December, Part One

December was awesome... we had so much fun and were so busy!  The first thing we did when December hit was, of course, put up the Christmas tree!  The boys and I had so much fun decorating it.  We have so many ornaments that are special to me and I love going through them each year and reminiscing about the memories behind each ornament- yes, even the ugly embarrassing ones that I made when I was a kid... I look forward to my own kids making ornaments that they will think are ugly and embarrassing when they are my age!  My favorite part, though, is Jack's reaction as he participates in decorating the tree.  He knows that the ornaments have special meaning, and he either asks me the meaning behind every single ornament he picks up or he remembers the meaning from last year and very excitedly tells me what each ornament means!  I love sharing this with my boys, and I hope that it continues all the way through their lives and when they have kids of their own.

Here are two videos:

  

And some pictures!

 

 

 

Of course, no Reeves Christmas Season post would be complete without a shot of a kid with the Christmas Train... this year Samuel was just as obsessed with it as Jackson always is!  My boys are definitely train kids!

On December 2nd we got to decorate another Christmas Tree!  Jack's preschool was having a cowboy themed tree-trimming party, so we dressed the boys in their cowboy duds and moseyed on over to eat some grub and make and hang some ornaments!

 

 

 

 

The next day was Dave's birthday, and the boys were so excited to give daddy his presents!  I have him his favorite beer, that I was magically able to find even though it was out of season, and the boys gave him a Snoopy Christmas lawn ornament.  Dave loves Snoopy Christmas stuff :)  

 

That night my mom came over to watch the boys and Dave and I went out to celebrate his birthday on a boat!  We drove to Newport and hopped on a boat to cruise around the harbor to see the Christmas lights.  It was really nice, and c-c-c-c-cold!!!  But we had a good time :) 

Even the boat was decorated for Christmas, with lights on the railings!

 

 

 

I had been looking forward to our next December event since the beginning of Jack's school year!  Jack's preschool was going to be singing in church, and I was so excited!  His teachers had been telling me how great Jack was doing in music class (apparently he knew what "forte" meant before the teacher told him, and added "accelerando" and "pianisimo" to her queries... have I ever mentioned how much he loves music?), and I already knew how well he could carry a tune, so I was really excited to see him sing in a choir for the first time!  He practiced very enthusiastically and was very prepared for his performance... but when he got up there he forgot one thing: that he was supposed to sing!  I had to laugh at him when he got up there and stood there grinning ear to ear while the rest of his class was singing along!  Since he didn't actually sing I won't post either of the videos, but here is a picture of his giant grin he wore.

December Part Two will be coming up soon, but for now I will leave you with a picture of what Clark Kent must have looked like at two- before he started wearing his uniform under his shirt for quick changes!

 

Our November Nutshell

We had a pretty low-key November this year... I didn't take very many pictures at all!  Shocking, I know, but it was a conscious decision on my part- since we do a lot of the same things over and over, and I don't want to ever be a slave to getting that perfect shot at the expense of just being present with my children, I have been making a point to not always bring my camera.  I mean, I still bring my camera most of the time, but now rather than automatically grabbing my camera I take the time to consider the pros of bringing it vs the pros of leaving it home, trying to leave it home if I don't feel it's entirely necessary... to me documenting my kids' childhood is always entirely necessary, but not as necessary as making the most of every moment.

But I do have some photos from November to share with you!

First, a video of one of the games that entertained the boys on one of our low-key November days... note the volume of toys that were all over  the place!

Second, to further illustrate the low-key-ness of our November, a few shots of my boys chillaxing around the house:

 

 

And from Jack's preschool Thanksgiving celebration... my handsome little pilgrims!

 

On Thanksgiving day the four of us headed over to the nursing home to visit Dave's mom.  The boys are so good when we visit her- they both get excited to see grandma Han!  They especially enjoy "being gentlemen" and helping daddy push her wheelchair.

