Back to Blogging

Wow, well it's been almost 2 years exactly since my last blog entry!  Just had a wild hair and decided to get back into it :) 

Our biggest & latest news is that we are expecting another baby - he/she is due on Halloween!  We are excited to add on to our family. 

It was another rough first trimester for me (Sara) with nausea, vomiting, the whole nine yards!  I tentatively state that I'm "over" that - tentatively because I have thought/said that a few times over the past few weeks, only to have it come raging back!  I feel about the same as I did when I was pregnant with Alex, but being a few years older doesn't seem to help matters!  I frequently fall asleep on the mattress in the boys' room or on the couch before 10pm!  Again, I seem to be getting over that exhaustion portion as well, but sometimes it still hits me.  I am currently 13.5 weeks along.  Hopefully will be feeling a LOT better once the weather decides to finally warm up for good.  We seem to be missing spring around here - as the temps for the most part have consistently been below average this winter/spring.

Maddux & Alex:  Well, what can I say?  Those two guys are something else!  They are the best of friends, and then at times, they fight like....well they fight like brothers who are not quite two years apart in age! 

Maddux is going to be 5 in June and will start to attend Kindergarten this coming September.  How is that possible?   He is quite the kid.  His most recent interests/obsessions range from ANYTHING (and I mean anything) related to space, sports (especially basketball and baseball), learning how to spell/write words, farming, trucks and even monster trucks!  He has a sharp mind and a great sense of humor! 

Alex will be 3 in May (again, how did that happen so fast?) and is proving to be a very willful child!  He shares many of the same interests as his big brother (idolizes him) and wants to do everything Maddux does.  Alex is a very smart and funny little guy too - and it's so fun to see that they are alike in many ways but also that they have their own distinct personalities!  Alex still has his one dimple in his right cheek - which adds to his mischievous look. 

Bailey is still hanging in there.  She has heart/lung issues that require 3 different types of medications to maintain a somewhat comfortable life for her.  She has a bad heart murmur and ends up with fluid on her lungs. She has a heart cough as well.  We are so grateful that she has been able to hang around this long, and the boys love her so much.  We don't really know what to expect as far as how long she may still be around, but we try to enjoy whatever remaining time we have with her and try to keep her as comfortable and happy as possible. 

Since my last post, I have changed jobs from working in the child support office to now working at another department within the Dept. of Human Services for the State.  I work now in the administrative law area, rather than in the district court practice, so it has been quite a change, but a good change, I believe. 

I had ACL reconstruction surgery on Jan. 2 of this year and it is getting close to being back to "normal."  Or, at least the "new normal."  I still have some strength to build up, but the ACL itself is solid (according to the PT & doctor).  It will be "interesting" finishing up this rehab and getting it back to full strength as I get further along in this pregnancy.

Through all the changes and ups & downs in our life, we are truly grateful for the life we have made together.  God is great! 

GROWTH & SUCCESS

May we all grow like the carrot on the left....deep and strong :)  Happy Monday everyone! 

In this place....

"In the very place where God has put us, whatever its limitations, whatever kind of work it may be, we may indeed serve the Lord Christ."  {Elisabeth Elliot}

Fall 2011

Fall is upon us!  The air is crisp and the daylight hours are getting shorter.  We are hoping that life will slow down a bit as well. 

THE BOYS

MADDUX JOHN
Maddux, who has been in speech therapy for a couple of months now, is a chatterbox.  He is still working on pronunciation of some words, but he has come a long way in 2 months!  He is also flourishing at daycare and at home with us and seems to be learning new things everyday.  He (as you can tell from the picture) continues to be a big goof and to keep us all entertained.  He has a seemingly endless supply of both energy and stubborn-ness.  He's closing in on being 2 1/2 years old and that just floors me!  He does so well with Alex too....such a great big brother!  Maddux is into Elmo, Blue's Clues, trains, trucks, coloring/drawing (he has been drawing faces for a month or so!), Sesame Street flash cards and playing ball, among other things.  Maddux - I hope you forever remain as goofy and funny as you are now!

ALEX JACOB
As for Mr. Alex....Alex the Great!  He's such an easy baby.  Growing like a weed, though a little behind where Maddux was at this age in height/weight/head size...but Maddux set the bar pretty high on that!  Alex has been rolling over pretty consistently (both tummy-to-back and back-to-tummy) since he turned 4 months old.  He continues to sleep like a champ at night (sleeps 10-11 hours straight at night and has done this since he was a couple months' old!).  No teeth have poked through yet, so he's still a gumby.  He continues to charm us with his sly smile, cute dimple on his right cheek and eyes that light up like crazy!  Alex's personality is more laid-back than Maddux's, but also has a goofy streak to him.  As I felt with Maddux, I just can't imagine our lives without Alex anymore.  He's the perfect complement to our little family :)

As for the adults of the household, Jay and I are doing pretty well.  We both work hard and find ourselves working together to manage a household with two young children and a dog.  Just this past weekend we got an evening to ourselves (thanks to my parents for babysitting) and I think it was a great experience for both of us to recharge the batteries!  We had a delicious meal at The Toasted Frog, had some fun at the Haunted Fort and got home just after the boys fell asleep and were able to enjoy watching a movie together uninterrupted.  That's pretty much my idea of a perfect date night!  Felt good to be able to sit and talk about things and give each other some undivided attention.

