I have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. I could write and write about all of the things I'm thankful for, like my parents being here in Michigan with us for the holidays, or my Andrej and precious Kaiya, or good health, or our incredible church/ house church, or our wonderful family and friends around the world, but this Thanksgiving I am most thankful for the ability to forget. Let me explain.

Those first few days and weeks after bringing our newborn baby Kaiya home from the hospital were some of the most incredible and difficult days I've ever seen. Trying to figure out how to care for such a small and needy thing, who had her days and nights mixed up, wasn't easy. I often found encouragement in the thought that it must get a little easier and people must be able to forget how difficult it is to function with little sleep or no one would ever have more than one child. I remember announcing to Andrej on several occasions, usually involving a lot of uncontrollable crying, both from the newborn and the new mama, that I hoped he was satisfied with having only one child because I didn't think I would ever willingly go through this again.

Fast forward a year and a few months and our sweet Kaiya is the greatest blessing, aside from each other, we as a couple have ever received. Not only is she well behaved, a good eater and sleeps twelve to thirteen hours a night, but is a TON of fun. We laugh, play, dance, read books and laugh some more. Thus we both have long forgotten those sleepless nights and long bouts of crying. So, this thanksgiving I am thankful for forgetting those hard days and being able to announce with great joy that Baby Ciho #2 is scheduled to arrive sometime around May 30!!!!

We were able to share the incredible news in person with my parents today. As difficult as it was to keep this a secret over the last two months, I'm really glad we did. We kicked around many ideas of how to share the news with my parents, finally deciding that Kaiya would have to be the one to do it. There was no other way to top what we did two years ago exactly when we told them they were going to be grandparents for the first time. We practiced having Kaiya point at my belly and say "baby," which she would do, but it involved a lot of prompting and even then she wouldn't always do it, so we scratched that idea and whipped up a T-shirt instead. It read in block letters (like a university shirt), BIG SIS 07. After a morning reunion including lots of hugs and kisses, I told Kaiya to show Poppa and Babka her new shirt. After months of keeping the secret, we were finally able to celebrate. You can watch the video here.

Big Sis 3 Big Sis 1 Big Sis 2

So this Thanksgiving I have a lot to be thankful for, especially for this new life growing inside of me and for knowing that it may not be easy but it's worth it because the good times far, far outweigh the bad.