 

After visiting grandma Han we headed over to my Aunt June's house to celebrate with our extended family.  Sam got a nice nap, both of the boys had a great time pretending to ride my cousin's motorcycles, and we got a nice family picture as well as a nice picture of my parents and their three grandsons!  We had a really nice Thanksgiving :)

 

 

 

Another Blog Break *Sigh*

I know, it's been a while.  And I was already so behind to begin with, so taking a few months off from blogging really didn't help with the catching up, huh?  Well, I had a pretty good excuse for not blogging... and then the longer I waited to start up again, the harder it was to get started.  So, I am forcing myself to write this post so that I can get past it and then hopefully, finally, get caught up with my blog before the whirlwind of summer activities puts me behind again.  So, here goes nothing... (well, actually, it's not nothing- this is hard for me to write. But I can't not write it, so here I go)

In the beginning of February I went to the doctor for a routine checkup... I was perfectly healthy and everything was fine.  Apparently I picked something up when I was at the doctor (this is why I never go to the doctor for no reason- I don't want to get sick if I'm not sick already!), and a few days later I got what I thought was a cold, so I stopped running until I felt better... after a week I was feeling a little bit better and I didn't want to put off running any more, so I went for another run.  Then I felt worse, so I stopped.  A week later I started feeling a little better and decided to go for another run, again.  While I was on my run I started feeling like I might have been having a mini asthma attack- I don't have asthma- so I decided that I better go back to the doctor the next day. And it was a good thing I did!  Apparently I had picked up RSV, which caused some pretty good bronchitis and even a little bit of pneumonia!  My doctor gave me 5 prescriptions and sent me home.  The next day I started feeling like I did when I was pregnant, and I spent the next 5 days trying to convince myself that the drugs were totally messing with my body and giving me all those symptoms... except that I was also 3 days late and I am never late.  It could have been the drugs doing that, too, but finally I decided I better just take a test to know for sure.
When the test immediately showed positive I was shocked.  I was so sure that it had to be negative- we had been preventing and our timing shouldn't have resulted in a pregnancy even if we hadn't been preventing!  Dave and I were completely shocked, but we were excited, of course!  I really really really wanted a third child, but Dave had said no, so I hadn't been allowing myself to hope- after the shock wore off I planned and planned and planned!  I was so excited and happy!
But I was also still sick.  I didn't feel like I was getting any better, and all my coughing was causing so much pain that we were pretty sure that I had pleurisy, had bruised ribs, or both!  And on top of that, I got my first ever sinus infection.  I was sick for weeks, and I was pretty worried about how my baby was faring being in the body of someone who was so sick.  As it turned out, she wasn't faring very well at all.  We found out on March 29th that the baby had died, and on April 13th I went in for surgery to remove the deteriorating pregnancy tissue.  I was devastated, of course, and I'm still struggling with it.  A lot.  Not one single day goes by that I don't think about the little baby I lost, who should have been my sweet Isabella that I had been dreaming about since I was 14, and while I'm thinking about her I, of course, also think about the first little baby I lost, the boy who would have been Jack's older brother.  I comfort myself with the image of my grandfather, who my sweet Samuel Kenneth was named for, in heaven craddling my baby girl in one arm while he teaches her older brother the proper way to lick out his ice cream bowl.  And I keep my family- all of us- around my neck and close to my heart.  One charm for Dave and me and one charm for each of my beloved children, both the ones in my arms and the ones in my heart.

Because I wasn't sure if we would be having a third child I hadn't allowed myself to hope and dream of it, but after finding out I was pregnant I went forward full-throttle with hopes and dreams of Baby #3.  Now that I am not supposed to be hoping and dreaming anymore, well, let's just say that it's incredibly hard and I am not sure that I will ever get over that.  The loss of those dreams is nearly just as devastating.

So, as I said- my blog break has been for a good reason.  I couldn't just move on and continue posting as though nothing had happened- the children I've lost are just as precious to me as my Jack and Sam are, and they absolutely deserve a post of their own as an acknowledgement that no matter how short their time was, they mattered.  And they still matter.  And I love them and I miss them.

 

Sorry, Just Couldn't Resist

captured by my cell phone... just couldn't resist posting it ;) 

Well, I Knew That Was Too Easy

So apparently I completely skipped over one very important event in October: our annual Pumpkin Painting!!!  The boys painted the pumpkins while Dave and I carved ours.  Jack and I had been talking about what's inside pumpkins, and so I definitely made sure that he got to see that part!

The photos and video are pretty self-explanatory, so I'll just post them and be done.  Video first: