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Spring (Almost Summer) Update - 2009

Hi friends and fam!

I've been a little behind updating this blog. Seems I just never could get around to it. Well, here we are, several months later, and a few notable things have happened.

First off, a few days after Thomas' birth (five, to be exact), he was baptized; as I noted in email to some of you, Bridget also had her first confession around that time. We had a lull in family events for a while until Bridget's 8th birthday on 20 April.

In the meantime, I took a trip to Uruguay for work in March. The trip was looong, especially on the way back, but I had a great time there, got to spend some time with my co-workers over the weekend seeing some of the local sites that you can see in the linked flickr set. And I'd say the reason for my going down there was accomplished, too, so it was a good trip. I also took a trip to Las Vegas for a conference called Mix, which was fun; I got to speak there on design patterns, and it turned out well.

Around that time, we got a letter from our landlord saying they wanted to increase the rent. I was ignoring it for a while, trying to think of how to convince them otherwise, when I thought to call on a house not far from that house. We looked at it; it was okay. We could have probably made it home, but it just wasn't quite clicking, so we started poking around on realtor.com in the meantime.

The landlord called to ask if we got the letter to increase the rent. I said yes and that we were looking around, so he ultimately said we could stay at our current rent. The thing was we had already scheduled to look at one more place that looked nice in the pictures (and it was a lot less rent).

Well, to make a long story shorter, we really liked the house, and on May 2nd (our 10th anniversary!), we moved in to the new place. Although there is some overlap with our lease at the old place (as seems inevitable), we wanted to get into it before my mom came to visit on the 9th, for Bridget's first communion.

What to say about her first communion? I was thrilled for her. For Catholics, the Eucharist is the real presence of Jesus, true God and true man, the source and summit of the life and mission of the Church. As our Lord said, "whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.." (Jo 6:56ff) So I was pleased as punch for her and remain so each week as she partakes with us.

So we've been settling in for the last month or so. Still like the place. It's interesting for us because I think it's the first place for both of us that doesn't have central heat and air (has window units and radiators). It's definitely the oldest place we've lived in, but we like it.

We've settled into the parish here, too--Incarnation-St. James. It's run by the Trinitarians, which is nice because they seem to really engage with good theology both in their homilies and in how they celebrate mass. It's hard to put your finger on, but we like it. And hey, they were founded around the same time as the Dominicans, too. :)

Please keep us in your prayers, and don't hesitate to let us know if you need prayers.

Peace!

-Ambrose, Christiane, Bridget, John, Brendan, & Thomas

P.S. Some of you have mentioned wanting more Photos of Thomas.

Thomas is Here!

Well, I doubt many folks I know don't already know since it's been tweeted, emailed, and phoned. But just to make it official, I figured I'd blog, too. :)

Thomas Martin Bonaventure Little was born yesterday, 20 January 2009, at 1500 hours (3p EST). He came in at 9lbs (9.06, actually) and 20.5in, which is small for our boys. :) (John was 10lbs 3oz and Brendan 10lbs 5oz.) He is happy and healthy as is Christiane.

The birth was pretty uneventful, thankfully. We went in at 7a to induce; they started the Pitocin at about 9a. It was around 2:20 that the doc came in and was surprised that things didn't seem to be moving along, so I tweeted that he was being stubborn. A bit later, one of my friends, Neal Locke, said they were having the same issue, and he said he told his daughter to come out in his "daddy voice." So I thought I'd give that a try. I put my hand on Christiane's tummy and said in my firm daddy voice, "Thomas, it's time to come out."

Within five minutes, Christiane was saying she thought it was time, and it wasn't long after the nurse came in, confirmed, and we had Thomas coming out shortly thereafter. Good to know he is already obedient! :)

He seems to be a very calm, laid-back type of guy so far. Of course, they're always totally tired at first, so we'll see! I've posted the first batch of photos from my iPhone on our flickr feed:

http://snipurl.com/thomas-little-birth

Thomas is Coming

It won't be long now. It doesn't seem like yesterday that we found out he was coming, but time has certainly flown by. (Speaking of flying by, that's Storkos from the Viva Piñata Xbox game--she delivers all the little baby piñatas...) He's (still) due on Jan 16th, but for about a week we were thinking he'd be coming early.

The docs said he hadn't turned (well, it was an ultrasound tech, actually), and they didn't think he'd turn since he was so far along. Since that'd make him a breach birth, they recommend doing a C-section, which means of course surgery and longer recovery, among other undesirable things.

But today Christiane went back, and to everyone's pleasant surprise, Tommy had decided to go ahead turn around! It was a big relief, and something we'd all been praying for, so thank God!

We're back on schedule. We've been trying to convince the docs to induce early since John was 10lbs 3oz (that's 4.62 kilos for my non-US friends) and Brendan was 10lbs. 5oz (4.68 kilos), and both were rather longish. They're not sure yet about bringing him early, so I guess we'll see about that next week.

We appreciate any prayers and well wishes you all can offer regardless. I'll blog once he gets here, of course.

And while we're waiting for the little booger, here's a scan of an earlier ultrasound when he was about 7 mos along. I hear he's bigger now. ;-)

Christmas Photos

Hi folks!

Earlier today I uploaded what Christmas pics we have (so far--there's a few days left!).

You can click on the photostream on the right, if you're viewing the blog on the site, or you can go straight to the Christmas 2008 set from here. Enjoy!

Howdy!

Hi folks! This is the Little family blog. Since there are a TON of Littles, let me clarify. As of this writing, the family includes Ambrose (a.k.a., Josh, Iain, Br. Albertus), Christiane, Bridget, John, Brendan, and Thomas. Ambrose is the son of Bill and Teresa, born in Arkansas and raised in Tulsa, OK; Christiane is the daughter of Rosemarie and Martin Hofmann (yup--one ef and two ens), born in Stuttgart and raised in New Bern, NC.

We both attended Oral Roberts University (where we met) and were married in Sapulpa, OK at Good Shepherd Episcopal in 1999. We became Roman Catholics on Easter Vigil 2001 and have been happily together and Catholic since. In the meantime, we've had four munchkins join the fam (in the usual way): Bridget, John, Brendan, and Thomas.

So if this is the Little clan you're looking for, read on and feel free to subscribe. We'll be posting periodic updates and such as makes sense and time allows.

P.S. The blog name is a play on the Latin term pater familias; I know it's not correct Latin, but parvus is "little" and familias is a form of "family."  I think it has a better ring than familia parva, which I believe would be more correct.  Anyhoo, together they make the "little family."  Get it? :)