So... Where to re-start?

Since I've decided to give blogging another shot, I've been thinking about where to start, or re-start. I could pick up where I left off, but that would be CRAZY! It would be crazy because there is almost too much to mention that has happened in the last year, but I'll attempt to summarize:

• May 2010 - Tucker went on his first long-distance roadtrip to Arizona to see Grandma & Grandpa Great


• June 2010 - Tucker went on his first (& second, & third, & fourth) plane ride, we all went to Mexico to celebrate Bob's (aka - Gramps) 50th birthday, Grandpa Great went to Heaven after a long and courageous battle with cancer


• August 2010 - Tucker went on his 2nd long-distance road trip - this time to Wyoming


• October 2010 - Our little man turned 1!


• February 2011 - Taylor & I's 4th niece was born! Harper Brooker Coulter made her debut, Tucker & I flew to Houston to go see my cousins


• March 2010 - Tucker & I flew to Seattle to go see my BFF Allison, took a ferry to Canada to visit Victoria

...I almost feel like I'm doing you all a great disservice by mentioning all of those things so superficically but this blog would go on and on for days if I detailed every event! If you want to see pictures of said happenings, I've posted pictures of most of them on our shutterfly: www.kendraandtaylor.shutterfly.com! So that's pretty much it up until now. Well, all the big stuff anyway, and I'm sure I'm still forgetting some of it.

Anyway! So I will be picking up here! Taylor & I (and even Tucker) have been working diligently on our house, and we have almost reached a "pause" point, meaning we aren't DONE done, but we are about to be done at least for a little while. Since last September we have re-done (meaning we have LITERALLY torn apart and put back together again) the entryway, kitchen, laundry room/pantry, living room, sunroom, front porch/yard, back porch, and are finishing up the hall bathroom. It has been QUITE an undertaking, but we are almost done! ::insert GINORMOUS sigh of relief here::

Other than that, our lives are continuously unfolding and great blessings are being given to us every day! I know God has great things planned for our family and I can't wait for those things to unfold, but in the mean time, I will attempt to keep you up here!

Okay!

I really am going to try and get back to blogging.

The last few weeks have been a little bit hectic, but there are so many exciting things going on, I might as well blog them!

A few of them include....

My little world traveling toddler

The progress of the house becoming OUR HOME (2 years later!)

My adventures in cake baking and all things sugary and fattening (as a business!)

...to name a few!

So stay tuned! I promise I will try and make a consistant *effort*!!!

Tucker's first Easter

Tucker's first Easter was pretty busy, but unfortunately for him, didn't involve any egg hunting or candy eating.

Instead, we spent Saturday eating lunch and watching the cousins hunt eggs at Green Tree

Then Easter sunday we went to sunrise service with Granny, Gramps, the other Langes and the Kruegers. Then we went to church with Grammy, Peepaw, Aunt Cristin & Hallee. THEN we went to brunch at Green Tree with Taylor's family

Then we came back to Lubbock, and recovered from all the festivities! Mommy, Daddy, & Tucker all slept VERY well when we got home!

Playing catch up!

Due to my lack of blog updates since the new year began, I figured I would throw in a little (hah!) synopsis of what has been going on in our lives the last few months!

January brought snow, the new year, and lots of new experiences! We rang in the new year and a new neice for Taylor & I (and cousin for Tucker)! Hallee Tatum Coulter was born January 1st weighing 5 pounds and 5 ounces! A full 4 pounds lighter than her big cousin! Which also broght Grammy & PeePaw to town!

With the new year also came a new experience for me as a working mom (even though I ended up working from home a lot and even going into the office a few times during my maternity leave), I went back to work at the hospital the monday after new years and although it has definitely been challenging for me to leave my little guy all day, we have been lucky that Taylor is able to stay at home with him until he goes back to school in July! Tucker turned 3 months old at the end of the month and was already busy trying out his vocal chords (he had to start practicing early to be able to get a word in edge-wise with all those big cousins around)!

