Through the years of Kyle, part 2

As I promised, here are the more recent years of Kyle's life. In the one of him wrapped up in the blanket we refer to him as "the sausage". He used to come downstairs in the morning and sit on the couch like that. The most recent one from May of this year was at Tony and Natalie's wedding dinner. He just loved dressing up in that vest and tie! (He really did!)
Tomorrow is his birthday and we're off to the aquarium, so I'll post more then. That is if we don't freeze on our walk from the car to the aquarium. The predicted high for tomorrow is around 8 degrees! Brrrrrr.

Through the years of Kyle, part 1

I better get started on this tribute to my baby since his birthday is only three days away! Kyle was quite chubby when he was younger. He's grown so fast, but still has the same sweet face.
That picture of him sleeping was his first day at home, 12/23/01. He's lying in the oak cradle that my grandpa made when Justin was born. The one in the plaid outfit was one of the first days he walked on his own (1/03). And the one of him lying on his bed was a couple days before his 2nd birthday. We had just gotten his bed and he LOVED it!
I'll be posting part 2 in the next day or two. We'll remember years 3 through 6.

It's a girl!!!

That's what my mom and dad were announcing on this day 35 -years ago! Yes, today is my 35th birthday. My only consolation is that people tell me that I don't look that old. Not only that, but I can honestly say that I am happy with my life. I have a husband who loves me to grow old with, two sons that make me SO proud, a nice home full of pets, and many other family and friends that enrich my life.
These pictures were taken when my mom and I got home from the hospital. Back in the old days they made you stay there for a week! (I'm glad that was changed!) So I came home for the first time just before Christmas. That's my 25-year old dad holding me. Look at that bottle!
I think this is the coldest weather I've had on my birthday. The temperature right now is like 7 degrees and below zero with the wind chill! So now I'm going to grab a cup of coffee and sit in my nice warm house by the Christmas tree. And be 35.

Kyle's birthday party

Kyle's birthday isn't until next week, but we celebrated today. Since his birthday is only four days before Christmas, I like to have his party a little early. An incident occurred that I don't care to discuss, but Kyle had a good time running around, opening his gifts, and eating his chocolate cake from Portillo's.
He also found out that on his actual birthday Jason and I are taking him to the Shedd Aquarium. Jason printed out a "certificate" that he read aloud at his party to announce that we'll be going. We've taken him before, but it's been about two years. Since it costs a small fortune to go there I figured we would make that his gift.
So in a week my baby will be turning seven. Since I can't prevent it, I'll celebrate it by having a countdown as a tribute to him. Stay tuned.

My cute kids

Henry meets Santa

Henry had his first encounter with Santa Claus yesterday. Santa Claus was actually my boss! A couple of my co-workers coordinated pet pictures with Santa combined with an open house at our clinic. They put a lot of time and effort into it, and fortunately we had a really good turn out. We asked for a minimum $10 donation for the picture with Santa to help out a couple of local shelters. We also had educational things set up in most of the rooms in the clinic for the pet owners to see what goes on "behind the scenes". There were refreshments and a raffle as well. The Santa room was constantly busy and our visitors seemed very interested and entertained. It appeared to be well organized even though we had never done anything like this before!
Santa wound up placing Henry on his lap. Since Henry is large and not usually in that position, he was a little stressed. The photographer still got some pretty good shots.

Tis the season

Well, here we are in December. I really don't know where the time goes! It feels as though the boys just started their summer break and now they're almost half-way through the school year. Until I invent a way to slow time down, I guess I just have to go with the flow.
With the holidays on the way, this month is a busy time for most people. In our house, busy is an understatement! Not only do we have to prepare for the holidays, but we have three birthdays to celebrate as well! Yes, three out of the four people in our house were born this month. I'm first. I'll be turning the big 3-5 on the 16th!!! My baby will be seven years old on the 21st (sniff, sniff). Again, I don't know how this happened so quickly. Then, on the 28th, Jason will be 38. He was only 19 when I met him, and I recall his 20th birthday (that was the winter before we started dating.) I'm pretty sure that Kyle is the only one that's looking forward to his birthday. And we have some big plans that he doesn't know about.
We did our Christmas decorating this past weekend. The boys knew we'd be putting the tree up on Saturday night, so they were extra hyper that day! We didn't even bother to tell them to calm down because we knew they couldn't. Our tree is beautifully decorated with ornaments that are all different from each other. Every year, Jason and I buy an ornament for each of the boys. They get to pick out the one they want. That's why we have things like a shark, a lobster, a penguin, an ice cream sundae, school buses, and a BBQ grill on our tree! We also have all the ornaments the boys have made over the years. Lots of things with their school pictures on them. I just love those. To top it off we got a couple inches of snow yesterday which made our decorating complete.