Happy New Year

I like to think of myself as a positive person, I love to find the positives in any situation and focus on them but 2015 was hard. Impossibly.Hard. March 25th was life changing and after that moment the year became somewhat of a blur. My father was diagnosed with terminal painful cancer and for the next 5 months my time was spent along with family taking care of him. The next four months after that were spent mourning him and learning how to adjust to our new reality without him. So while we celebrated the end of this year and blew our horns in excitement of the countdown I will never forget 2015, it was a year of sadness and memories I will hold for a lifetime. 2015 was sad because I lost my father, but also I am eternally grateful for it because it was my last year of my life spent here on earth with that man. It was the last year I will see my son with his grandpa here on earth. I look forward to seeing him again but for now I will breathe deep and welcome 2016 in our lives. Cheers to the year ahead that will hopefully hold more laughter than heavy tears.

Year Four

One of my favorite things about Christmas is the annual Christmas lights picture. I love to see how much he has grown and then stare at the collage of all of them together. <3 What an amazing four years, slow down time.

Bored

We are not allowed to say "I'm bored" at our house. However, he has quickly learned that his aunts fall for this when he is home and he can bat his long eyelashes at them and they will usually find something cool to do. This Ry-Bot was the handwork of Aunt Christy as she helped entertain him. Thankful for Aunts who love him.

Paleontologist

One of our favorite things that Santa brought us was a dinosaur dig kit. We explained that this is not something we will finish right away, we will have to work on it for a few days. 20 minutes later and mom, dad, and Ryder covered in dust we had ourselves a triceratops. He loved it and was determined to find all the pieces right away.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve comes early here at this house. Since we have to leave town to go be with family but want the experience of Santa at our own house we usually ask him to come early. He has yet to let us down. :) Ryder knows now that we do Christmas early, we sprinkle our reindeer food out on the lawn and we have a very special light-up snowflake that we hang on our door that tells Santa we are ready for him. I overheard Ryder's cousin asking him how santa knows to come to our house already and he said, "because I have a snowflake that tells him when I need him to come". 

Up ahead...

A lot lies ahead over the next few weeks. I both welcome the change of seasons and dread the idea that there are celebration's coming up and they will come with very heavy hearts. There will be a big part of our holiday missing and it breaks my heart to think about. No one ever spoiled my son like my dad did. He was so over the top, I would always act annoyed. "Dad he doesn't need every Thomas train if he asks for a train". I secretly loved it. Nothing was off limits and Grandpa was a big softie. Ryder has his number and had him wrapped around his finger. It was fun to watch him spoil my child and I know "things" don't define love but watching my dad give him these "things" and his face when he would go over the top was priceless. He did anything and everything to make my child soar with happiness. So if you are reading this, my family could use some prayers for the holiday season that lies ahead. Prayers for strength and hopes that we can feel my dad's presence in the the love that surrounds us and the traditions.

Busy Day Preschool

I am so obsessed with the preschool my little man is at. He loves it and I love hearing about all that he does. Today I was sick and I had the opportunity to take him to preschool and pick him up. This is not a job I take lightly, I wish I could do it everyday. What a fun thing to be able to see their smile at the door and hear all about their activities when they are still excited about them. Today when I picked him up he told me he made two cookies, one for me and one for you mom. <3 He then told me that he made me a new candle because he knows I like pretty candles.

Later that day he told me, "mom I loved having my own mommy pick me up today". Melted my heart and broke it all at the same time. So very thankful for my sweet dude.