Dear 2013,

What a year you were! Today we'll reflect on the past twelve months and enjoy a relaxing evening at home with yummy food, games, and family time. (I am still contemplating whether I will try to stay up for the big "ringing in" of the New Year or not...everyone will probably be happier if Mom goes to bed on time! We shall see, though.)

At the top of our list of highlights and blessings would be our newest little addition, Miss Avery Jordann who arrived in April and has completed our family in every way. She brings us so much joy-Joe and I look at each other and we just cannot get over how sweet she is. Yes, we are biased, but she is the perfect little complement to her big sister and brother. We are so excited to see how they play and interact as she continues to grow and change.

I have been blessed to be able to "stay home" with our kids since Avery's arrival. I use the term "stay home" loosely because well, we don't really just stay home very often! Between running Sydney to Kindergarten and managing naps/feedings with Avery, and preschool Tues and Thur for Gavin, plus early release on Wednesday, I feel like we are on the go quite a lot! It isn't always easy and quite often by the end of the day I feel more exhausted than when I was teaching full-time (how? I do not know...beats me!) However, again, I am so fortunate that I get to do this: just be Mom and a wife!

This past summer since Avery was still pretty tiny, we had a little mini-vacation right up to Kansas City. We visited the zoo, Kaleidoscope at Crown Center, and Worlds of Fun.

Sydney also tried Junior Golf and enjoyed it! Good thing Joe and I didn't sell our golf clubs, it seems we may have a future golfer on our hands (actually two-Gavin enjoys it too!) 

In August, we sent our two oldest off to their schools! Sydney started Kindergarten and Gavin started preschool, two days a week. They both enjoy and love going to school and are growing so much, right before our very eyes!

Many other memories have been made and fun times had over the past year and we could not ask for anything more. Life is busy, but life is good. We have been blessed in a multitude of ways and today is a great time to slow down and count those blessings. We have each other, we have our health, we have everything we need plus more, we have family and friends who love our children and our family. We are excited about what 2014 holds in store for our family!

Birthday wishes to Heaven!

Today my mom would have celebrated her 60th birthday and it's the fourth birthday of hers where we send her birthday love to Heaven. Overall, I feel like I have finally accepted our new reality--the way things are without her here, establishing a new normal, blah blah blah...everything everyone tells you to do or tells you to expect, once you have lost someone significant in your life. However, days like today (and Christmas), I cannot help but wonder what life would be like if she were still here. Especially today on her special day--how would we have celebrated? We would definitely have planned a party with cake, balloons, wine, her favorite people, in a place of her choice. (One year we spent it on the plaza in KC (she'd never been) and we enjoyed walking around the shops, seeing the lights, eating yummy food, drinking and playing cards in the hotel room. I imagine she would want to do something like that again--I know she enjoyed it and talked about it often.) Christmas and her birthday are two of the hardest days for me when it comes to missing her and on these days I find myself pondering what life would be like if she were still here.

Over the last week I have been overwhelmed with the feeling of just missing her; a weird combination of speechlessness + huge void + sadness. Bailey brought back some of her Christmas decorations and her Santa collection and what a blessing it has been to be surrounded by some of Mom's favorite things. Some of the boxes were filled with the smell of our childhood home at Christmastime--one that I cherished. Some of the candle holders have half burnt candles in them, so I've been enjoying them as well. I also have three of her Swedish table runners that she would put out throughout the house, her kitchen Christmas tree with cookie cutter ornaments, among a few other things. It helps and I am grateful to have these pieces of her in our home for the Christmas season. 

So on this day, I think of my mom. I would love the chance to hug her or talk to her just once more, but even that wouldn't be enough. Until the day we are reunited again, I will hold the memories of her dear to my heart, try to be the kind of mom she was to us, and send her birthday love to Heaven! 

Happy birthday Sydney!

A few days ago we celebrated your birth with a fun day of some of your favorite things! You basically led the show and chose what we ate and what we did and first up were pancakes for breakfast. To follow, we headed up to the aquarium at Crown Center, but first enjoyed pizza for lunch (FYI D'Bronx pizza is so very delicious!), some ice cream for us and a cookie for you, and a special trip to the Crown Center toy store. Shortly after, we headed over and enjoyed the aquarium and all of the sea creatures! We thought about driving around the plaza to see the lights like we have done for the past couple of years, but you were very anxious to get back home to play with your new toys, so we made our way back home instead. It was a fun, freezing cold, day that you declared "best day of your life!" :)

