Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ

Eph 1:2

5 December 09

Well, I’m almost done with all my classes, but I was able to get the website updated.  Enjoy the videos and pics!

 

1 November 09

 

Wow, I got busy again and didn’t update the website last month.  Sorry! Enjoy the videos and pictures!

 

5 Sept 09

Well, sorry for not updating the site last month.  Here it is in all its splendor.  Aug was a busy month with all the family birthdays,  but it was a fun one.  The boys turned 2, Kathryn turned 30, we had a great night stay alone at the Cheyenne Mt Resort, and we had a great family vacation at Crested Butte.  Now it is back to the grind as I finish up my Master’s this semester. 

 

Enjoy the movies and pics from the last 4 months!

 

12 July 09

Woohoo!!!  Summer is here!  We have been enjoying our summer immensely so far!  A milestone reached last month was getting rid of the high chairs and going to booster seats!  The boys love their booster seats, and it so nice to sit down and have dinner with everyone sitting at the table!  We also concluded June with a great visit from Grandpa and Grandma Orr!  The boys truly enjoyed helping Grandpa do yard work.  They really like to help out!  They also enjoyed a trip to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, but I think they’re still getting used to getting that close to the giraffes!  We also went to Mr. Biggs and the boys loved it there!  They have a zone called Little Big Town for all the kids.  They have all sorts of play areas.  The picture here is of the MASSIVE sand box that is themed like a cave.  Check out the Flickr for pictures of this very fun month!!!

 

31 May 09

Another month down, another month of growing boys and fun times.  We went out to the farm for Memorial Day.  Every year we decorate the graves of our family that is buried in the Norcatur and Clayton Cemeteries.  The pictures above show the 5 generations of Leichliters that have been/will be buried there.  That will rise to 6 generations with Kathryn and me. 

 

The boys are definitely enjoying the warmer weather as they have been playing outside a ton and they are staying healthy!!!  They have been doing great-eating good and playing like crazy!  Enjoy the many videos we took this month!

 

30 Apr 09

Wow, April is over already!  This has been a very busy, but great month.  We spent a couple weeks down in sunny LA at the beginning of the month and had a great time with family, going to Disneyland, and relaxing.  When we got back to Colorado, we were greeted with a massive spring snowstorm.  We were supposed to go up to Kathryn’s cousin’s wedding in Golden, but all the roads were closed and power was out.  They managed to move it at the last minute to a church in Littleton, so we all plowed our way up from the Springs up to Littleton through the storm.  After the vacation and snow, it was back to the grind.  I am still waiting for the waiver to be signed so that I can do the job I came here in July to do.  In the mean time I am shadowing the guy that I am supposed to replace so that as soon as the waiver is signed, the changeover time will be short.  Please pray the waiver gets signed soon!  My seminary classes continue, with only a little over a week remaining in my current class, Systematic Theology II.   Only 4 more classes and I’m done!  Woohoo!  Hopefully I’ll be done in December.  Kathryn has been doing an awesome job with the boys, especially as I have had to devote extra time to this class since it’s my toughest class I have left.  She is doing a great job!  Please continue to pray for strength for her in raising the boys, especially since it’s getting more apparent they’re getting closer to being 2 years old!  They are such a joy to watch.  Just tonight Nathan pulled the toy John Deere lawnmower onto the small trampoline and he started bouncing on the trampoline with it!  He thought that was the greatest thing in the world!  The warm weather has also been great, since the boys absolutely LOVE playing outside.  This is going to be a fun summer! 

 

31 Mar 09

Hello Everyone!  New Pictures and videos await you inside.  We have some pretty funny videos (again)!  This has been a great month with the boys being healthy all month and doing great.  It’s amazing how much they are learning.  They truly enjoy being outside so much.  We have yet to bring them back inside without them kicking and screaming.  Even when they went outside when it was cold and snow covered, they had fun playing in the snow.  We had to bring them because their hands were so cold.  They did not want to come in.  They are definitely looking forward to a warm summer!

