Kierstin's 1st Birthday

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and I agree. Kierstin was so proud to show her grandpa that she knew exactly how old she was and how much fun the party was going to be.

The night before her 1st birthday, (which just so happened to fall on a Saturday) Grandpa Thompson wanted to get some use out of his new high-fangled camera, so we took her to an old flour mill that still has the operating water wheel, to do just that.

After the initial inspection, by Kierstin, of all the pretty flowers, we were able to get a few good pics and she began to have so much fun. Here are just a few more pics from the mill:



























Then came the big party. We decided to keep it just family and everyone was here except Olivia and uncle Brad because Olivia was sick. We were so sad they couldn't be here, but the show must go on. Her cousin Josh tried to make up for the loss of cousin Olivia. Kierstin wasn't going to be an easy cheer.

Since we call Kierstin our "Little Bug" we (or maybe it was just me) thought it would be fun to have a lady bug theme party. Kierstin was sleeping when every one arrived so once she finally awoke, she was immediately transformed:


Maybe not in spirit, but certainly in dress. Her great 1st birthday debut and she still was not happy about Olivia not being there. But Josh was there, trying hard to make her smile...Oh sweet cousin Josh!














We decided we would open presents first then do cake last. So here are all the presents and here is Kierstin - still not
smiling: Even when aunt Ninners tries, still no.
















I think of that song, " I shall not be , I shall not be moved" Well let's see what happends when Josh once again tries to help: Maybe... not quite - good try Josh. He gets an A for perseverence.

So then we need to cover the cake aspect. Keep in mind that mommy made that cake all by herself. I wanted it to be the same kind of cake that my mom made for me growing up for my birthdays. A cake with strawberry jello holes and whip cream icing. It was a little hard to make that look like a lady bug, but I think you can see the resemblance...?...I just knew that this was going to excite her beyond my wildest dreams. Here she is with the cake:


























Oh Olivia, wherefor art thou?

The last part of the party was play time. My inlaws went in on a soft-tub pool for Kierstin, and she loves the water, so surely this will cheer her:

I think she's almost there, where is Josh now? If anyone can make her smile, it's got to be Josh.











and a little help from Uncle Ben. Do you see it, that glorious smile! You did it Joshin! You saved the day.













Do you hear the song, "We are the champions ringing in your ear?" Me too. Happy 1st birthday Kierstin Marie!

A LOT OF CHANGES

It was Kierstin's 1st birthday party, and my nephew Josh told me that he quit looking at my blog page, because nothing has changed in the past 6 months. I laughed and thought to myself - "it hasn't been that long!" but then I realized yes indeed it has. His superstar mom leaves a lot to live up to. She can do everything - she home schools, keeps up with the house, cooks the meals, plans fun events for Josh, works at the hospital some, and even still makes time to blog regularly. I've decided to let myself off the hook, and realize I will never be that productive, but I will do better at blogging. In my defense, we have been very busy the last few months. Being a new mom isn't as easy as I thought it would be. It's certainly more fun than I could have ever dreamed, but what a handful! I say she takes after her daddy with her stubborn ways, but for those of you who know me, you might beg to differ. We're still not sleeping through the night. But the new approach of not going in at all - even when she's been crying for over an hour - seems to be working. Out of the last 3 nights, we've only had one long session, the others have been relatively short and she seems to be amazingly adept at being able to put herself back to sleep.

Not only has the last 6 months been full of the normal baby things: teething, toddling, tooting and tantruming; it has also been full of travels. (Which is why I believe we're still struggling with the sleeping) Here are a few of our travels, and first moments:

In February, we went to Florida to see David's grandparents and for some business. It was so
much fun! We played shuffleboard and went to a manatee park and Kierstin took her first dip
in the pool. We also stayed at Disney Land/World I still get confused about which is which, but
Kierstin got to meet Cinderella and Mickey and Minnie. She also took a sweet nap cuddling with
Lambert, her little lamb.



