. Whenever we watch Mr. Rogers, I always try to do something afterward with Jadzia that connects with the episode. So when we were done watching, I remembered my little stamp collection. I dug it out from the basement and showed it to Jadzia. Yoli gave us a magnifying glass so Jadzia could really inspect the stamps. (Truth is, she still doesn't quite get how to use a magnifying glass)

Anyway, as we went through the book, I saw my old stamps with new eyes. I realized how I am connected to the places represented by these stamps in ways I didn't know about when I was a kid collector.

Saturday night was Yoli's annual appreciation dinner for employees of the Ferguson Municipal Library. It was held at the Thyme Table, as usual, and the food was pretty good. This year they had a beef roast, with an egg/potato layered thing, and veggies. There was also a very nice chocolate mousse cake with an oreo crust. It all tasted even finer because it was FREE.

As were planning for the dinner, we decided to use a babysitter again and make an evening of it. I tried to come up for ideas of stuff to do afterward (art museum? history museum? some sort of concert?). I came up with something different — we should go to The Blanche.

(The Blanche, for those who don't know, is what I call the "Touhill Performing Arts Center" at UMSL)

UMSL music students were holding end-of-the-semester recitals. There was a violin and piano performance scheduled for 7:00 p.m. This seemed right up our alley, since we are a somewhat musical family... (Yoli is the one who can actually play instruments. I just sing) Anyway, Yoli and I showed up. I think we were the only ones there who were not fellow music students. But still it was a lovely hour of FREE classical music. It doesn't get much better than that!

After the concert we watched a movie called "Once" which I really, really enjoyed. It's about two brokenhearted people in Dublin — a street musician guy and a Czech immigrant girl — who hang out, sort of fall in love, and make really great music together. That description doesn't do the movie justice. Suffice it to say that it is probably one of the best films I have seen in the last year. Making it even sweeter? The fact that we checked it out for FREE from the aforementioned Ferguson Municipal Library.

It finally feels like spring.

Today I mowed the grass for the first time this year. It had become a jungle. Now it looks somewhat civilized. (I also got to bust out my new weed wacker)

The past couple days we have experienced some bits of South Texas culture. Yesterday we went with my Grandma Renaud to eat at a barbecue place called Rudy's. And today we visited the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo.

Well, we have been enjoying the Republic of Texas for the past 2 days.

On Sunday we flew into Houston to visit with Yoli's friend Sonja and her husband Jody and their two children. The flight itself went very well with no problems from Jadzia or Ludi. In fact, this may have been one of the best flights we've had in our post-childbirth era. :)

The world is winding down from the tumultous but transcendent celebrations that marked International Josh Week. Here in St. Louis, the festivities were more low-key than usual, but all in all they were good.

The morning of International Josh Day, I got my first present: a new waffle iron. We immediately put it to work. My first attempt was okay, but not breath-taking.

The next day, we tried again. This time, Yoli handled the batter. The waffles turned out much better. Since this was Tuesday, I had the day off, and my parents agreed to watch Jadzia and Ludi. This freed Yoli and I to spend an afternoon together. We decided to tour two institutions that are quintessential to St. Louis: the church and the brewery.

We started at the Cathedral Basilica.

We've accumulated a lot of video since late last year that we haven't gotten around to editing until the last week.

So, I'll be posting a few short clips that you might find interesting.

The first video is from my brother Jonathan's visit to our house back in March.

Well, I suppose it's about time we proclaimed the big news: Yoli is several months pregnant! The baby is due around my dad's birthday in August, though Yoli is hoping he/she will be born in late July (so we won't add yet another birthday to that crammed month).

Jadzia has certainly kept us on our toes, and kept our house a constant mess. I'm not sure what we'll do when there's the same number of children as there are adults. I'm also not looking forward to dealing with two car seats. Somehow we will survive, though. It will be awesome for Jadzia to have a sibling to play with (though we'll probably have to deal with the inevitable jealousy issues when the baby arrives).

Also, a little tidbit: Jadzia just got some shoes this week (she's gone around barefoot or socked only all this time). But she doesn't walk or stand very well in them. It's going to take some time for her to get used to them. Another thing she's learning to do is eat with a spoon. She's getting better each day.

We've had several snows this winter, but today was the first time we were able to take Jadzia out for some sledding action. We put some hot tea in a thermos, dressed Jadzia in triple layers, and headed out.

We took her to the place my dad always took us when we were kids: Killer Hill in Florissant.

Since we didn't own a sled, we took our trash can lid. Unfortunately, it didn't work — at all.

So we decided to drive around and buy one. Of course the roads were still treacherous, but we eventually made it to a K-mart and found a nice blue sled. We drove back to Killer Hill and I tested it several times while Yoli fed a hungry Jadzia in the car. It worked very well and much fun ensued.

