Christmas time is here

Well, we are full on into Christmas mode. Having fun with all of the decorations, lights, food, and presents, but making sure we continue to teach Zachary the true meaning of the holiday. He loves birthday's so he is very excited to celebrate the birth of Christ. Only, he's not quite sure why he is not going to an actual party. He'll figure it out!

He is also very excited for Santa Claus. He can't wait to meet him at my studio this coming Saturday. He told me he wants to hug him and see his reindeer. We are explaining the whole-it's not the real Santa thing. But, he does plan on staying up to see Santa this year. He's so into it this year, it's great!

As usual, we will be going to the cabin's for my family's Christmas in North Liberty. We leave next Friday after I'm done with classes for the fall semester. Looking forward to spending time with my family, although there will be no partaking in sledding this year! Then, on Christmas day we will head to Lawrenceburg to celebrate with David's side of the family and spend a couple days down there. Definitely not looking forward to all of the traveling coming up, but the family time is worth it! :)

Thursday the 16th start my weekly non-stress tests. We are nervously, anxiously, and excitedly counting down the last several weeks! Can't wait for an exciting 2011.

We wish everyone a blessed holiday season!

Halloween: Check, Thanksgiving: Here we come

So, Halloween has come and gone. Zachary loved everything to do with the season! He loves ghosts, and goblins, etc. I went to a haunted house one weekend and told him he couldn't go because I thought it would be too scary and he promptly told me that he is not afraid of anything-except spiders! He had a blast the entire month! He was Iron Zack and loved his costume, save for the mask. But, you could tell who he was nonetheless!

November 2nd marked Brenna's first birthday. The days and nights leading up to the day were horrible. I kept waiting for our world to end has it had the year before. But, the day ended up just being the three of us. We spent the day getting

and planting a Birchleap Spirea bush for her in our front yard. The bush will have green leaves with beautiful white flowers around the time of May and then they will turn an extraordinary purple in the fall! I wanted something that would show the most beauty in the fall. Since we have planted it, it has gotten healthier and the leaves have turned a dark red/purple. This beautiful weather we have been having helps preserve it a little longer. So, we honor our daughter with a plant we can watch grow and change in the seasons, as we are unable to with her.

Zachary, being truly my son through and through,

is well onto his way of Christmas thinking! He wants to watch Christmas shows all day and listen to Christmas music in the car (unless he gets the itch for his old favorite-OMG by Usher!)! How can I possibly deny this wonderful child those things? Simple, I cannot. But, I do sneak in my Thanksgiving specials in there too. We loves the Peanuts holiday trilogy, so he is always ready to watch that. I think he is starting to think that our Thanksgiving meal will involve toast, pretzels, popcorn, and jelly beans!!

I must say, I am looking forward to this holiday season with more Christmas spirit than I think I ever have. Last year was such a dark time for us. We only decorated for Zachary, I only watched a few shows for him, and I rarely had a note of Christmas music on. Let's face it, Christmas is about the birth of a miraculous child. We had just experienced the loss of ours. Everything about the holiday reminded us of that. And, being less than 2 months since she died, our emotions were still very raw. This year we look, with God, to the future and the baby to come shortly after the new year. This year we remember the gift that Brenna was, and the gift of life that God gave us by sending his son. And I'm sure there will be cookies and candy in there too! ;)

Here is a picture of all of us for Halloween!

Really, he's 4?!

Zachary turned four on Sunday August 29th! I can hardly believe I have a 4 year old. How I thought things would be different for him this year. But, he's still a happy well adjusted kid! :) We did his "kid" party at Bounce Town USA in Oswego this year. It was his first "friends" party. I think everyone had a blast! What is not fun about giant inflatable jump houses and slides? Seriously. If I wasn't pregnant there is a good chance I may have "tried" some of them! We also had David's parents up for most of the week which was a real treat. Zachary hadn't seen Pops (Don) in a while and he just loved every second of them being here. My parents made it up on Sunday for a few hours and of course that was fantastic for him as well! Overall, he had a great birthday and I am blessed to have the most awesome little Monster Face ever.

Well, as we start September, there is much to look forward to! Zachary has orientation tomorrow to see his new room and meet his teacher! He will be going Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday's this year!

We also have a lot of doctor's appointments lined up! We have 3 for me this month including our ultrasound at 19 1/2 weeks on the 15th (!), a regular appointment, and a heartbeat check. Zachary visits an Opthamologist for the first time for his eyes and then he sees Dr. Olsen on the 17th for his 4 year old check up. I love these appointments. I love seeing how big and long he is and how much he doesn't weigh!

I hope to post more pictures later in the week or early next week on his first day of school!

