New Experiences

Bye Bye Louisville....

leaving family behind was hard...

Ethan and I made our first out of state move as a couple! Ethan drove the truck all the way from Louisville to Wichita while I followed behind in my car with Landon. We had zero issues and made pretty good time, which was great. We broke the trip into 2 days and amazingly Landon did great the whole way! Moving was not an easy task but we had lots of great help both in Kentucky and in Kansas which  made the move possible! Now that we are all settled in I figured it was about time to update the blog.

One of the things we have come to love living here, is the Zoo! We live about 3 minutes away, almost as close as we were to the Zoo in Kentucky. I have discovered that I love living near Zoos! The Wichita Zoo is a lot different from the Louisville one with lots of different animals for us to admire. On our first trip there we got to see 4 lions right up close!

It was incredible!

They also have a huge kid zone with lots of animals to pet!

Here Landon is with (as he calls them) "Baaas"

He loves it!

Landon has officially mastered the art of drinking from a cup!

 

           Here he is flashing me a "cheese" smile.

Such a funny fellow!

Another new experience... So a few weeks after we moved in we found some stray kittens hiding in the bushes in the front of our apartment. So we decided to catch them and take care of them till we took them to the Humane Society. Landon just LOVES animals and had a great time with these kittens. He cried pretty hard and loud when we dropped them of at the Shelter. But quickly cheered up when we visited his favorite- the Puppies!

Aren't they adorable! Its a good thing they weren't puppies or else we might have kept them. I like kittens, its cats I'm not too crazy about, so I had no problems giving them away. I just hope they were healthy enough to be adopted and have found good homes!

Another big plus to moving to Wichita was the distance it is to Dallas. For Labor Day weekend we took our first road trip to Dallas to visit my parents and brother. We had a blast! Most of the pictures taken that trip were with my parents' camera so here a couple that we actually took. Landon loves his Uncles and had a great time with Uncle Nick! 

Weee.... they had lots of fun at the park!

Here is a sneak peek to what Landon's Halloween costume will be....

We are pretty excited! :)

Another new experience for us happened the weekend of September 10th. That Friday morning I had my checkup with the OBGYN to see how the baby was doing. I was excited to hear the heartbeat and since I had felt the baby move for the first time a few days earlier I was pretty confident it was going to be a quick and easy visit. To my shock the nurse could not find the heartbeat... so they set me up in the ultrasound room where my Doctor questioned me about how I was feeling, which was great, and no, I had no cramps or bleeding... so she proceeded with an ultrasound. After several minutes of searching and switching positions she stepped out of the room and brought in another OBGYN who works in the same office. At this point I knew something was wrong, as I stared at the ultrasound machine I could see my perfect looking baby was not moving at all...everything looked great except that there was no beating heart. I was shocked and confused but mostly just devastated. Shocked because I did not have a single symptom of a miscarriage and I just started to show, I had been growing and gaining weight on target. Confused because I thought once you were out of your first trimester you were considered "safe." And of course devastated because all of my excitement for what I thought was coming in 5 1/2 months was instantly shattered. I was so grateful I had Landon with me at the Doctor's, otherwise I'm not sure I would have made it safely home. After I wiped my tears and reality set in I turned to my Dr to ask her what exactly this meant and what was going to happen next. She gave me 2 options, a D&C or have an induced delivery. D&C I had heard of, but a delivery at this stage in a pregnancy I had never heard of. So I asked her which would be best for my body and quickest recovery so that I could become pregnant again sooner rather then later. She recommended a delivery. I thought finding out you had a miscarriage was tough enough to deal with but then when I realized it meant a trip to the hospital I was that much more upset.

Luckily it was the weekend and lucky for me I have the most amazing parents. I called my mom right after I called Ethan and she immediately started packing. She was at our apartment by 7 that night. My Dr arranged for me to check in at 8am the next day. I was so grateful that my mom was there to watch Landon. I can't imagine going to the hospital while worrying about your son. I don't think I could of handled it. That night some friends of ours from church came over and Ethan was able to give me a Priesthood blessing. That blessing did more to help me cope than anything else. I am so grateful to have the Priesthood in my home. And that I have a Heavenly Father who knows me and my individual needs. I know the words spoken in that blessing came from my Father in Heaven because no one else knew the true worries of my heart, yet they were all addressed in that blessing. Although what happened was awful I felt the Love of my Heavenly Father and Savior more then ever!

