And the winner is...

After much deliberation, we finally settled on a name. Actually, it was the medical insurance paperwork that spurred on the decision, but it is made. We kicked around a few names, and although it was never a front runner, my Tom Hansen's offer of a year of free diapers if we name her Thomasina was financially attractive. But sorry Tom, we are officially turning your offer down.

So the newest member of finally has a name: Kate Frances Bonderud Sutter.

The rest of the story...

So, here is the rest of the story from the "birth night." As you know we have been working on our house. We were desperately trying to get heat into the house before the baby came. In order to do this, we determined to replace all the heating ducts below and above our house (notice all the stuff torn out in the picture). The attic was done, and the downstairs was in process. So Stef tell me on Tuesday afternoon, "It will be today." Now I know I don't always display the greatest degree of common sense, but I have figured out which stuff not to question my wife on. I knew she was sure, but being practical, I asked. "Stef, do I need to get ready now, or should I get under the house and keep working on the ducts?"

"You can keep working, I'll let you know." So I am working until 9:30 when she says, "Jason, it's time to get going."

I haul myself out, dust off, and call some friends to watch the kids. Take a quick shower before the friends arrive, and get in the car to leave. The hospital is 30 minutes away, so I start my silent prayers. "Please God, don't let her have the baby in the car. Please don't have the baby in the car." They are silent prayers because I figure if I say them out loud, they might happen... Murphy's law and all. So I finish my prayer and am driving as fast as I can up the 2 lane highway planning in my head the steps I will take if she has the baby in the car.

Halfway there she says, "I think I might have waited too long." Crap, more gas. Faster. Then the contractions start. Now I am driving 65 in a 35 until she has a contraction. Then I am driving 15 in a 35 for 45-60 seconds and back to 65.

We get to the hospital at 10:40. I walk her in and announce, "Hi, my wife is having a baby. This is her 4th, and she says it is coming soon." They hustle her into a room, wire her, I/V her, etc. She asks about an epidural. She hadn't ever had one and thought it was worth a try. They draw blood and say they will get it going. 5 minutes later we realize that they won't get the epidural to her in time. So we ask for something else that they can give right away. They give her something that Stefanie liked.

Then she has a couple contractions, goes into transition, pushes the baby out. It is 11:25. We have a beautiful baby girl. Unfortunately, we still don't have a name.

New Baby

On November 20, Stefanie delivered our new daughter. She was 7 lbs 10 ounces and 21 inches long. We got the hospital at 10:40 pm, and she delivered at 11:25. Check out the photos of our new baby, ________________________. http://picasaweb.google.com/jsutter11/BabySutter

More of the details to come.

Marley and Asher's birthday.

We have 3 birthdays in the month of November with a 4th soon to come. In the spirit of getting it all out of the way at once, we had Marley and Asher's parties on the same day. Marley's party was in the morning at a nearby park. Asher's party began in the afternoon at the mini-golf place. Undoubtedly, the highlight of the day for Asher (and us) was him winning the grand prize on one of the machines in the arcade. The machine has a little light that swirls around and around. You must hit the button when it is right in the middle. Every time someone tries and misses, it adds another ticket to the jackpot. He tried it a few times. With his last remaining token for the day, he hit the jackpot. It was the equivalent of all the nickels falling out of a slot as the tickets poured out and he danced around the little arcade shouting, "I did it! I won! I won! I won!" I never would have tried it. I reckon that those things are never won; that is why there is always a jackpot. I suppose it goes to show that you only win the jackpot if you try for it.

No Tricks, Lots of Treats

Another Halloween. The new neighborhood was great. The kids went bananas.
Asher went as Ash Ketchem from Pokemon. Ella was a pop star (obviously), and Marley was a ballerina with a big fat coat. Look at Asher's bag in the bottom picture. He actually had to transfer his candy to a backpack. Amazingly, there was less candy in the morning. Very suspicious.

Turn the baby!

See the smile? The baby has been breach for a while, but not any more. Yesterday we went to the hospital to try version. Version is the medical description for "pushing really hard on the baby." We had this with Asher and it caused her water to break. We were a little worried, because need another two weeks to get things ready, and we weren't ready to deliver the baby yesterday. This doctor was smooth though. She knew her stuff and turned the baby without much effort. So it looks good for a term delivery. 18 days and counting...

