Wow! It’s only been six weeks since our last update, and boy do we have a lot to share! I suppose we should attempt to tackle this chronologically…Our biggest (and first) news is that we will be adding another little blessing to our family at the end of July. We shared the news with our families at Thanksgiving. Under the ruse of making a Thanksgiving video for Aunti Eris, we recorded the traditional, “I’m thankful for…” activity. We went around the table, everyone sharing until we got to me…at which point Lem’s dad left the table to refill wine glasses! Fortunately Sycely helped me stall by sharing all that she was thankful for. Then the news was out! I shared that I was thankful that God was blessing us with another baby. It was a pretty memorable moment and it’s all on videotape! We shared our news with my Dad and Kate a little differently. We got Sycely a shirt that says, “World’s Greatest Sister.” We put it on her and let them figure it out from there. It was a pretty fun and exciting Thanksgiving weekend around here. Sycely and Baby-Brother-Sister, as she calls baby will be almost exactly 3 years apart, give a take a week or so. We’ve started gathering and ordering things to begin work on Sycely’s new big girl Princess room. Painting and carpet should happen shortly. She’ll make the big move to her new room this spring, hopefully giving us plenty of time to repaint/redecorate her old room for baby if need be. We should know after our ultrasound at the end of February whether we’ll be painting one bedroom or two.
December was a busy month, as it seems to be for everyone. Our Special Olympics season started up so with that, group lessons, my private students and the Christmas Show, skating kept me pretty busy right up until Christmas. I also attended the Governor’s Summit on Early Learning which was an amazing experience. What an awesome opportunity to work with business, community and legislative leaders to advocate for support for Alaska’s young children. Other than the political influence, I had a whole lunch to talk with our pastor who was also attending as part of our faith-based group, about the impact of what was being presented was going to have on our church being a source for leadership and support for healthy families and young children. From our discussion came a whole sermon on “front loading” our resources and investing in young children and their families and a whole new focus for our family and children’s ministry for 2008. There are big plans for me to be an instrumental part of all of that in a variety of roles and I’m so excited to be in a church family that feels our children and families should be such a priority! I can’t wait to see what God has in store!
Between making holiday treats, wrapping presents, visiting with friends, and family, potty training and Christmas light looking, the holidays pretty much took over from there for a couple weeks. We had a wonderful Christmas, doing our annual family Christmas here at the house, the heading over to do Christmas with Lem’s family the rest of the day/night. Sycely was of course, such a delight to enjoy through the whole season. This year we had some of our close friends from church join us. Mike, Julie and their daughter, Scarlett, who is Sycely’s age came over for our meal and games, etc. They even had their very own table for Christmas dinner. Julie is due to have her second baby 3 days after me! It’s going to be a very busy summer of babies at our church. There are about 8 of us all due in about a 10 week span! But it’s lots of fun to have pregnancy buddies! The day we headed down to Homer we had our first appointment with our midwife, Judi. She came by the house and we got to hear Baby’s heartbeat nice and strong. Even Sycely was excited to hear that sweet little sound. We spent a few days down in Homer having Christmas/New Year’s down there. My dad got to have lots of time off, so that was a nice. We had a relaxing couple of days and we enjoyed one of the world's biggest and yummiest pizzas.
Since the holidays ended it’s been pretty much back to the usual for us around here. Lem headed back to work and a new semester. I just finished teaching my high school Child Development class this week and am getting ready for our annual Early Childhood Conference coming up in two weeks. Last week I got word that our school got approved for re-accreditation and the classroom I was responsible for received a score of 99/100. Lem started playing for our church hockey team, and so far is having a real blast. His games are late Friday and Saturday nights, so he doesn’t really miss much awake time away from the family. I’m so tired and sick these days that I’m asleep by the time most of his games start! So far this pregnancy has been pretty much the same as things were with Sycely. Except that instead of being super sick until the afternoon, I’m super sick all day and all night! Again I’ve hit the 12 week mark with little change or relief; that too is the same as last time. Nonetheless, I’m working out every day still and teaching skating 4 afternoons a week right now which at least TRIES to distract me a little from being sick. Sycely and I are getting back into our routine with the start of the new year, having play dates with friends, and various outings and adventures. She’s ever the artist and ever the princess so much of our day involves our familiar friends Cinderella, Snow White, Belle and Sleeping Beauty and a variety of art media including her current favorite “Michael Paint” (big bottles of tempura we got at Michael’s)
Hope the new year is finding all of you happy and healthy!