Bailey continues to be her normal goofy self as well.  We are working with her to stop her from "going" on the garage floor - that seems to be the main issue with her right now.  Sometimes I think she acts like she misses her companion, Jerz.  We are very grateful we still have Bailey.  Oct. 27th will mark the 5th anniversary of us rescuing her from the pound.  After 5 years with us, she has become somewhat more trusting of the people that come to our house, even some of the male relatives.  She will likely always be a little skiddish but we are just happy we had the chance to give her a great "new life" in a forever home :)

We thank God for giving us so many blessings in our lives.  May we never take a single one for granted!

Another Attempt to Return to Blogging

Well here we are over a year after my last post.  It might be an understatement to say that a lot has changed since then.  We welcomed our 2nd son, Alex Jacob, on May 26th, 2011.  He's absolutely amazing, just like his older brother! 

But with great joys in this life also comes some great sadness.  We had to stay goodbye to our beloved beagle Jersey on July 11th this year.  While it has been a few months since her passing, we still miss her so much and life is just not the same without her....

I will attempt to keep this updated with stories and pictures more frequently from now on!  Just a short note for now!!

All he wants to do is DANCE!!

Return to blogging...

Well hello everyone...after a LONG break from blogging, I have decided to return to it...

I even skipped right over Maddux's first birthday!! However, I have posted some of his "formal" one-year photos from Sears. I'm still in shock that he is already over one year old and that he looks like a little boy already. There is almost NO baby about him anymore!

As you can imagine...he keeps us busy and on our toes all the time. He is still not walking on his own, but we're thinking he will start soon. He just needs to work on some balancing and standing on his own first I think!!

Time has flown by of course. There have been some ups and downs in the last few months for us and our families. We continue to appreciate what blessings we have and get through the tough times together.

We found out at the end of March that we were expecting again. However, complications began on Easter weekend and by later April, we were able to finally figure out that it was an ectopic pregnancy. Last week I went in and everything checked out well, which is good. It's still very sad to lose a pregnancy like that. I have some friends and family members that have also lost pregnancies and now I can truly understand what that is like. Our 2nd baby would have been due in early December. But we have tried our best to get through those emotions and look forward to the future, and hopefully another successful pregnancy in our future.

Of course most of the "ups" in our lives revolve around our little man! If any lesson is to be learned by what we went through, it is that we must be grateful for Maddux's life and to appreciate what a miracle having a successful pregnancy and healthy child truly is!

In May, Tom and I ran the Fargo half-marathon in just under 2 hours, 10 min! I had to take a break in training due to the pregnancy but was able to resume afterward. It was a good, positive thing to focus on after that.

For Memorial Day, we took Maddux for his first trip to Papa and Gramma Gerhardt's house in Pollock, SD. It was a pretty good trip, except he was not comfortable sleeping there and had a meltdown in the middle of the night. But he was much more comfortable there by the 2nd day and thanks to Jay buying the Ferber book, we have managed to get him in a much better sleeping pattern, with no bottles before bed or middle of the night feedings. In fact, he's moved on to pretty much just sippy cups, with no bottles excpet at daycare when he sees the baby drinking from a bottle. How exciting ;)

Jay has done some work with landscaping around the house and getting the back yard seeded. My garden is more successful than last year, but I'm still not quite at the green thumb level. We both continue to work full-time and still try to have some fun.

We were able to get a short vacation to Minneapolis in June to see a couple Twins/Braves games which was a blast! We took maddux to the first night's game and then Jay's mom and aunt watched Maddux for the 2nd night's games so we could go with Jay's dad and uncle. That was the first time I had gotten to see my faviorite MLB team live plus we got to go to the Twins new Target Field stadium! Maddux did very well traveling until about the last 200 miles of the trip. I don't blame him, as I would not want to sit in a car seat that long either!!

The weekend after Minneapolis we had a big 1st birthday bash for Maddux - it was baseball-themed and I had a blast planning it and decorating for it! We even got a great game of wiffle ball in with everyone. Maddux cooperated in diving into his cake and I got to open all his presents for him - he was more interested in the cards! Lots of family & friends contributed to make it a very fun and special birthday celebration!

Yesterday we went to the funeral of Janell Hellman, a family friend and a sister-in-law of our sister-in-law, Val. This was just such a devastating loss to her family, friends and the whole community. Janell battled cancer for 7 years, and in the end it was just too much for her to fight. Our hearts and prayers continue to go out to her family, especially the husband and 3 girls she left behind. We know that her legacy of kindness, strength, courage and hope will live on and we are truly honored to have known her. We will have a small token of what she meant to people, as she made Maddux's baptismal bib for him last year. She did that for all the babies baptized at Sacred Heart in Glen Ullin and for family and friends' babies. We will be happy to tell Maddux someday how special that baptismal bib really is, and to tell him about Janell.

With the experiences of life and death, we try to take with us lessons to be learned and hope for the future.

And our family's story continues....