December 2013

Another busy month for our family (and I’m sure most of you all can relate)!  Hopefully I get everything down that has gone on.

Update for Matthew:

We’re at 7 months!  He’s been getting a bit of "stranger danger" but with all the family members holding him over the Thanksgiving break, he got over that pretty fast.  He is growing so fast – not quite crawling yet, though Anna and I are pretty sure he has the strength to do it.

One of the cool things he does now is turn pages in a book.  I read to him every night before bed and every time, even when he’s not necessarily paying attention to the story, he wants to turn that page to the next one.  It's pretty adorable.  He has also recently started to drink out of a sippy cup, which is pretty hilarious – we haven’t explored too much with food (still on veggies for the most part, though we’re starting to introduce fruits now), but he loves to drink like the ‘big people’ do.

Update for Anna:

The semester is over, so Anna’s got a bit of a break (just in time to start getting ready for the insanity of tax season) to breath before she heads back.  I know she’s getting excited to be so close to getting done with the classes (and we’re not going to talk about the ridiculous test that she’s going to be needing to start studying for).

She also just got a new vacuuming robot (one of her Christmas presents) and is super excited about it (so anyone who has any advice or tips on how to best use one, shoot us an email!!).   So we’ll see how that turns out.

Update for Jay:

Not much is going on in my corner of the world – other than work and keeping up with Matthew, there isn’t much time left over for anything else.  November is always a bit insane around the office; throw in the new systems that we’ve implemented and we have a bit of an overflowing plate.  Though it was nice to have a solid break for Thanksgiving (I took off a few days to make it a 5 day weekend with my family coming in).

Other Updates:

Other than the busy holiday visiting schedules, not all that much occurred – though to be fair, there wasn’t much time left after all the visiting and eating for anything to occur.  We’ve gotten to put our fireplace to a bit of heavy use with the cold weather that we’re having (though most of you in the South have had it rougher than us, interestingly enough) and we updated our entertainment hardware (yay for Black Friday sales).  But that’s really the big things that have happened.  Now it’s time to start gearing up for the Christmas holiday!!

As usual - if you’re ever in the area, please let us know so that we can try to get out to see you or have you over for a cup of coffee/tea to catch up!

November 2013

Been a busy month!  Matthew's growing by leaps and bounds and work had been crazy (for both Anna & I).  I'll try to get all of it down in the breakdowns below:

Update for Matthew:
Matthew turned 6 months old and is doing really well.  On Halloween, he had his 6 month doctor's appointment and he weighed 18lbs 12oz and was 2 feet 2.75 inches long.  He can pretty much sit up unassisted and does it all the time now.  He can even reach for toys without tipping over.  He's not showing a ton of interest in crawling just yet, but he is doing some wiggling and pre-crawling movements when he's on his tummy, so it's only a matter of time.


The biggest thing is that we've started him on baby food!  He's been eating rice cereal for the past month and we just switched him to oatmeal twice a day.  After his doctor's appointment on Thursday, we started him on veggies.  First to go was green beans.  The first two days he wouldn't have any of it.  Made all sorts of yucky faces.  But by the third day, I think the newness of the flavor wore off and he gave it a chance and ate it and I think he liked it.  Then we tried peas, which he loved.  No wonder he's almost 19 pounds already!

Update for Anna:
Work is starting to ramp up in preparation for tax season and, from what I can tell, class is starting to become a little easier (with the semester starting to draw to a close).  Other than that, and starting to mentally get ready for the Thanksgiving holiday (which we're having our family come up to visit us instead of driving down there, due to Matthew's probably not being ready for that long of a car trip), she's got tons of "free time" (yes, that was sarcasm).

Update for Jay:
As is usual for my updates - work is predominately what is going on in my world at the moment.  We went out to our Colorado locations a few weeks back for some follow-up training - which was actually a rather nice change of pace.  Granted, being gone for nearly a full week wasn't the ideal thing for Anna & myself, but she did an amazing job of holding the fort while I was gone and the chance to spend a three day weekend with her and Matthew was well worth the hassle of having to figure all the logistics out for the traveling.  With the holiday season coming up, we're expecting a rather full work-load at the office, though the days off that we have are going to be welcome; the days that we are going to be there are sure to be filled to the brim.

