Happy Birthday Aunt Anna!!!

My little sister Anna turns six today! Whoa! We can't wait to see her and the rest of the family next weekend at the annual Ring Family reunion. We'll have to be sure and sing Happy Birthday to Anna while we're there.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANNA!!!!!

Little Willy Is Growin' Up

Little Will is not so little anymore. In the past month he's learned to crawl and has gotten a lot more interactive. He's personality has really developed and, well, the kid is loud. Seems like he is always making noise, hollering or whining or crying if you leave the room or grunting or laughing. He even whistles (which is pretty neat).

The best is definitely the laughing. He does it so much more now and we don't even have to instigate. Sometimes he'll just look over and see Lyla and start cracking up. It's the best.

That's my boy, good ol' Will.

Beautiful beautiful beautiful. Beautiful girl.

Our dear, dear friend Jessica (aka Aunt Jessie, owner of "Aunt Jessie's White Car" as Lyla so fondly and frequently pointed out as we drove in said car while in San Diego) snapped these lovely pictures of Lyla during Jenny and Shane's wedding reception.

Thank you Jessie for taking such beautiful pictures of our daughter.

Happy Birthday Emily!!!

Wow! I can't believe my little Emily is FOUR YEARS OLD!!!

She went from this:


To this:

For those of you who don't know (how can you not know?), Emily is our niece. The first born daughter of Katherine's brother Dave and his (awesome) wife Faith. We've been so blessed to have Emily as our niece and to have been able to see her as much as we have since we live so far way from her (boo). Emily for sure holds a special place in our hearts. She and her sister, Ally, are right up there at the same level as our own kids (Lyla and Will... remember?).

One good thing about Emily getting older is that pretty soon she'll be old enough to come up and visit us on her own... not that we don't want David and Faith to visit, we're just looking forward to some niece/cousin time with Emily and Ally.

Anyway...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EMILY GRACE!!!!!

WE LOVE YOU!!!!

Buddies for Life

Wanted to get this up before we head off tomorrow for our 9 day adventure to Missouri. First, I love Lyla as a big sister. She's so good at. She very clearly loves Will and is always looking out for him. At the same time, it's funny how kind of rough she is around him. It's like she's only 18 months old and doesn't fully comprehend the nuances of Will's fragility. That being said, she has never done anything that has given us any concern... except maybe that time she bit his finger... but if I remember correctly Katherine was egging her on...

Anyway, I digress. The o9ther neat thing is that Will is beginning to recognize us. He's all smiles all the time when he sees us. And I just love the looks he gets on his face when he sees Lyla or she's all up in his grill. Sometimes it's a huge, beaming smile. Other times it's a look of serious "oh my, this isn't good" concern.

They're great together and both Katherine and I are looking forward to watching them grow together. Having two kids 15 months apart has definitely been hard but one thing we told ourselves going into it was that our kids would be good friends. It's such a blessing to see that coming true this early. See for yourselves:

Remembering John Ring

I only remember my grandfather talking about landing at Omaha beach once. He didn't really say that much and got too choked up to continue. That's the only time I think I saw my grandfather cry. The significance of that moment didn't really sink in until seven years ago when I visited Normandy and stood at the top of Omaha, looking down at the expanse of beach and massive hill.

It would be arrogant of me to think I understood in any way what my grandfather experienced that day or that night huddled in a hole, scared for his life. What I can say is that my heart trembled at the weak recreation that my imagination came up with. It was a fear that I'm not sure I would be willing to face.

And so it is with great respect, love, and appreciation that I say to John Ring and the thousands of other men who risked and gave their lives to take those beaches - thank you. Thank you for defending your countries, defending freedom, defending the oppressed, and standing up for justice 65 years ago.

Buddies For Life, Version 2.0

I am LOVING having two kids. And it's only going to get better as Will starts to interact. Hurray Buddies for Life!!!


Lyla saw Will and she also wanted to be swaddled like a baby. It made for some cute pictures! My little burritos.

More sisterly love.

I am overjoyed to see how much Lyla loves her little brother. We weren't sure how she would react to the new addition, so to have this response is another wonderful blessing on top of all the other blessings we have been blessed with. Bless.

Not sure what inspired this other than Lyla sitting in Will's chair and a desire to see her holding him. I think it's hilarious that she laughed everytime his arm jerk hit her in the face. We're still working on teaching her to be gentle and, well, as you'll see at the end of the video there are a number of other things we're going to be on guard for as well.

Yes, she bit his finger.

