Thankful

Is it just me or is it abundantly clear just how much we all have to be thankful for this year?

I've teared up so many times in the past week that I should start to wear waterproof mascara.

It's just such an emotional thing when you look around at stuff that often goes unnoticed and realize that you have SO much to be thankful for.

And while I'm thankful in mass amounts for the big things like good health and a roof over my head and food to feed my family, it's more like the little things that I find taking my breath away.

Loud whispered secrets from one very adorable six year old.

Spaghetti-Os in Ethan's hair.

A great big hug after Madison runs from the bus screaming "Momma Momma" after school.

Watching Madison get even more excited on Fridays when daddy is home to meet her getting off the bus.

Bubble baths and the tiny little bodies that bathe in them.

Sticky fingers from peanut butter and jelly.

Husbands that put up with insanity at times.

The words "please" and "thank you".

Ethan speaking his first sentence - "Bye Dadda."

An 18 month old sweet little boy who loves to cuddle and kiss.

Wonderful friends and neighbors...a great support group that would do anything for each other.

A husband that works crazy hours so that our children aren't in daycare and so that I can work part-time.

Fingerprints all over the tv, windows, and doors.

Listening to Madison read and watching her write sentences.

A sister that I adore and love...we are so much alike yet so very different.

From our house to yours, I hope you take time to recognize the teency things that make you go all gooey in the knees!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

Happy 1st Birthday Ethan!

One year. 12 months. 52 weeks. 365 days. 525,600 minutes. 31,536,000 seconds. Seemingly, all gone in the blink of an eye. Someone once told me that time passes quicker the older you get and if I really wanted to see how fast time passes, have some kids. Boy were they right!

The last year has been amazing. Simply amazing. Just when I thought life couldn't get any better, Ethan entered our lives. It's exactly like someone once told me when I was worrying about how you can love another child as much as your first. She explained that God doesn't give you a little pie of love and you divide it out equally. Rather, it's like the Grinch. Your heart has the ability to grow and expand to accommodate the overwhelming amount of love that you have for your children. It's so true.

I could literally eat this kid up and of course, I totally dig that he's as much into me as I am into him. I'd like to take a walk down memory lane. My heart is literally fluttering as I look back on these pictures and I remember the moments. Is that the way it will be when my kids are grown? Perhaps the tears a mother sheds at a wedding for her child has more to do with the compounding of moments from the life shared with her baby. In an overwhelming flooding of memories, the body has to do something or it will explode. Oh dear...can you imagine MOI on Madison or Ethan's wedding day. Maybe we should go ahead and invest in Kleenex stock! And just like that, our boy is growing up! *sniffle* I guess it really is true. Time flies when you're having fun!


Just Born! Birth Day!

hospital picture


3 weeks

6 weeks

2 months

3 months

4 months

5 months

6 months


8 months

9 months

10 months

11 months



1 year

Yesterday, I was a mess! I rocked Ethan to sleep and soaked his jammies with tears as I whispered, "just stay little, just stay little" over and over again. I know I sound manic, but please don't worry about me. I just have a hard time with my kids growing up. This moment in time is so fleeting and so precious. So incredibly precious. Perhaps I break the norm of truly getting how fleeting time is. How we can never ever get this moment back.

It's a shame that parenting is filled with so many time-snatching routines. There isn't much time in a day that one can just sit on the floor and play with the kids. Dishes and laundry can only wait so long to be cleaned. Houses don't clean themselves and well, parents need sleep too. We're left to snagging mere moments while we're dressing the kids or they're circling our legs while we're cooking dinner to steal some kisses and laughs. It's just not fair.

Enough with the philosophical renderings of my head and heart...let's talk happy stuff.


"Happy birthday to ETHANNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!! Happy birthday to you!" we all crooned in unison over and over today as Ethan watched with excitement!


Happy birthday Ethan! Mommy and Daddy are so proud to have you as our son and look forward to the years to come! What a tremendous blessing! Stay tuned for birthday cake pictures! Party is May 30th and it's going to be great!

Happy Easter

Madison & Ethan after setting out the Easter baskets and carrots last night.

Madison & her Easter basket and goodies.

Ethan & his Easter basket and goodies.

Ethan's 1st Easter!!

