Matters of the Heart

Do you know how fast life can go from normal to insanity? I'm not sure I really grasped that fully until this weekend. Friday was Gavin's birthday and after spending the morning with Mason, we hit the road to spend 5 or 6 days in Regina. I didn't get time off at Christmas to come home and see everyone and I really wanted to get to see my new nephew Noah again since he was just born Christmas Day. The drive was uneventful, and my sister texted me in the afternoon to make plans to visit. I knew she was taking little Noah to get an echocardiogram done because the had discovered kind of randomly that his heart looked a little enlarged, but as far as I knew it all seemed pretty minor and just in case. 

When Gavin and I showed up at my mom's door Friday evening, she was just on her way out, with my three year old nephew, explaining that my sister and baby Noah were being flown a province over where they have a children's hospital and that he needed heart surgery! Needless to say, the last couple days has seemed to go on forever and also kind of flown by. One day everything is normal and the next the family member you would least suspect to need life-saving surgery is getting just that. Fortunately, everything since they got there (besides the scary diagnosis) has been good news. Apparently tiny Noah is a fighter and he is so lucky to have his amazing parents and some amazing medical staff there with him. 

We've all been checking our email approximately every 7 minutes, just in case there are updates and there have been many phone calls to keep the information flowing to the rest of the family. Times like this truly remind you what you have and to be thankful for the things that we sometimes forget are such enormous gifts, like healthy babies, devoted parents, free healthcare, and even well-behaved five year olds that are very willing to share their mom with a three year old cousin who doesn't really understand the whole situation. There truly are no words for how lucky I feel for everything at this moment.

Five.

Yes, five. 

Well, six birthdays, five full years.

Tell me, does a mother ever get used to these things?

I registered him for kindergarten earlier this week, and I drove right past the school first.

I made it in on the second try, but barely. I always thought it was a little silly when people talked about crying when they drop their child off for their first day of school. I don't think that anymore.

This boy is such a sweetheart. In five years he has gone from a sweet baby to a sweet and articulate boy. I say articulate because one of the most amazing things about him is his ability to put things into words. Almost daily he spontaneously pipes up with some sweet declaration of his love for Mason or I (or both). A couple weekends ago he randomly spoke up and said, "Mom, don't you know eternity means forever? I'll love you for eternity. Even when you pass away and I pass away, I'll still love you." We weren't talking about love, forever or death before that at all. 

He just melts my heart. I'm so lucky to be this sweet boy's mom.

Happy 5th Birthday, Gavin.

2013 Review, part 6

This year was a really slow year for me on the blog, but big for living. I feel like we did so much this year and the months went by far faster than I knew possible. So I wanted to do a little review in photos and in the 6 days left in the year, I'll do two months every day. 

In November we had a lot of visitors. Both my mom and Mason's parents came for visits. Other than that, we took it pretty easy, near the end of the month we started all the Christmas preparations like decorating our first Christmas tree and getting our onesie photos done.

 December was all Christmas. Christmas shopping, Gavin's Christmas concert, Christmas at here, Christmas in Regina, and a Christmas baby (my new nephew Noah!). Oh, and there was a hockey game that wasn't Christmas-y, but that was about it. It was a fantastic year for our family and I can't wait for a new one.

Happy New Year!

2013 Review, part 5

This year was a really slow year for me on the blog, but big for living. I feel like we did so much this year and the months went by far faster than I knew possible. So I wanted to do a little review in photos and in the 6 days left in the year, I'll do two months every day. 

September started off with a bang when Mason broke his leg on a trip to Regina. So that made the month pretty low key. My summer job ended at the beginning of the month so I spent a couple weeks in between jobs, which worked out well because driving with a broken right leg is a little tough. As crappy as it was that he was hurt, it was fun to have a week at home together too. 

October was also a pretty laid back month. Mason was still healing and I was settling into my new working routine. Gavin tried bowling for the first time and Mason would have lost to me if he hadn't stolen one of my turns.... cheater. ;) We also made some cool shadow puppets, which I'm still kind of amazed by so I had to put a picture of those in. They were such a simple but fun toy. And there was halloween, of course, Gavin was Super Mario this year.

2013 Review, part 4

This year was a really slow year for me on the blog, but big for living. I feel like we did so much this year and the months went by far faster than I knew possible. So I wanted to do a little review in photos and in the 6 days left in the year, I'll do two months every day. 

July was such an awesome month. We did so much this summer and I'm so glad we seized the moment so often. We went on our first camping trip of the summer early in July on a whim. We took off to Waterton and enjoyed a couple days in the mountains. Gavin is so big now, we went hiking and exploring, stayed up late and counted satellites and such. My sister and her family also came down for a visit which is always fun. Any extra time we get with her family is so special. When they went home, they took Gavin with them and he spent a whole week in Regina without us. It was so strange for Mason and I (who never lived together before Gavin was around), but he had a good time and was so happy to see us when it was all said and done.

In August we took two more camping trips! The first was a little out of our comfort zone because it rained the whole first day! We had to set up our tent and do everything else in the rain. By the next morning we went so chilled that we sat in a coffee shop in town drinking tons of coffee and hot chocolate and then went to the laundromat to stick all of our clothes in the dryer! Lucky for us it cleared up for the rest of the trip. Our second camping trip was really spontaneous, Mason had a friend who was going camping a few hours away with some people and two days before the weekend Mason decided we'd go along! It was so worth it though, even though it was a very quick weekend, we got to see some awesome stuff in Banff National Park. And as if the month wasn't already awesome enough, I got to go to Regina and see Paul McCartney live with my dad and step-mom, and have a beach day with my mom, my sister and our little guys.