happy new year!

This Christmas, with out of town family visiting, Sam's middle of the night scare, and Kayla going on a nap strike, what should have been a restful break was instead marked by chronic and ongoing sleep deprivation. Lucky for us, though, the Holy Spirit has made good on His promise to be our rest. Despite being a little bleary around the eyes, the entire Pak household is in good spirits and looking forward to the New Year. And Kayla, graciously, has humored us with a little dance to ring it all in! Enjoy and best wishes to you and yours in 2008.

merry christmas

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Matthew 6:25-27



Christmas is upon us and the energy of the season is thick in the air. As Christians, this is a time of year when we are preparing to celebrate the gift of new life and the birth of Christ. But instead of being filled to overflowing with joy and peace, at the Pak house there is a gnawing sense of of stress and anxiety that has been slowly building since the day after Thanksgiving.

The season never starts out in a bad way, in fact it really begins quite innocently. The trimming of the tree, the careful scheduling of holiday outings and events, the meticulous planning for those "just right how did you know" gifts for friends and family. But then the tree topper gets lopsided and events get double booked and all that last minute gift buying turns into frantic overnight shipping fees. Soon, before you know it, all those good intentions and hopeful wishes turn into a stressed out Liz, an overtired Kayla and a bewildered and exhausted Sam.



Last night, Sam had a seizure. A frightening middle of the night ordeal where for that haunting hour everything we should have been holding close but were really too busy to think about hung in the balance. For that brief moment in time we were gripped in terror, unable to worry about tomorrow because all of a sudden today was no longer a guarantee.

As the family spends today recuperating from our late night ordeal, we have had time to reflect. The seizure was a brutal reminder of the true meaning of Christmas, and the blessings we have received from our merciful Father. Sometimes we get so caught up in our day to day we forget His promises and provisions. Yet He is patient to remind us and for that we are thankful.

So what if the gifts don't arrive on time or the Christmas cards don't get sent. So we don't hit all the tourist stops on the Seattle Holiday Must-Do List. It's a little late in coming, but this year, the Paks have decided to forego the usual holiday madness and spend some time cherishing the real gifts of the season: salvation and sanctification in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Blessings to you and your family and Merry Christmas from the Paks. Hope you all have a fabulous Holiday season and a wonderful New Year!

happy birthday samson!

Last Friday December 14th heralded the quarter century landmark of Sam's 25 years here on planet earth. We celebrated by having a mini-celebration/semi-surprise party on Saturday, complete with coconut cupcakes, a wii tournament, and some old school go karting. Thanks so much to everyone who came, special gold star goes to Mike Johnson who partied with us from beginning to end, Joel Nickerson for staying up way past his bedtime, and Wing and Ryan for officially buying us every game system we've ever owned.

Highlights from this past year:

Discovering the Aquarium


Mariner's Baseball Games minus the Moose


Our first family road trip to Vancouver BC


Slumming it at Lake Tahoe with Mars Hill's High School Ministry "Proxy"


Getting a PS3: Seriously, thanks guys


Thanks again to everyone who came out to help us celebrate. It was great to see you all, and we sincerely missed those of you who couldn't make it. Next year, no excuses! We expect to see all your smiling faces.

walking in a winter wonderland

While Liz was at the women's training day at church, Sam had Kayla all to himself. And were the two of them in for a treat. The first snow of the year! Sam could hardly wait to take Kayla out to experience it for herself. It didn't go so well.

What the heck is this stuff? It's freezing! And its touching me!



No seriously, Dad, I hate this. Lets do something else



Something inside! INSIDE! Oh save me....

What kind of kid hates snow? But Sam is no child-torturer, so he relents. The two retreat to the toasty warmth of the house to finish their snack. Back inside, Kayla enjoys the beauty of the snow from the safety of the living room couch.

Hey, Dad, check out this white fluffy stuff!

It's totally amazing! I've never seen that before!

Wouldn't it be fun to touch it for ourselves?

Are you kidding?!?!?! We can go out there?!?!? Well, what are we waiting for?????