 

7 Mar 09

Well, it’s been a long day moving Stacey into her new house, so I’m tired, but I wanted to get the videos posted for everyone.  I’ll write more later, but for now enjoy the videos, especially the last couple.  Make sure you watch them all the way to the end!

 

3 Feb 09

Well, it has been an eventful last couple of months.  As most of you know, we lost Ruth to cancer on January 4th.  She will be sorely missed.  She was an awesome grandma to the boys!  We are so grateful to have a God that loves us and gives us strength throughout the hard times.  He is always there, always listening to our prayers. 

It was nice to be back on the farm, even if it was for a funeral.  The boys enjoyed being out there, and I think Grandpa (my dad) enjoyed having them out there, too!  We will definitely have to make it out there as much as we can. 

I started up my seminary classes again in January as well as finally starting my training for my job.  That training class just completed last week and I am now in another training class.  The first one was for learning how to operate the ground systems when we need to linkup with a satellite, and the class I am in now is for commanding the satellite itself once we have connected with it.  It is great to finally be doing something!

Kathryn continues to grow as a mom.  Her hard work is evident in the boys!  They are doing great, but are definitely testing the boundaries, especially defiant Nathan.  It seems like Nathan is going to give us a run for our money when it comes to overcoming his stubbornness!  Please pray for him and for us!  James’s temper isn’t too bad right now, but Nathan knows how to push his buttons, so we have to watch and make sure James doesn’t lash out at Nathan.  Other than these couple areas, the boys are so much fun to be around.  Just watch the videos and pictures!  By the way, I’m trying a new way of presenting the videos.  Let me know what you think!

Well, that’s all for now!  God Bless!

 

15 Dec

Okay, so at least I had one month where I got everything uploaded on time!  Sorry about being late.  I just finished up my class last Friday, so I finally have time to catch up on things.  We are all doing pretty good.  The boys are doing great.  They haven’t been sick for awhile now.  They had some bad times (taking James to ER for 103.3 Temp), but mostly great times.  The boys are so much fun.  Just tonight I was laying on my side in the living room and Nathan and James just started to climb over me time and time again.  They would climb up one side, and then flip over and land on the other side of me.  Often times their heads are what caught their falls.  It was so funny.  James likes to stand in the middle of the kitchen and spin in circles until he falls down.  Both boys can now eat cereal and oatmeal all by themselves.  James has really become a little helper in some many ways.  Loves to help put things away and pick things up, but he also loves to then pull whatever he just put up right out again.  Nathan is definitely our more studious boy.  You can get him to sit still and teach him body parts, but James just keeps going constantly, making it hard to sit him down and teach him stuff.  While they play great together most of the time, we are starting to experience James’s temper and Nathan’s stubbornness when they start getting each other’s nerves.  I think Nathan knows exactly what to do to James to set him off. 

 

About my wrists, the doctor ended up not knowing what is wrong with them because the treatments he had me doing weren’t working.  So now I’m getting an MRI done and then being referred to an orthopedic surgeon to see if he can figure out what’s wrong.  Please pray that they can figure out what’s going on.  My knee is better, but I still can’t jog at all.  I will probably go back to the doc in January to get it looked at again.  I finally start my training in January as well, so it’ll be great to finally do the job I’m supposed to do.

 

Kathryn is doing great as well.  It’s been great to see her mature as a mother.  She is awesome with those boys!!!  Her tendonitis hasn’t came back very much lately, so that’s been great.  Also, it’s Christmas time, so Kathryn is baking up a storm, which is her specialty! 