If you click the image below, you can watch video of us sledding:

A winter storm walloped the St. Louis area. Lots of sleet Thursday followed by some snow and ice Friday made roads treacherous for a bit, but worse than that, it caused nearly half a million people to lose power. Our family is among them. The friends and relatives I talked with by phone on Friday were also all without power, as were many of my coworkers at the Post-Dispatch.

So far it hasn't been too awful bad (says the guy who has been working in a warm building all evening), but overnight it'll be very cold and in the days ahead it won't be anywhere near as warm inside the house as it was Friday during the day.

We just moved into this house in August, and we haven't yet had our chimney cleaned and the flue opened, so we can't light any fires yet to keep warm.

Today we spent most of the day outside the house, eating out, and going to Target to buy a few Christmas gifts. And I hurt my lower back trying to break through the ice on the driveway so I could back the car out.

Hopefully power will be restored soon, but realistically I know it could be as much as a week before it's fixed. That's how long it took for many when back-to-back storms this summer knocked out power across the region. (yeah, it's been one of those years for St. Louisans)

On a positive note, everything is covered by ice and the tree branches look like they are encased in crystal when the sun illuminates them. With luck we might try and take some photos tomorrow.

Today, Oct. 29, is a holiday across the globe. Yes, it is International Josh Day.

So, remember to hug a Josh today and celebrate this special occasion with friends and family. After all, it only comes once a year.

This past week we took Jadzia to the Missouri Botanical Garden for the first time. It was a lot of fun for us. Jadzia got bored with it after a while, but we brought some food and got her to eat and later to sleep. Check out these photos...

Jadzia really likes books. She'll sit through a session of reading 6 books and start crying when we finish because she wants to hear more.

Since Yoli is a librarian, she enrolled Jadzia in a summer reading program where she wins a prize after listening to a certain number of books. It didn't take but a week or so for her to win her first prize. :)

BEFORE

AFTER

Yes, we finally followed the Bolivian tradition and shaved Jadzia's hair. It took two days.

In the last week or so, Jadzia has begun saying "mmmmmmmmmmaaaaaaaaaammmmmmmmmmmmaaaaaaaaaa".

Obviously, Yoli is very excited about this. :)

As I mentioned in my previous post, this was an interesting Christmas season. It was nice to have Justin and Becca in town for several days before the actual holiday so we could spend some time together.

Among the activities was a game of disc golf at muddy White Birch in Hazelwood. It was quite fun, even though I didn't fare too well. The highlight for me was making a birdie on hole 17, which is not easy, and making par on 18.

On my side of the family, we often make Christmas lists to give relatives an idea of what kinds of things we need or would be a blessing to us. This can be a good thing. This year, Yoli and I kept our lists very simple. I wanted donations toward an iPod and she wanted donations toward a video camera.

This can be tacky, and I hope I don't do it again for a good while. But I had been patiently waiting to get an iPod for several years now, and it was so good to finally get it. After Christmas I found a nice used one here in town (similar to one my brother Jon has already) with some accessories at a great price. Yoli did her research on digital video cameras and we are buying a refurbished Consumer Reports best-buy which we'll take to Bolivia in January. It will be good to tape Jadzia with her Bolivian family so she can see them again and again when we are in the U.S. Likewise, we can make tapes of her and send them to Bolivia.

I am enjoying my iPod, but as is usually the case, the most memorable gift is the unexpected one. My mom got me a nice pair of gloves to replace the ancient tattered ski gloves I've been wearing since junior high or high school (I forget). Later in the morning she pulled out a fancy dress coat they had been saving for years for one of my brothers. Turns out it was too small for them, so she asked me to try it on. And it fit me fine. So now I have new gloves, a new dress coat, and my old English caps. When I go to work now, I look like a new man.

This past Wednesday we had our annual movie night with some friends from Hazelwood West, McCluer North, and UMSL. We watched "Million-Dollar Baby" which I had not seen before. The story takes a somewhat-surprising twist in the last portion, which made for lots of interesting discussion afterwards. Lots of thanks to Matt for hosting the night and for the great chili! Unfortunately, Jadzia was a "Million Cries Baby" through about the last 1/3 of the movie and the discussion.

That's the challenge of the baby... Finding ways to adapt our lives to accomodate her. With movie night it wasn't so successful, but we'll get more creative next year.

I'll answer the first question you're asking, which is: are there photos? No. No photos yet, but I'll have them online by Friday afternoon (or earlier if Walgreen's is nice).

Let me give you a little rundown on how things went.

Yoli and I gave birth to a beautiful daughter, Jadzia Marie Renaud earlier today at DePaul Hospital in St. Louis. Jadzia weighed 6 pounds 1 ounce, and she is very hairy with nice black hair. This is exactly what Yoli was hoping for.

The labor went well overall, it was fairly quick, and we are glad it didn't last into the night. The baby arrived at 6:30 p.m.

We are very excited! I don't have photos yet, but I hope to post some in a day or two.