The whole hospital experience was pretty awful. The delivery took longer and was more painful than it was with Landon. All the nurses and Doctors were amazing though. They were all very kind and sensitive to my needs. After I delivered my baby, we found out that it was a boy. Then they cleaned him so we could hold him. He was so tiny, 4 and 3/4 inches long and only 38 grams, with 10 tiny fingers and 10 tiny toes. Here are his hands and feet prints to give you an idea of how tiny he was. I was only 15 and a half weeks along! I was amazed that at that age he looked just like a baby.

My physical recovery has been pretty good. I'm in no real pain and have gotten my strength back. The worst part about it is not being able to pick up Landon for 2 weeks. I hate that, but am grateful he is old enough to get in and out of his bed on his own, so it works. It has been nice to have an excuse to stay home all day too. We have received so much love and help at this time its a little overwhelming. I feel very blessed to have so many loved ones. Even though we are new to the area, we already have made some great friends who have been a great help as well.

Another new experience.... LANDON TURNED TWO!!!

And what a wonderful day it was! I can hardly believe that I'm the mother of a 2 year-old! The last 2 years with him have been absolutely amazing! I never knew I was capable of loving so much. He brings me so much joy that I find myself totally content just sitting and watching him. Everything he does is just so cute its hard not too.

Since he has been obsessed with Puppies lately I made him some Puppy cupcakes.

Giving Landon a sneak peek of his puppy cupcakes. He thought they were great!

They were pretty fun to make, I had forgotten how much I love to bake. I had such bad morning sickness that anytime I baked the smell was more then I could handle, so it had been awhile.

In our house we have a tradition of decorating the night before his birthday so we can celebrate the moment he wakes up! Here is our decorated apartment.

Notice the baby bouncer, it was in one of the boxes we brought in from storage a couple weeks ago. We planned on taking it back to storage but Landon loves it! It's the perfect size for him, its his new favorite seat to watch TV.

The morning of Landon's 2nd Birthday!!!

He loved the hanging balloons! He kept running around the apartment playing with all the streamers and balloons, it was so fun to watch!

Puppy cupcakes and mini cupcakes (Landon doesn't like frosting and prefers to eat minis) 

 They kind of look more like bears to me, but Landon called them Puppies so it was a success!

 And the best part about Birthdays... the gifts!

I wasn't sure if he would recognize that these were dinosaurs, but as soon as he opened them he went "Roar!!" He took them everywhere we went that day making them Roar and fight each other. He is such a boy, its so fun and predictable what kind of toys he'll like!

A special thanks to Landon's Grandparents and Grammy for all the gifts! He is such a loved and blessed little boy!

So that sums up our life right now! Ethan is loving his new job at Cox, he is learning so much and works with a great team! They even sent me flowers while I was at the hospital, which are still alive and beautiful! We love our apartment, its been adjustment from house living, but so worth it. We find ourselves with a lot more time on our hands, which has been great since we have been obsessed with playing Settlers of Catan! Our apartment complex has a good size pond/lake with a paved walking trail around it which is exactly one mile. Landon loves going over there and throwing rocks into the water and feeding the ducks and geese. Ethan and I have found friends who also enjoy playing games which has been a lot of fun! We will always miss the family and friends we left in Kentucky but are happy that Wichita has turned out to be such  a great place to live.

Updates

Ok its been a couple of months since my last post and be prepared, this may be a long post because a ton of things happened since my last post. First off, Landon and I took a last minute trip to Reno to attend my Grandpa's funeral. It was a stressful trip, it seems like flying is never as simple as going to the airport hopping on a plane and arriving at your destination. Long story short, I made it on the plane, after a long wait and tears. I was so glad I went to his funeral. It was wonderful and moving and made me realize just how blessed I am to have had such an amazing Grandpa. It was fun to see the whole Gonda family as well. Here is Landon with his Gonda Grandparents:

A few days after I got back from Reno I went to a Stake Auxillary Training meeting, which was encouraging and uplifting. While there I learned of some decisions that had been made concerning twin 10 year old boys in our ward. After talking with the Relief Society President, I offered our home as a place to stay. Ethan had been the home teacher for last 2 years and we were their cub scout leader so they had spent lots of time with us and in our home before. The next day the boys came to live with us.

