Micah's 1st birthday!

I cannot believe my little guy is a year old already!!! Where has the time gone?!? :) It scares me to think that if the first year of his life went by this fast, he'll be heading off to college before we know it! Which is why we have to make the most of every minute of every day!

We had a wonderful time celebrating Micah's birthday... which also happens to be New Year's Eve... so after the birthday party was over, we kept on partying and rang in the new year! (after Micah had gone to bed, of course) :) The party was at Grannie Jannie and Pops' house, and guests present included the birthday boy (of course!), Aaron and me, Grannie Jannie and Pops, Uncle Jim and (soon-to-be-officially) Auntie Julie, Grandpa and Grandma K, Uncle Eric and Aunt Tracy, and even Emma joined in on the fun. We made barbecue beef sandwiches for dinner and had quite the spread.... including cheesy potatoes, pasta salad, chips, and veggies with homemade roasted red pepper dip. Yum! But the focal point of the buffet table was Micah's cake. Tracy had seen this train cake pan on Williams and Sonoma's website, and after checking it out myself, we got one to use for Micah's birthday cake. Any time we go over to Grannie and Pops' house, Pops runs his train for Micah, and he gets a huge kick out of it, so we decided a train-themed birthday party was appropriate. :) And if I do say so myself, the cake turned out amazing! Better than I could have hoped it would, actually. :)

The cake ~


The spread ~


Playing with the new toys ~




The party table ~


The birthday boy ~


The birthday boy with mom and dad ~

Happy Birthday to you!!

Blowing out the candle ~

The classic frosting face... but because there wasn't a ton of frosting on this cake, the picture leaves something to be desired. He did seem to enjoy it though! :)

Happy 1st Birthday, Micah! We love you so much!

Christmases ~

Being married is one of the most wonderful things in the world. But it can complicate holidays... especially when the two families aren't close in proximity to each other. Thankfully, in the two years we've been married, Aaron and I have been able to work it out so that we can spend the holidays with the whole family... whichever side that happens to be in a particular year. This year was a Klingenmaier Christmas, so after I finished work on Christmas Eve, we packed up the car and headed to the UP. We had a wonderful, relaxing weekend at Aaron's parents' house, and I'd have to say that Micah's first Christmas was a huge success! A BIG thank you to both sides of our family for keeping his gifts very reasonable! (our house is not large... we're already busting at the seams... so we requested not to have a ton of large gifts given to any of us, but especially Micah) I think Uncle Jim gets the prize for the largest gift... a little tykes basketball hoop... but he did ask before he just got it, and I gave it the ok. :)
But... back to the Klingenmaier Christmas. It's a lot easier to let the pictures do the talking, since they're more interesting than anything I could come up with to say anyways, so I'll just let you see for yourself what Christmas morning was like for us. Unfortunately, the one thing I forgot to pack was our battery charger for the camera, so my pictures are somewhat limited. I'll have to get some of the rest of the family's pictures and do a "part 2" post with those at some point. :)
The most exciting part of our weekend in the UP was that Micah really got the hang of walking! He had taken his first steps a few weeks earlier, but managed to master the skill over the Christmas weekend, and I think he gave Grandpa and Grandma K their best Christmas gift ever with that! :)

Walking to Aunt Tracy on Christmas eve ~

Micah went straight for his stocking on Christmas morning... I think mostly because he recognized the container of puffs sticking out of the top... but it was so cute to watch him make a beeline for his stocking! (which was handmade by Grandma K to match the rest of the kids' stockings)

Opening presents ~

Everyone got in on helping Micah open his gifts... even Emma! :)

Playing with Emma ~

Piles of new toys and things to play with all over the basement and Micah's most interested in the box... go figure! :)

One of Aaron's goals on Christmas morning is to not shower or get dressed... and he was pretty successful this year. Though he did put on his snow pants and take Micah outside to play in the snow.

Gotcha, daddy!

Going for a ride in the sled ~

Even Uncle Eric got in on the fun!