House Guests

They weren't expected, but a swarm of fruit flies decided to pay us an extended visit. Apparently they have never heard Ben Franklin's axiom that "House guests and fish both stink after 3 days." The kids left the door open one evening, and a cloud of them moved in and spread out.

So what do you do about 500 fruit flies? You have the swatter of course, but they are so small, they fit through the holes as often as I could squish them. The vacuum is effective. We bought a new canister vacuum, so I felt a bit like an anti-aircraft gunner trying to knock them out of the sky. Fly strips had limited success in the short term, but work ok over a few days. Another slow but extremely effective strategy was to fill cups with apple cider vinegar and soap. The flies love it, but the soap doesn't love them. After a few days, there was a big pile of flies in the bottom.

Stef and I spent days fighting this unwanted visitors, but they kept coming back. Where are they coming from? Could they already be reproducing in the house. I remember from biology that they reproduce quickly. Apparently, it takes 2 weeks to hatch. Maybe they are in the wall? Maybe they are in the pond. We looked, thought, pondered. It only took 4 days to realize that maybe they were coming from the fallen fruit under the apple, peach, and pear trees in the side yard. Of all the strategies we tried to get rid of the flies, picking up the rotten fruit seems to have had the best effect.

Pumpkins

We went to the pumpkin patch the other day. It is called "Field of Greens." This has become our tradition. The hay stack obviously captures most of their attention.

My hero.

My wife is a champ. Straight out. I need to publicly give her proper respect. Look at this picture. This is her kitchen. Actually, this other picture is her kitchen, but she is having to make due with a kitchen that used to be the family room until we finish the real kitchen. So she makes dinner on a plywood counter over the fireplace using a toaster oven, an electric griddle, and a microwave. The dishes are washed in a makeshift sink in the corner, and all our food is stored on metal shelves from the garage the we set up for a pantry.

Now this might not seem too bad. I have heard of people doing dishes in the bathtub or cooking in the garage. It certainly could be worse. It just seems extra hard with 3 little kids and being 8 months pregnant. And really, there is no end in sight. See, I can't really tell her when she will have a real kitchen back. But she doesn't complain and faces it bravely. So Stefanie vaults to the top of my hero list. It is probably bad form to brag about my own wife, but I am ok with that. I think she deserves it.

Blink and you miss it.

Obsession. I will be the first to admit that I have severe obsessive tendencies if left unchecked. I like to call it focused attention, but Stefanie flat out laughs at that. I am lucky that Asher has the same problem because it diverts some of her ire from me. Combine our all-consuming house with my obsessive nature, Stefanie's current state of nesting as she expects the baby, and my fear that the baby will come too soon, and I am focused like a laser beam.

I took a break from home improvement and finally got around to downloading pictures from my camera into the computer. On one hand I was impressed that with all we have going on, I had taken so many pictures. On the other hand, I was depressed that the pictures were like foggy recollections. "Oh yeah, Ella started Kindergarten... We went to San Diego... What is that one? I think I remember something about that..."

Although it is out of order, I needed to post some pictures of Ella and her first day. Unfortunately, I can't recall much about it. I know she went; I have the evidence. I also can say that she was mostly excited about dressing for Kindergarten. She planed out her outfit a number of times for days before her debut. You can see here right before we walked to school how cute she looks. This was actually the dressing up dress rehearsal a few days before Kindergarten.

I find that if I keep my head buried in the walls and attic of our new project, I will miss the most important part of my life. My resolution is to take some time for my family, pace myself on this project. After all, when you own a home there will always be something to do. No sense rushing through a job that never ends. Farris Bueller said, "Life moves pretty fast, if don't stop and look around every once in a while, you might miss it." It seems that is especially true with your family.

The rest of Ella's pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/jsutter11/EllaSFirstDayOfSchool

The Past Few Months

What have we been up to the past few months? Well, most of you probably know that we moved. We moved less than a mile away, but the house is bigger, the lot is bigger, and the neighborhood is a bit nicer. I do have pictures. This is the outside of our house:

And this is the inside of our house:
Yes, we decided to gut the thing. After all, anyone can move into a new house the week before school starts, while you daughter is starting kindergarten, 2 weeks before you leave on a week-long trip to the Carribean, and while your wife is 7 months pregnant. Only the stupid... I mean stout-hearted will gut it before they move in.