 

Please pray for several members of our family.  My stepmom, Ruth, has cancer in her liver.  She has surgery this Thursday to have it cut out, but the cells are distinct, so they can’t tell exactly how big it is (but it’s growing fast, about the size of a baseball last week) or where it came from, so pray that when they go in to cut it out, they can get all of it.  Also, harvest is still going on, so pray that we can get that finished up this year.  Fall harvest is usually done months ago, but the weather in Kansas has been crazy.  I was fortunate enough to be able to go back to the farm for a couple days with my Uncle Steve Obrecht to help dad get the corn finished up and a few acres of milo  cut.  Another prayer request is Kathryn’s cousin Tim has been sick for awhile now.  He’s had problems with his pancreas.  So far, 70% of his pancreas has died, and the docs say you can live on 25%, so he’s cutting it close.  Finally, my cousin Dana has been fighting a tumor in her chest for awhile now.  It’s not looking good since it’s came back after they had gone in a cut most of it out. 

 

Well, thanks for reading.  We are looking forward to spending time with lots of family for Christmas!  Merry Christmas and God Bless!

 

1 Nov

I finally managed to update the webpage on time!!!  Happy November everyone!  I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to the extra hour of sleep tonight.  The last part of October has been a little busy and rough for us, but God gives us strength each and every day to get through.  James is walking all over the place and Nathan likes to walk, but only if someone is holding his hand.  He’ll get it pretty quick and then they’ll both be walking.  We have another check-up in a couple weeks and we’ll see how they are doing with their weight.  We’re both pretty sure that James is already over 20 lbs now, but Nathan has been a very picky eater lately and isn’t gaining much weight.  James is also getting more and more taller than Nathan, as well. 

I saw a hand specialist on the 24th, and got some more answers on my wrists.  It turns out I have radial tunnel, which means the radial nerve is pinched on the top of my forearm up by my elbow.  This means that only a portion of my muscles on the top of my forearm are getting the nerve signals, whereas all of my muscles on the bottom of my forearm are still getting all nerve signals.  This explains why my wrists were so weak because the small portion of muscles being used on top were just getting exhausted quickly.  The doc has me icing and doing stretches to fix the pinched nerve, but he said it’ll take time.  I go back to see him the end of November.  Fortunately, he also said that this isn’t a chronic condition, so once it finally gets healed, I shouldn’t have to worry about it.  Unfortunately, my body wasn’t done failing on me.  A couple weeks ago, I started getting shooting pain while running right behind my kneecap.  I got seen by the doc on the 27th, and he said I have Patella Femoral Syndrome.  Basically he said I have a build-up of scar tissue behind my kneecap which is now rubbing on my knee, creating the pain.  I’m doing physical therapy now to try and get the swelling and inflammation down.  The therapist hopes that will fix the problem.  If not, then they’ll move onto different therapy to try and train my muscles to pull on the kneecap differently so avoid the friction.  If that doesn’t work, the doc said they’ll just go in and scope my knee and scrape away the scar tissue.  I have a knee brace that pushes my kneecap slightly to the inside so that it doesn’t rub on the same spot, thereby helping with the inflammation.  It looks like it’s going to be awhile until both my wrists and knees are feeling better!

Well, that’s all the bad news for now.  Thanks for reading and God Bless!

 

13 October

I managed to get around to updating this within a month, barely.  We have been so busy lately (as if that’s not anything new).  The boys have been growing by leaps and bounds and are so much fun to watch.  They are so hilarious!  I put the video so you could see how far these boys have come in such a short time.  God has blessed us so much!  They can both stand without holding on to anything, and James has taken a couple steps without holding on to anything.  He’ll be walking around pretty quick and then Nathan will be right behind him!  The other day James climbed on top of the trampoline and then stood up and started to bounce on it.  It was hilarious!  We had Nathan’s first physical therapy appointment since we moved down here.  He ranked in the 19th percentile for his real age in his physical development, but he was 50% for his adjusted age, so he’s doing just fine according to his adjusted age.  Even though Nathan has always been behind in the sitting up/crawling/standing/walking areas, in the areas that require fine movements, he’s doing great.  He can already stack blocks up to 6 high!  According to what we’ve read that’s more blocks than most 2 year olds can stack.  Nathan really studies everything he plays with and what he does while James just go crazy all the time without taking time to contemplate what he’s doing.  They are so different and it’s so much fun to see their personalities come out while they’re playing. 