Each year when your birthday rolls around, naturally I replay the moments and hours leading up to your arrival. You were actually supposed to be a January baby, January 25th to be more precise. I had just had a doctors appointment the Wednesday before you arrived and the doctor didn't seem to think I'd be having a baby anytime soon. The following Friday was my last day of school before going on winter break (I told myself I would work on my sub plans while I was home on winter break--ha!), Dad and I exchanged our gifts for each other and got our gifts for our families situated for Christmas Day. (Oh and a huge snow storm had just came through and another was about to arrive...) Saturday, December 22nd was spent washing baby clothes and sheets, organizing drawers. I vividly recall thinking about packing my hospital bag, but decided against it and went about doing other things. That night we were watching football and eating chili when I soon found out that you were on your way! A quick visit with the nurse and a doctor confirmed it...she said "you'll have a baby tonight!" She was wrong about one thing though-we were having a baby, but you weren't born until after lunchtime the very next day! Whew it was a long time, but when you arrived I remember saying "she's the most beautiful baby I've ever seen!" We were ecstatic to finally meet you and were overjoyed that you were here and (seemingly) okay. Phone calls were made, hugs were passed around--but you were born with a fever so they had to take you to the nursery to see if they could give you some medicine to help you. While you were in the nursery, you started to have trouble breathing which they called "respiratory distress." Since you were so little and the hospital wasn't equipped to care for a premature baby, the decision was made to have you sent to Stormont Vail about an hour away. They sent for the Life Star helicopter and when you were only about 4 hours old you had your first (and only, thank God) helicopter ride! The nurses and staff assured us that this happens at least once a month, but you were our very first baby and in the moments leading up to you leaving and the moments after, it felt like we were the first and only parents in the world that had to be separated from their baby. The day of your birth went from the very best day of our lives to our very worst in just a matter of a few hours; however, once you arrived at the other hospital, they were quick to get you on the road to better health and I was able to join you that night. Daddy slept in the room with you (there was not a bed-just an awful, uncomfortable reclining/rocking chair) and I stayed at our cousins' house. The next eight days were pretty emotionally taxing on all of us, but we were reassured that you were going to be just fine and "respiratory distress" really is quite common in babies that are born early. We were able to bring you home on New Years Eve day and we got to ring in the new year 2008 together as a family of three, in our very own home. The following six years have flown by and we could not be more proud of the little person you have become. We love you so very much Sydney!
                                    

Letters to our Children: Avery

Happy 8th Month Avery!

You are growing up so quickly and we are having so much fun with you. This last month has been a busy one for you! Toward the end of November I noticed your very first tooth popping through (on the bottom, your left), and it was quickly followed by its neighbor, bottom right. Even just those two teeth already change the look of your sweet smile and you look bigger! Here are some of the cool things you are up to:

• sitting up for longer periods at a time! You do really well, but still occasionally tip over or fall off to your side.
• two teeth! (you chew and gnaw on everything!)
• babbling: you love to "talk" to us and are making lots of sounds! not just consonant sounds (mmmm, ggg, bbbb, ddd) but also "raspberries" and what I like to call "forced crying." ;) Crying without the tears and is pretty easily turned off when you get what you want. :) 
• clapping! You have always loved pat-a-cake and now you can do it on your own!
• rolling and reaching for things, though you are pretty content in staying in one spot so far. 
• You like lift-the-flap books, you lift the flaps, turn the page, and chew on the edges. :)
• You love to sleep on your tummy!
• Sleeping through the night the last three nights....Mom isn't declaring victory over the sleepless nights just yet, but I am encouraged and enjoying the rest. :)
• stick your tongue out!
• feed yourself food! you love bananas, noodles, chicken, pancakes

You bring us so much joy and are such a sweet, sweet baby. 

We love you to pieces!!!

Love you forever, Mom

Letters to our Children: Gavin

Hello my sweet boy...