The house was a foreclosure, so we bought it from a bank. The previous owners had put in new carpets a year ago. They looked good, so we figured, live in the house for a year and slowly change stuff. When we started to move in, we noticed a peculiar smell. We decided to pull back some carpets and noticed that the owners didn't really enforce the "peeing outside" concept with their animals. Every floor in the house was full of pet urine. Before we could move in, we began the tedious job of ripping out the carpet and treating or replacing the subfloor (one of the worse sections pictured here). Meanwhile we started living in a single bedroom at our friend Alma's house. It was quite a lot of togetherness.

The long and the short of this story is that the last few months have been a lot of work. We had a lot of "Might as well a..." as we started working on the house. Since we needed new carpets, we might as well a texture the ceilings and walls upstairs and put in a new banner. Since we are going to do new floors in the kitchen, we might as well raise the ceiling. You get the idea.

On the positive side, when things cool down, i am going to market my new weight loss program. Here is the recipe:

2 parts stress
3 parts no sleep
1 part physical exhaustion
2 parts Monster soda

I swear this works. But keep it under wraps until I develop a marketing strategy.

Downieville

June 1-3, 2007



My favorite place to mountain bike is Downieville. Amazing trails, tough climbs, crazy decents; yea, that about sums it up. I went this year with Tom, Aaron, Rob, and Jim. We had a great time camping at Union Flat.

June 1: We left Sonoma at 6. We arrived at our campsite about 11. We decided that we would go for a "quick" ride. 3 hours later, we reached the top of the 14 mile climb to Packer Saddle. We struggled our way down Butcher Creek trail which is the downhill course. Crazy rocks, steep, and narrow. We limped into town 5 hours later excited from the amazing ride, but we were still limping. We had to ride another 6 miles back to camp, and that was painful.

June 2: We thought we were being smart by choosing the shuttle ride to the top. Unfortunately, a wrong turn on the way down turned into a 90 minute addition of hill climbing, creek crossings, and confusion. When we finally found Pauley Creek trail, we experienced the most amazing riding. Since none of us ride with body armor and huge downhill bikes, this trail suited us perfectly.

June 3: Some of our group, decided to ride to the top through Sierra City, and others decided to take the shuttle. We met at the top of a grueling ride with a couple of wrong turns. This is actually the toughest climb I can remember. The trail was 8 miles of climbing an exposed mountain side on loose shale. When we got to the top, it was nice to know where we were going as we made our way to Pauley Creek trail again. The girl at the bike shop suggested adding on "Big Boulder" trail, but we didn't want to push our luck. The decent was excellent.

Singing Beauties

Ella, Meghan, and Marley take center stage at the Sonoma square for a singing competition. What I find amazing is that my cell phone can video record them singing and then post it directly to YouTube.

Bear Flag Track Meet

Friday, April 18, 2007 marked the second time a Sutter has competed in Sonoma's Bear Flag Track Meet. This year we had 2 kids involved as Asher and Ella both decided to race. The meet is held at the Sonoma High School track and involves kids from age 5-12. Asher and Ella signed up for the 100 meter and the 200 meter. Their excitement built all week; Asher felt anticipation since he did so well last year, and Ella was excited to be part of the show.

Ella went first. You can see in the video she was the youngest of the group. Seriousness covered her face. Unfortunately, she learned a lesson about being the last as they finished the 100 meter race. She tried so hard and never gave up, but her heart was broken as she realized that she was last to finish. She was so sad, that she decided she didn't want to compete in the 200 meter race.

Asher placed first in both races last year, but he prepared himself to finish somewhere in the middle this year since he moved to the next age group. To our surprise he smoked his heat and took first. He went on to the 200 meter and also finished first. He likes that first lane because you get to pass everyone on the inside, but he almost ran out of steam as the race finished.