Amazing how quick these kids turn around! And who was Sam to deny his daughter a second chance? Just to make sure he had his bases covered though, round two was conducted with an extra toasty jacket. For maximum snow enjoyment.

Oh, man, I can barely contain my excitement. I don't even care that I've lost my hands!

Here goes nothing....

Wait a second....

Now I remember!

I hate this!

Its cold and its touching me! Dad, help, its touching me and I lost my hands!



Let's go back inside!

Ah, the fickleness of toddlerhood. We can't wait for Whistler next Spring! Stay tuned as the saga is sure to continue...

gee, that was fast...

A month or so ago, Sam was working himself up into a tizzy over the fact that Kayla couldn't quite walk yet. He did everything he could to encourage her, but to no avail. No amount of cajoling, bribing, or prompting could motivate her. She remained stubbornly a butt-scooter.

A seasoned father overheard Sam's woes and was quick to both commiserate and offer encouragement. "When my wife and I had our first child, we made the same mistake, the whole encouraging walking thing. With the second child we learned our lesson. We took a much smarter course of action: we discouraged walking. You know, pushing her down when she stood up. "

At the time both confusing and ludicrous, this pep talk now makes perfect sense. Since our post on Halloween, Kayla has become an expert walker and life has never been harder. In the few short weeks she's been walking, she's gotten herself lost at Target, almost run over by a car at the grocery store, and pummeled by a stampede of churchgoers taking communion . She's even tried to run away from us! Praise Jesus for short legs and small steps.



Another testimony of little Kayla's strong will and the sanctifying work of parenthood. A breach baby who refused to be flipped, a fluent scooter who refused to crawl, a late walker who refused to be rushed before her time. Slowly, we have come to grips with the fact that Kayla will do things her own way in her own time.

Sam and Liz feel quite blessed that we have been chosen to steward such a passionate child and that God has been so gracious to us as we stumble along on this path of parenthood. We prayed that God would change our child, but in his infinite wisdom and grace, he chose to change us instead. Praise Him who would complete the work that He has started in us, as mysterious as His methods may seem to His children who lack understanding.



If there is one piece of advice these young parents can give to our very specific audience of "people who read this blog and have children under 14 months" its this: Enjoy every step of the way! In this whole walking ordeal, we had gotten so caught up with the destination that we failed to enjoy what Kayla was doing along the way. Now the time has flown by so fast, and although hindsight is 20/20 we can't seem to remember 1/2 the stuff that has happened.

So there you have it. Kayla has accomplished so much over the span of her little life; an awe inspiring testament to our Creator's handiwork. Below are two videos taken almost exactly five months apart. We ask you this, what were you doing five months ago?

lessons from dad

In this day and age, being a parent has reached a sort of cult perfectionistic status level of hyperactivity. Everyone's feeding their kids super baby food, buying plastic-free toys and organic cotton onesies. We Paks have definitely been victim to the peer pressure as well. For example, does a six month old really need weekly gym classes? Six months and 300 dollars later, well, Kayla's face just about says it all.

So while other parents are taking their wee ones out on fun educational outings and reading them classic children's literature, Sam is schooling Kayla in the art of XBOX domination. Their current favorite game is the oldie but goodie Def Jam: Fight for New York.

Sam's a pretty hard teacher. He's all about tough love, and doesn't let her win just because she's a girl. She's definitely got her dad's competitive spirit! Unfortunately, it looks like its gonna take a lot of practice before Kayla can truly best her old man. She's still working on the "losing graciously" aspect of the game.

All kidding aside, Sam and Liz love little Kayla and are so excited to love, guide and protect her through the next couple decades of her life. With the help of the Holy Spirit, we pray we'll do a good job.

Proverbs 22:6 Train a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.

better late than never?

Kayla gets her walk on... on her own!

"pak" in the day: part one

Due to the fact that we jumped on the blog bandwagon so late, many ultra exciting things have happened in the past that may or may not interest you. We'd like to chronicle those things here for your reader enjoyment under a monthly segment we've cleverly named "Pak" in the Day.

