Kurt Warner

What an inspiration Kurt (QB for the Arizona Cardinals) is to us all. His personal story says it all. At 21 years old, when most men at this age are partying it up, Kurt was falling in love with Brenda and her two children (one with special needs, a serious brain injury inflicted by her ex-husband, and confined to a wheelchair). Brenda was a divorced single mom supporting her family on food stamps. Four years later, Kurt and Brenda married, and he immediately adopted both of her children. They have since had 5 children of their own. All the while, Kurt is being cut from teams, getting injured, loosing contracts and at one point stocked groceries for $5.50 per hour.

Kurt Warner is an amazing man of God and I will be right there with my husband cheering him on this Super Sunday!

This is a really neat article about Kurt, his family and his unwavering faith. God is good!


"If you ever really want to do a story about who I am, God's got to be at the center of it. Every time I hear a piece or read a story that doesn't have that, they're missing the whole lesson of who I am." - Kurt Warner

www.kurtwarner.com

Don't laugh, Daddy dressed me

I generally do not allow Rustin to dress the children, unless for bed. For instance, he dressed Reed on Saturday. He dressed him in a long sleeve polo shirt and sweat pants.

Reed's PJs are all stacked neatly in his drawer with matching tops and pants and we still end up with this last night (and countless others):

Or this, which happens to be Adalae's sleeper that was accidentally placed in Reed's drawer. The neck was actually stretched so far down and poor Reed had to stand on his tip-toes to avoid choking. I'm not even sure how Rustin managed to stuff his arms and legs in, much less button the thing.


Reed loves these sunglasses. He wears them to play and watch TV.

Thade's new shirt

I just bought this shirt for myself Thade.

Thade's hero

I couldn't post this any larger but if you click the letter, it will pull up larger in a separate window. Way to go Gary!

Never too young for Ugg Boots or to start a Rock Band!

And she is just adorable. Thanks PJ for the cute outfit!

Conversations with a 1 year old

It's amazing and scary at the same time how quickly Reed's vocabulary is developing.

Tonight at dinner he says, "Cheese peese, Wawa (water), All done, Bath?"

Every night as soon as he gets in the bath he stands up and says, "pee-pee, pee-pee" and proceeds to pee in his bath. He thinks it's hilarious. I've started keeping his potty by the bath tub but he has no interest in it. Literally, I will pick him up mid-pee, put him on the potty, put him back in the bath after a couple of minutes of nothing, and he stands right back up and finishes his pee in the bath.

Just now, I pull up my blog to start a post. Reed sees the last post as I'm scrolling down and in rapid succession yells,

"Hand!"

"Da-Di, Ba-Bi (for Mommy), OH WOW!" (sequin prom attire)

"Da-Di"

"Ball, Ball, Ball"

"Tade, Alalae, Ho, Ho, Ho"

He quickly loses interest and then starts shoving a book in my face chanting, "Buu, Buu, Buu"

Well he quickly lost interest in that also after about 4 seconds.

Rustin and I started The Love Dare on New Years Day. For all you couples out there, I highly recommend this book! Our class at church is doing it together and I guarantee you will be blessed no matter if your marriage is in great shape or not so great shape.

Some pictures from Christmas morning:

Reed loves his slide.

Thade showing about as much enthusiasm as always when Naruto or video games are not involved.

Adalae's first baby doll!

Rock Band, Rock Band, We all scream for Rock Band!



Reed does the monkey while yelling, "oo, oo, ah, ah!"

Everyone is finally well and healthy in our household so I'm very thankful for that. Adalae is not far from walking. She pulls up on everything and will let go so we have to stay right by her at all times. Thade starts basketball practice tonight and he is very excited about that. Rustin and I are still gainfully employed and loving each other and our beautiful kids so life is good! I'm excited about 2009 but also sad this makes 12 years since high school and the big 3-0 for both Rustin and I. Time flies!

The week from candyland

This is my attempt at catching up on events from the last week. I'm warning, I may give up mid-post as I'm attempting to type with several more keys missing from my lap top and a lovely splint on my pinky. So, here is the update from the last 7 days in the Gradke household.

Thursday:
Nanny terribly ill with 5 kidney stones. Adalae ill as well and diagnosed with bronchialitis and starts breathing treatments 3x per day.

Friday:
While washing dishes, a bowl breaks and I slice my finger. It bleeds, and bleeds and bleeds. Finally Thade catches sight of all the blood and runs to the backyard to find Rustin screaming, "EMERGENCY, EMERGENCY". OK, it really wasn't an emergency but I appreciate the concern.

Here is the "Emergency"

Gross, I know. Rustin was convinced that was a piece of muscle. Anyhow, because I had so much to do (including consuming a glass of wine with my girlfriends), I decided to just wrap it up and see how it was in the morning. Well, Sat morning it looked exactly the same and hurt 10x worse.

