2015. A look back

What a year it has been for our little family!  We have had lots of adventures and fun, many sleepless nights, LOTS of doctor appointments, and learned to love as a family of four.  Here is a little look back at 2015.

January

-We celebrated Zach's 31st birthday, settled into life with a new baby, and I went back to work taking Aria with me.

 

 

February

-Aria got RSV and spent a couple nights in the hospital.  I also cut dairy and caffiene completely out of my diet and our baby (and the rest of the family) was MUCH happier!

 

 

March

-The littlest cousins all got to meet when my sister came to visit with the twins.

 

 

April

-We celebrated Easter, Aria learned to roll over and laugh at her silly brother, and Lyle turned three (we celebrated with a construction party!)

 

 

May

-Aria started daycare, was dedicated to the Lord, we went strawberry picking, and Zach and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary.

 

 

June

-Zach worked hard helping his dad with Harvest and we helped deliver a lot of meals to the field.

 

 

July

-We celebrated the 4th of July in Kansas City, Aria started eating solid food, and I celebrated my 28th birthday.

 

 

August

-We headed out to Camp Mennoscah for our church retreat, had a crazy weekend at the Harper County Fair, added a new neice and cousin to the brood, and Aria had to spend a night in the hosptial with pneumonia.

 

 

September

-Lyle started preschool, we had play time with the cousins, and attended a family wedding.

 

 

October

-We had a fun girls weekend with my sisters and their kids, hosted a baby shower, went home for my 10 year high school reunion, gained another beautiful neice, celebrated Halloween, and took Lyle in for dental work and to the allergist.

 

 

November

We celebrated Thanksgiving with family and had a busy month with work and church activities.

 

 

December

Zach and I went to a Garth Brooks concert, Aria turned one (we celebrated with a Winter ONEderland party), we celebrated Christmas with family, and Lyle had surgery to have his tonsils and adenoids removed.

 

 

 

Even on the days when we are tired, sick, or worried....we are SO blessed.  I am so thankful for our wonderful family, friends, church, community, and all the opportunities we had to enjoy great things this year.  Here is to a wonderful 2016!!!

Christmas 2015 (so far)

I don't know about you, but the first work-day after Christmas is always a little hard.  This year especially.  The ground and roads were frozen this morning as I made my way to work, leaving the house for the first time in days.  Wishing I had made coffee before I left the house so I could be just a bit more awake when I got to work.  The last several nights have been rough.  Lyle had surgery on Tuesday to have his tonsils and adenoids removed, and since then sleep has come in much shorter intervals. 

 

Sort of like last year at this time when I had a newborn. ;)

 

We were able to celebrate Christmas with my side of the family early, and we enjoyed a day full of good food, opening of presents, playing with cousins, and catching up on life.  

   

 

We have some professional tissue paper flingers on our hands!

Our attempt at a cousin picture.  For some reason the littles didn't want to be held still! HA! (Just missing the newest edition baby Mae!)

 

Tuesday morning(i.e. the middle of the night) we headed to the hospital to get Lyle ready for surgery.  The admissions and pre-op staff were great.  He was nervous that morning, but was pumped that his hospital bracelet made him the official "elevator button pusher."  In fact he didn't want to take it off once we got home in case we came accross any elevators.  LOL.  There was a play room in pre-op that completely distracted him until they were ready to go. 

He got a dose of medicine to help him relax, and it turned him completely goofy and giggly, talking about alien poop of all things.  It actually was a huge blessing, gave us some comedic releif, and calmed our nerves.  We left him smiling and laughing and that was good for this mama's heart.

 

Surgery went well, and fairly quickly.  I was thankful we didn't have to wait long to know that things went okay.  I went to recovery to be with him, and that's when things got a little rough.  The nurse warned me that a lot of kids that age wake up angry, and poor guy did exactly that.  He hated his IV and wanted it out, and nothing would calm him down.  I was in bed with him, holding down his arms, while the nurse worked on getting his oxygen up and his medicine worked out.  He finally fell alseep for a few minutes and woke up much calmer.  He didn't touch his IV once after that.

We were taken up to the pediatric floor to stay overnight.  The staff was wonderful and we even had visits from Christmas carolers and Ronald McDonald (little bud was on the channel 3 news!).  He took full advantage of the popsicles that were offered!  And begged for rides around the floor in the wagon as often as we would take him.  We were very thankful for family and friends who kept Aria and brought us much needed food and coffee.

He seems to feel better and worse in waves, following whether he has pain or not.  His best day was probably Christmas Eve.  He woke up ready to make cookies for Santa, and had energy for the whole process. 

 

We used every single cookie cutter, type of sprinkle, and color of food coloring to make cookies that morning.  So Santa got a blue Star Wars ship (with a million sprinkles) and a green dog bone for his treat.