For this first installment, we bring you Kayla's birthday. Like, her actual birthday, the day she was born! Little Kayla was a breach baby and was scheduled to be born via C-section on August 16th, 2006. However, she decided to forego the scheduled arrival date by making her appearance unfashionably early on August 10th. Liz was a little nervous by the change in plans, but of course Sam, being the laidback fellow that he is, took it in stride.

The operating room was a little scary, but because of the awesome doctors and nurses at Group Health, Sam and Liz were perfectly at ease. They were also very excited to meet the newest family member! Sam was especially excited to wear his hospital scrubs, which was the only thing we had insisted on in our birth plan. After only 45 minutes of suspenseful waiting, Kayla Grace Pak made her entrance into the world and the Paks took their very first family photo together, courtesy of the friendly operating room anesthesiologist.

The rest of the day was spent in what became typical Kayla fashion for the next three months. Vigorous eating followed by what appeared to be a traumatizing bath followed by hours of wheezy fitful sleeping. The baths really took a lot out of her.

It wasn't how we planned it and it wasn't what we expected but Kayla's birthday was really everything we could ever hope for. We are so grateful and blessed to have such wonderful friends and family who took care of us in those first couple weeks. Thanks, everyone for making what could have been a really stressful time so very wonderful.

trick or treat!

It's not exactly a big holiday in our family, but Halloween 2007 will forever go down in Pak family history as the day KAYLA TOOK HER VERY FIRST STEPS! Thats right folks, you heard it here first (well, those of you who we didn't tell yesterday, YOU heard it here first. Everyone else heard it here second). It's still not her preferred mode of transportation, and she still prefers a guiding hand from Sam or Liz, but for all intents and purposes she's now officially a walker.





To celebrate, we took our little spider (much love to the Ossingers for the fab costume) down to the Children's Masquerade party at our church. She had a great time "playing" the super fun carnival games and raiding through the candy buckets. We think she likes Twizzlers.





Unfortunately, you only get candy if you WIN the carnival games, and since Kayla got her athleticism from Liz's side of the family, we ended up going home with a pretty small stash. To be honest, it's all basically stolen/pity candy. She didn't win anything.



Great fun for the whole family. Thanks to everyone at Mars Hill Church who made the Masquerade Party possible and to all the people who brought canned and dry goods to donate to Northwest Harvest. We hope to make this an annual Pak family tradition.

paks invade pumpkin patch!

This week's Pak family adventure took us up to Snohomish, WA to visit the pumpkin patch at The Farm (yes, that's the actual name). This was our inaugural visit together as a family, and we were lucky enough to convince our good friends the Laytons to accompany us. Liz and Kayla went last year, but colicky screams and dreary weather made the undertaking a bit too ambitious to be enjoyed.

This year proved to be quite an improvement. We were blessed with wonderful weather, and Kayla was old enough to (somewhat) enjoy the activities. She was a bit too small for the John Deere tricycles, but with a some help from mom, we managed to steer our way out of the hay maze. Phew! What an undertaking. The corn kernel bin, well, that was met with mixed reviews.

We also enjoyed a family friendly hay ride out to the pumpkin patch and Washington state corn maze (again, actual name). Kayla got a bit impatient waiting for a group of fourth graders to load, but luckily was able to distract herself by eating her jacket sleeve.

The corn maze proved to be more difficult than the hay maze, but our navigators Sam and Alex managed to get us through in record time! A good thing, too, because by then Ms. Kayla was either really tired and ready for a nap or seriously bored out of her mind.

We did have time to sneak in a quick picture or two out in the patch before a nap deprivation meltdown. A note of advice to our readers, come a little earlier in the month for optimal pumpkin photo ops. By this late in the game they start looking a tad disheveled. Not that we are one to complain of course. After all, Asians don't eat pumpkins so we didn't really miss out.

After the pumpkin patch, we caught a quick lunch at our favorite Hawaiian restaurant in the Northwest, Bobby's, in downtown Everett. Then, it was home for a nice long nap for Kayla and a couple rounds of Nintendo Wii for the rest of us. Fabulous ending to a fabulous day!