Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Christmas letter 2012


We started out 2012 getting settled into our new home.  We love all the space we have and the kids love the undeveloped basement, especially in the wintertime.  Brandon spent all summer working on the landscaping and we are looking forward to being able to finish it up next summer.

Brandon is enjoying working in Taber and Candice and the kids enjoy having him home for lunch everyday.  Luke and Bryson look forward to when he gets home every night and either race to see him when he walks in the door, or race to their hiding spots so he can try to find them.

We were able take a little bit more vacation this year and enjoyed a Caribbean cruise in February with Brandon’s family.  It was so much fun to spend time with each of his siblings, their spouses and his parents without kids!  We also spent a week in Montana at McGreggor Lake and another week at Lake Shushwap.  And to keep us busy at home we spent lot of time going on bike rides and swimming in Grandpa Porter’s pond.

The most exciting news of 2012 was the addition of our sweet little Tyler Joseph Gibb.  During my last trimester we found out that he had a cardiomyopathy, which is, in a few words, a defective heart muscle.  We had weekly ultrasounds from that point on to make sure he was doing all right.  He did well and was delivered on August 30th in the Calgary Foothills hospital.    There were seven extra doctors on hand in the delivery room to make sure he was okay!  Tyler did really well and was only in the NICU for one week.  Every time we met with the cardiologists from that point on his heart showed improvements.  On November 30th, exactly 3 months from when he was born, the doctors could no longer find anything wrong!  His heart has reached normal function and we are so grateful for our little miracle.  There was a lot of prayer, fasting and tears shed throughout the experience and we are grateful for the opportunity to have our testimonies and faith strengthened.  He is a very smiley little boy and we love him to pieces.

Luke has grown up a lot in the last year and can’t wait to start pre-school after Christmas.  He is a little reading machine and often reads Bryson a bedtime story if Mommy is busy taking care of Tyler.  Luke learned to ride a bike without training wheels this summer and has turned into a little fish.  He loves to swim either at the pool or in Grandpa’s pond.  He also made his Daddy really proud when he waterskied for the first time at Shuswap!  Luke loves to play with his cousins and has a special place in his heart for his grandparents. 

Bryson is changing quickly as well.  He is now in big boy underwear and doesn’t even need pull-ups at night.  He loves to wrestle and will rough-house with anyone that wants to and sometimes those who don’t (Luke).  He loves his little strider bike and had no trouble keeping up on our bike rides all summer.   He even helped us break in our new house by stuffing rocks from the yard into our central vacuum outlet in the wall!  Bryson loves to do anything his older brother is doing and we love hearing the two of them play together.  He is also Daddy’s little helper with whatever Saturday project Brandon is working on.

Candice is enjoying being a mother of three wonderful boys.  It has been a little bit stressful looking after Tyler and keeping on top of is medications, but he is worth every minute of lost sleep.   She was asked to be in charge of the Barnwell Days road/bike race in July and had a good time figuring out how to coordinate her first race!  She wasn’t able to run in it since she was 7 months pregnant, but it was still nice to be involved.   She also enjoys tutoring math students a few nights a week.

We are so grateful for all the blessing of 2012 and are looking forward to all 2013 has to offer.  We know that no matter what comes our way that we can trust in the Lord.  We have had and overwhelming amount of love and support from our family and friends in the last year and we feel so blessed to have each one of them in our 

1 comment:

Sh'Nell said...

We are so glad to hear that your baby is healthy! What a blessing.
Merry Christmas!