Other Updates:
Thankfully, after the small fiasco with the bathrooms needing to be resealed, there hasn't been really anything big needing to be redone around the house.  Leaves are coming off the trees like nobody's business, so my weekends have definitely been filled with the more mundane yard work (which Anna has taken the opportunity to take some adorable shots of Matthew in - though he's still somewhat nervous about being put in a pile of organic matter that goes over his head).  As I mentioned above, we're having my family in for Thanksgiving - which should prove to be an interesting change of pace for the three of us.  Still, looking forward to getting to catch up with everyone and see what all has happened in the last few months since we last saw them!

As usual - if you’re ever in the area, please let us know so that we can try to get out to see you or have you over for a cup of coffee/tea to catch up!

October 2013

I am getting the feeling that this whole thing isn't going to be slowing down anytime soon – so as much as I try to keep to a strict update schedule, I am going to just have to get used to being a few days (or a week or two) behind it.  I hope you all can forgive me for that!

Update for Matthew:
We’re definitely becoming a bit more aware of things recently.  I've managed to get Kyara to stay still for a few moments and we got to pet the puppy (which I don’t think she realizes is going to be a gateway for chasing and playing with the puppy when we finally get mobility mastered).  We tried to introduce some avocado…which didn't go over too well (I think it was mostly the texture change) – but we’ll probably be revisiting this here in the near future.

Vocally we've become much more focused on making sounds (which means a nice little break from the normal screeches) and socially, we definitely require all the attention to at least include us.

Update for Anna:
Class has become a rather stable matter now – I think that the overall layout of the class in general has helped a ton in our easing back into a more balanced schedule that affords Anna some time away from everyone.  I know that work has started to pick up (October deadlines looming) and that soon we’re going to be looking down the barrel of the next tax season – so the more we can start getting ready for that, obviously the better off it’s going to play out for everyone.

Update for Jay:
Work has been actually moving back to a more manageable level of insanity – we've surpassed the 3 month mark of being live on the new system, which is pretty much a soft deadline that our team has put into place to mark when we would expect the new users to start becoming more comfortable with the system.  And so far, it definitely has happened in the same general direction that we were expecting it to – I know that on my end of the design and implementation of issue-resolutions we’re starting to see more and more technical requests (instead of the general usage inquiries that we were being flooded with).

Other Updates:
What with the busy schedules that we have, thankfully we haven’t had too much happen in regards to needs on the house side of the picture – I’m going to be redoing some work in our master bath this weekend, but nothing huge that should take more than a couple of hours to take care of.

In conclusion, we've been busy.  But we’re all happy and enjoying the insanity that is our life!  If you’re ever in the area, please let us know so that we can try to get out to see you or have you over for a cup of coffee/tea to catch up!

September 2013

So, needless to say - it's been busy.  Tons of things have happened in this last month (hence the late posting) and hopefully, I'll be able to touch on them all without dragging out into a huge post.  So, with the prerequisite apologies out of the way, here we go.

Update for Matthew:

We're eating cereal finally!!  He's loving it (and demanding more and more each time we put him into his highchair) and has really grasped the entire concept of eating off of a spoon quickly.  It's really awesome to watch him every day grow up and make connections to things more and more quickly (tonight's 'revelation' for him was the beginning of feeling of faces, while concentrating on the nose and moving down to the chin).  He's becoming more and more vocal (huge surprise there, for those of us who have known Anna for more than 5 minutes) and gets super excited whenever the 'big people' include him in their conversations.

He's also getting much better at looking around at his environment - starting to recognize the person carrying him, the sounds of people coming and going (and 'greeting' them with a smile), etc.  Kyara is already one of his favorite objects around the house; she's going to be a busy pup when he does finally learn how to move on his own.

Update for Anna:

Anna's class is back in full swing - and she's really loving it from what I can tell.  This semester is a seminar based course (which I believe I mentioned last posting) and has turned into a great experience.  She's excited to be back into the swing of 'adult life' - and I imagine that the excuse for a bit of alone time is helping to...I have no idea how she manages to do everything that she does and I'll shamelessly make a plug here for how amazing of a person she is.  She makes it look easy - even when I know it isn't.

I know that work has been somewhat 'slow' - though I can imagine that it's going to be picking up here soon of her as the next tax season starts to loom nearer.  Thankfully, Matthew and I (with some much appreciated help from Anna's mom) have started to get used to spending a few evenings on our own while she's in class.  Which means that Matthew has started to understand that the lesser of the two big people that he lives with is assigned to him to look after while mom is away.  He's a pretty good sport about it - makes sure that we know exactly what he expects and how he needs it without causing too much of a fuss (most of the time).  ^_^

Update for me:

Busy would be a rather small understatement for me at the moment.  The new system is up and running fully at work (we've been live for 2 months now and have incorporated all the banks into the centralized system finally) and add the fact that quarter end is quickly approaching, it's going to be getting a bit more crazy before it calms down.  Granted, it's not all bad - we have great support from all our associates and, while people are still going through the "Holy Christ, it's a new system" phase, they are really taking to it rather well.

Other Updates:

The house has undergone another renovation - this time an external one.  My family was in town for Matthew's baptism at the end of July and we took advantage of the extra hands and went ahead in tearing down the front deck.  Just this past weekend, we've finished having a close friend of Anna's family construct a new set of concrete steps - and they look awesome.  We also threw together a rather nice sized firepit in the backyard with some of the extra materials that we had collected from the tearing apart of the old structure in the front of the house...so everyone came out a bit happier than we went in.  I think we're going to be installing a small row of shrubs/bushes in front of the house and along the sides of the steps to finalize the new setup - but we're still in discussion on exactly how we're going to be handling that particular finishing touch.

Original Porch

Porch DESTRUCTION

New Steps

 

And of course, if you're ever in the area, please let us know (text or call)!  We'd love to see you and have you over for a cup of coffee.

August 2013

3 months!  We’ve survived for 3 whole months with a baby!!

Which is pretty impressive, given the fact that in the last month I’ve been on a team at work that just implemented an enormous system that has taken over 1 ½ years to design.  And Anna’s already getting amped back up to head back into classes (albeit a single class – because we want to ease back into the swing of things to prevent an overload).  So we’re doing pretty fantastic for the most part.  Is it hard?  You bet your butt it is.  But that’s part of the deal, right? 

As far as updates for the month…yeah, did I mention that we’ve survived with a baby?  How about also getting a baptism done, ordering and mailing out birth announcements, and hosting my family for nearly a week in the house?  Oh and we’re also remodeling the front of the house (getting rid of the old, rundown deck that has dominated the front of the house since before we moved in and replacing it with a more simpler and easier to maintain concrete steps).  Sooooo, we’ve been kinda busy.  Not to mention, we’re having some great friends coming in this weekend to test how Matthew handles other babies (yes, Jessica and Parker – your daughter is going to be the first encounter with the infant species that our son is going to have.  Enjoy that.)!

And, before I forget – everyone needs to sends congratulations to Liz and Dave for their newest arrival!

As usual, please please please let us know if you’re going to be in the area (text or phone calls work great as well as emails!) so that we can try to introduce you to Matthew!

July 2013

Oh look - I'm late again.  I really think this is going to become the blog post on the 5th day of the month instead of the original intended first day of the month update.  But at least it's still monthly...for now.  We'll see how that update schedule goes when Matthew finally accomplishes the 'crawling' benchmark.

But for now - we're still able to be planted, so we're enjoying that. Needless to say, I'm really starting to appreciate the humor in 'achieving' certain benchmarks of life - more so than previously.  Enough that I've created an ongoing 'project album' on Facebook to entertain not only Anna and myself, but anyone who's curious as to how I see the world (for the most part).  The most recent achievement that we've 'unlocked' was this past week in which we gained this beauty:

Other than Matthew updates - there really isn't much to talk about, to be honest.  Anna is starting to get back into going to work, which is awesome, and I think that while she's still worried about getting back into the swing of going to classes, we're probably going to start talking about getting a schedule worked out for her here in the next couple of months.

In my world, other than Matthew, the system that we've been working on for over a year now finally has gone live (we launched this past Monday).  And so far, it's been fairly smooth sailing (admittedly, we've only really begun to toe the line as far as what it is intended to do) - so here's hoping that we'll continue on this gentle slope of a path and not hit too many bumps in the road now that we're open for business.

As always, if you're going to be in the area, shoot Anna or myself a text or give us a call - not going to make any wild promises, but we'll certainly try to get everything organized so that we can have an hour or so over for a cup of coffee and introduce you to Matthew!

June 2013

Matthew is a month old!!  Needless to say, while I’m still getting used to having the opportunity to brag about my son to people (guilty of this to an embarrassing degree), I’m still simply in awe of the sheer complex simplicity that is human life.  Anna and I were talking about this the other night – just the immensely amazing fact that something so simple is, at the same instant, beyond our ability to describe properly due to the intricately complexity.  A child.  A human being.  The ability of creation is staggering – and humbling.  I joke about the fact that we were only required to basically sign a birth certificate before the hospital allowed us to bring Matthew home…but sometimes, it staggers me that this is all that they require.  Matthew, as perfect as he is, still requires immense levels of attention (not to mention patience) from us; something that sometimes I can be short of when I’m not fully cognizant of my surroundings (which makes me watch in awe as Anna handles this new responsibility with what seems, to me, instinctual ease).

Obviously, work has taken a burner farther back on the proverbial stove of our lives as we get reacquainted with the demands of actually having a family (ironic how the life that we lived before this seems so far and distant from what we are experiencing today – even though it literally has been just a few days over a month since it all really changed).  I’m back in the office for most of the week (gotta love those banking holidays) and Anna is finally feeling back up to getting in the car to make the drive into the ‘office’ that she works from.

We’re still getting used to the schedule changes that Matthew has demanded, so we’re finding it somewhat difficult to schedule visitations for the little ‘wiggle-worm’ (to see the definition of this, just check out the video that Anna posted on Facebook), but we’re getting better.  Hopefully we’ll manage to get that figured out here soon (though, from what I understand, we’re just getting to the point where we realize how much of a lack of control we actually have…).

As always, if you’re in the area, shoot us a text or give us a call.  I can’t make any solid promises, but we will definitely try our best to get everything into some rough semblance of order and have you over for a cup of coffee!  -Jay

May 2013

So, yeah - this is late.  Apparently (for those of you who haven't had the luxury of going through the experience), having a kid takes up a lot of time.  Enjoy that tidbit of a warning.  But, then again, it's totally worth it.  If you haven't had a chance to see some of the amazing photos that were put up on Facebook by our friend, Janel, you're totally missing out on some of the most adorable baby shots ever (sue me, I'm biased on the subject).

Matthew's doing amazing - we went in for his one week checkup to find that he's already back over his birth weight benchmark (apparently this is a 'goal' that they have for newborns to achieve by week 2.  My son, who eats like a small football team, achieved this in less than a week.) and that his overall progress is great.  I'm pretty sure that we haven't gone into their office without one of the nurses 'kidnapping' him to go and show everyone else how awesome this kid is. Also, for the other new parents (or parents-to-be, in some of our readers' CASES [you see what I did there?]), you really need to check out the Woombies.  These things are one of the most ingenious designs of a easy swaddling device that I've seen in my (somewhat limited) time as a parent.  And they're cheap. Did someone order a win-win?  Cause they just delivered it here: http://www.woombie.com/

Kyara is adopting her new 'charge' without too much trouble (her concern is currently limited to making sure that we remembered to bring him home every time we go out with him and to periodically check on him throughout the night to make sure that he's still 'planted' in his crib).  Anna has taken on being a mom with a good amount of care - there were some rocky areas that we both had to get over on the first few days (primarily the realization that they actually let us leave the hospital with another human being without making us sign anything or take a test or swear a pledge of ownership - at least for me it was....still trying to get my head around that one, to be honest).

We're still getting through the first 2 week stage of having a child (which I'm sure has been severely padded for us by the presence of a great family support system here by Anna's mom), but I think that once we get through the initial phase of "what the hell do we do now?" that we'll be back in the mood for some visitors and life will return to (or at least seek to achieve a form of) normality.

