Our First Posting - An Open Letter

Time is moving quickly for us. With Noah at nearly 19 months old and his baby brother due in less than 2 months, it seems we have little time to sit still...and we expect even less from the coming year or two. All this activity leaves us with so much we wish we could tell friends and family about what is going on in our lives while making it difficult to communicate with everyone individually.

For example, Noah is already at a 62 word vocabulary (something Travis tallies daily) and has become our little parrot. And since I am 7 months pregnant (Melissa, not Travis), his growing independence has become a welcome blessing. Our most impressive feat so far as parents may be getting him to go to bed and take naps on his own. All it takes is a book and a drink of water and he's ready to be in his crib where he lies down on his pillow and says "bye, bye" as you leave the room. Of course, for any family, these things are relative, but as Travis said the other day, "If you would have told me that he would be doing this a year ago, I would have just laughed at you." However, we must admit to still letting him have a pacifier as he goes to bed...but sleep has been a first priority in this house since November 2005. The pacifier is our next battle. We move forward with "toddler steps."

With so many developments and requests that we send pictures (which we know we don't keep up with enough), we have decided to start this blog for you, our friends and family. Now, when we're busy keeping up with two boys, 20 months apart, you may have a better chance of keeping up with us. Then, with just a few spare minutes out of our week we can keep everyone up to date and not lose any sleep over our poor correspondance skills. Heaven knows, we will already have enough keeping us awake.