Zachary's 4th Birthday Party

Nothing says fall like...

Leave your answer in the comments. For us fall means FOOTBALL!! And football means, COLTS football!! We live for Sunday's. And Monday's. And then Thursday's and Saturday's too. The NFL does a great job of only letting us suffer two days with no football! Something else that starts in the fall (and usually carries over to late spring) is our need for corned beef! We used to cook it with cabbage, but I don't like it and David soon gave it up. So now it's just beef with carrots and potatoes. Still a damn good meal! There is just something about football and corned beef that feels like fall to me.

I also love the change of the season. I wish I lived in a land called-Fall. Where the weather 9 months out of the year was always fall-ish. There could be some days of cooler weather, mix in some rain, etc. But just the overall crisp beautiful fall day. I love all activities fall. Visits to orchards and pumpkin farms, hayrides, pumpkin spice latte's from Starbucks, apple cider, warm apple cider, caramel apple cider etc. I have been trying to get a group together to do the Naperville PD's annual hayrides for about 5 years now. I'm telling myself I will go this year.

Fall also means school! I always loved back-to-school. You got to buy new things, get new teachers, see your friends again, get back into school activities and sports. It was always a fun time of year for me. We just learned Zachary's new school teacher for the year. Mrs. Schamburger. We are very excited to meet her and see all the wonderful things Z will be exploring and learning this year!

The rule for me this fall is to stay busy, busy, busy. The thought of coming into Brenna's 1 year anniversary is so terrifying to me that I hope that if I just stay busy and not sit and dwell on it, I can make through the 1st and hardest anniversary.

Well, here is to a great start of fall (although it really is still a month away) and all the things we love about it!!

So much for staying up-to-date

I always do have the best intentions of getting on here and staying current with our household happenings. And then life happens. Is that fair to say?! So, this summer has just gone by so fast! We've had a lot of fun at the pool and visiting with friends and having family in. I think being busy all the time has made it go by so quickly. Our kick off to summer was our great big family vacation to Disney World!!! Zachary did great in the plane and we all had a wonderful time! Zachary loved meeting the characters and was very well behaved. He was more impressed with the parks than the gift shops and our wallets were thankful for that! Our first day in FL we were able to take a trip to the beach so Zachary could visit the ocean for the first time. He loved it! He didn't want to leave the water! Our weather was great the whole time. It rained a little one afternoon, but when you are in the "Happiest Place on Earth", how can you complain? Below is a slide show of our trip.

Upon our return we found out that we are expecting another baby due Super Bowl Sunday! This fills us with much joy, sadness, excitement, and hesitation all at once. Every emotion under the sun! I am 15 weeks now and besides the sickness stuff, all has been well. And, thank God, moving pretty quickly. We are not going to let the baby wait until February to come and will induce between 37-38 weeks depending on how mommy, daddy, and baby are fairing. Continued prayers are appreciated!

As the summer wraps up we are excited for fall, preschool, football (of course!), great new students at the studio, a growing belly, and much much more. Maybe if I don't tell myself I have to get on and update, it will flow easier and happen more naturally. Here's to hoping!

Disney Trip 2010

First Year of Preschool is Over!

Tuesday May 25th was Zachary's last day of 3-year old Preschool. How sad! We have decided to keep him in preschool 2 more years so he will turn 6 right at the beginning of his Kindergarten year. What a year this has been! It's an adjustment for any child to go into a different learning environment, plus we were planning for Brenna, then dealt with her death. Zachary has had a lot to deal with. We are so proud of how amazing he has done! The more socially and emotionally aware he gets of himself and others brings up questions about Brenna. It is sad when he asks us questions, but we continue to explain how much we love her and wanted her with us. Zachary has also accomplished so much with his writing, numbers, letters, shapes, etc. He loved school and I was glad that he didn't miss one day! He, of course, loved his teacher Mrs. Dowler! She was fantastic and just the person we needed. He would often like to roll play at home with me being Zachary and him being Mrs. Dowler. She was great at taking pictures and capturing moments through out the year and made each parent a CD slideshow! We are definitely going to miss her! On the last day it was warm enough for shorts, so I decided to put him in the same shorts as his first day (different shirt) and see how they compared. His is our big boy! Here is Zachary on his first day and then on his last day!

Busy Month

Well, as promised, May has come with a lot to do! Sometimes to break up the routine, we like to do a family "camp-out" in the living room. We blow up mattresses' and do S'Mores and popcorn. The last time we did this, Zachary loved it! This time, he only wanted to marshmallow's instead of the whole S'More, then didn't actually sleep downstairs with us! He decided to sleep up in his bed. But, then Sunday night he wanted his turn to sleep downstairs again. Of course that didn't happen!