February brought MORE snow and of course a couple of trips to Midland for Tucker to visit with family! He also started sitting up in his bumbo chair and actually rolled over for the first time, which I was fortunate enough to actually catch on video! What can I say, its my motherly intuition! :) Tucker turned 4 months old which also unfortunately meant a trip to the pediatrician's office for his 4-month check up and shots :( Luckily our little guy is a trooper and took all 3 shots like a champ! He was a little sad when he got them, but was fine once his mommy picked him up! He was 17 lbs. 4 oz. and 26 in. long and we were given the green light to start our big guy on solid foods!

March has brought EVEN MORE snow to Lubbock but also a few nice sunny days! It is nice to finally be able to take Tucker out and let him play in the sun and get to know his puppies! The nice weather has also inspired us to start tackling some of our home renovation projects! We have been eager to get started but since moving into the new house in September and then Tucker's arrival in October, we haven't really had time to start on them until now! Taylor started working on expanding & enhancing our back porch while Tucker and I have started working on the inside of the house! It has also brought LOTS of visitors our way! The Kruegers came in town one Sunday, Tucker had a big time watching his cousins Wyatt & Hannah do silly things to entertain him and then we all went to the Midland College Lady Chaps playoff game and to dinner! It was a fun day and we were so glad they got to come up and hang out!

Grammy also came up just to visit one Saturday so Hallee T & Aunt Cristin came over to play and visit with Grammy! A couple of weekends later she came up again, this time with my Aunt Stacy and 3 cousins! Tucker had a big time getting all the attention from all the girls!

We waited until the beginning of March to start Tucker on solid foods and he has LUH-VED ALL OF IT! We started him on rice cereal, then a week later started veggies with green beans, then onto sweet potatoes! And let me just tell you, he is a BIG fan of sweet potatoes (if he thinks he likes them now, just wait until he tries the sweet potatoes his grandmas make)! He has recently "found" his toes (which tend to distract us when we are trying to eat) and has perfected the grab-object-insert-into-mouth "reflex", he is even working on rolling over from his back to his tummy, which apparently takes a little more effort than rolling the opposite way. Surprisingly he has turned into quite the little chatterbox! I wonder where he gets that from! ;-)

Our little guy is TRULY a joy and we are SO VERY thankful for every minute with him! It seems that every day brings new discoveries for our little boy and we love just watching him grow and interact with the world around him!

Rolling over for the first time

Trying out some sweet potatoes!

Green Beans!

Weekend recap!

So it's Monday again, booo.... I hate when that happens!
Especially after a fast and furiously fun weekend like this weekend we spent with the Beelers!
Brian and Michelle came up on Friday to see Tucker (and maybe Tay & I too)!

After Brian & Michelle got to town, we had a delicious dinner that Taylor made (smoked brisket and homemade BBQ beans! ::MMmm:mm: And I made homemade Peach Cobbler, courtesy of my favorite grandma Paula Dean! ::I wish::)

Saturday morning it SNOWED (again!) and Taylor made breakfast burritos, then Michelle, Tucker & I went shopping while the BIG boys stayed home and watched basketball and monitored their respective brackets! Then saturday night we had delicious fajitas and Soapapilla cheesecake and hung out!
Sunday morning Michelle, Tucker and I set off shopping again while the BIG boys went golfing!

Tucker got some ADORABLE little spring/summer outfits from Children's Place

These shorts and a white polo onesie

This hat and shorts and an orange polo onesie

and I even managed to actually buy some stuff for myself:

a new pair of RED shoes for work,

 a couple of cardigans and some SUPER cute jewelry!

Overall it was a very eventful weekend! We had fun hanging out with the Beelers and showing them the new house (hopefully it will be slightly more IMPROVED when they come and visit next time!

This Friday our little man will be 5 MONTHS OLD!

(Seriously?! Did I just type that?!)

Then I'm leaving Sunday for California for work.

But hopefully while the little guy is napping on Friday, I'll be able to get some blog time in to update on all of the fun new things he is doing!

Eh, blogging...

