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At the end of January we took a trip to the Magic House. It was our first outing somewhere in a while with the girls. They had a blast, but of course it couldn't last long enough for them.

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 took two unplanned trips to Hermann, Mo. this week in search of Springerle cookie molds. Hermann is a wonderful old city on the banks of the Missouri River founded by German immigrants.

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.

The last part of our trip was an overnight in Nashville. I had booked a motel room in Hermitage, since it was close to the highway and along our route from Bristol. At the time I booked, I had no idea the significance of the name "Hermitage." In fact, it refers to the estate of President Andrew Jackson.

On the first day of our vacation, as we drove from St. Louis to Bristol, we had kept our eyes open for the Hermitage exit we would be taking 9 days later. As we neared it, I spotted a huge dam with four big spillways. It was right before our exit. I made a mental note to check it out when we came back through.

There are uncertainties in any big trip. For me, one of the biggest concerned our time in Bristol with my great-great-uncle Jerry and his wife Thelma.

Jerry is the younger brother of my great-grandma Becker. I first connected with him almost exactly 2 years ago as a result of my family tree research. I had found a lot of documents relating to his parents and their immigrations to America.

We have been in touch semi-regularly by phone and online since then. The idea for our trip to Washington had its roots in a conversation I had with Jerry about how beautiful the leaves and trees were in Virginia in the fall, and what a scenic drive it would be.

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.

Here are some photos from yesterday and today as we wound our way east to Bristol, Va., and then north up I-81 to Harrisonburg.

Here are some photos of Jadzia from our session with Elie.

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.

Here are some photos of Ludi from our session with Elie.

Okay, so other than photos we take ourselves through the magic of a camera with its timer, Yoli and I have not really had many "nice" pictures taken of the two of us. So thanks, Elie, for doing that for us during our little photo session.

Here are some photos of the three girls together from our session with Elie.

Here are various shots of us all from our session with Elie.

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)

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.

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.

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.

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!

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

Click here to see a few photos of Josie taken by the hospital baby people.

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).

After a while I took Jadzia and Ludi to meet their new sister, Josie. We told them that Josie had arrived with gifts for them: an apron for Jadzia, and sunglasses for Ludi.

Both girls were very interested in holding Josie and touching her. Ludi especially. Ludi was giving her kisses. But she was also treating Josie more like a doll, repeatedly pushing in her nose and saying "nariz" like she would with the doll she got for Christmas.

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.

This is something I put together for a Young Life / Student Venture reunion a bunch of us had right before Christmas. It's about 140 photos set to songs we used to sing at club around 1996-98.

If you'd like to copy this slideshow to your own computer, just right-click this link and save it.

But a warning: it's a BIG file -- about 160 megabytes!

To just watch the video without saving it, click the "continue reading" link below.

This past Sunday, Yoli bravely trekked from our house to Florissant Rd. so the girls could watch Northern Lights, Ferguson's holiday parade/festival. She did this in spite of the threat of snow.

As she tells it, everything went well until the end. Jadzia was so happy she wanted to stay forever (these days she never wants to come home, anyway, and she always tells us so. She wants to be out and about.) ... while Ludi was tired of it and screaming to go home. It was a no-win scenario, to borrow an expression from Star Trek II. Unfortunately, Spock wasn't there to resolve the scenario for Yoli, so she just went home, and dragged the screaming girls with her.

A few pictures from falltime in our backyard as winter approaches.

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.

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.

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.

On Saturday we drove up the River Road to Grafton. We spent most of our time walking around Elsah. The fall foliage wasn't totally changed over, which was a bit of a bummer. Maybe it will be more spectacular later this week.

Hope you enjoy these photos.

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.

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.

Last Saturday, Hurricane Ike hit Galveston and Houston. Early Sunday morning, the remnants of the storm inundated St. Louis with rain. Ferguson got 5 inches in an hour. Of course, I slept through it all.

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.

A few photos for your enjoyment. This is Jadzia at the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo.

Jadzia and Ludi sure are playful. Here's some recent photos showing the girls doing their thing.

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.

Jadzia likes playing with her sister's car seat.

Jadzia helps Josh assembling the cradle for Ludi before she is born.

You can see a couple photos taken at the hospital by visiting Ludi's page at growingfamily.com.

We took advantage of a rare Saturday off last week to take Jadzia to the Botanical Garden. It was a beautiful day and we got some nice photos.

Jadzia and Yoli in one of my favorite spots near the lake at the Japanese Garden.

This morning Yoli and I awakened at 4:45 a.m. We were preparing to get her and Jadzia to the airport for their trip to Bolivia. I will be joining them next week. That's an early morning for someone who works until at least 11:30 p.m. every night. On the bright side, it gave me some extra time after I dropped them off to scan some in some recent ultrasound pictures of our next baby (see below)!

This is not a "traveling light" trip, my preferred modus operandi. Yoli will be making a wedding cake and also teaching a cake-decorating class at El Jord�n during this trip, so she took all the pots and pans, etc.

Yoli and Jadzia's trip will last three weeks; I will join them next Sunday, so I'll be there for two weeks. During this week, Yoli will post a few entries on our Bolivia weblog. Once I join her, I will be posting stuff there as well, so please check often!

Anyway, I know what you really want to see are the ultrasound photos. Here they are:

This year we went down to San Antonio to introduce Jadzia to all her family down there. She met her grandmothers, many great aunts and uncles, and cousins. She also got to participate in a surprise 70th birthday party for her Grandnanny. Jadzia also went swimming in her Grandnanny's pool almost every day. It was a wonderful trip and we enjoyed every minute of it. We just wish it would rain down there and the drought would end.

Jadzia above the water, as seen from under the water.

Here are some assorted pictures of Jadzia and the family...

Jadzia meets the Bolivian Easter bunny. This year the bunny had an aguayo vest and a pan flute!

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...

A couple weeks ago, we took Jadzia for a second trip to the Target in deep south county to have a family picture taken. Jadzia seems to be a natural in front of the camera, she smiles very easily. We wanted to post a few pictures.

Well, now that everything is all settled in here at our new "Renaud Family" website, we thought it was past time to post some of the photos we've taken lately. Most of these are of Jadzia, so check 'em out!

Many folks have been politely, yet frequently asking for more photos. So here are some nice ones from Jadzia's first month here in the wide world. Enjoy!

At long last, the other set of baby photos has arrived! Enjoy!!

Sorry it took so long... Things have been crazy! But here's some photos from right after the birth. Tomorrow I'll post photos of Jadzia from the following days (she looks prettier in those).

It's taken a while (sorry for the delay!) but I've posted some sonogram pictures of our baby from a while back. Yoli is now 6 months along, so the day is getting closer. Just click the link below to see the photos.