Darius and Devin

I could go on and on about how much I learned and grew while they lived with us. We gained legal guardianship at the time. Darius has type 1 diabetes and can not eat anything without a shot of insulin. It was way more work then I had imagined but it was great experience. They came from a broken home, at a time when the mother had decided she did not want them. As you can tell from the picture they are sweet warm boys with very big hearts. They learned a lot in the short time they were with us. A couple of weeks after they came to stay with us Ethan and I went to YW high adventure as leaders. Luckily my mom had already planned to come stay with us and watch Landon while we were gone so she was able to take care of the older boys as well.

They of course loved Grandma Gonda!

The day we got back from High Adventure we got to have another new experience. We went out to get dinner and when we came back there were policemen surrounding our house. A motorcyclist ran off the road, drove into our chainlink fence and landed in our front yard. His un-helmeted head hit the curb and the young man driving the motorcycle died instantly. Needless to say we came home to a deceased man in our front yard. What a bizarre heart wrenching experience. He lived in our neighborhood and so there were tons of people around. His family and friends put up a cross in our front yard and would visit nonstop.

Landon being his cute self!

Less than a week after that we decided to accept a job offer in Wichita, KS. It was a really tough decision! We actually received the job offer here that we have been waiting for since December the same week! Originally when Ethan starting interviewing with Cox Communications in Wichita he had no intentions of taking the job. But thought of it more as a good experience, still thinking here is where we needed to be. But after he visited Cox and Wichita his mind changed. Their offer was great and the Lord let us know it is where our family needs to be. We are excited for this move, but it will be hard to leave such wonderful family and friends behind. We quickly put our house on the market and to our amazement we received an offer in less than 24 hours! We worked it out so that Ethan had 2 weeks off before starting his new job. Which we took full advantage of. We got all of the needed fixes down and were able to go on several fun dates!

One of which was to the Louisville Bat Museum.

 

We also went to Holiday World one day! :) I feel so blessed to be married to my best friend! We have so much fun together!

Ethan even found time to help one of our neighbors clean up his yard (with the missionaries help). While cleaning his side yard he found a nest of bunnies. So he brought home a few to play with. After doing our research we put them back in hopes that the mommy will continue to feed them. Which to our joy, she did! So I can safely say they are safe and sound where they belong. It was fun to have pets for a few hours though!

Our goofy little boy! He kept asking for us to put his shirt up on his head. ha!

So it's starting to hit me that we are really moving. Ethan left yesterday so I am a single mom till closing. I already miss him like crazy and hate being apart! We have been so blessed to have had an offer on our house so quickly that I really should not complain. But being apart is hard no matter how short or long. I guess that's what comes with being in love though. It wouldn't be love if it were any other way. Lucky for me though because I have the most amazing parents in the world! My Dad bought my Mom a ticket to come be with me for a whole week!!!! :)

Life is going so great for us right now! Everything we have been praying for over the last 7 months has come to pass! We feel so overwhelmingly blessed!!!!

Grandpa Gonda

On Wednesday morning this wonderful man passed away. His name is John Andrew Gonda and he is my Grandpa! This is one of my favorite pictures of him, taken before my wedding reception. It is one of my favorites because I love how it captures who he was- A bright, cheerful, happy man!
This is my Grandpa with his son, my Dad. Also taken summer of 2007 before my reception.

I love these pictures of him most because they remind me of the day he sealed Ethan and I for eternity in the Temple. I am so grateful he was able to marry us! It was a beautiful ceremony and a day I will cherish forever. I love my Grandpa sooo much!!!!

I know that death is not the end but the beginning. Because of the sealing power that takes place in the temple, I will be with my family forever. I know that our time here on earth is but a glimpse of our existence and that if we live righteously we have the opportunity to live with our Father in Heaven once again. My Grandpa bore this same testimony of the great plan of salvation to one of his friends the morning he passed away. He knew that he would live again, as do I! I know that I will be together again with him, and I look forward to the day that we meet and he gives me one of his big warm hugs! In the mean time, he will be missed greatly!!!

