has anyone seen my baby?

Sometime when I wasn't looking, my baby disappeared. And in his place is a darling little 17-month old toddler who I will gladly keep. But I miss my little baby.

Tony has a hard time understanding why I want Ryan to stay a baby because Ryan just gets funner and funner each day (isn't that like a man??). When I tried to explain that if Ryan keeps growing at this rate, he'll be leaving for college before we know it. And then what would we do with the rest of our lives?

I can hardly bear the thought.

But neither can Tony. Whenever I talk about Ryan growing up or graduating from high school or college or getting married or anything about him growing into an adult, Tony just about loses it. Really. I can honestly talk about Ryan going on a mission and Tony will get teary eyed. My big, strong husband is reduced to tears so easily sometimes. It's quite tender.

Anyway, back to my little baby. I do miss having a little newborn something terrible, but Tony's right. He is a pretty hilarious kid (and one who gives me little time to rest). Every time I turn my back he is climbing onto something. And that little reindeer he's holding? It used to have twig antlers and a bell and a tail. And that little red nose? Gone.

And even if all our holiday decorations are now broken, eyeless, noseless and antlerless. I'd trade all the holiday decor in the world for time with this little boy of ours.

Because our little boy, Ryan, the terror of all reindeer, is the best gift of all.

I've been crying a lot lately

It's true. And it's not because I've been watching cheesy Hallmark holiday movies. There are a lot of reasons lately and I'm not sure how to tie this together in a cohesive blog posting. So I'll just start typing and see where this takes us. hang on...there might be some sad moments...

On November 30th, my little brother Trent called with some sad news. A good friend of his, Jared Johansen, passed away in his sleep. Jared is young. I'd guess around 27 or so. He has a young, beautiful wife named Tiffany, a daughter who is a little older than Ryan and they are expecting another baby girl in January.

They are a beautiful family. Jared's parents are friends with my parents and are the salt of the earth type of people. And even though I only knew Jared as Trent's friend, my heart has been breaking for them.

Take a look at this and you'll see what I mean. http://www.jaredjohansenlegacy.com/

I don't mean to turn everything and make it about me, but I think the reason I've been so emotional is because this is my biggest fear. Being older parents, my biggest fear is leaving Ryan behind without any parents. Now you may think that is an irrational fear, but that is what happened to my dear husband. His mother passed away when he was 17 and his father when he was 22. And it breaks my heart when I hear him talk about what a desperately sad and lonely time it was for him.

And while he had older brothers and sisters, they didn't have a strong community around them - whether it was church or extended family or friends and it was a difficult time for Tony.

So back to my biggest fear of leaving Ryan alone in the world...it appears that a biological second child isn't going to be in the picture, so we're in the process of exploring other "options" to bring another child (or children??) into our family.

And believe me, that isn't easy. I'm still in the exploration phase and quite frankly, it's overwhelming.

Sure, we'd love to adopt a healthy, newborn baby, but really, a 53 and 45 year old couple probably isn't the first choice for a birth mom. Besides, there are so many babies and children in the world who are living in orphanages who need a home.

That led me to look at international adoptions. But again, the age thing. We're too old to adopt from most countries. Except for Special Needs adoptions in China, which quite honestly, is what I've been drawn to from the very beginning.

So I've been reading stories about children who need a home. I've been watching videos of children who have found their "forever family". And that is another reason why I've been crying a lot lately. I've also been researching foster adoptions again.

All these children in the world who need love and care. It truly is heartbreaking. I wish we could take them all into our home and love them and care for them.

So if you happen to see me with red-rimmed eyes or a stuffy nose, it's probably because I've just watched a video about a little baby in China who needs a cleft palate surgery...and a loving home.

happy birthday auntie melissa!

I gave up trying to be the favorite auntie several years ago. When it comes to my sister Melissa, there's just no competition. Even though I lived just a few minutes away from Janelle's kids and saw them several times a month, even though I lavished them with toys and clothes whenever I could, even though I bribed them with candy and treats if they would say I was their favorite, I just couldn't compete with Melissa.