On other news, the work on the bathroom came to screeching halt when I started having trouble with my wrists.  Thankfully it’s not carpal tunnel or something like that.  The doc just said that I overworked my wrists.  My wrists got to the point that my wrists couldn’t hold the weight of my hand.  There wasn’t any real pain, just weakness.  They’re doing better now after resting them.  Dad and Ruth are coming out for a couple days since they got some rain back on the farm, so they couldn’t do anything in the field for a couple days.  We should make good progress on the bathroom in the next couple days.  Kathryn’s dad, Matt, is coming out the 21st, so we’re excited to have him visit for a few days and then Pat will come out in November for a few days.

Kathryn had a reaction to something when she went to get her hair done last week.  It was probably the coloring because a foil fell onto her face for awhile and it was mainly her left side of the face that swelled up and turned red.  Kathryn ended up going to urgent care on last Friday morning, and they gave her a steroid shot as well as steroid pill for a few days.  She’s also taking Zyrtec, and the swelling has decreased quite a bit in the last couple days, so things are doing better now. 

Well, thanks for checking in and seeing how we’re doing!  We’re sorry we didn’t take many pictures for September, so we’re making sure we take plenty for October.  Until next time...

 

15 September

Well, it’s been awhile again.  We have been very busy moving in.  We’ve had a great time being around family again.  The boys’ first birthday party was a blast.  We had a ton of family in.  August was filled mainly with moving in and enjoying Colorado Springs.  We went out to the farm over Labor Day weekend for a family reunion and had a blast out there, even if Kathryn did happen to get the stomach flu for the last couple days.  Thank you so much to all my family for helping take care of the boys while Kathryn was sick. 

We’ve finally started remodeling the bathroom downstairs and that is occupying most of our time now as we’re trying to finish before I start classes again at the end of the month.  It’s been fun to do our first major remodeling project, but also tiring.  We’ve had a ton of help from family, and that has been great.  Thank you so much Grandma and Grandpa, Steve & Debbie, and Dad and Ruth!  The shower is now mostly tiled and should be finished soon.  We’ll put up some pictures once we get done. 

The boys are doing great and loving their new house.  We took down the baby gates on the stairs a couple weeks ago and the boys have loved having the run of the house.  There’s only been a couple falls so far, but nothing serious.  James will be walking on his own soon, and Nathan will be quickly joining him.  They get around quickly and are getting more and more defiant.  They are so much fun, though.  They make us laugh so much every day.

The movie “Fireproof” looks like another great movie from the guys who made “Facing the Giants.”  We’re going to definitely go see it.

 

3 July

We’re finding it hard to keep up on this website!  Things have been busy with moving.  The April, May, and June videos are finally up as well as the pictures for June as well.  Things are going pretty good with the move.  I think we’re staying on schedule pretty good.  We’ll write more later when we have more time, but enjoy the videos!

 

30 May

Wow!  Time has flown by lately!  We have been very busy with getting ready to move to Colorado Springs.  We got back from our house hunting trip to the Springs and we found a great house.  The whole experience was great.  It turned out our realtor is a Christian, so we immediately felt at ease that we could fully trust him.  If anyone is looking for a realtor for the Springs, look up Will Fieser with the Platinum Group Realtors.  We looked at 20-30 houses before we finally found the one we love.  It had been on the market a total of 6 days when we first saw it.  We put in a bid the next day and they accepted with only a few minor wording changes to the contract.  We’ll close on the house before we move down on July 16th, so it’ll be nice being able to move right in.  The house is 1892 sq ft with a lot size of 13000 sq ft.  There is a walking trail right behind our lot along with a big hill that there is only a couple nice houses on, so we won’t have to worry about people behind us.  We definitely took advantage of the buyer’s market that exists in the Springs!