I hope?

April 2013

Well, as is usual, I'm running a bit behind on the update this month - my apologies, it seems that between the upcoming arrival of Matthew, getting through the last stages of our system testing process in addition to getting ready for user training and going live across the company,& it being tax season for Anna – we’re running a bit behind on all fronts. However, we’ve managed to get the majority of the new nursery completed for Matthew’s homecoming; we just have a few minor touches left before Anna considers it completely done. Hopefully the weather will start getting warmer here soon and allow us to get a little bit of the initial outside work complete before he arrives and takes my attention completely away.

Just last week, Anna’s family went through the loss of her grandfather – a great man who had, for the last 10 or so years, been slowly succumbing to the effects of Alzheimer’s. While it was a very sorrowful event, the service that was held in his memory Tuesday was lovely and it was really quite wonderful having an opportunity for Anna to see all her extended family. In addition, a few days ago, her aunt also lost her husband – any prayers that you can spare for her at this time are greatly appreciated.

I, as many of you might know, am always fascinated by the ebb and flow of the sociological impact of death and loss – and this situation was certainly no different. Especially standing in the unique position that I had throughout the ceremony – as both a member of the family, but at the same time, separate from them – I was once again struck with just how the family unit responded to the unexpected grief by constricting into a powerful, single entity whose sole purpose, for the short term, was the protection of itself. The support that flowed throughout this group of individuals, many who were usually somewhat at odds with one another, was awesome and really pointed to the underlying strength and faith that each of them had in each other and, ultimately, in God. It was, to me, yet another point of pride that this was the group that my son would be growing up within – a group of people that, even through the immense pain of the loss of a central figure in most of their lives, was able to continue to radiate warmth and love to each other on a level that rose them above many people that I’ve seen in my life. Truly, I am not able to think of a more supportive environment to raise a child within – the knowledge that this intricately woven web of support was behind Anna and I made me realize just how lucky we are.

As is the norm, I want to be sure to say that if any of you are ever in the area, please do not hesitate to give us a call – we would love to catch up with you over a cup of coffee (or, in Anna’s case, tea) or dinner. Also, due to the impending arrival of Matthew – we know that many of you are wanting to come see us (and we’re super excited for that!!), but I would ask that you give us a heads up on when you’re planning on coming up so that we can be sure that we give everyone a fair share of our attention and love. Shoot me an email or text about when you’re hoping to come by – I know that Anna is really, really looking forward to introducing our new arrival to everyone.

March 2013

Hey friends and family,

I know Jay usually does the blog updates, but I'm going to give y'all an update on what's been going on this month.

So, mostly, we've been spending the past month getting ready to bring Matthew home.  Jay got the crib set up and the quote put up in the nursery.  Also, we just had our second baby shower, hosted by my aunts on my mom's side, lovingly known as "the Queens".  It was a great shower with lots of great advice, and we got several of the "large items" we needed to be ready for Matthew (like a car seat, a stroller, and a high chair).  We haven't even had a chance to open all of the gifts yet.  It makes me feel a lot better to know that we have  the major things in place for our son.  We also attended our birthing class last weekend, which ended up being really informative.  We had an amazing instructor and I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what I can expect when labor starts.  And I think we have our hospital chosen.  For those of you familiar with the hospitals in the area, I think we're going to be delivering at Shawnee Mission Medical Center.  They have a brand new labor and delivery ward and we were very impressed.

That's mostly what we've been up to, aside from work.  Both of us are pretty busy these days.  We're at the busiest point in tax season with the March 15th deadline for businesses and the April 15th deadline looming not far behind.  I'm really hoping Matthew will hang in there until we wrap up the season...it sure would make it easier on everyone, lol.  Jay works lots of late nights helping the bank get ready to launch the system they've been working on for months.  I'd give you more details if I actually understood just what he does...but from what I can tell, he's involved in LOTS of meetings and conference calls and spends most of his days as "support" for the rest of his team, dealing with issues in the system as they arrive.  I'm really proud of him for how hard he's been working...but honestly, I'm really looking forward to him taking a couple weeks off after Matthew is born.