Then came March and Kierstin celebrated her very first St Patty's Day - no beer, but she is Irish, so we had to get her an outfit that let everyone know:


April brought a trip to Arizona. Again, business, with a little bit of pleasure. We went to Tucson and David's distant cousin, Mary Ann, that we got to know with the passing of his grandfather, lives in Phoenix, and so she drove up to spend the week with us. We had so much fun together. She and Kierstin got to be great friends, and when it came time for mommy and daddy to have some much needed alone time, Mary Anne was there to save the day:


Then came Kierstin's 1st Easter. It was a rainy day, but we still managed to have a great time celebrating Christ's resurrection and the two new lives that had been added to our family that past year. Kierstin truly loves her two and a half month older cousin, Olivia and her 7 year older cousin Josh. We are so blessed to have such a loving family!

June brought Kierstin's 1st camping trip. Every year my mom's family - most of her 10 brothers and sisters and my 26 first cousins, and their children, friends etc, some 60 people go camping way out in the middle of no where on Spring Creek in Leach, OK. The name alone should tell you a little bit about our camping experience. Now this isn't your typical camp site. This is a partially cleared field on the creek. There is no running water (except for the creek) and no electricity. This is a family tradition for over 50 years. Crazy you might say - and yes, maybe a little. But so much fun. Every year, I try to come up with some new and innovative way to bring the modern comforts to my campsite. Every year, my tent becomes the coming attraction, and it gets a little bit better every year. As you can see, I have a tent that's just dedicated to bathing and dressing. Please notice that the outside of the tent has solar lights so that at night, I can see my way in the pitch black darkness.

Kierstin really enjoyed playing with her second cousin, Kate who was born only one week before her. She didn't know quite what to think about the cold water at first, but soon grew to love it.

July brought yet another trip to Milwaukee and to Chicago. We went to the Milwaukee Zoo, which was Kierstin's 1st trip to the zoo. In Chicago, Kierstin got her 1st opportunity to play with a dog named Diezel. He was a great sport and Kierstin fell in love.

That quickly sums up the last few months, which leads up to the next blog coming soon... Kierstin's 1st birthday!!!

Since Then..

The last few months have flown by. All my friends said it would happen. "Once you have a baby..." (I have to admit, shamelessly though, that until I did have a baby, I swore I was going to slap the very next person that said that to me) But now I understand. Maybe it's all those sleepless nights, maybe that we're always gone somewhere, but it's true, our little baby girl is almost 7 months old and I wonder where the time has gone. Even though I've taken some 300+ photos(not exaggerating) I still feel like I've missed so much. Since I waited so long to have Kierstin, my life is pretty much all about her right now, so I don't have much to record or talk about. So suffer through this y'all (I do live in Arkansas now) here are more pics of my little squirt.



Halloween - Anne Geddes pumpkin - With her cousins, Josh and Olivia- Christmas at Steal Your Dollar City-Valentine's Day

The Challenge

Okay, since many of you have gotten on to me for not looking at my e-mails, not sending pictures, etc. I am setting up my own blog page. Jennifer (my sister) keeps telling me that I will do better with recording special events in our lives with this thing called "the blog" so I've accepted the challenge. I can't make any promises on how often it will get updated, but here it goes...

For those of you I don't talk to often, here's the last ten years in a nutshell. I married David in June of 1999. He works for Northwestern Mutual in financial services. He's been with the company for over 14 years. We tried for almost 9 years to have a child - (right from the beginning as we knew that with my female issues, it would be difficult to conceive) after about 7 surgeries and several invitro attempts we decided to forgo the family efforts. We were considering adoption, but decided to even put that on hold. I finished dental hygiene school, (a seventeen year in the making endeavor) and worked as a "fill-in" dental hygienist. Staying very busy with work, and travel, I did not even realize that I was pregnant until I was nearly six weeks.

Let me tell you that this was a complete surprise and a complete miracle. I have endometriosis and polycystic ovarian syndrome, the latter of the two causes me to not ovulate. Every test that was ever done -at home and at the doctors - indicated that to be true. Not only that but David only had 13% viable morphology and so there was no way we were to have children without some help. There was so much scar tissue due to the endometriosis that there was no place for the embryos to attach once the "help" came. So, again I say, "MIRACLE" - and what a blessing she is to us. Her name is Kierstin and here she is...