Our friends Brittnie and Luke got a puppy a couple of months ago, so we have been taking some trips up to visit them and have Zachary play with Kyla. First he did not want to play at all and informed me afterwards that he no longer likes dogs, only cats. But, he did warm up to her. It takes him a little bit while she gets all of her excited-ness out of the way, but he will play with her. Yesterday after our visit both Zachary and Kyla were asleep with in 15 minutes of our departure!

Tomorrow we leave for Disney and we can't wait! It's finally here! Zack tells us that he doesn't want to go. But we know once we are into the journey he will love it. I still have classes tonight and David work, then it's finishing packing, to bed, early rising (3:30ish!!) then to the airport! Many, many, many photos to come!!

Ahh, May

I can hardly believe that May is already here. With it comes some ups and downs. May 2nd was the 6 month mark of loosing our precious baby girl. Sometimes it's hard from me to think that she has been gone so long, then other times it seems way shorter. These are the struggles we have every day of missing her. Of course in May is Mother's Day too. Since I have lost my own biological mother, it is always a day of blessings and sadness. I am thankful for Pauline, my earthly mother, and for being a mother myself. But, my heart misses Joyce, my heavenly mother, and my baby girl Brenna. The day was nice, though. Zachary told me Happy Mother's Day every chance he got (still on Monday too) and also sang some songs for me that he performed on the Thursday before in school. It was great. He cracks me up. I got some beautiful cards from both friends and family as well as some pretty flowers and the newest Sookie Stackhouse Novel I had been wanting! The boys made me breakfast and I got to relax most of the day. Not too bad.

May will also bring some great fun for us! On the 24th David and I will be celebrating our 7 year wedding anniversary!! And on the 31st I will be turning 25! Again! But, the biggest thing May brings to us is...DISNEY WORLD!!! We are so excited! We can hardly wait! We have a countdown calendar where Zachary puts a star on everyday. Today, we are 17 days out. 16 if you don't count today since today has already started... ;) This is our first real family vacation with Zachary and I can't tell who is more excited at this point-me, Zachary, or David!

We are busy wrapping up the end of school as well as continuing with things for recital. June will be here before we know it!

Zachary sings the blues

Well, not really, but he did sing. Well, sort of. April 22nd Zachary had his music program at school! We were so excited. And, since Grandma and Grandpa were in town helping out Amber, they were able to come too! The program combined Mrs. Dowler's (Zachary's class) class and Mrs. Wierig's class. They all did so great. It took Zachary about a number and a half to get warmed up enough to sing, though he never did belt them out. We were surprised because Zachary is not shy at all and he had been practicing earlier in the morning with Daddy. But, he did get into it. We enjoyed such songs as: God is So Good, Octopus, Where is Thumbkin?, Three Little Sausages, Mr. Sun, Ten Little Fishes in the Sea, and Itsie Bitsie Spider and Variations. The best came at the end when Zachary wrapped his little arms around his waste and gave a grand bow! It was great! Enjoy some pictures of the day!

It's time to try this again

So, I will attempt to try and keep my blog up-to-date and full of happenings and pictures.

Life is continuing for us. Everyday we love and miss our Brenna Angel (as Zachary calls her) more and more. We all struggle and grieve in our own ways, but are in the journey together. The more socially and emotionally aware Zachary becomes of himself and others he gets more curious about why Brenna is not with us. We continue to need love, support, and prayers from our friends and loved ones. This is a journey that will not end of us. Change, yes, but end-no. We are faithful that God will bless us again and we are looking forward to that.

As for our Monster Face. Wow, let's write a book. Oh wait-that's what this blog is for! He is doing so great in school! He loves it and has made so many friends! He behaves so well for everyone

and loves to push buttons and boundaries with his mom and dad! We are looking forward to our first FAMILY VACATION to DISNEY WORLD at the end of May!! We are going for Memorial Day weekend and couldn't be more excited!

David (when he's not traveling) and I continue to do our Share meetings once a month. We have met so many great people who, unfortunately, share the same heartache that we do. But, it's nice to know that someone can relate. I just did the March of Dimes walk on Sunday with my friend Laura and her family. Over 6 miles! Wow!

The studio is doing great and we are getting so close to recital! We are getting ready for DDDC's last competition this weekend and I can't believe how fast this year has gone! We have our first annual summer dance camps and intensive at the studio this year and we are hoping they will do great. We are bringing in some great talent for our dancer's!

I am looking forward to the summer and hopefully getting a pool pass to Pelican Harbor again and just being able to enjoy time with my family!

Well, here's to keeping this blog going!