A year of Micah...

At the end of every month since Micah was first born, I have been taking a picture of him with his big yellow bear to try and track his growth each month in a fun way. I love having these pictures, but let me tell you... it was a LOT easier to take his picture with the bear before he started moving around so much! :) Now that he's walking, I think the monthly bear photo shoots might be over. But, since we've got pictures from the first 12 months of his life, I thought I'd share those with you so you can see how he's changed and grown this year. Enjoy! :)

One week ~


One month ~


Two months ~


Three months ~


Four months ~


Five months ~


Six months ~


Seven months ~


Eight months ~


Nine months ~


Ten months ~


Eleven months ~


1 year! ~

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!