March 2014

Well this is probably going to be a pretty short update - to be honest, Anna and I have both been super busy at work, so there hasn't been much that has occurred for us since last month's update.

Update for Matthew

As many of you saw on Facebook in these past couple of days, Matthew has finally started getting more and more impatient about not being able to move around himself, and has started to really show some interest in walking.  Just this morning, we stroller-walked around the house for about 20 minutes - with the only assistance needed when it came to making some turns and transitions between our carpet and hardwood floors.

He has also started to eat more 'grown-up' food, mostly due to his not really being all that interested in baby food other than his cereal (which we're having to supplement with the fruits and veggies due to his not wanting anything to do with them on their own when they're pureed).  It's pretty fun to introduce him to some of the more basic foods that we eat (mostly rice, mac and cheese, some meats from time to time, and, one of his favorites, stew).

Update for Anna

Again, this update is pretty much summed up with the phrase: "Tax Season."  Anna has been running nearly full speed for the past couple of months - and it doesn't look like she's going to be able to slow down until at least the end of April...at which time, of course, her classes are going to resume.  Thankfully, she and Matthew have both seemed to gotten over the never-ending bug that was plaguing them finally, which means that her energy is starting to somewhat come back (although between the tax season and having a 10 month old demanding her attention, I don't quite understand how she can move without an inordinate amount of coffee to assist her).

Update for Jay

Work is definitely starting to pick up for me as well, with most of the preliminary planning complete, we're now starting to identify which gun barrel we're going to be staring down for the foreseeable future in regards to oncoming projects for the next phase.  Which is both exciting and rather daunting at the same time - sometimes the sheer amount of information that is required to be processed is rather unnerving...especially when it feels at times that there isn't enough hours in the day to get the tasks that we already have on our plates finished.  But our team is amazing, and we haven't come up against anything yet that we haven't been able to overcome, so my hope is that, while it's tough, we're going to continue that track-record.


As is usual, I want to invite anyone who's passing through the area to give us a shout - we'd love to see you and catch up (and, in light of this weekend's forecast, give you shelter from any literal storms that are about to hit our small corner of the world).

February 2014

First off, I wanted to apologize for the lack of a post last month - we were all super busy with holiday travels and then all got sick, so there wasn't a lot of free time in which to sit down and compose.  Hopefully, I'll be able to cover everything in this month's update.

Update for Matthew

Needless to say, Matthew has gone through quite a lot these past couple of months.  We drove down to Dallas to visit some close friends for what has become somewhat of a new tradition for New Years Eve - which was no small event this year.  Of course, even without an infant in the car, an 8 hour drive can be tedious...and Matthew did a great job both on the way down and back up.  We got to finally meet the Case's new arrival, as well as catch up with the Hornsby and Mech families.  Overall the trip was a blast that ended too quickly.

Of course the next experience for Matthew wasn't nearly as much fun, as soon after getting back home, we all got hit by a bug and have just recently gotten back to our normal healthy selves.  Both Matthew and Anna got hit a bit harder than I did, but we've all been down and out for the most part of the last couple of weeks, so it's nice to start seeing everyone getting back on their feet.

Matthew has also started attending daycare twice a week, to better help Anna survive tax season, and has been doing quite well, from what I've heard.  the other development that has been going on is that he seems to finally start to show some interest in getting independent mobility - although he still obviously prefers the big people to carry him around.

He just recently got his two bottom teeth in, so we're also having fun getting through the pain of that whole process (him obviously moreso than Anna or I) as well as starting to really become interested in chewing on just about everything that he can get his hands on (food and otherwise).

Update for Anna

Tax. Season.

No, seriously.  It's tax season - so the fact that she is able to take care of Matthew and I on top of keeping her head above water at work is beyond impressive.  And she does it with a smile (generally...unless I do something that I shouldn't) - which is only more amazing.

As I mentioned in Matthew's update, Anna has also been going through some illness (the weather is definitely not helping the situation).  So that, on top of the normal load of stress that is present around this time of the year has not improved matters. But we're getting through it (with the help of a lot of hot tea and cough drops) and are getting closer to the end of the tax-tunnel every day.

Update for Jay

As is normal, work has been pretty busy for me - though now that the holiday season is coming to a close and everyone is back from vacation, it's calming down.  We're looking at another few projects that will probably be starting here soon and will be taking at least a few months to design and implement - which is one of my growing points of interest.  In my mind, the development and implementation of systems have kind of always been more my cup of tea when compared to maintaining the systems after they go live - I'm definitely guilty of having more interest in design than in maintaining new programs and procedures.



As usual, I want to invite anyone who is passing through our area to give us a shout - we'd love to see you and catch up over a cup of coffee (or hot tea).

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!