Blogging is such a wonderful tool for keeping those close to you (and in some cases, not so close to you) updated on life's adventures, but I'm weighing whether or not to keep up with this thing anymore due to everyone and their dog (seriously, ever heard of dogbook?!) being on facebook nowadays.
So, I'm taking a straw poll (?) on whether or not I should keep blogging (not that I've been that good at it recently anyhow!), so if you think that I should continue with this thing LET ME KNOW! Leave a comment so I know that someone in the world actually READS this silly thing, and I will keep doing it, but if not -- bye bye blog! :)

Time flies!

WOW! I have been REEEEALLY bad at the whole blog thing, but I guess that's to be expected with a newborn! Tucker turned 12 weeks old on Monday! I can't even believe it! I LOVED being at home with him for 10 weeks, but now I'm back at work. :-( It's been a crazy couple of weeks, but it really does make me cherish my time at home even more! I miss my little guy so much but I'm so lucky that Taylor is getting to stay home with him, at least for the time being. To make a long story short, we haven't gotten into daycare at Covenant so we made the decision for Taylor to take the semester off from welding classes at SPC and do some coursework online through Tech and take care of our precious little guy.

Here are some pictures of our little (big!) guy over the last few months! He's growing like a weed!

Halloween - Our little lobster - 5 days old

Tucker & PeePaw ready for the Cowboy game!

2 weeks old

Tucker's 1st Christmas card/birth announcement

Christmas Eve with Paw-Paw

Mommy's little cowboy - 2 months old

Tucker's Baptism - December 20, 2009

Tucker's Birth Day

This is a little late, but better late than never!

Tucker Thompson was born at 6:54pm on Monday, October 26th after about 12 hours of labor!
Taylor and I went to Labor and Delivery at 6:00am becauseI was having cramp-like stomach pain but when I showed up to L&D I was having contractions and my blood pressure was 150/100! Although I had been pretty swollen for what seemed like the last half of the pregnancy, my blood pressure had been fine! But all of a sudden (probably because I was in L&D!) my blood pressure was crazy high.
The nurse called my doctor, who decided that he would go ahead and induce me, which I was fine with at this point because I was pretty much miserable!

So to make a really long story shortER, I was admitted and shortly thereafter, in what seemed like a short time they started me on an anti-biotic, pitocin and fluids, then my OB came by, felt on my stomach and guess-timated that Tucker was probably 8, 8 1/2 pounds, then shortly after that the anesthesiologist came in and started my epidural and I was well on my way! Well, sort of... My labor didn't exactly progress quickly, when I was checked at L&D triage I was only 3 centimeters dilated, when I was checked after my epidural around 10am I was a 5, and then around noon I was still only a 5, so they increased my pitocin and was a 7 by 2:30 and finally a 10 and 100% effaced at about 5:00! At about 5:30pm I started pushing, and finally at 6:54pm after being threatened with the need for a c-section, our almost 9 1/2 pound baby boy was born!

Every person who came into our room, our pediatrician included commented on what a big boy he was! She said kudos to my OB for letting me get him out the old-fashioned way and that Tucker was perfect and usually with babies that big they will have broken collarbones or some sort of trauma but not our little guy!

We went home on Wednesday and had visitors every day. Having our parents here for the first few days was such a HUGE blessing! Bob & Lisa got here shortly after we got home from the hospital and Lisa unpacked all of our stuff from the hospital, washed our laundry and did all sorts of chores and Bob made us a delicious steak and lobster celebration dinner! Then my mom came the next day (Thursday) and stayed until Saturday night. She did all sorts of innumerable things and basically took care of all 3 of us, cooked, cleaned, did laundry and pretty much everything you wouldn't think of while I recovered and got used to taking care of our little guy.

And what can I say about my husband? He has been the single greatest, supportive, encouraging person since we left for the hospital. Even though I obviously think he's the greatest guy on the face of the earth (I married him!) he definitely stepped up in the delivery room and has been head-over-heels in love with our little guy since the moment he layed eyes on him. We are definitely on a whole new level with each other now that Tucker is here and I don't think life could be any better!

So now that I have turned this blog into a novel, I will go eat some dinner but I will try and update on our life since Tucker arrived in the next couple of days!

October 26th - 6:54pm - 9lbs. 5oz, 22in.!