Kyle Sara Abigail Andrew

Well what a year! It has definitely been the most exciting, best year of our lives! January 12th we found out I was pregnant. We were so excited. It only took a week or so for the morning sickness to kick in. Poor Kyle had gone to the grocery and bought every fruit and vegetable he could find and I couldn’t stomach any of it! For a straight week I ate only rice and bean burritoes from Chipotle because it was the only thing I could bare eating. We waited until february to share the news- I told my students I had a valentines surprise. The girls in my class were excited, the boys were like, where are the presents? I had my hands full teaching full time, commuting and going to grad school at willamette at night- all while pregnant. Many of my girlfriends and colleagues thought I was nuts. Kyle and i have always been overachievers- this past year i took it to a whole new level! Thankfully by spring break I was feeling better. I started to enjoy eating again. We found out we were having a girl in May. We were thrilled! In june I said goodbye to my students and colleagues at St Vincent’s. It was very emotional. That school is very special to me. Kyle picked me up on my last day of work and we went straight to Black Butte to celebrate the end of commuting, working and grad school and my birthday. I couldn’t even have champagne! I settled with cider. We had a fun birthday party with my parents and the triplets. The summer was filled with parenting classes, pregnancy exercise classes and getting ready for our baby girl. Kyle’s parents helped us transform Kyle’s office into a beautiful pink nursery. Abigail arrived one day late on september 13th- on my parents’ anniversary. It was a wonderful day. Those first two weeks were how shall I say- exciting. we quickly learned what being parents entailed. What a job! As kyle’s mom says it’s the best job and the hardest. Abigail has stolen our hearts. She has got personality. She lets you know when she’s happy and when she’s not. She just started doing this poutface with her lowerlip that breaks my heart! Kyle now lives with two drama queens . My dad says we better have a boy next! Our lives have completely changed. I am now a stay-at-home mom. Abby and I keep busy with moms groups and playgroups. I am teaching her to be miss social like mommy. The past month has been a whirlwind. Kyle had a few job offers he was considering, so we had a lot on our mind. He ended up deciding to stay at Tektronix- it helped him decide after they promoted him and gave him a raise! So it looks like we ‘ll be in the Portland area for a few more years. For 2008 we are looking forward to going to Louisiana in the spring. We are hoping to work on the house. Abby will start swim classes and baby sign language in March. We know we will have fun raising her and watching her grow. We are thinking of you and send you our love. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Love, Sara, Kyle and Abigail

Well Abby is making new discoveries- she is obsessed with sucking on her fists. She can even hold things in them- but she has no idea what she’s doing! Here she is with her wand and dolls:

Last night Sara and I took Abby to her first Trail Blazers game. We were lucky to have tickets in the TEK suite so that it wasn’t too loud. It was a great game, with the home team crushing the Dallas Mavericks. Abby couldn’t believe all the people when I showed her the crowd. It was a sellout with over 20,000 in attendance. She’s never been so stimulated!

Well Abby is right at 2 months old now and growing crazier by the day. She tries to communicate all the time, cooing and cawing until her heart’s content. She’s in a bit of a fussy stage lately, especially at night, but hopefully that will pass. She loves to sit on the table with us now and look around while kicking her legs in the air. Click here to see a movie of her on the table. Click here to see another movie of her on the table. Look at the last one. She’ll hold onto things now when you put them in her hands! Not for very long, but still. She also likes to try and hit things with her hand, whether it’s a milk carton or a poster by her changing table. She’s getting pretty good at it too. We practice every night. We had a good Halloween with quite a few trick or treaters. We almost ran out of candy. She even dressed up as a hapless football player: With all this activity, sometimes she just gets fed up: Mostly though she’s just been our sweet little girl.

This weekend Abby got to hang out with her grammy and grandpa from Medford. They came up to visit us all for a couple of days and got to see a big little girl! Abby continues to grow like crazy and is eating all the time.

Grammy and grandpa babysat for us on Saturday night so that we could go to an auction at the Portland Art Museum. It was pretty fun, with a lot of good food to sample.

Here is a picture of Abby reading with her grammy and grandpa:

And here are a few other random pictures leading up to Abby’s first halloween this Wednesday. She can’t wait!

Kyle: Abby: Abby and I threw a baby party last weekend. I invited all the women from my pregnacy exercise classes over- we all had our babies between late August through September 17th. Here we are with our little ones: It was a lot of fun. We also had two women there who are expecting in January and February. Here is Abby in her party dress: She did great during the party- only cried twice and stopped right away when I fed her. That’s usually the only time she cries. She’s an easy baby. Abby will be 6 weeks old tomorrow.She is getting more fun every day!

Hi! Abby has been growing like crazy lately. She’s 10 pounds, 3 ounces now. We’ve also seen other big changes in her in the last couple of weeks. For one, she’s more alert than ever, and loves to be carried around the house just looking at anything and everything. She also has started making a lot more random noises. I bet it won’t be long before she’s talking!

Her facial expressions are also coming along, and every once in a while she’ll even drop one of these on us:

I don’t think it’s fully intentional yet, but she’ll get there in the very near future.

Here are some more good ones:

Well, TEK as we know it is no longer. This was a big shock when walking in on Monday morning, more so I’m sure for the 30+ year veterens who gave their entire careers to the place. All of the intentions seem well and good, and I’m sure this was bound to happen sooner or later. Yet there’s still something sad about it, and I can’t deny that part of the reason I took the job originally was because of the homegrown “little big company” spirit of the place. If nothing else, the reaction this week was a pretty powerful statement on the attachment that this community still has to TEK. For me, it was always a little source of pride knowing that I was helping to keep a local economic engine running, helping keep jobs in Oregon, etc. This is all still true, but reading between the lines you just feel that now there is no stopping it slowly becoming less and less so.

Anyway, because most people outside of Portland don’t know the incredible influence this company has had, here is a pretty heartfelt editorial from the Oregonian:

Today was one of those days where you wish time would stop. We spent a beautiful weekend in Eugene. Today we took family portraits because we had all six siblings together for the first time since 2004. I will post them soon. Abigail was awake for the photos! I’ve never seen her as alert as she was today. She smiled at my dad for the first time today. She is just in love with exploring. Kyle and I took her for a walk in the woods and she was in awe. She loves being outside. She did a great time traveling. She slept the whole way there and back and she slept well at my parents. She is a good baby. The first week was the hardest. But ever since then each day gets easier. I am watching her sleep in her Boppy seat right now. I don’t know what people did before those. That thing saves my life. I put it on vibrate and she’s out. Kyle and I went on our first date since the baby was born last night. We only went out for about an hour and a half but it was nice. It was weird to be without her but she did fine without us. We watched slide shows Friday night of when I was little. Abigail definitely looks like me! She has my nose and cheeks for sure. We all could see the resemblance. Enjoy the fall weather. I’m going to soak it up while I can. Love, Sara

Today is Abby’s one month birthday. We can really see a difference now in how alert and aware she is. It’s fun to carry her around the house and let her look at the scenery. We took Abby out to lunch today with Sara’s parents. She got through most of it without making a sound, but woke up toward the end. She usually just sleeps whenever we are out of the house, which makes it easy enough on us. We decorated the house for Halloween yesterday. Here’s a picture of the 20 pounder we grew out back: This weekend we’re going to our favorite place- Eugene! It should be a lot of fun. Abby will see her future home!