The boys have been doing pretty good.  They got a little sick while we were in Colorado, but they’re doing better now.  James can crawl forwards now is going all over the place.  Please keep Kathryn in your prayers as the boys become mobile!  They love eating solid foods now, but Nathan is definitely our picky eater.  He mainly likes fruits and veggies, whereas James will eat just about anything you put in front of him.  It is so amazing to watch these two grow up.  There are so many similarities as well as differences, and they are so much fun!!!

There is a link to our Facebook account.  Feel free to post any comments there and we’ll get back to you. 

20 March

I just had to upload some of March’s videos early because they are so funny and amazing!  Check out the new March videos!

 

15 March

Greetings!  Sorry it’s been awhile since we’ve updated.  It’s been busy around here.  We visited sunny Los Angeles last month and had a great time there seeing family as well as getting out in the great weather!  It was very nice to get away from the cold for awhile!  The boys had never felt grass or felt the heat of the sun so much!  They got used to it, though.  The boys are doing great.  James is sitting up all by himself and can stand up by himself if he’s hanging onto something (see the appropriate video).  Nathan is right behind James in sitting up, he can almost do it by himself!  They had their 6 month check when we got back from LA, and the doctor recommended physical therapy for Nathan because he was lacking development in several area.  We don’t know what happened, but after that appointment (and before physical therapy) Nathan just took off developmentally.  He rapidly made up ground on James.  His main problem now is his left hand is still behind, but it has been amazing how fast he’s come along.  It is really fun to watch the boys play now.  James still tends to be the dominant one.  Kathryn says that she has to separate the boys at least twice a day because James is picking on Nathan.  It is such a joy to see those boys!

 

Well, the big news for those who haven’t heard yet is that we got our assignment finally.  We are heading to Schriever AFB in Colorado Springs on July 16.  Jake will be with the 3rd Space Operations Squadron (3SOPS) working with the brand-new Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS).  We are really excited to finally be moving back near family.  It is also really cool that Jake goes from shutting down one weapon system to helping to startup a new one.  Also, Jake got hired to the 341st Operations Support Squadron, which means he is now instructing other missiles crews on how to their job.  He gives simulator rides, teaching training classes, as well as whatever comes his way.  Jake has wanted to do this since he got here at Malmstrom, so he is excited he gets to finish his time out here doing that.     

 

24 January

Hello everyone!  Sorry it’s taken awhile to get this site going, but things get busy with two amazing boys!  We’ll post updates on our lives here as well as new pictures and videos, so make sure you check back to see what’s new!  Here’s a quick summary of what’s going on in our lives right now so that everyone can be on the same page. 

We are currently stationed at Malmstrom Air Force Base, MT, which is at Great Falls, MT.  We are currently assigned to the 564th Missile Squadron, 341st Operations Group, 341st Space Wing.  Our squadron is in the midst of deactivating our 50 ICBMs, which is a pretty cool thing because it’s not every day that America shuts down a squadron of ICBMs.  What’s even cooler is that the squadron commander picked Jake to help lead the deactivation.  It’s been a very interesting job to say the least; very difficult but very rewarding.

On 5 August we welcomed into our lives Nathan and James!  After the initial trial of the c-section and the boys being in the NICU, things are going very well now.  James is now 12.5 lbs and Nathan is about a 1/2 lb behind him.  They are very active (especially James) and want to see the world.  Check out the pictures and videos to see how cute they are!

Kathryn stopped teaching piano and French Horn lessons in June and stopped playing French Horn for the Great Falls Symphony after last season.  She has been doing an awesome job at being a mom!  She’s a natural!  Handling twin boys is no small task and she has things going like a well oiled machine now. 

We are currently awaiting our next assignment since our time here is almost done.  It looks like we will be going to Schriever AFB, CO, which is near Colorado Springs.  The main thing we don’t know is when we will be leaving.  It could be as early as June or as late as September. 

That’s all for now!  Remember to stop by for updates and new pictures and videos!  God Bless!

Hello from jake, Kathryn, Nathan, & JAmes!