Welcome Maggie Lynn

We had the great blessing of adding another member to our crazy family on April 25th, 2007. Maggie Lynn King - 7 pounds, 6 ounces. It was a Wednesday morning. Kelly's mom, Lynn (yes - that's where Maggie's middle name comes from), flew here to Wisconsin a few days prior to help with Lia and Jaxon. There is really nothing like experience the birth of your own child. It was amazing. Kelly and I arrived at the hospital at 7:00 that morning, Kelly had the epidurhal a few hours later, and Maggie was born around 11:30. Kelly has been lucky in that way - never having too hard of a time with the labor and delivery. Maggie was born with a lot of dark hair, similar to Lily's hair when she was born. I can't believe it's been nearly 4 months now since she was born. They grow so quickly in the first few years, it's always astounding to me. When I sit down to think about it, I'm amazed that we have had 4 children (3 with us - since Lily passed away), and that they are as old and as big as they are. I guess that's life. Before you know it, I'm sure I'll be old - then dead - then completely forgotten. I just hope I'm a good enough Dad to somehow raise kids who make the world a better place. Anyway, enough of me ranting. I don't think anybody really reads this blog anyway. It's more of a place for me to write down my thoughts without really having to "write." Honestly, who writes with a paper and pen these days?

We recently went to Chicago with some friends of ours. We were able to go to the Chicago temple and visit downtown Chicago for a bit. It was definitey fun. And definitely tricky to navigate in Chicago. But, we drove through a lot of the city, and eventually found the Shedd Aquarium (which is what we were really looking for). The kids had a fun time, and we had a great view of the city from there. We'll have to go back there in the summer time, when we can stay for a few days and see more of Chicago. And what's the deal with all of the tolls on the freeways in Illinois? That was by far the most annoying thing. And it would have been even more annoying if we had actually stopped at all of them. I mean, why do we have to keep stopping to pay a toll--we just stopped a few miles back to pay one. Honestly.

How cold can it get?!

So, it's officially COLD here in Wisconsin!! I just got on weather.com to check the temperature--currently -5. But, it feels like -26 with the wind chill. They even cancelled our Sunday Church meetings. It's the first time we've ever heard of Church being cancelled for freezing cold temperatures. How did civilization ever make it's way up this far? I'm sure people came here in the Spring several hundred years ago and started to farm the land, and thought it was just fine, and then when winter rolled around, they thought to themselves "We must have traveled too far North, eh?" But, they couldn't move further south since they had already established their farms. And here we are... Fortunately for us, we have it pretty easy--cars, heated homes, hot chocolate. It could be a lot worse, I suppose. We did go sledding last weekend, and had a lot of fun. Lia didn't hesitate to hop on the tube and let Dad push her down the hill, going pretty fast. Jaxon decided he wasn't ready for that, so he went down with Dad and Lia. Maybe if it warms up (so the temperature is at least 10-20) we'll go again. The snow will definitely still be there!!