A family picture in the snow before heading inside to warm up ~

As you can see, it was a great time! Like I said, I'll get copies of the rest of the family's pictures and add those later... so stay tuned!

Our holiday fun didn't end there though! When we got back home to Illinois, we still had the Thomson Christmas celebration to look forward to. This event took place on December 29, which (as a side note) would have been my mom's dad's 110th birthday!, and besides being 4 days late, was just as much of a Christmas celebration as anything that took place on the 25th. We opened gifts together, had our traditional Swedish sausage and meatballs dinner, and played some games together before calling it a night. Again, I'll let the pictures do the talking, but I just have to say that it is a tremendous blessing to be a part of two amazing and loving families! I LOVE being married and celebrating some holidays twice each year. :)

The gift-opening frenzy at the Thomson house ~

Helping Pops smash down the paper in the trash can ~

Micah wasn't the only one who got toys for Christmas!

Help from Uncle Jim and Grannie ~

Elmo!

A train set like Pops has!

Basketball hoop!

When we were in California over Thanksgiving, Micah and Luke worked together on Christmas gifts for Grannie and Pops... here they are opening those gifts ~

Grannie got a hand-painted birdhouse and Pops got a hand-painted train... both done by their grandsons ~

Christmas really is one of the most wonderful times of the year. I love celebrating the fact that our Lord came down in human form as a baby to redeem us from our sins! And being able to do that twice in one year, with two incredible families, is a blessing!

Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!
~ 2 Corinthians 9:15 ~

Reflections...

There is nothing I love more than being a mom... the only thing I wish I could change or do differently is to find the "pause" button once in a while. I can't believe how fast this year has gone! My little boy will be 1 tomorrow!! As I sit here thinking about all the preparations that still need to be made for his party tomorrow, my mind is wandering back to this time last year.... Aaron and I were at Evanston hospital, and baby "Boo" (since we didn't know if Micah was a Micah or a little girl) was officially on the way! The induction started at about 8 pm, and we waited. We tried to get some sleep, but anyone who has ever been in a hospital knows that that is NOT the best place to get a good night's sleep! :) Between doctors and nurses coming in to check vitals and all of the various monitors I was hooked up to, I think we got about 2 hours of decent sleep... maybe. The next day, we did more waiting. I did actually get a little bit of sleep, in between checks from the doctors, but once I got the epidural and things really started happening, any chance of resting was over. I found myself laughing to myself every time a nurse would come in and ask me to change positions... I wanted to ask them if they'd ever had an epidural before and wanted to try rolling over with what felt like tree trunks attached to the lower half of my body! :) I was asked to roll to my right side, then to my left side, then back onto my back, and then only slightly to the right or left... but I was compliant... willing to do whatever I had to do to make sure "Boo" was ok. I think I also wanted to ask if they wanted me to stand on my head at one point, but I managed to restrain myself. :) Wouldn't THAT have been a sight?!? :)

Finally, at about 6:00 pm, the doctor came in and explained why I had been flipped like a pancake for the past several hours... the baby's heart rate was dropping with every contraction, and they were trying to see if changing positions alleviated that. At this point, I was not quite to the pushing stage of labor, and the doctor said the baby was showing signs of distress. It was starting to take longer for his heart rate to go back up after each contraction, and they were keeping a close eye on that. But, he gave me the option of waiting another hour to see if labor progressed to where I could start pushing, or going ahead with a c-section right then and getting the baby out. While I would have preferred not to have had a c-section, the most important thing to me at the moment was making sure my baby was ok, so I said, "let's do this", and things REALLY started moving! I was wheeled into the operating room and prepped, while Aaron put on his scrubs and called the family to let them know what was going on. And at 6:41 pm, Micah Robert entered the world and changed our lives forever!

What a blessing he is! There just aren't words to express how amazing this first year of parenting has been! There are so many firsts... his first smile, the first time he rolled over, his first words, ("mama", which melts my heart every time I hear it!) learning to crawl, and now walk, among so many others. It has been amazing to see him develop his own personality and observe what a riot he can be at times! I love when he gets this sly grin on his face like, watch out world! :) And when he puts his head down and kicks his crawling into high gear... hilarious!