Madison & her flower headband.

Update on Ethan

After Ethan's 9 month appointment I had called my friend and asked her what she would do if she were me. She said she would call her daughter's physical therapist and talk to her. She called and talked to her for me and she said she would come and look at Ethan. We were thrilled since we were clueless and wanted more information before going to Children's Hospital in Milwaukee. She came over on a Friday night before my friend, her, and I went to dinner and a movie. She said that he did have a flat spot as well as some assemtry. She also said that his neck was tight and needed stretching and that we should do physical therapy (stretches) on him every time we change his diaper. She said since he had the flat spot and the assemtry (which is that his one ear stuck out more and his one cheek was swollen) that she would recommend having him banded. Kevin and I just wanted to do what was best for Ethan. She said that we would have to tell Children's to band him. Well, at least we were more prepared than before she came over.

The next week we took Ethan to Children's Hospital. It seemed that they were more concerned about his weight than anything. We weren't concerned because the doctor's have been monitoring it and he had gained weight and was back up on the charts. The doctor felt that his flat spot and everything was minimal and that some kids that are banded end up the same as Ethan was or slightly worse. She did say that he has torticollis..which is the tightening and lack of range of motion of his neck muscles. This can be from lack of tummy time. However, Ethan loved tummy time and so they decided that it was from birth or while in utero. So she wrote a prescription for torticollis physical therapy. We really pushed and pushed for the banding but it was a no go. She informed us that insurance would not cover it and it would be $3000. However, even though we wouldn't want to pay that much...cost was no issue. We wanted him banded but still no matter how much we pushed...it wasn't going to happen.

We weren't sure where to take him for physical therapy. His primary doctor said we could go to Neenah. I asked if we could go to Aurora in Oshkosh to the physical therapist that had come over to our house and was told we could go wherever. So I called our insurance to find out if Aurora was in network and it was. So we made an appointment with Karen (the physical therapist that came to our house).

We took him to Karen about a week ago. She was so impressed with how he looked. She noticed considerable improvement. She said that his flat spot isn't as flat and that his range of motion is minor now. She said that he still has some assemtry but not much. No one would notice unless we pointed it out. A lot of the improvements is from Ethan being so mobile and from us constantly doing the physical therapy at home. I believe it had been almost a month since Karen had seen him before. We were happy that we went to her since she had seen him before and would know how he looked before. We were so thrilled that he had dramatically improved. We will need to continue the physical therapy at home but we will not need to go back to see her. She said she would like to see him around his 1st birthday but she said she would come to our house. She is the best! We will continue to do the physical therapy at home until he is 3 years old. She said he definitely didn't need banded now...it was more for cosmetic purposes now. She said it is better to know earlier on if they should be banded but Ethan was borderline at 9 months. Banding should be done earlier.

Anyway...there is the update...everything has turned out better than we thought.

10 Months

I have been really bad about updating my blog lately. We are just so busy all the time. Here are some pictures I recently took - mainly of Ethan but Maddie is in one of them.

This table was a Christmas present from his grandparents and we just took it out of the box. Sounds terrible right? Well..he got a bunch of gifts and we decided not to open them all up at once..that way he would have something new later on. Plus...he was not into everything at that time. Now that he is pulling himself up and cruising around the furniture we thought it was time to bring this out. Wow was he excited! And Madison was too...she loves his toys almost as much as he does. So that was a bonus..kept them both busy forever.


Look at Momma's sweet boy...he knows he is cute.

"Look Momma..one hand!"

They play so nice together. ;o)

Ethan's 9 Month Appointment

Today was Ethan's 9 month check-up.

Here are his stats:

17lbs (yay he is finally back up to the 5th percentile)
26.75 inches

His doctor recommended that we take him to Children's Hospital in Milwaukee to have the shape of his head checked/documented so we will be going there on March 6th at 10:30am. You can barely tell but since the doctor brought it up and recommended it we think it is best to take him. His right side has a flatter spot is all. But, if something needs or should be done about it now is the time.

Wicked

For Girls Night Out this month we decided to go see Wicked. We bought our tickets months and months ago. Six of us went on February 17th. Wow.......it was incredible. We loved it! What a wonderful show. I strongly recommend the show to everyone. I so would love to see it again.