Okay, I think that's it for now.  If you're friends with me on Facebook, I post a pregnancy update about once a week.  I'm about to enter week 33 of the pregnancy and so far things are going well.  My blood pressure is a bit high these days, so they are keeping a close eye on it, but so far there's not reason for concern.  Matthew's growing and moving a lot, so everything seems good to me.

As Jay always says, if you're going to be in the area, let us know.  Things may be busy, but we'd love to grab coffee (decaf) or dinner with anyone passing through if we can.  Otherwise, we're looking forward to people visiting and meeting Matthew once he gets here.  We love you all and hope things are going great for you and yours.  Please continue to keep us in your prayers--I really attribute my wonderful pregnancy to all the prayers and well wishes of my friends and family.  So, thank you.

February 2013

Good morning everyone!

Things are pretty hectic up here - not terribly, but enough that we're noticing it.  We're in the process of getting the crib for Matthew at the moment, so the majority of the nursery developments are on hold until we acquire that rather important piece of furniture.  We did manage to find the decals that we're going to be putting up around the room, but until we get the centerpiece of the room and decide where that is going to be placed, the actual deployment of those are pending.  Anna's noticing more and more movement (for those of you who aren't followers of her weekly updates on her Facebook page) and is getting more excited and nervous as the time continues to count down towards the arrival of our VIB (yes, that means Very Important Baby - sue me).

Work is...calming down?  Not really, actually.  We're through the brunt of the first round of system testing for the new systems that we're implementing into the company and have found a ton of errors (surprise, it's system testing!) that we're needing to address before proceeding.  Needless to say, there have been a number of days that I've been here around 10-12 hours; most of them spent in front of a computer with headphones in to help with the concentration.  Thank God for Google chat (otherwise I think that Anna would have thought that I had run away or been kidnapped sometimes).  That all said, I'm getting really excited to see this little beastie come out from the lair and rear it's head on the go-live date.  It's certainly going to be an impressive setup...and hopefully it'll cooperate and work for everyone else as it does for us here in the planning stages.

Anna is getting through the preliminary stages of the dreaded Tax Season - and from the sounds of it, it's going pretty well for everyone.  I know that she's having to go in more and more (which isn't a huge surprise, given that, well, it's Tax Season) but overall she seems much happier and more comfortable with her position.  She's also (as far as I can tell) enjoying having the semester off from taking classes - even though, deep down, I think she sorta misses it (because she's crazy like that).

As usual, if you're in the area, please do not hesitate to give us a call or shoot us a text - we'd love to show you around our home and catch up with you.  We might even have you over for dinner, if we really like you. Possibly.  (Yes - that was sarcasm.  We'd probably let you stay with us, even if we didn't like you.)

But in all seriousness - if you're in our neck of the woods, give us a call so that we can schedule a meal and time to catch up with you (hopefully I'll be able to make it out of the office in time to see you too - but if nothing else, Anna would love to have someone other than Kyara to hang out with).

January 2013

Whew.

So we're finally done with the two weeks of running from one place to the next - and after counting the many, many blessings, it is with dead certainty that I say this:  It. Was. Awesome.

There were times that we both were so worn out from running from one thing to another and from one city to the next - but throughout it all, I think that Anna and I both felt that it was truly the most enjoyable manner in which to spend our vacation time.  From the awesome baby shower that my family threw for us when we visited Waco for Christmas this year to the sheer enjoyment that we all had over the New Year Eve, the one thing I remember is the sense of feeling that this was where we both belonged.  It is truly a blessing to know that your child, even before he is born, has such a loved and valued place in the world.

Needless to say, we're super busy with work and life in general (something about a new baby always makes things kick it up a notch).  We have started to arrange the new nursery for Matthew's arrival and are hoping that we'll have it mostly completed by the end of the month.  Anna has taken the semester off from school in order to give herself more time to focus on her work (remember it's tax season people!!) and baby Matthew's health.

Work has also started gearing up on my side - the upcoming system testing for our new programs start in the next few weeks and, as part of that, the preparations are beginning in earnest.  Hopefully I'll still manage to have some time for work around the house and to spend with Anna.

As usual, if anyone is ever in the area, please do not hesitate to give us a call so that we can try to have some time to catch up with you!