One time I came over to Janelle's house and I announced that their favorite auntie was here, Brixen (who is the most honest kid I've ever met) just said, "no you're not." There it was, game over. But I was happy to concede defeat to Melissa. Auntie Melissa, who lives all the way over in Hawaii will always be the favorite.

I'm just grateful that I now have a child of my own to be blessed to have an Auntie Melissa.

Auntie Melissa just has a way about her. She loves kids and kids LOVE her. She's a high school math teacher in Hawaii and her students love her. They hang out in her classroom at lunch, after school, they even come on Saturdays. Now, I'm not sure what kind of teachers you had in high school, but I don't remember a single one who I'd CHOOSE to hang out with.

Can I just brag about a few things that she does? In addition to teaching about the regular math stuff, she teaches the practical things that kids will need in life. One of the students' favorite classes is where the kids actually think of and run a business. A REAL business. They might sell t-shirts or food, or anything like that. They have to present their business plan to the banker (Melissa) to apply for a loan. Their presentation determines the interest rate on their loan. And then the kids receive money, ACTUAL money, to start and run their business. And guess where the money comes from? NOT the school. From my sister, Melissa. Now teachers in Hawaii, like most teachers, are not paid well. But she does it because she believes in teaching the kids something important.

I don't know how many years she's been doing this now, but it's been a long time. And she's only had one group who hasn't paid back their loan. The rest of the groups have paid back the loan and made a bit of money. And guess what they do with that profit? Does it go in my sister's bank account for the next semester? Nope. It goes to a charity.

Pretty amazing huh?

Can I share one more thing? She chaperone's a group of students on an international trip every year. It's no surprise that she's usually the favorite chaperone in the group. The thing that is surprising is that she manages to take a student with her that would normally NEVER be able to afford or experience a trip like that. She works really hard to raise money and contributes quite a bit herself each year to take a deserving student. She's in the process of creating a non-profit organization so she can continue to raise money to take a teenager to Italy or Greece or France.

When I asked her why someone would want to donate money for a teenager to go to Italy when there are lots of starving kids in the world, she told me a story. It was a story (true of course) of a student who was so amazed by the opportunity and so touched that it literally changed her life. She had no idea what was out there in the world. Previously, she didn't really have any goals other than day-to-day survival. And now she did.

So happy birthday Auntie Melissa. And thank you for not only filling our lives with happiness and laughter, but also making this a better world.

We love you and love you.

Tony, Natalie and (your favorite) nephew, Ryan

does our tree look funny to you?

I love putting up our Christmas tree in our new house. I love the backdrop of the mountains and the valley behind the tree. But this year, something seems a bit off. Here's a photo of our tree. Does anything look funny to you? Take a good look.

How about now?

Yep, with the exception of lights (and if you look closely, you'll probably see pulled wires hanging loosely from the branches), our tree is pretty much naked from the waist down. I tried crocheting some simple ornaments to put on the lower half of the tree so Ryan could take them off the tree, play with them, do whatever he wanted, without any danger of broken glass and cut little fingers. But do you see any on the tree? They are somewhere in the house, but have seen a lot more action as balls to throw than they have as Christmas ornaments.

And I'm pretty sure there won't be any presents under the tree this year until Santa brings them Christmas morning. Ryan has learned to say "tree" but not on cue. I'm trying to coax him into saying "tree" and then turning on the lights as soon as he says it so it seems like magic. But so far, we have a very un-magical tree.

So we have a bit of a modified Christmas this year. But with all the joy this little mischevious boy brings, it's a small price to pay!

I'm freakishly good...

Several years ago my family had this weird conversation about what we're freakishly good at. I suppose it all started with jigsaw puzzles.

For as long as I can remember, Santa gave me a jigsaw puzzle for Christmas. I LOVED puzzles! And for several days between Christmas and New Years, we would work on puzzle after puzzle. In fact, the holidays just don't seem complete unless I do at least one.

And if I do say so myself, I am freakishly good at doing puzzles. Ask anyone in my family. I know what they'll say.

But here's the thing. If you could be freakishly good at something, let's say anything at all, would you choose to be freakishly good at doing puzzles?

I think not.

This led to us asking each other what we would be freakishly good at. If you could choose anything in the whole, wide world, what would you want to be freakishly good at?