Everyday is a Fairytale...

Everyday truly is like a fairytale for me. Most days I wake up in amazement that I am living my dream. If you would of asked me when I was a little girl what I wanted my life to be like at 23, I would of described my life! I have an amazing husband, whom I can't stand to be apart from and who still makes me giddy! And I have the greatest little boy in the whole wide world! Being Landon's mom has brought me the greatest joy ever!

On Monday Landon took a hard fall. When I picked him up he had scrapes down his face and they were black and blue. He was on our side porch which is a couple steps up reaching out for his dad. Unfortunately Ethan wasn't close enough and Landon fell head first! I was down the driveway and didn't see it happen (thank goodness) but I did hear it and came running. But to my surprise he did not want me, he wanted to be consoled by his dad! I love how much they love each other!!!! Here is a picture of his face the day after... the swelling and bruising went down fast. The Other day, I left my shuffle on and Landon discovered it!

He already loves music!

He loves playing on the keyboard making music of his own too.

On his first ever Easter Egg hunt!

Notice the tongue, he was trying to hold on his eggs... he was able to carry 4 before he had to start putting them in the bag.

He was a hard little worker picking up all the eggs...he was hot and tired afterwards.

For Easter Landon got to go on 2 egg hunts! This one was on Easter at his Mimi and Bapa's! They hid tons of eggs for all their grand kids. Landon had a blast!

The rest are just some super cute pics of my super cute boy...

Holding Grandpa's finger...

Riding in his car at Grammy's house!

I really need to be better at updating this blog more then once a month... Life is just so time consuming... I keep telling my self someday I won't be as busy, but I am beginning to think that day will never come and the more I think about it the more I realize I wouldn't want it any other way. So sorry if I do not do a very good job at updating on our lives. Plus that, as you can probably tell I don't really have the know how or the patience to make this blog super fancy anyways... So ya, enjoy!

The Polar Plunge

This past weekend Ethan participated in the Polar Plunge to help raise money for the Special Olympics. So on Saturday afternoon he jumped into the Ohio River! It was a very brisk day, the water was one degree away from freezing!

He shared the plunging experience with his Manager Mike.

The guys standing in front of Ethan are 2 of his coworkers who plunged earlier that day. It was a great experience for all of us. I got to meet his manager, his director and his VP!



Dark Chocolate....
We have discovered that Landon prefers dark chocolate!
He's a true chocolate lover, which I couldn't be more proud of!


Landon's favorite playmate!

The bong between this father and son is incredible!
They have so much together!
Landon gets so excited when his dad gets home, he runs to the door to greet him. And then spends the rest of the evening following his every footstep. It is so fun to watch!

All in all February was a great month for us! Thanks to the kindness of Ethan's parents we were able to go on several dates. Our budget is tight so we tried to come up with cheap dates. On Friday we grabbed fast food for dinner and then went to Target to find something for $30 or less. After over an hour of walking around Target we left empty handed. We couldn't justify spending money just to spend money. But it didn't matter because we had a great time anyways! It is so much fun being married to your best friend! I have discovered that it doesn't matter where we go or what we do, as long as we are together its going to be a blast! I feel like the luckiest girl in the world!!!

Good-Bye 2009!

We are quickly approaching mid February of 2010! Where has the time gone? So far 2010 has been an awesome year! Nothing new or exciting has really happened to our little family but we have come to really appreciate just how good of a life we truly do have! Since it has been a long time since I last posted anything I will start with a quick recap of our lives since...

Here is a recap of our December adventures....

On December 12Th Katie's brother Nathan married Jayme.

Here is the happy couple just after they were sealed.

Grandpa Gonda performed the ceremony. It was so wonderful! It was such a happy day!

Landon's Grandpa found him the perfect outfit to wear for all the wedding festivities...

I can safely say that I have never seen anything more cute in my entire life!

He was such a stud in his tux!

The wedding celebration was just wonderful.

And of course it was great to see family!

This year was our First Christmas at home! It was so much fun! Thanks to Grandma Galli we were able to have a real Christmas with many presents under the tree!

