Living in Georgia

We celebrated Ethan's birthday last weekend with a party with his friends at The Little Bear's Playground (an indoor play area designed for special needs kids) and everyone had a blast! It was fun to get together with everyone and just let the kids burn off some energy. Ethan has been walking a lot more lately and this place is perfect for him to hone his skills. It's amazing to see the progress he's been making. And even Wyatt has been growing up by leaps and bounds. He won't be far behind Ethan in his walking (and then life will get much better for Mommy!). There is so much to do here - it's perfect for kids of all ages! Here, Ethan just stood up and walked across the room. Here is a group shot of some of Ethan's friends and family that came to celebrate with us. Big loves for Mommy! We had such a busy day on Saturday that we left the gift opening for Sunday afternoon. And this year Ethan fully understood what was going on and had so much fun opening

It's hard to believe that Ethan is already three years old! Of course, I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that Jack is 5 and Wyatt is 9 months (tomorrow). I think back to that day in 2008 and how our world just stopped. I went into the hospital thinking I knew exactly how delivery would go and how great everything would be. But then everything went wrong.... Ethan was having a hard time breathing on his own so they took him to a special room to hook him up to oxygen and wheeled me back to recovery from my c-section - alone. I cried so much those first days. It was so hard to be in that curtained recovery area hearing all the other moms come and go with their babies. Jason stayed with Ethan the whole time and they kept telling me, oh they'll bring him to you soon, it'll only be another 20 minutes or so. Then they moved me to my room, again alone. I eventually got to see Ethan and it was so hard. He was so tiny (OK, not so tiny - he was 9 pounds, 1

I don't think I've ever been so happy to say good-bye to a year as I have 2010. While it brought lots of wonderful things (Wyatt's birth, Jason home from the Army) it was also a very difficult year with all our hospital stays (Wyatt with meningitis and Jason with knee and neck surgery) and effectively the end of Jason's Special Forces Army career. Here is hoping that 2011 brings us peace in our choices and new opportunities and adventures.... We had started out with a big New Year's Eve party planned but by the day before, most had to cancel so we ended up with just our good friends, the Slaughter's. It was a nice, low-key evening and we all had fun. Both Ethan and Wyatt had been suffering from ear infections and with Wyatt not sleeping, and therefore Mommy and Daddy not sleeping, it was a much better New Year's Eve this way. Hopefully next year we can get back to our big parties. These days it seems that wherever Ethan goes, Wyatt is not far behind. S