The competition is interesting. I want my children to experience it, but it is tough to watch. I worry that Ella will not want to compete next year because of the bad experience, or that she will get down on herself. She made the comment that she wasn't any good at running. Until this race, she thought she was fast. Asher has won every time he raced, so it will be interesting when he races someone faster. Regardless of the competition, we all had a great time. I hope you enjoy the video.

Changes to the Line-Up

This might be our Christmas card for 2007 sent out early. That would be a shocker. However, I don't think it counts when one of the children is a nameless gray figure. So this works more like a birth announcement letting our family and friends officially know that the fourth Sutter will be landing sometime in Fall of 2007.

Stefanie is 10 weeks into this pregnancy, and it remains a bit of a challenge. I operated under the mistaken assumption that pregnancy was like other things in life, it should get easier with practice. The reason I extended this idea to pregnancy stems from watching Monte Python's The Meaning of Life and seeing the baby just fall out while the mother does the dishes. For some reason that has always stuck with me. In my subconscious mind, I assumed that Stefanie would hardly notice her pregnancy, but I have been wrong. Instead of suffering from morning sickness, Stefanie suffers from all-day long sickness. This is true--water actually makes her nauseous. She has trouble shopping because she smells food through the packaging, and she needs to vomit. Don't get me wrong, the first trimester was always hard for us, but I had a different idea of how things would go this time.

THe sickness notwithstanding, we are extremely happy for this fourth child. All we are hoping for is to make it into the second trimester as soon as possible. I think we might find out the sex of the child early this time. We loved not knowing with the others, but I think the kids really want to know. In any case we will keep you updated.

Soccer Star

Yesterday marked the beginning of the end for Asher's first round of indoor soccer; it was the beginning of the playoffs. There are only 4 teams in his age groups, so every team gets to play. Still Asher was so excited and was sure his team would win. We were a little concerned, because he was such a poor sport the last time they lost, he was grounded for quite a bit. Fortunately, he went in with a healthy attitude about winning or losing the game.

I have been helping the coach with the team. It is interesting to see first hand how the team plays and improves. We couldn't believe how well all the kids plays. It was sort of shocking to us. We have spent weeks coaching the kids on some important skills and strategies, but we have never seen much of a result on the field. We went over it again before the game, and apparently something clicked. The coach and I were dumbfounded and actually looked at each other during the game and commented, "I think they finally listened." More to the point, they finally got it. Perhaps it is just persistence with kids this age? I don't know. But they finally played like a great team.

Asher had an especially good game. He scored two goals and had three assists. He has been waiting for a goal through two seasons now and got two of them in the playoffs. He was all grins as the game ended. We'll see what happens next week in the finals.

Carrie Illum: MISSING!

Have you seen this lady? She was last seen carousing in downtown Sonoma. It is suspected that the lady she is hugging in this picture shanghaied her to a taxi-driver boot camp in Northwest Montana. It is clear from all reports that this buxom lady is of questionable character and has taken advantage of Carrie's good nature and unsuspecting disposition. Authorities fear that Carrie has fallen prey to a notorious transportation syndicate and will soon be working the streets of a major US city from behind the wheel of a checkered cab. If you come across a smiling female taxi driver in a metropolitan US city, please call the local authorities at once. Remember, she will be smiling even when she should be unhappy. Thank you for your cooperation.

Biking at Spring Lake

We spent this Saturday riding bikes at Spring Lake located in Santa Rosa at the bottom of Annadel State Park. When I ride my mountain bike nowdays, I frequently ride it in Annadel. But today we took the kids on their first ride to Spring Lake.

Climbing up the hill to the bike path was the hardest part. Soon we got going, and the kids had a great time. It was surprising to see Ella though. She has not ridden much over the winter, and she was pretty scared of the hills. This is a new one for her since she usually is pretty fearless on the bike. Perhaps she has gained a measure of caution. Still she managed the hills and loved riding her new bike!

Asher on the other hand got his first taste of trail riding. He liked it a lot, except for the rocky areas. What was actually shocking to me is that I still don't get poison oak. I can't recall all the times I got poison oak as a kid or the inopportune locations it seemed to show up. At one point, Jeremy and I decided it was mind over matter and we decided not get it anymore. It seemed to work, or we had built up enough tolerance. Well, I wondered if that still worked, but I walked right into some bushes on accident (I never push my luck with my immunity), but I haven't had a single problem. I can say without hesitation that I don't miss it. So Asher and I finished our ride by meeting up with the girls at the park. It was a nice way to spend a Saturday.

