Thanksgiving

As I sit here watching Lydia sleep beside me, I can't help but be very thankful for the little life that Elizabeth and I have been graced with. It is now hard to imagine our lives without Lydia -- but at the same time it is still quite surreal that we have a daughter. This Thanksgiving brings many things to be thankful for. Our immediate and extended families continue to be the thing that we are most thankful for.





Two weekends ago we were blessed to have a our families join us to celebrate Lydia's baptism. It was a very special day made even more special with her Aunt Sara performing the baptism and much of our family present to celebrate with us. The service was truly a time of celebration for us as a family -- celebrate God's wonderous love that we have been shown through Lydia's life.



Over Thanksgiving weekend we welcomed a new little one to the family! Our newest niece Alyssa was born on the day before Thanksgiving. We already had set plans to travel to Minnesota to see the expectant parents, Steve and Mary, and big sister, Maria - so it worked out nicely to be able to see Alyssa on the day after her birth, There is nothing like a newborn baby to put in perspective how much Lydia has changed and grown over the past 10 weeks! I think both Elizabeth and I were not able to believe that Lydia had actually changed as much as was apparent when Lydia was compared to newborn Alyssa. Alyssa was as light as a feather and Lydia now seems a little bit heavier than we previously perceived. Even the most uncoordinated movements of Lydia's now look quite advanced compared to a two-day old's. It will be fun to see Alyssa again at Christmas time to see how she makes these same fast progressions in her livelihood and appearance.

It was also enjoyable to have some good quality time with my family and to have cousins Maria and Lydia "interact" over a few days. Maria very much liked playing with the baby things of Lydia's and even tried to fit into Lydia's hat! It will exciting to see how Maria develops as a big sister to the newest one in our family.

Now that Thanksgiving is behind us we march forward into the Advent Season and toward Christmas. It will be a joy to help Lydia experience this time of year with Family and Friends. I think most of all we are looking forward to traveling to our family gatherings and getting to introduce Lydia to many more family members. Lydia is undoubtedly our pride and joy and we love to show her off to anybody that we know.

I hope that this time of Christmas preperation brings a renewed sense of joy and purpose to our family as well as many others around the world.

Oh So Many Things to Mention...

It has been a few weeks since my last post -- needless to say life has been quite busy and the weeks have flown by. Work is beyond busy, which makes coming home and seeing Lydia and Lib all that much more rewarding.

There are many exciting things that have happened since my last post, let me see if I can hit on some of the highlights.

1) First Snow -- October 26th -- Having heard that there was a chance of snow overnight, the moment I woke up on Sunday I checked outside our bedroom window. Seeing the snow coming down, I rushed to the nursery where Elizabeth and Lydia were and said "I have something to show you, Lydia!" I opened the shade to the window and held Lydia toward the window so that she could see the snow coming down and landing on the garage roof below her window. I am not sure that she could actually see the snow flakes, but she did stare out the window for a while which made me feel excited to share this with her. This undoubtedly will be her first of many 'snow-days' to come.

2) Halloween Activities -- One of Elizabeth's professors has started the tradition of having a halloween party for all of the Psychology Department Faculty and Grad Students. Every year there is a "theme" by which you are to dress up - this year was "Favorite Movie Monster" We decided to go as "kid friendly" monsters and dress as the characters from Disney's Monster's Inc. Elizabeth did a great job of creating a costume for Lydia to play the part of the little girl "Boo".

For Halloween night Lydia had another great costume that was given to her from Grandma Lee -- the little Pumpkin costume was perfect -- after all Lydia is our "little pumpkin."

3) First "real" smile - Laying on her changing table, Lydia gave us her first 'official' smile! We had hints of smirks prior to this, but this was the first one that both of us were like "that is a smile for sure!" It will be fun to see her smile at us more and more. Hopefully we will catch one on camera soon!!

4) First election -- we had a election day and night full of activities for Lydia to "participate" in -- she came with us to vote in the morning and then spent the evening with us watching the returns at two different election parties. Although she won't remember it, I am glad that Lydia was able to be a part of the historic day.

5) First Day at Daycare - Lydia went to daycare for the first time last Thursday -- Mommy started back meeting with her advisor Wendy, and so Lydia got to go to daycare. Lydia was awake for most of the time that she was there and the staff said that she was the "bell of the ball" So far the daycare center at NDSU has been impressive.

Pictures below will also capture some of the other happenings from the past 3 weeks -- note that there are two slide shows below (one for week 7 and one for weeks 5 and 6).

WEEK 7

WEEKS 5 & 6