Landon was very blessed this year. He got to celebrate Christmas 3 times! First at home, then at Mimi & Bapa's, and then at Grandma & Grandpa's. Needless to say I've had to do some rearranging in our front room to accommodate all the new toys! Which he Loves!!!
Ethan got a new saw this year! Which has already come in handy around the house! I got a beautiful clock and new toaster (that works super quick a great)!
Landon also received some chocolate in his stocking!

He Loves chocolate!

When I was pregnant I ate lots and lots of chocolate in the hopes that my baby would grow up loving chocolate just like me :).... I think it worked!

Ok Funny story about this picture. If you look closely at Landon's right eye you can a see little dot on the white part. Well the dot was bright red and because I wasn't sure what it was I called his dr. to get some insight. He of course wanted to take a look himself to make sure it wasn't a scratch to his cornea or anything like that. Well when we went in his dr. did a thorough examination of his eye, nothing too intrusive but partly I can't stomach anything that has to do with the eyeball. Because as he was wrapping up and explaining to me that it wasn't anything to be concerned about and that it would eventually go away I started to black out and I suddenly couldn't hear him anymore. Long story short I was able to catch myself right before I fainted. The dr. called in a nurse to give me some water and help me lie down on the little kid bed I was way too big for. haha it was pretty funny especially when she gave me a urine cup, filled with water to drink. I was a little embarrassed, but now have learned that Ethan will be the one to take our kids to the eye dr. or anything having to do with eyes in the future.

From his Mimi and Bapa Landon received this awesome plane.

He loves it! Especially when his dad pushes him around the house.

His latest obsession is with the desk drawers, he loves opening them and pulling as much out as he can before I notice. Its a pretty fun game...ha

I tried to capture Landon talking, it was hard though because of his fascination with the camera. It is rare for us to video him without him noticing and of course stopping what he was doing that we wanted on camera.

Valentines Day is fast approaching. This will be our 3rd Valentine's together! In 3 months we will have been together for 3 years. I am so grateful that our Father in Heaven put us in each other's paths and that we acted on a crazy impulse. I'm sure everyone thought we were absolutely insane when we announced that we wanted to get married after only one weekend of spending time together. But it felt too right to be crazy. I love my husband with all of my heart! I'm so glad he agreed to marry me :). My life is wonderful! Landon will be 17 months on the 18Th. Oh how the time has flown. He is developing his personality more and more each day and I keep loving him more and more. It is so fun to watch him discover things for the first time. I wish sometimes that I could back to the day where everything was fresh and new. Where you noticed every little creation in such awe. Having him around makes me appreciate this beautiful world we have been blessed with so much more! Which is why I saw, life is truly wonderful!!!

Halloween Belated

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I can hardly believe it! Talk about a super fast flying month! So this blog about Halloween is a tad bit belated. But I just couldn't forgive myself if I did not share how cute my little man was on Halloween. We decided to go the easy route when it came to costumes for him. Considering his age I knew it would be pointless to do anything but simple this year. So when I found these pajamas back in September I knew they would be the perfect outfit! And I knew for certain he would be comfortable and happy in it! Landon was quite lucky this year, he got to go Trick-or-Treating 3 times! His first experience was at the Louisville Zoo. Which was I thought was pretty great. He only came away with about 10 pieces of candy, but that was more then enough for the night. And they had lots of great costumes and characters to meet. He more interested in all the kids and their fun costumes this year, but it did not take long before he realized why he should hold onto his bucket. He has a sweet-tooth so once he noticed people putting candy in his pumpkin he held on tight! His second outings was to the church for a walk through basement classrooms, which was fun. It was a little dark and spooky but he seemed to enjoy himself. And last but not least we went trick-or-treating down an extremeley festive street in Louisville with 3 other families. What a fun time that was! All in all we had a Great Halloween! I can't wait till next year when Landon is able to walk and actually say "trick-or-treat"!

I love how this picture captures the essence of Landon and his Dad's relationship!

They have soo much fun together!!!

SuperHero ready for Take off!

My Wonderful Men!

Trick-or-Treating

Stopping to check out the loot.

This is just a taste of how decorating the homes were!

It was incredible!

The day after... resting on the couch...