It is no surprise to anyone who knows you that you thoroughly enjoy, love, and cherish your trains. ("I love trains!" was the first thing that came out of your mouth the other night when Dad said "say anything" as he recorded you---we were testing out our video camera to make sure it was working properly!) You currently have two separate set of trains; one is the larger, plastic, Thomas the Train set of tracks, trains, train cars, bridges, etc. The second set is one that was given to me by a friend when she quit teaching (she taught Kindergarten and kept this smaller, wooden set in her classroom.) You love them both--in fact the Thomas set traveled with us to Florida for Uncle Derrick and Aunt Bailey's wedding. (It entertained you in a not so child-friendly beach house, which was its purpose. :)) However, you most recently have become very attached to your "small" train set. When they were kept at my classroom, each time you came to visit you would head straight for the closet doors and would ask for the four baskets of wooden train tracks, bridges, and train cars. One day you were so upset at leaving the trains, I figured we could just bring them home "for the weekend." That "weekend" turned into weeks, then months, then eventually I ended up bringing all of the other baskets home to stay with us forever! It was the best thing we could have done, as those four plastic baskets have merged into one huge basket that permanently resides in our living room. Every day you build at least one track, sometimes more, and I often don't have the heart to disassemble it at the end of the day, so it may stay for a day or two. I have loved, loved, LOVED, watching you play with your trains. I feel like it gives me a small glimpse of how your precious little mind is working. You take your track building very seriously and have worked so hard at learning how to build them yourself, complete with bridges and criss-crosses. You always try to make a "really huge train" too with all of your train cars attached to the engine, with a caboose on the end. I see you solve the problem of the train cars repelling from one another and you swiftly spin one of them around and continue on throughout the rest of the train, spinning and connecting. I love it!

Now, as much as I love watching you play with your trains and as much as I enjoy playing trains with you--I am certainly not the master train track builder in our family. That role is filled by Dad. He is much better at it than I am (it must be his engineer, problem solving mind!) and when you ask me to make a track, I stick to the basics. I get great ideas of curvy loops and bridges and criss-crosses, but I cannot ever make them come to fruition. However, the other day you wanted me to recreate one of the best train tracks that Dad has ever made with these little wooden tracks (it had 3 loops and used all 3 of the bridges--quite a challenge!) I looked at you and said "oh, that's pretty tricky. I'm not very good at it...Dad is much better at it than I am." You looked right back at me and said "just try. Just try, Mom." Um, how can I argue with that?! (In a flash this total "Mom" thought whipped through my brain: "Aren't I always the one encouraging him to try new things?? (new food, dressing himself, etc., etc.) That certainly isn't going to go away, so what kind of example would I be setting if I did not try to build him this train track. Shouldn't he see that I believe in myself enough to do this for him?" etc. etc. etc.) So, we dove in and tried it. We worked together and we did it! We made a rather awesome train track, if I may be so bold. I was SO proud of it, you loved it....so I took pictures of it. Then I took pictures of the two of us with the train track. Then I looked at you, my sweet boy, and thanked you for encouraging me to try it, even when I didn't think I could do it. You believed in me, even when I didn't believe in myself.  Thank you, my sweet Gavin!

Love you forever and always,
Mom

December. Sydney's birth month!

We are about five days into the month of December and I am reminded that before long our first baby will be six. SIX! Every year I tell myself that age sounds so big and so grown up and I can't believe we have a child that "old." Something about six though is kind of hard to accept. She's reached and passed the "halfway" mark to ten. Now we are halfway through Kindergarten and it is flying by. Before long she'll be on summer vacation and preparing for her first grade year and in December 2014 I will be right back here typing the same words, but with a few changes (and I imagine all other subsequent years to come.) It is a bittersweet time as we watch our children grow and change-so much to be excited for, but a heart aches at how fast it's going and on occasion, I long for them to be their little infant or toddler selves again. I am sure I'll write a separate birthday post for Sydney in a few weeks, so I will try to keep this one at a minimum!

Dearest Sydney,

It's December! You'll be six years old before we know it. We are so proud of the little person you are becoming. Sometimes some of the things you say and do blow me away! In many areas you are wise beyond your years. I miss you when you are at school all day and I find myself checking the clock after lunch, with the hopes it's close to 3:35. Our home just doesn't feel complete until we have picked you up from school and brought you home with us! Since I don't see you most of the day one of my favorite moments of the day is at bedtime. I usually sing you your song "Goodnight my Princess" (which I completely made up, on the fly, one night years ago when you asked me for a princess song at bedtime! The next night you asked for it again and I had to try and remember how it went....you helped me. :)) After I sing your song and rub your back (or scratch it-whichever you prefer that night!) we usually have a little bit of time to chat about your day. I love hearing about your day, your friends, the exciting parts, the challenging moments, the good choices you made and good deeds you performed. I could talk to you, one-on-one, for the rest of the night, so I am sad when I have to cut our chat short because it's time for bed. You are always so sweet and gentle....we exchange hugs, kisses, and "I love yous"...I wish you sweet dreams and you send the same wish back to me. You have such a big heart-caring, thoughtful, and genuine-full of love! I could not be more proud of you!

Love you,
Mom