Music to My Ears

Now that we have a child, many different sounds are heard throughout our house. One of my favorites is Kyler's laugh. There is just something about the laughter of a child that is so innocent and exhilarating!

"Rubber duckie, you're the one!"

Warm water + bubbles + a crazy mom singing bathtime songs + a rubber duckie = Kyler's idea of FUN!

"My Sister's Keeper"

Sometimes I like to go into Kyler's room while he is sleeping and just stare at him. As I am looking at him in a daze, I think about just how lucky Josh and I are to have such a healthy and happy baby. I also think about how amazing life is. We created Kyler with just one simple act of love. He grew inside of me for nine months - everyday developing more and more. The creation of life is such a beautiful process, and I have been fortunate enough to have experienced it first hand.

This process has really changed me as a person. For obvious reasons, I am now a mother and I have a child that relies on me. But I also feel as though I have a new found appreciation for all parents, especially my own. If I would have known just how much my parents cared about and loved me, I probably wouldn't have been so horrible to them in my teen years. A parent is a very special person - you have to be in order to love someone as much as a parent loves their child.

I just got finished reading, "My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Picoult. This is a story about a sister's battle between keeping her sister alive and the right to her own body. If you have read any of Picoult's work, you know that she likes to write from the different viewpoints of the characters. To see the many sides to every story, each chapter views the story through someone else's eyes. "My Sister's Keeper" was a very difficult story for me to read for the sheer fact that I am now a mother. I probably wouldn't have really thought much about it had I not been a mother. Anna was created by her parents as a "perfect match" for her older sister with leukemia. They were only going to take the cord blood from Anna and use it to help her sister, but it didn't seem to stop there. This really got the parent side of me thinking. What would I do if I were faced the a situation like this one? As a parent who would do anything to help either one of her children, what could you do? If I had one child dying and another one suing me for the right to her own body, what would I do? This book really got me thinking about how thankful I am to have a healthy child, what I would do if I didn't have a healthy child, and hoping that I will never have to deal with a similar situation. I highly recommend it.

Thanksgiving

When I think of Thanksgiving, there are so many sights, sounds and smells that come to mind. When I was younger, Thanksgiving was a time for family gatherings, late nights with the cousins, making crazy crafts that my Aunt Mary would conjour up, but most of all a fabulous feast (including my favorite, black olives)! Then when Josh and I were dating we blended our families together by spending Thanksgiving with his family and Christmas with mine. This somewhat morphed the meaning of Thanksgivng from time with my relatives into time with the "new" side of my family. That meant we would travel to the western slope of Colorado and feast on the fixin's (including black olives) and turkey. The change was much welcomed due to the fact that I wasn't EXPECTED to help - even though I did. This year the meaning of Thanksgiving changed once again. Josh and I opted to stay at home for Thanksgiving. We did this for many reasons, which included the weather, the 6 hour drive, a break, and a time to start our own traditions with our new family. Regretably so, Thanksgiving just didn't seem like Thanksgiving this year. I'm not saying that it was a bad Thanksgiving, but there just wasn't the usual hustle and bustle of everyone trying to pitch in and find a place at the table. Yes, we did fix ourselves a feast (including black olives), but it just wasn't the same without much family surrounding us. We'll see what next year will have in store for us. We hope that all of you had a happy, and healthy Thanksgiving!

Five Fabulous Months

Today Kyler is 5 months old! Can you believe it? I can sit here and tell all of you just how time flies, but you already know that especially if you have children of your own! Kyler is doing so many things now. He is rolling all around, smiling at all sorts of things, giggling, singing, and practically sitting up on his own. The other day, while I was working out in the basement, I decided to put him in his baby papasan chair to see just how he has grown. Here are the two pictures side by side so you can see:
Kyler the day we brought him home from the hospital (June 28, 2008). The chair dwarfs Kyler.

Kyler at 5 months (November 26, 2008). He is almost too big for this chair now - Kyler dwarfs the chair!

It is so hard for me to imagine just how tiny Kyler once was. And this is a great way for me to see just how much he has grown, and in such a short time!

A Pleasant Surprise

The other day, Josh and I went to check the mail for the first time in about a week. As I was thumbing through all of the junk mail and bills, I stumbled across a hand addressed envelope. I really get excited about hand-addressed envelopes because I rarely get them and they usually contain exciting news. This particular one was quite odd in that it didn't have a return address written on it. I proceeded to open it and it contained a short note that read, "Sorry this is so late! Congratulations on your little one!" I thought this was very nice considering it also held a $35 gift card to A Children's Place. As I was thinking about what a generous gift this had been and how it just made my day, I realized that there was no signature. We still are quite puzzled as to who would have done such a great thing. We would like to personally thank the person who did this, but can't since there was no return address or signature. So if you are the mystery person and are reading this, thank you so very much for your anonymous gift; we truly appreciate it!

Cool Cousin Kyler

Today I recieved a phone call from my older brother, Brian. He didn't want to talk to me, but he did ask to speak with Josh and Kyler. I questioned this because he had called MY cell phone. He said that he had some information for just Josh and Kyler and not me. He and Courtney had just gotten finished at the doctor's office and found out that they are expecting their second girl in April! Brian didn't want to share this infromation with me because I decided I didn't want to find out the gender of our child until the day he was born. Congratulations Brain and Courtney!

Thankful

The other day at work, as part of a "morale building" project, we were asked to write down 5 things that we are thankful for. What am I thankful for? Geeze, what kind of question is that, and to only limit me to just 5 things - was this some sort of joke? Then it got me to really thinking, "What am I truly thankful for?" I am thankful that I have friends and family such as you. I am thankful for my health and that of my family. I am ever so thankful for my wonderful husband. I am thankful for my job (although it is hard some days). As I was listing these things out to myself, I was thinking how many of the things that I am thankful for stem from three main things: family, health and job. If it weren't for my family I wouldn't be here, Josh wouldn't be here and therefore Kyler wouldn't be here. If it weren't for my health there are many things that I wouldn't be able to do and or remember. And if it weren't for my job I wouldn't have met my very best friend and I wouldn't be able to afford the things that I like to do. After all of this thought put into what should have been such as simple exercise, I finally wrote:
1. My husband
2. My healthy and happy family
3. My friends
4. My job
5. The memories that I have created