Thank You!

We have a lot to be thankful for. We have our two beautiful children, and caring family and friends. This week has been a week where we have received much service from our family and friends. We are very grateful for our parents who have provided a lot of help with Keira so that I can take care of Soren. She spent the night at Nana and Papa's house on Sunday, and my mom was here Monday night until Friday evening to help out. We are also very grateful for our friends that have brought us meals this week. We would like to thank the Blankenships, Olson's, Lorenc's, and Bachison's for their wonderful meals. They were such a great help to us. Thank you cards have been written, but not sent/delivered yet.

We also had General Conference this past weekend, and it made me really thankful for the time that we live in. Hearing the stories about the hardships the pioneers faced always makes grateful that we are not being persecuted, even though we have many different trials today that they did not have. I am very grateful for the advancements of science, and the ability for me to have both of my children in a hospital. It makes me so sad to think about all of the mothers and children that died while crossing the country, and it makes me wonder if that would not have happened to me. I had medical intervention for both of my children's births, with Keira having a short stay in NICU, and I am grateful for the doctors and hospital staff that helped my children into this world.

We watched Conference over at Kris and Linda's, so it was Soren's first visit to Nana and Papa's house.

This week was surprisingly busy. We had a lot of outings, which was fun. Soren had his first shopping experience as a trip to REI. We also were able to get out for a walk with the new stroller around the neighborhood, as well as make it to Maybury two times.

We also had our first trip to Costco. It took some planning, but we took 2 cars and used 2 carts- one of groceries and one of the children. We could have unloaded my stroller from the trunk and probably have gotten away with 1 car, but Keira got to ride in Grandma's car, which was fun for her. She also got to have her first top down convertible ride. I am not looking forward to my first Meijer trip, though, because I don't know where all the groceries will go. At least Costco has the huge carts and I can put a lot in the basket even with Soren in it.

My mom took Keira to Kindermusik on Thursday. Keira seemed to miss me at the class, so I took her to the Novi Public Library storytime on Friday while my mom watched Soren. We just didn't think it was a good idea to take him to a room of potentially germy 2 year olds just yet. Keira was really sad that Grandma didn't come, but was happy to be there with me (once we got there).

Ryan was able to go to the Michigan game today, and Kris and Linda watched Keira during it so that Soren and I could spend the day together. We did some errands that would have been hard with both children, and I was able to catch up on some housework and rest.

Finally, check our our real live Halloween decorations! This spider is in a web between our condo and our neighbors. It is a little hard to tell from this shot, but the spider was about 2-3 inches in size, and it crawled up our water spout before we could get another shot with something to reference for size. Keira loved it, running around screaming, "Huge Spider!"

Welcome Soren Ryder

On Monday, we welcomed Soren Ryder into our family. He was born on 9/29/08, at 4:31pm, weighing 7lbs 12oz, and 19 inches long. There were no complications with the delivery, and we are very blessed to have him in our lives. We are especially grateful for our family and friends' support this week.

Here are a few pictures from the hospital stay.

First Family Photo (where everyone is at least looking)

Keira seeing her brother through the nursery window

Keira seeing Mommy

Grandma with Soren. She and Nana have been a big help this week with Keira and gifts. Nana spent the night Sunday, and Grandma stayed Monday through Thursday.
Nana with Soren

We are finally home! Keira greeting Mommy at our place

Flowers from Nana awaited us, as did balloons (below). It was actually dark when we arrived home, so the photo below was from the next day.

Nana, Soren, and Papa

Soren trying out the swing!

Keira with Soren in the bouncy seat

Kiss for Soren from Keira

Big Hug for Soren from Keira

We also had Soren's first well baby visit today, and he has already grown to 20.25inches, and 8lbs 1.4oz! We left the hospital at his birthweight, and since we were above it today, we don't have to go back to the dr for a whole month, Yeah!

No Baby Yet

This week was a pretty low key week. I was still not feeling over my cold for the better part of the week, so Keira and I pretty much did a lot of hanging out at home. We watched a lot more television that we probably should have, but it was nice to have an easy week.

