Tradition

For as long as I can remember Aunt Kate has always loved Halloween. It's her holiday. This year was no different. Last year she came and delivered a pumpkin for Jake all carved up in Elmo fashion. This year Jake got to be more involved. And of all the choices she brought with her, guess who he chooses? Elmo. We cleared the kitchen table and they went to work. At first Jake wasn't to sure of the pumpkin "guts." By the end he kept wanting "more guts." And if you know Jake, he gets pretty adamant. So Kate kept scraping to appease his "gut" fix. As little as his 2 year old attention span is, he sat and helped for almost the entire process. Until Vitale's arrived!

Before Aunt Kate left tonight, Jake got out his halloween costumes. That's right, plural. We have several to choose from for him. We are borrowing these from a friend. The contenders are a monkey, elephant, and dog. I'm hoping the monkey wins. It fits the best of the 3. However, he is a bit concerned about the fir around the neck and surrounding the face.

Looking forward to getting together with some friends and their kids this weekend! Let the torture of picture taking begin!

Fall

Today we ventured out to Post Family Farms in Hudsonville. What a difference a year makes! Jake was so into all of it. His favorite part were the goats. He is still talking about them and wants to look at the pictures we took. We took Grandpa (Bapa) and Grandma with. I think they liked the fresh donuts the best. My highlight was running into Liz Greeman and her girls. I'm still laughing at our brief time we had together, and looking forward to seeing them soon. Caleb was oblivious to it all, as he slept the entire time in his new stroller.

Brothers

Pajamas

We are still adjusting to getting 2 kids ready to go somewhere. Sunday morning was no different. We were unable to make the first service at church and since Scott had a tee time at noon, the second service was not an option.

Since we didn't go to church, why not let our 2 year old run through the sprinklers in his pajamas? After all, it was 65 degrees out! What? All I asked was for someone to walk out to the mailbox and get me my newspaper and it turned into a 9 a.m. pajama sprinkler party.

My husband never ceases to amaze me. Thanks for being a fun Daddy.

Welcome Home

Jake is lovin his little brother. I know it doesn't look like it, but I think Caleb secretly likes him also. Jake's favorite things are trying to play frisbee with him, feed him cheerios, and lay under the activity mat together.

Caleb received his last antibiotic treatment around 7 p.m. on Thursday night and they let us free! It is so wonderful to have our family finally all together. I'm still soaking in all that has happened in the last few weeks, starting with my Dad's heart attack. All I know is that God has been good to our family and I am so thankful to be surrounded by such awesome family and friends.

Today has been a fun Saturday at our house. We got to see MSU lose to Central and Michigan win over Notre Dame. Jake wore his Michigan apparel while Daddy taught him to say GO BLUE. And little Caleb...he slept through it all.

Caleb Update

Today has been a great day for little Caleb. During the night, Caleb started eating much more consistently. That has allowed them to gradually reduce the amount of sugar water that they have been giving him through an IV. Also, now that he is eating better, his own blood sugar has started to rise and regulate itself with each feeding. Hopefully over the next day or so, they can completely remove the IV of sugar water. In addition, they did another chest x-ray this morning, and the results came back about 20 minutes ago--his chest is completely normal! No signs of the pneumonia. Praise God! Caleb will need to stay in the hospital throughout the next week as they continue to administer the remainder of the 10 day antibiotic cycle, but all signs are pointing in the right direction. Again, we greatly appreciate all of your thoughts and prayers. Our family and friends have definitely helped us during these very stressful past couple of days.

Tara and Scott

Caleb Thomas

This little guy was born yesterday at 2:09 a.m.! 8 lbs. 5 oz. and 21" long, exact same as Jake!

After a smooth delivery, he got off to a rough start. His blood sugar was low as well as some other blood counts. For some unexplained reason he has an unknown infection. After a clean spinal tap and some x-rays they are thinking he might have pneumonia. They are treating the infection with antibiotics, fluids, and sugar water (to raise his blood sugar count). We are waiting for a blood culture test that will be available tomorrow morning that should have some more definite results and identify if there are any other infections. Hopefully that will come back clean and the pneumonia is all we are worried about. We do expect Caleb to be in the hospital several more days, but are definitely encouraged by the progress he is making.

We are so thankful for the amount of prayers, calls, and visits from family and friends. God is certainly our anchor and keeping us ever mindful of his grace, mercy, and unfailing love.

We have learned how quickly word can spread through our tech world. Facebook wasn't the way we initially intended to share our exciting news of Caleb's arrival to close family and friends. I'm sure there was a lot of confusion as to what was happening. We are, however, SUPER grateful for all the words of encouragement and most of all, the prayers!