 

Aria and I headed to our church's Christmas Eve service.  She was a wild woman and hammed it up for anyone that would pay attention!

 Lyle with his cookies and milk for Santa and carrots for the reindeer.  He insisted on a silly face picture.

 

 

Christmas morning in matching pj's!

 

His "chomper dinosaur" he asked Santa for!

 

Where's Waldo books

 

Making ice cream with Papa.

Bear Cheeks!

 

Lyle is still recovering, but after spending time in the hospital during Christmas we are very thankful for the health that we do have and the family and friends that surround us.  I know not everyone has that, and that some years, Christmas is just plain hard.  Today I am resting in the fact that God is in control, just as he was so many years ago.  So if you are looking at everyone's Facebook and Instragram posts and feeling a little down, know that Jesus was born in a not so picture-perfect setting. He has it all in his hands.



Friday Favorites

It is one week until Christmas people!  Can you believe it??? It seems like blogging lately has only been hitting the big stuff, and it's been forever since I've joined a link-up, so I'm here sharing some of my favorites from the week!

One- The kids Christmas program was at church on Sunday.  I went with Lyle to practice on Saturday and he refused to leave my side.  He wouldn't sit on the stage without me, he wouldn't sit on the front pew without me, nothing.  He also refused to wear the cow ears because he wanted to be a gecko instead.  When we got home I was telling Zach about our morning, and he asked Lyle if he cried.  Lyle said, "I fake cried."  Little stinker!  This picture is during the performance on Sunday morning during church...sitting on the bottom step covering his ears.  I guess we'll call it a success that he's even up there at all????

 

Two- Christmas Spirit.  I love sitting in the living room in the evenings with my family with the christmas lights twinkling in the background!  Lyle asks every night if he can help me wrap presents.  He is my official "hold your finger here while I get a piece of tape!" man!  I like to get new rolls of paper each year, but this year I am just using up my stash.  We take almost all of our presents to grandparent's houses to open, so my one tip is to wrap each family (i.e. Zach's side, my side) in a different color paper.  It is SO much easier to grab the right thing when packing up to go! (Learned that one the hard way!! lol)

This robe is Lyle's favorite thing right now.  He had even put it on in the middle of the night one night!

 Three-Lyle's preschool decorated gingerbread houses and had their Christmas party this week!  Grammy rescued him and went to help since I didn't have any extra time to take off of work. 

Four- This week we hosted the night at church where families picked up their gifts for the angel tree.  In our community families in need fill out requests for their children, and other families sponsor them and buy gifts and clothes!  This night is so rewarding to see all of the families so excited and grateful for their presents.  This project takes a lot of time and coordination, but it is so worth it!

Five-I took little miss to her one-year check up, and then back to work with me so we could get her one-year shots taken care of.  Hopefully all the attention and play time with the girls makes up for getting poked by mommy!  Also...today was jammies day at daycare.  Lyle elected to wear his skeleton jams, and of course I put Aria in her Christmas ones.  Can we all have jammies day please???

 

Happy Happy Friday!  We are headed to my parents to have Christmas tomorrow.  I can't wait for all the fun!

Winter ONEderland Party

We had such a fun time celebrating Aria's birthday on Saturday with our family! 

While I was searching Pinterest for birthday ideas, I came across the theme of a Winter ONEderland party.  I thought it was perfect!  I combined a few invitation ideas I found, and made these to send to our guests. 

 

December birthday are great, because with my Christmas decorations up I felt like I was already half-done decorating!  I hung a few big ornaments and snowflakes in the window, and created "fake snow" with a white sheet and snowmen and snowflakes for the table.

 

 

Lyle had been asking to help make her cake for weeks, so he was pretty excited I let him decorate it all!

"Snow-covered" pretzels, and party blowers.  We also served Chilllli, baked potatoes with toppings, chips, carrots (snowmen noses), and cutie oranges.

 

A photo wall of instagram prints.

 

Snowflakes-Hobby Lobby, Pictures-printed at Walgreens

My sweet family and the birthday girl!

She has learned the art of blowing kisses!



Bow. Leggings-Jmac (local shop). Shirt and tutu-homeade

Brother hugs!

 

Sharing secrets with Grandaddy.

Telling cousin Kaia how great it is to be one!

Spending a sweet moment with Great Grandma.

 

 She was excited about that cake!

 

Lyle sang a round of Happy Birthday to her all by himself.  Look at that smile she gives him...then watch her eye-ing her cake and signing "please" about halfway through!

 

Time to dig in!

 

 

 

 

We ended the night opening gifts and taking turns sliding down her new slide!  We were so thankful for our family that could be there, taking time to spend with us during such a crazy month.  And we are especially thankful for this little girl who makes us smile!