Today was probably the busiest day of the week for me. I actually feel like I am over my cold, and got to sleep in since it was the weekend. We started the morning off at Maybury, where I felt more as if I took a nature walk than exercised. It was the first day that it really felt like fall, and the leaves have just started to change and fall. I took a few pictures of the trees while we walked, just because I wasn't sure when I would make it back. Hopefully the next time we go is after the baby is born! It will be interesting to see how everything changes over the next few weeks. This tree had just started to change. When I first spotted it, it looked like a green tree was in front, but once I got close, I could tell that it was only partially red.
Here, we found a caterpillar. Keira probably would have stared at it all day if it had not crawled underneath the leaf.
After leaving Maybury, we went to Parmenter's for some cider and donuts. Keira was excited about the apple cutout, and kept trying to look at it instead of at me.
Keira loves the train! The picture from the top of this post is also from a different car on the train.
Once we got home, the football watching started. OSU beat Minnesota, and Michigan had their biggest comeback in Michigan Stadium over Wisconsin, and it was also the 500th game at the stadium. BYU had a bye. Keira has been a big fan of sidewalk chalk this week, so we kept her occupied with it during some of the games. She gets sooo messy, but fortunately, the Crayola Washable chalk lives up to its name, and does not stain. Check out how messy she is!
Also, this is just a small portion of the week's worth of drawings. Keira doesn't mind coloring over her work, which is good because there is no more room on the front porch for drawings. The sidewalk art gets washed away periodically due to the sprinkler system, but it doesn't reach the porch.
During a break in the action, Ryan and Keira were able to doing some swinging in the front yard.
On Friday, I did get out of the house a bit, because Keira had storytime at the Novi Library. She is really enjoying this storytime, and even remembered that she would get a sticker at the end. She also was very involved with the class today, being brave and getting right up front.
She also did a good job at following along with the story of 10 Rubber Duckies and even returned the book to the instructor with minimal direction. They had enough copies of this book for each child to have their own while she read it. This also started a pigtail kick, and she has worn them since (even to bed). It will be interesting to see how long this lasts.That evening, we met with our financial advisor and CPA to talk about the pros and cons of building a new home and the deals the builder would be offering. Both had very different opinions of what to do, and we will sit on it until after the baby arrives. It was one of the many financial pieces that we had spent all week working on, and we just need to get a few more questions answered and then decide. We have been thinking about this for over a year now, so what is another month or two?



On Thursday, we were able to meet up with our friend, Richard, who was in town on business, for dinner and dessert. I had met his wife, Cheryl, when I hired into Ford in a training class, and then over the years, had grad school classes together, and then moved into her department prior to my departure. We have enjoyed mountain biking and snow sports (skiing for us, boarding for them) together. Cheryl and Richard moved to Washington to be closer to their family. We met up at Baha Fresh, which is a place that we used to go to all the time following mountain bike trips to Maybury as a foursome (before Keira was born). There were four of us again (Keira instead of Cheryl), but only Ryan was the one who had just come from riding. Things are going well for them in WA. Hopefully once the kids get a little bigger we can make it out to see them and get a taste of the pacific northwest. Richard should have trips here frequently, and Cheryl has a fairly flexible work arrangement, so hopefully we can see them both again soon. We miss you guys!

I didn't get any photos this week, but here is a shot from their going away dinner this past Feb.

The rest of the week was pretty much spent at home with Keira (or on the phone with mortgage brokers/companies and our association trying to forecast future increases), with a few essential errands and my doctor's appt. My Dr's appt went well, and if nothing happens tomorrow, I will be going in Monday for fetal monitoring and then go from there. Dr Davidson agreed that I should not go over my due date as far as I did with Keira, so I am pretty sure the baby will be here at some point next week.

While Keira and I hung out at home, we spent a lot of time doing chalk drawings outside, watching TV, coloring with crayons, and potty training her baby doll, Baby Tina. At least I was able to sit while she played in the bathroom for hours, feeding Tina water over our toilet. She did require a lot of supervision, because there were many things that could have fallen into the toilet and she also kept wanting to bring the bottle onto the carpet. She was very excited about this, but only moderately more interested in using the toilet herself. She actually asked to have her picture taken, otherwise I probably would have skipped taking photos in our bathroom.
She also came across her winter hat from last year, and wanted to wear it after coming in from outside. We typically have had to undress her because she was getting so much chalk on her clothes that it was rubbing off on the couches and carpet. She had a great time running around in just her hat!
Also, as part of fall, our neighbors' crab apple tree has been making a huge mess. The condo landscaping company cleans it up every time they mow, but we have still had a major amount of crab apples accumulate in between. We are hoping that our site manager will deal with it in between, because the tree was put in by the association anyway. Keira loves it, and we do not. Fortunately, the only crab apples that make it to our walkway are the ones Keira brings over.
This next photo is just a cute one of Keira taken this week. It was actually very warm most days of this week, so Keira could get away with wearing her summer dresses comfortably. I let her pick out a her clothes to wear a lot, especially when the weather doesn't give us too many limitations. She would wear a dress every day if I let her.
More cuteness. When we don't do a lot outside of the house, I tend to take pictures of everyday activities just to occupy the time. Here is Keira with the flower arrangement that Linda put together for our open house last week. I just love fall flowers!
Here is Keira looking up at an airplane. I have always thought she has looked really cute when she is looking up in the air at something. You can see that our holly bush behind her is really on its way out. There is something up with that half of the flower bed, the hosta by her feet didn't get big either this year. We just replaced a juniper tree that we lost this year with a mum. We had a big dirt mess there with the mum in its pot on top until this week. We were debating just leaving the mum in its container and then getting rid of it at the end of the season, but figured we would take our chances with actually planting it. We will need to put some mulch around it to help it survive the winter. Maybe we will move before any of these plants need to be replaced again next year.
That was our week, not terribly exciting. Hopefully we will have a baby update for our next post! That should more than make up for this past week.