Sledding!

Sledding Fun with Grandpa

Not the most appealing subject matter...but I was learning my new camera attachments


Could this be any more fun?

Fun with Grandpa

Grandma, Grandpa and Timmy

Love my new circular polorizing lens filter....

Vivid color enhancement setting with snow? I don't like it.

I introduce the photo-centric blogs. I don't have much to say today other than we spent a good portion of the day sledding and having fun with my parents and Timmy. I got some cool gadgets to help with my attempt at learning to take good photographs. So far, my attempts have been pretty lame, but in the last few days I ha at least learned a few techniques and settings that I would rather NOT use again. Anyway, here are some pictures of today's sledding trip. Try to ignore the lack of color sense in these pictures. I guess great photographers aren't born they are created...through lots of trial and error. :) Today's lesson: pictures don't edit well as JPEGs. RAW formats are the way to go.

Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas day!

Our Christmas adventures really started two days ago when we picked up my parents in Kansas City. For those of you who have even spent 30 seconds in front of the tube this week, you will know that a major blizzard has been heading through the Central US. We were incredibly lucky thta Mom and Dad's plane arrived early on Wednesday. We stayed overnight in Kansas City and then drove back the next morning. Our drive home was a bit of a white-knuckle affair, but we were fortunate to have made a safe trip.

is morning we woke up to a VERY white Christmas, complete with snowdifts and blowing winds over 30 mph. We turned on the weather channel and were thrilled to see that we can expect the temperatures to blast through the teens at least a few times this week. :)

This year was an especially bit treat for all of us, as Timmy was finally old enough to experience some of the "magic" of Christmas. He was thrilled that Santa came last night and brought a table and chairs and a mini trampoline. Christmas morning lasted the better part of three hours today due to requisite ten minutes of play begged by each newly opened toy. We all had a blast helping Timmy enjoy his new toys. Unfortunately, Timmy didn't last quite as long as his toy pile, so we had to interrupt the Christmas experience for a long nap this morning. Our sleepy head fell into bed still clutching his new toys.

After opening presents, we enjoyed a Christmas turkey dinner with some friends from work.

We hope that you are all enjoying your Christmas Day. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Ho, Ho Humble

Ahhh....Pancake Zen

Tuckered out after Christmas shopping

God Bless Little Boys...

Timmy playing our fishing game

These past few weeks I have been forced to eat a big 'ole slice of humble pie. Luckily, these are all just occurrences of Life's little annoyances, but it does serve as a reminder that I am not as in charge as I'd like to think.

So, I'll start with the quote of the month:

"Geez, I've never seen anything like this before. But don't worry...if we can't fix it, we will send it out to our Geek network. They can fix 99% of all problems I have ever seen." ~Quote by the Best Buy Geek Squad expert attempting to retrieve my hard drive.

Only to be followed up by the second quote of the month....

"We sent this out to our (uber) Geek network, and we just can't figure this out. But, for $1500 you can send it to a professional file retrieval service who can dismantle your hard drive and sometimes retrieve files."~ Geek Squad associate defeated by Kim Decker's bad luck with computers

So, alas, I lost an entire hard drive's worth of files. Needless to say, this was not the memorable Thanksgiving Day experience I was looking for. I am not really sure how one can have a computer with ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG....(except that it ate over 25 GB of files) and still manage to lose all data. But, it happened. I have lost everything that I have done since April, when I got my new computer. This includes the 150-page book that I wrote about my experiences with my pregnancy loss with Emma, and all pictures that I took since then. I was devastated.

So, Part II:
A good friend of mine warned me that the holidays might "creep up" on me with respect to grieving for Emma. I discounted this advice, until we started decorating the tree. It was really hard to bring out all of the Christmas decorations and remember the joy that we were experiencing at this time last Christmas. We were on top of the world: Tim and I were reuniting our family after a six month military separation, we were pregnant and we couldn't have been more happy. It is a little hard to revisit those memories in hindsight, and reflect on the intensity of the pain that was to come. There is something about the Christmas decorations that flood back those memories that I have revised in my mind.

So, Tim and I decided that a healthy way to deal with this residual grief would be to honor Emma with an ornament on the tree. I set aside a special time to shop for the perfect ornament. I finally found a white little ceramic angel holding a little puppy dog in her hands. I wasn't really fond of the puppy dog image, but I liked the sentiment that the ornament created. It made me think of angels holding little Emma in their arms in Heaven. I purchased the ornament and very carefully wrapped it up for transport home, thinking all the while that I would likely lose my mind if the ornament broke. It would just break my heart to lose the ornament after also losing the precious baby it represented.

So, I get home and put the ornament in a safe place. When I felt the time was right, I pulled out the ornament and showed it to Tim. As we were preparing to place it on the tree and honor Emma, I dropped the ornament. Needless to say, this story did not have a happy ending. the ornament shattered into a million pieces (not just a broken wing or a small nick...it was completely unsalvageable). I promised myself I wouldn't cry. I stiffened my lower lip, turned on my heels and went to bed (without a stiff drink).

Part III: Tim and I decided to shop for a more durable ornament to honor Emma (something made of titanic, perhaps). We went shopping and finally found a Hallmark ornament designed to honor the memory of a loved one. It was also nicely created from plastic and had no small part that I could break. I bought the ornament and cried in Hallmark at the register like a complete crazy person (so much for the stiff lower lip). We decided to go ahead and head home after this, as Tim and I were not much in the mood to continue Christmas shopping. On the way home, we needed to stop at Target to pick up some jeans for Timmy, who has managed to put holes in 8 pairs of jeans in the last 3 weeks. While at Target, Timmy managed to wiggle out of his seat, lean over the shopping cart and fall straight on his head. I felt so bad for him. He was ultimately okay, but he definitely screamed for a while and probably had a pretty significant headache the rest of the night.

So, I do all of the complaining to make this observation: I am not in control of my life, God is. We get handed circumstances, some frustrating, some heartbreaking, and some thought-provoking. Our res ponses to these life events define the lives that we lead and the capacity that we have to experience joy. This holiday season, it is important to remember those who have been loved and lost. But it is also important to focus on those people still left in our lives. While we have the opportunity, it is important to wrap our arms around the loved ones we have with us and never be to rushed or distracted to show them the love and kindness they deserve. After getting so lost in my memories and grief over Emma, I was definitely reminded this week of how important it is to focus attention on Tim and Timmy. Today, we cleared our schedule of everything that "had" to be done, and just spent the day together. Though I would certainly have preferred to skip the little frustrations I have experienced lately, I will have to admit these experiences have brought the important things back into focus.