Our boy is 8! He has grown so much lately, and it kind of makes me a little bit sad. This child has thrown us for a loop in parenting, and we still don’t always know how to handle him 🙂 He is so sweet, yet extremely stubborn, a farm boy through and through. He has incredible energy and determination, if only he uses it the right way 🙂

I remember the day he was born. I woke early in the morning, sensing something wasn’t right, and by 5:30am, I knew this was happening 🙂 I labored at home for a bit, because I never went fast before, and we arrived at the midwife around 10. Dale jokes that I’d be at 8cm, and I thought, “Ya, right!” Well, he was right. I was at 8. My contractions were not very close at that point, and not that hard, so I snacked on crackers and rocked on the rocking chair, and walked. By 1:00, nothing had changed, so they broke my water. What followed was about 2 1/2 very hard hours, but he arrived squalling at 3:25pm. He had moved his bowels a bit, and they suctioned away, so that was a bit worrisome, but all was fine. And he wouldn’t stop crying. That was maybe a sign of his temperament 🙂

He wasn’t the happiest of babies, and I remember how stressful the crying could be. When I look back, it all seems like a blur, and now here he is, 8 yrs. old. His learning difficulties were hard for me to deal with, because school always came easy for me, but he is making us so proud. He is doing so much better than we thought he would, and he really tries. He will say he doesn’t like school, and I know he misses his days at home helping his dad, and playing with the farm babies, but he can’t fool me 🙂 He definitely shows signs of enjoying school, and he talks nonstop when the school day ends.

I still didn’t get his pictures taken, but we’ll try to do that next week. So I’ll just include a few pictures of him doing what he loves 🙂

We love you so much, Tristan! And we are so thankful God gave you to us 🙂