Big sister, little brother

We are home

After a tenuous Monday-night and Tuesday, with Katherine's recovering seeming to run into some minor (and not uncommon) complications, Wednesday turned the corner and Katherine's body sprinted to the finish line, recovering well enough that they let us go home at the usual time. So the morning was spent reviewing instructions from nurses (e.g. cover the front when changing a diaper or you could get an unpleasant surprise), packing up our things (we brought a bunch of things to the hospital and received a bunch of things at the hospital... like a baby), and waiting for Patient Transport to wheel Katherine and Will out to the car.

That last part took a long time... not sure if "Patient" refers to who is being transported or a recommended state of being while you wait for them to arrive. They came, they wheeled her out, we loaded the car, we started driving, Will started crying, we made it home. Hurray!!!

Waiting...

On our way out!!

Home!!!


Our time at home has been great so far. The first night home with Lyla we were up all night trying to get her to sleep. So our expectations were pretty low. And we were pleasantly surprised. Katherine slept on the couch, I slept on the air mattress and Will slept in his cradle which I had set up in the living room. We'll probably do the same set up tonight while Katherine is still recovering (it's difficult for her to sit up on her own in our bed). Today we sat around, playing with Lyla and taking care of will. I tried to get back to work... it took me seven hours to write one email (granted I had to look up a lot of the information I was communicating in the email, but frequent interruptions to change diapers, tend to Lyla, help Katherine, etc. didn't help).

Katherine's mom has been here since Sunday taking care of Lyla and she's staying for awhile. Having her here has been great, a huge help. Katherine's dad is coming up tonight to meet his grandson and stay a few days.

Hopefully, Katherine will be back to normal soon, save the mandated restrictions like not lifting more than the weight of Will in the car seat. I know that Lyla wants to get back to climbing all over her and it's hard to keep an eye on Lyla so she doesn't kamikaze right toward Katherine before Katherine is well enough to handle it.

If you're in Grand Rapids and want to visit, call and let us know. We're thinking that we'll be up for visitors starting tomorrow. I know Will can't wait to meet all of you!

Here's more photos:

In my exhausted state, I totally poored my cup of water on Lyla while she was sitting on my lap right before bed. She forgave me, then proceed to prance around sans clothes for about 10 minutes before she went night-night.

Goofing off with dad!

Yay! Family! I am the luckiest man in the world!

The kid sleeps a lot!

Time to head home... we think

So I'm a little self-conscious about the fact that I haven't been posting as much as I did when we were here with Lyla (we really were here with Lyla, on the other end of the floor, in fact if you turned the building 180 degrees, we'd end up in the exact same spot we were in fro Dec. 4 through 7, 2007). I love will and don't want him to feel neglected because of second-child syndrome (I'm especially sensitive to it because I'm a second-child). That being said there are a few things that Have kept me from posting pictures and blurbs:

1. Lyla - she still needs attention, and though Grandma is here and doing a great job with her, I still have been taking time out of each day to spend with her. Yesterday, she and I went down to the GR Children's Museum for an hour or so so Katherine and her mom could spend time together. We had a blast, riding around on little carts, pretending to drive a car, throwing balls around, making music, brushing teeth, grocery shopping, looking in mirrors, and climbing on things. It was a lot of fun but it wore both of us out. Lyla passed out in her stroller as we were walking back. It was cute.

The other thing we've done while she's been here has been to walk around the hallways. The first day she walked around for about 30 minutes holding my hand. She kept walking up to different doors and knocking on them. It was cute. Yesterday she took the stroller and pushed it around the hall a whole bunch. She kept trying to go into different offices, it was funny.

We also walked over to the nursery to look at the babies. When she arrived yesterday, Will was in there recovering from his circumcision. We walked up to the window and I pointed him out to her and she got this big smile on her face. Then she kept asking to look at all the different babies but kept coming back to Will. I think she recognizes him, which is awesome. Anyway.

2. Katherine - this recovery has been a little more difficult than last time so we had to invest more time in making sure Katherine was getting what she needs. Fortunately she's feeling much better and we're on target to leave today, assuming the final checks go okay.

3. Internet access - this time I can't get on the network from our room so I'm sitting out in the hallway right now. Makes it harder to post.

Anyway, despite all the distractions, it has been great getting to know Will the past few days. He's such a content and strong baby. He sleeps, then he eats, then he sleeps again. But starting yesterday, and more so today, he's becoming more alert, looking around, spending time with his eyes open. He's so beautiful. I love it.

We're excited to get home and to get started on this new phase of our life. But until then, here are a bunch of pictures I've taken over the past two days.





I love the way she smiles when she sees him.

Our friends the Schalks are geniuses (well, Julie is) and they brought a present for Lyla. It's a duck.