I would love to be able to sing. Freakishly. As a second runner up, I would love to be able to play any and every musical instrument. Just be able to pick up a guitar and jam. Play the violin until it made my mom cry. I think you get the picture.

My sister Melissa said she'd love to be able to do spontaneous back flips. She wants to be able to walk down the street and just jump and do a back flip. I have to agree, that would be pretty amazing.
My husband thinks he's freakishly good at dancing. But really, it's just freakish.

So, as the puzzle season approaches, I ask you two questions....what are you freakishly good at and if you could be freakishly good at ANYTHING, what would it be?

I bet it's not puzzles.

a somewhat long-winded story about a simple stocking for Ryan

Two winters ago was the winter of our partial discontent. I was pregnant and sick every day. We were remodeling our home. While our home was being remodeled, we were living in the unrented rental home of my ex-boyfriend (which is another post altogether, but one I probably won't be writing anytime soon. Let's just say it was a mistake and leave it at that).

In spite of the sickness and craziness, we were happy. Really happy. Good things were on the horizon....a new house....a new baby....a new life.

I needed to decorate for Christmas, but our decorations were stored in some unknown location amongst our furniture and furnishings. So I decided to make some Christmas stockings (which would also be our sole decoration that year). I searched and searched for the perfect Christmas stocking to make for our family. There were so many to choose from! In the end, I passed up the lace, the embroidery, the quilted, and the adorned and chose a simple, felt stocking with a single initial appliqued on the front.

In the midst of all the chaos, I not only needed to, but wanted to simplify my life. I made three stockings - one with a "t" for Tony, one with an "n" for Natalie and one with an "a" for Abby.

Last year, I exhibited my tremendous mothering skills and figured my five-month old Ryan wouldn't know whether he had a stocking or not, so we still had our three simple, felt stockings.

THIS year, I was determined to include Ryan in our Christmas Stocking Festivities, even though I'm pretty sure he still won't remember whether or not he had one this year. I thought about making new stockings. Maybe velvet with our names embroidered along the cuff? But when I pulled out our simple, felt stockings, I still loved the simplicity.

So, out came the felt and before long, Ryan had his own Christmas stocking with his appliqued "r" on the front (don't look too closely, I'm no seamstress!).

One of the fun things about these stockings, is making words with the letters. Last year, I arranged them in the words ANT, TAN and my favorite: NAT. This year, I was adding the letter "r" to the game.

I thought and thought about all the words I could create and in the end, decided that I would go the boring route and hang them in order of our age....which seems to fit our family culture just fine.

be good to yourself

A couple of months ago my sister Janelle emailed me and asked if I wanted to buy a groupon thing for a personal trainer - $50 for 16 sessions! We wondered how good the trainer would be at that price, but we decided to go for it.

We started at the beginning of November when my traveling slowed down and can I just say, I can now do 100 sit-ups and 100 push-ups (yes, girl push-ups, if you must know). But if you happen to see me on a Tuesday or a Friday and wonder why I'm moving so slowly, well, it's because I just did 100 sit-ups and 100 push-ups.

Our trainer is actually one of the better trainers I've worked with (and I've worked with quite a few). It's group training which is something new, but Janelle and I are able to go together. It's always good to have someone to make fun of when you're working out.

One of the things our trainer always tells us is "be good to yourself."

At first, I wondered how and when. I thought of cookies and ice cream and warm bubble baths. But after several weeks, I've come to the conclusion that simply taking a few minutes for myself is all I need (and, honestly, about all I can manage these days).

I tried to take a couple of days off work this week and while I was pretty unsuccessful, I did have a few hours to work on a project that I've been putting off for a very long time. It felt good. I still have long list of incomplete projects, but one is done. If I get really ambitious, I'm going to finish the baby blanket I was going to make before Ryan was born.

So, my message to myself and to anyone who happens to read this is, "be good to yourself."

Personally, I plan to take as much time off as possible this month - which probably won't be much, but it will be something. And I plan on continuing to work out with Angie Idle (isn't that a great name for a trainer...idle!). Who knows, maybe in a month I'll be doing 200 sit-ups and push-ups. And yes, they'll probably still be girl push-ups. It's what I do.