Ty's First Christmas

I can't believe we just celebrated Ty's first Christmas! It was definitely the most magical, fun, and eventful Christmas ever. There really are no words to truly explain how blessed Jeff and I feel to celebrate and share the season as a family. I think the holidays always make you feel happy and thankful, but this year it was amplified. Even with all the ups and downs of the year, we are humbled and grateful that God blessed us with Ty. Our little man is into everything! He's almost figured out the crawling thing. I feel certain we are within a week or two of Ty taking off. He came into this world early and I think he may just do everything early....there's no slowing him down!

Our Christmas involved another hospital visit. Unfortunately this year has been plagued with scares, illness, and poor health for Ty. We are hoping we have gotten through all of it and our little guy will be in the best health for the coming year. Here's how we spent Christmas Eve night and Christmas Day morning.

I love now that mine and Jeff's pictures all have a wonderful addition of a third person. We're a little family and I never dreamed how life changing, how wonderful, and completing having Ty would be. Every day Jeff and I tell each other how much we love Ty. I'm not sure what we did before him because our life definitely revolves around him now!

It looks like Ty is developing a thirst for knowledge (to his mommy's delight)! He LOVES books. We spend time every day reading and he seems to enjoy soaking it all up.

The holidays were spent with family (in some cases briefly since Ty was sick enough to warrant a trip to the ER). It warms our hearts how much everyone loves Ty. He was spoiled rotten during his first Christmas, and we are grateful for people who have taught Jeff and I how to be great parents.

Here's Jeff and his brother and mom (Nana) with Ty. It was such a great family moment. I know Ty enjoyed every second.

Speaking of spoiling Ty rotten; no one does it better than aunt Lauren! Not sure which one of them loves the other one more!

There really are no words for moments like this....I only hope that Ty will grow up to be as wonderful of a man as his Poppy. With guidance like this how could he not.

We tried to start of few of our own traditions with Ty. This year we purchased Elf on the Shelf for Ty and adopted Elfie to watch after him. Every night when he went to the North Pole, he must have reported what a good little boy he was because Ty got more presents than he deserved!

This year we wrote to Santa for Ty, but we can't wait to post in the years to come what Ty writes on his mug to Santa....we can only begin to image!

Even though we were up all night at the hospital, it didn't take an ounce away from the magic of our first Christmas morning as a family. Jeff and I both remember how special our childhood Christmas mornings were. We hope we started off Ty with that same wonder, joy, excitement, and life long memories of Christmas.

As we look at Ty now, Jeff and I are both realizing he's not a baby anymore but more of a little boy. He's developing his own personality and traits that are so fun to watch. In the words of Alissa, he's JJ (Jeff Junior) through and through!

More spoiling! Darlene and Megan were sweet enough to come down and keep Ty one day so I could work. They brought him the sweetest present, and he was happy as a clam all day. I love that he got to spend some quality time with them....again, wonderful influences.

And one more great influence to round it out! Ty enjoyed a fun visit from his Pa during the holiday season. I think it's safe to say he's a pretty loved kiddo!

That about covers Ty's first Christmas. Of course, I could gush and gush and post more and more pictures, but we will keep it at this. Merry 1st Christmas Ty. You have been the best present your dad and I could have ever asked for. We love you more than you could ever begin to understand, and we can't wait for all the fun Christmas celebrations that we will share in the future.

4 months of bliss

Our little boy is 4 months today. Here is a picture of the "birthday boy" on his big day! He wanted to pose with his friends the sock monkeys who were given to him by his favorite aunt Darlene.

On this day we are thankful for a happy, healthy, growing baby boy. We are overjoyed to celebrate you today and every day that we get to spend with you. We love you son.

Too long...

It's amazing how fast time flies now! And that means my poor little baby blog is getting neglected. Here are a few quick updates. Ty is sleeping through the night.....yay!!! We are getting between 7.5 to 9 hours of sleep a night. I forgot how wonderful sleep was! But, I will say every sleepless night was worth having this little guy. He has blessed Jeff and I so much!

Ty's first "arts and crafts" project. It's a footprint ornament for the Christmas tree.

Ty had a nice visit from his Nana (Jeff's mom) a couple of weeks ago. It had been a while, so I know he enjoyed getting to spend some time with her. As you can see he was "kicking it out" and showing off on his playmat for her!

We also celebrated our first Turkey Day with Ty. We had an amazing day at Nona and Poppy's house (Beth's parents). The Hubbard clan joined this year and it was truly a day of thankfulness. We are so blessed this year to have Ty and amazing family and friends who love up and support us with unconditional love. I love how each holiday has a whole new meaning now! I won't bore you all with tons of pictures from the day.....even though I really want to!

I finally gave in and got Ty a bumpo seat, and he seems to really love it. I know he's enjoying having a new activity to do. He is so active, we have to get creative to keep me occupied. So, needless to say, Jeff and I spend a ton of time on the floor playing with Ty....and of course, we love every second of it!

And, Ty is spending lots of time on his tummy getting ready for crawling...gosh help us when this kiddo takes off. He will be into everything!

On the tooth front, we have 2 full teeth on the bottom now. At this rate, we will have a mouth full before his first birthday. It's crazy!

So, I went a little overboard buying clothes for Ty's first Christmas, so he will be wearing nothing but Christmas clothes from here until Santa comes. I just love them, and after all, I will only get to dress him for such a short while. I know he will die about this when he gets older!

I promise to post tons more soon. I'm trying to do this blog not only for friends and family but as a scrapbook of sorts for Ty. We just love this little guy so much, and we love that he is getting such a fun personality now. Having Ty is truly the best gift Jeff and I could have ever gotten. We are so lucky that we get to shape a life, and we are trying to make sure we don't take a second of that forgranted. Every time we're rocking him to sleep and thinking about the 800 other things that we both need to be doing we try to stop and remind ourselves that he's only this little once. And of course, that puts it all in perspective...there's nothing either of us would rather be doing than spending every second with Ty. We love you more than you could ever possibly know son. Thank you for enriching our lives and teaching us to slow down and enjoy it!