No book I could have ever read could have prepared me for how much I would love this baby who, at first, really couldn't express love back to me. It brings tears to my eyes as I think that this is how God loves each and every one of us... so unconditionally and without asking anything in return. What a tremendous gift! I've heard lots of people say that you don't really know how much you can love someone until you're holding your own child, and I've always believed them, but experiencing it myself takes that to a whole new level. One I can't ever hope to explain or describe... I only hope that if your desire is to have children one day that God blesses you with them and the privilege of experiencing love like this. And I pray that even if kids aren't your desire or God's plan for you, that you will experience His love in a deep and profound way, and that will fill you completely, as only He can.

This has been an incredible year! Micah is an incredible gift from an amazing God, and not a day goes by that Aaron and I don't praise the Lord for blessing our lives with him! Every day is an adventure with Micah, and I love that I get to be on this adventure with him.

Happy birthday, my sweet Micah! Your daddy and I love you more than you will ever know!

Winter fun ~

I love winter time. No, I don't love the freezing cold temperatures, or the biting wind that we get living in the outskirts of the "windy city", but the snow is beautiful, and I just love this time of year! One of our family traditions is going to cut down our Christmas tree. I grew up with a fake tree, but Aaron, being the Yooper that he is, won't stand for a fake tree. So, for the past 3 years we've gone and cut down a tree to decorate for the Christmas season. In 2008, the first year Aaron and I were married, we were in the U.P. before Christmas, and I got to do the honors of cutting down the tree! I felt like my Yooper status was more solidified after that experience! :)



Last year, 2009, I was as big as a house... about to give birth to Micah... so my cutting down our tree really wasn't an option. We went to Richardson's and Aaron did the honors. I don't have any pictures of the tree being cut down, but I do have one of our little family in front of the tree (about a minute before all the decorations were taken down and put away... by my wonderful husband and brother and his girlfriend, Julie... while I put our newborn baby to bed)


And this year, on a beautiful snowy Sunday, we went to a place in Burlington, WI to get our tree. I felt a little bit like Chevy Chase in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation as it took us quite a while to get to this place, and I was starting to wonder where Tracy and Eric were taking us! :) We got there eventually, and had a lot of fun picking out our Christmas tree with Micah riding on his new sled from Uncle Eric and Aunt Tracy.

Micah and Emma in the snow ~

The lens must have gotten a little wet for this picture... but that blur is Aaron, showing Micah how to cut down a Christmas tree

Playing with Uncle Eric in the snow

I love the looks on Micah's face in these next few pictures!

Our family with our Christmas tree ~

And the finished, decorated product... we decided to put it up on our coffee table in an effort to keep Micah from getting to it. So far, that has proved unsuccessful as he is one determined little guy! Thankfully, he hasn't pulled it over on himself, or managed to pull anything off... but the Christmas season isn't over yet! We've only had 3 ornaments broken so far... and I blame Aaron and me for those casualties, since we gave Micah the ornaments to play with, thinking they were "safe" and wouldn't break easily. Ha! Never underestimate "hurricane Micah"! :)


But aside from working overtime trying to keep Micah away from the tree, I think our house looks pretty festive. We won't be home on Christmas this year, as it's our year to be with Aaron's family in the U.P., so we kept it pretty simple. We thought about not even getting a tree, but because it's Micah first Christmas, we decided the tree was a must! And what a fun family tradition to include our son in!

It's going to be a busy spring! :)

Well, I didn't accomplish my goal of having our blog updated on California within our first week of being home, but it IS updated, and that's good enough for me. :) Now I can move on to other news... which you might have already figured out, either by being super observant, or through the grapevine. Here's one last shot to get it on your own... it's kind of hard to see since the shirts are a little big, and if anyone knows a better way to get kids under the age of about 14 to sit up straight for a picture, I'm all ears!