Sat:

9am, head to CareNow. Get steri (stitches or some other) and scolded that I should have come in earlier for sutures but now it's too late, yada, yada. Given antibiotic prescription and told I could get deadly bone infection. Try to pick up prescription on way to company Christmas party but find out pharmacy is closed. Attend company 80s prom themed Christmas party in my fabulous dress that was hand made in 1989 for girlfriends prom.

Sunday:

8am Head to CareNow for followup finger check. 9am arrive home and speed-pack to catch flight to Vegas (yes by the way Rustin and I had a "just the 2 of us" getaway planned). Stop at CVS for antibiotic to prevent deadly bone infection. Pharmacy doesn't open until 10am (OMG) so forget about it because obviously making our flight to Vegas is more important than losing a finger.

Several hours later arrive in Vegas. Waiting for our bag. Still waiting for our bag. Bag not there. Wait another hour for the next flight. Bag still not there. Make the terrible decision to save $ and take the shuttle to our hotel (The Venetian) rather than taxi to save money. ONE hour later, we were deposited at our hotel (3.7 miles from the airport, apparently we were the last stop on the strip).

We have dinner reservations at a nice restaurant so we decide to quickly go out and buy some toiletries and myself a shirt and heels (rather than the T-shirt and tennis shoes I was wearing). After realizing the hotel shop offered maxi pads at $2.99 for ONE maxi pad, we decided to find a "normal" store. Was told CVS was "just past that light" which apparently meant just past those 7 lights to the likely already drunk we asked.

We finally arrive back at our hotel to find this:

Hector and Jeff are a couple that Rustin does business with and are super nice. After consuming a bottle of Dom Perignon, I didn't care as much that I seriously needed a shower and deodorant so we headed to dinner. We were in bed by 11pm as Rustin and I both weren't feeling well.

Mon:

Rustin and I are both sick. We spend most of the day in the hotel room napping. We did venture out for dinner at TAO but Rustin was so sick he couldn't even eat. We saw the new Criss Angel show Believe and it was terrible. Do not waste your time on this show! I guess we should have done our research to know that a show that has been out for less than 6 weeks and is already selling 1/2 price tickets is not good.

We also made an attempt to see the fountain show at the Bellagio. It was so cold and windy, we stood there for 10 minutes getting a cold spray in the face instead.

Tues:

SO READY TO BE HOME. I'm feeling better but Rustin is so sick. We are also getting reports that Adalae is getting worse. Head to airport at 9am. Flight delayed. Get on standby for earlier flight that is on time. We don't make it. Build fire, set up tent and move into airport. Arrive at DFW at 8pm (yes that equals 11 hours of travel from NV to TX!).

Check Adalae into Carenow and told 2 hour wait. By 11:15pm we are leaving Carenow with flu diagnoses and Rustin is at home running 101 temp. He heads to Carenow about midnight. Also diagnosed with flu. Did I mention I had to cook a dish for a potluck at work?

1:20am, my dish is cooked, I swig some of Rustin's cough syrup and crash.

Wed:

7am head to work in a fog. Rustin calls 2 hours later and thinks there is blood in Adalae's diaper (thank god it wasn't). I freak a little, take her back to CareNow along with Thade and Reed so I can get them flu shots. (I had one Tues night when I took Adalae in). They are out of shots for Reed but Thade gets one thankfully. Attempt Wal-mart to shop for our Christmas Day lunch.

Do not EVER, I repeat EVER show up at Wal-mart on Christmas Eve. I've never seen anything like it. It was like a swarm of pre-teen girls fighting over the last Hanna Montana CD. Since my surround system gift to Rustin didn't work out, I went ahead and got a couple of stocking stuffers. One of the stuffers I bought for Rustin was the new DVD "The Dark Knight" as I know he's been wanting to see it. I come home and start getting boys ready and Rustin says he wants to go to Blockbuster to rent a movie (which I assume will be The Dark Knight) so I adamently tell him, there is not time for us to watch a movie, yada yada, just wait until tomorrow. So, of course, 30 minutes later as the boys and I are heading to church, I get a text that Rustin DID go to blockbuster and what do you know, he rented The Dark Knight.

So then, Thade, Reed and I attempted to attend Christmas Eve service at Richland Hills Church (left the sicklings at home). After a solid 30 minutes of Reed squirming, screaming and trying to take items out of the poor lady's purse sitting next us, we leave.

At least I got a cute picture of them in something other than sweats!

It's officially Christmas. My family has been in bed for hours and Santa just finished assembling Thade's rock band. Santa brought Reed and Adalae a slide.

When all is said and done, after all the hecticness of life, I am so thankful for my family and friends. But most of all, I am thankful for my Savior, Jesus.

Here's to you Jesus! Happy Birthday!