No Snow in Truckee

We wanted to catch what little snow was left this year before it all melted away, so we took the weekend to go up to Truckee. Stef stayed at home will I took Asher, Ella, and Marley up to Paul Nobmann's cabin in Lahontan. We had a great time in his beautiful house even with a serious lack of snow. Still we were able to find some snow when it came to it. Asher, Ella, and Marley all slept in the same bed with me which I didn't think was great, but the kids sure seemed to like it.

The golf course in Lahontan had very little snow, but it was enough. Asher and Ella loved the sled with the steering wheel. You can see in the video that we were able to work out quite a course. Ella liked to ride the sled stright down the hill and jump the mound at the end as she slid onto the green. Asher and I liked to ride down the side, jump the grass into the sand trap, cross the grass again on the way out of the trap, and coast across the fairway. Then I got to try a new toy--the snow skate. That was pretty fun too. It was pretty tricky, but I thought it was cool.
On the way home the next day, we stopped at Grandpa Steve and Grandma Dorothy's house. We played at the park and relaxed before making our way to Jeremy and Lori's house for dinner. It was a packed weekend, but a lot of fun.

Pirates!

Ella and Marley joined their friend Fiona in dressing up like pirates. Stefanie was having a "chick night" with lotions and perfumes and stuff. They thought it would be pretty peaceful until these buckaneers showed up.

Ella's 5th Birthday

Ella’s 5th birthday party was intimate but fun. Three friends came to have a lemonade and pizza tea party. Ella, Claire, Meghan, and Haylee decorated make-up boxes, painted their nails, and jumped on the trampoline. Marley decided to paint her entire hand, and the girls gave Jason a manicure. They got a kick out of drinking lemonade out of my grandmother’s china tea cups. Little girls’ birthday parties are awfully fun.

Snow? In Pinecrest?

Since we first started dating, Stefanie and I have spent a week in Pinecrest every summer with Bill and Marlene and the rest of the family, and Stefanie has been going before that since she was little. Last year we began a new tradition of visiting the snow of Pinecrest. Even in April the snow was still thick. So we figured that if April was good, February would be better. Unfortunately, the snow didn't follow the plan the year.

We left Sunday afternoon with the Adams family and made our way to Pinecrest. I still get that excited feeling when I see the first signs of snow along the highway, but I was a bit worried when we were 10 miles away with no visible signs of snow. Finally we saw traces as we got closer at 7:30 pm.

The bottom line was that I was pretty worried about the trip. A snow trip with 2 inches of snow on the ground didn't sound too exciting. But what do I know? Kids seem to be bored while surrounded with a mountain of toys and able make fun out of the pinch of snow.

The next day we drove to the top of Dodge Ridge and found a simple but fun sledding hill. We built snowpeople, sled, and had snowball fights. Before long, it started to snow. It ws a beautiful scene to be in a snowy forest with big flakes falling all around you.

The next day we played soccer in the snow, sled some more, and fought a lot of snowball fights. Marley thought the snow was the greatest thing she ever saw. Some friends gave us a very nice snow suit so she was never cold. I think that is why she had no problem with sitting in the snow and eating popcorn for 20 minutes.

I think the most striking thing was the emptied lake. We visited the lake before we left and walked along the bottom. Pinecrest is a man-made lake, so you can see the stumps of trees chopped down stretched out across the bottom. All that is left is a small pond in the middle of what used to be the lake. The dock is dragged crookedly down the side of the lake, and a mountain of boulders I have never seen rise up from the middle. Even when the lake is lower in late summer, these boulders are never seen even though they tower 40 feet above the bottom of the dried out lake. This picture shows the kids sitting at the end of the dock close to the bottom of the dried lake. I reckon that they are sitting 50-60 feet below the surface of the lake in summer.

The drive home gave Stef and I some time to think about how different a vacation with kids is from one without them. We had a lot of fun, but we are looking forward to the beginning of March for a trip to Palm Springs by ourselves. I'm sure it will be a shocker, but a shock we can survive to be sure.