Sunday, July 28, 2013

Blessings

One of the greatest blessings about having two boys is the way they interact with each other.  Daniel only needs to see Andrew's eyes and smile and he immediately becomes happier!  He loves his big brother and truly enjoys spending time with him.  Andrew loves being a big brother so much.  He is very protective of his little brother and worries when Daniel is upset.  He knows just what to do to make him laugh when he is upset!  We are so blessed with two incredible little boys!




Summer 2013

Wow!  Andrew celebrated his 4th birthday, Lego Batman style!  





















 We set up some fun games for the kids!  Including saving batman from Mr. Freeze (which meant giving the kids squirt guns to shoot at batman frozen in ice).  It was a hot day, so by the end the parents and kids were all having a giant water fight.  They had a bounce house to jump in and we played a few other games, lastly enjoying a pinata, lego style!
We have really enjoyed a fun and exciting and busy summer.  We've made last minute travels to Idaho for cousin Reganne's 9th birthday party!



which of course meant a trip to the Boise zoo and multiple trips to Chik-Fil-A... YUM... We were home for a few weeks and then the cousins came to stay in Oregon for two weeks!  So that meant two separate three day beach trips!  First to Newport, then to Astoria. We really had an amazing fun time.  The boys are so very blessed to have such amazing cousins!  We always have fun together!  The summer is slowing down a bit.  Andrew is enjoying soccer practices and playdates with his friends. 

He also rode a pony for the first time and LOVED it!  He kept saying he was a cowboy!  IT was awesome!  

Saturday, July 27, 2013

Devastated

I wrote this post when Daniel was just a few weeks old, but forgot to post it, I think it is still timely...
It's been a tough week for me... Emotionally I am trying to be strong, but I find those quite moments when crying is what I need.  I look at my precious newborn and my lovely 3 year old and feel so blessed, yet my heart aches for my dear friend and colleague.  About two weeks ago, she went to the doctor regarding the lingering cough that never went away.  One chest x-ray and a diagnosis of stage 4 lung cancer and it has reached the brain.  I am devastated.  She is one of those people that I connected with during my first year as a mentor.  Extremely gifted as an educator and overall just a fun person.  I have loved working with her over the past 5 years. This year as our caseloads were so high, she took over one of my new teachers.  He is a great teacher and I still enjoy visiting his room since I have several others at his school.  It's always a treat when I run into her at the school.  I feel helpless and broken.  I wish I could do something, anything to make the pain for them go away.  I can't.  But I can pray, write notes, send emails, and do other little things to let her know how much I care.  I am so broken by this, but for now I must move forward and share love!

Boys!

So much has happened! Most of you know that our family was blessed with another little boy on February 10th, 2013.  
Daniel Ray joined us quite unexpectedly.  My official due date was March 6, 2013, but he decided that after 36 weeks, he was ready for his debut.  Since I was a month from my due date, the hospital does not offer anything to stop or help with labor.  You are expected to go through it and they hope that it just stops on it own... I called my mom early in the morning on Saturday the 9th and explained I was in labor.  She rushed down (Greg was supposed to head to Bend for a few days), so she was already planning to spend time helping me get the nursery ready.  Greg and I made it to the hospital around 7:30am.  I was terrified.  Yes, I was in labor, but I was only dialated to 2.5 cm and they weren't ready to admit me.  Go home I was told.  So I stayed at home and tried to get things done, having to stop every 5 minutes with intense pain.  Finally by 7pm I knew that I couldn't last a whole lot longer so once again we headed to the hospital.  After an hour and a discussion with the doctor, I was given three options.  I finally decided that I would go ahead and be checked in and monitored (we had progressed to 3.5cm by then)... There was a chance that if we did not progress by the next morning I would be sent home.   Well, I slowly progressed and at 9:26am on Sunday February 10th, Daniel entered our world.  He was 7pounds, 19 inches long.  Since he was a preemie the NICU nurse had to come and check him out. My obgyn had warned me that he probably would need to go to NICU for a bit...  Thankfully he passed every test with flying colors (even having his glucose checked every 3 hours!) So we were able to keep him with us.  Unfortunately he was tongue-tied (yes that's a real thing).  So he had to have a minor surgery on his second day of life.  He dropped down to 6 pounds 7 ounces and so they were a bit worried, but ever since then he has done great!