...and here's a better picture of the tee shirt that made our announcement for us: (it was easier to just take a picture of the shirt rather than try to get Micah to sit still and up long enough to get a good shot) :)


Micah is going to be a big brother! #2 is on the way! Our "official" due date is June 6, but baby #2 will most likely be here before the end of May. Because I'm diabetic, the doctors most likely won't let me go past 39 weeks. Micah was born 11 days before his due date, so we'll see when #2 decides to arrive! The other exciting part of this announcement is that my sister, Lisa, is also expecting #2! Her "official" due date is May 12, but there's not a lot to be said for that date, since her "official" due date for Luke was April 3 and he didn't make his appearance until April 12. :) But due dates aside, we're VERY excited to be parents again, and the fact that my sister is also pregnant makes it that much more fun! The only ones who might not be enjoying that fact are my parents as they're on the search for that black hole that will get them from California to Illinois in 5 seconds flat since Lisa's and my due dates are so close! :) No... they are beyond thrilled and can't wait to have their brood of grandchildren doubled! Needless to say, it's going to be a busy spring!

Lisa and me with our baby bumps ~

And for your reading enjoyment, I found this on a friend's blog and found myself laughing out loud as I read it. You'll have to tell me what your thoughts are on this

"Hilarious Letter About Pregnancy"

Dear Non-Pregnant Person,

I hope you find these guidelines helpful in your interactions with pregnant women, as failing to follow them may result in serious physical harm. If you are thinking, 'surely she doesn't mean me,' - then you should probably read this twice.

1.) The appropriate response to a couple telling you they are having a baby is, "Congratulations!" with enthusiasm. Any other response makes you an idiot!!

2.) Through the wonders of science, we now know that babies are made ONLY by the mother and father - not grandparents. Unless the baby is in your uterus or you are the man that helped put it there, you may not ever use the phrase "my baby".

3.) On the same note, unless you made the baby as defined in #2, the pregnancy, birth and raising of the child are not about you. You do not have input. No one wants to hear your opinion unless they ask for it.

4.) The body of a pregnant woman should be treated the same as any other body. You would not randomly touch someone's stomach if they were not pregnant, nor would you inquire into the condition of their uterus, cervix, or how they plan to use their breasts. Pregnancy does not remove all traces of privacy from a woman.

5.) Likewise, no woman wants to hear comments on her weight - ever. A pregnant woman does not find it flattering that you think she is about to pop, must be having twins, looks swollen, or has gained weight in her face. Telling her she looks too small only makes her worry that she is somehow starving her baby. Making such comments invites her to critique your physical appearance and you may not act offended. The only acceptable comment on appearance is "you look fabulous!"

6.) By the time we are 20-30 years old, most of us have picked up on the fact that the summer is hot. We are hot every summer even when we are not pregnant. We don't need you to point out that we will be miserably hot before the baby comes.

7.) There is a reason that tickets to Labor and Delivery are not yet sold on Ticketmaster. Childbirth is actually not a public event. It may sound crazy, but some women really do not relish the idea of their mother, mother-in-law, or a host of other family members seeing their bare butt and genitals.Also, some people simply feel like the birth of their child is a private and emotional moment to be shared only by the parents.

8.) Like everything else in life, unless you receive an invitation, you are NOT invited. This includes doctor appointments, ultrasounds, labor, delivery, the hospital, and the parents' home. You do not decide if you will be there for the birth or if you will move in with the new parents to "help out". If you assistance is desired, rest assured that you will be asked for it.

9.) If you are asked to help after the birth, this means you should clean up the house, help with cooking meals, and generally stay out of the way. Holding the baby more than the parents, interfering with breastfeeding and sleeping schedules and making a woman who is still leaking fluids from multiple locations lift a finger in housework is not helping.

10.) The only people entitled to time with the baby are the parents. Whether they choose to have you at the hospital for the birth, or ask you to wait three weeks to visit, appreciate that you are being given the privilege of seeing their child. Complaining or showing disappointment only encourages the parents to include you less.