Hello!

It’s been a long time since I wrote a blog. Life has been really wild this last year, and I figured I would do a very brief update of 2025 and where we are today.

January 2025

Our little family of three decided to go on a cruise. We told people we were going on this cruise for a few reasons:

1. It was over my birthday.
2. We needed a getaway.

What people may not have known is:

1. Stryder surpassed day 293, and we wanted a fun way to celebrate. (If you don’t know, Archer only lived 292 days, so this was a huge milestone for us.)
2. We wanted to celebrate our last trip as a family of three. We were looking at starting our next process with IVF to transfer an embryo just a week or so after coming back from our cruise.

We found out after coming back that I had a blood level that was not ‘best’ for an IVF transfer, so we had to push out our transfer and get on a medication to help. (I was devastated).

February 2025

Nothing notable happened except that we prepared for our next round of IVF and worked to get my medication regimen correct.

March 2025

All my blood tests came back normal, and we started the embryo transfer process. One little embryo was transferred on March 20th.

Stryder turned one on March 21st, and we had an outerspace-themed birthday party for him. I loved being surrounded by the people who mean the world to us and love our kiddo. The day was a little bittersweet; being so excited for this milestone for Stryder, but also feeling like I was jipped on this experience with Archer.

April 2025

We celebrated Archer’s 3rd Angelversary by heading down to C2E2. It was a fun little getaway to get us out of our house and do nerdy things. Stryder loved being pushed around the convention center in his stroller. He got to ‘meet’ various Star Wars characters, which was pretty amazing.

Later in the month, I had a work trip to Florida, so we decided to make a little family weekend out of it. We met my parents in Orlando, and we went to Disney (Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom). Stryder got to go on some rides, and we learned that he did NOT like any rides in the dark. He would try to crawl up on mine or Theo’s shoulders to get the tightest hug possible. We got Stryder and his sister Mickey ears with their names on them, and in front of the castle, we took our Pregnancy Announcement photo.

May 2025

We celebrated Mother’s Day. For my church, I was asked to share my story of being a mom. This video was so well made. I highly encourage you to watch the whole thing, but if you want a brief glimpse of my story, spoken by me, check out my portion (at 6 minutes 43 seconds). Yes, I found the courage to get in front of a camera and tell my story, not hide behind my writing.

June 2025

We celebrated Archer’s 4th heavenly birthday. His birthday theme was Dinos. We went to the zoo and visited his bench with our whole family. We all rode the train too. It always made me so sad that we didn’t get to do this with Archer in life, and I refused to do it without him with Stryder. So we brought his little urn and took both boys on their first train ride. It was a hot day, but it was so special to have such a beautiful day in his honor.

July 2025

We took our annual family camping trip. Stryder absolutely loved going swimming in the lake and watching all the big kids play Gaga Ball. He thought the 4th of July parade was pretty nifty and enjoyed seeing all of the big trucks. We got pretty sick and cut our trip short, but it was fun to see him enjoy the time that we did have.

At the end of the month, we had our first anatomy scan. We found out I had a different-shaped placenta and that the umbilical cord was inserted on the tip of the placenta, rather than the middle. Our doctor let us know that this was not a huge risk to the baby, but it would put us in the higher risk category for our pregnancy. This meant we would have anatomy scans monthly to ensure our baby was growing and healthy.

August & September 2025

Nothing major happened, and we kept enjoying life. Baby kept growing and was healthy.

We did find out I had something called Pregnancy ACNES, which is where a nerve in your abdomen is entrapped and causes extreme pain within your body. It’s apparently pretty rare, and my OBGYN even had to research it to find out how we could potentially treat it. However, after discussion, we didn’t do anything about it; we just tried to rest and lie as much as possible.

October 2025

We are not big on celebrating Halloween, but something I always looked forward to with kids was taking them trick-or-treating. We went to the Village of Menomonee Falls to walk around their event with my parents and then took Stryder around our neighborhood a few days later. He loved being a Dino. It was cute that he would ‘roar’ for us, but whenever he met a stranger, he was so shy. He loved picking out his candy from the buckets and signing ‘Thank you’. We learned his favorite candy to eat is a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, and his favorite candy to hold is Milk Duds (loved the shaking noise they made in the box).

Stryder also had an accident and got two stitches in his chin. He was a trooper!

November 2025

We had our C-section scheduled for November 30th to meet our new baby. However, little Ms. Thea Kyler (Teddi) didn’t want to wait to meet us. My water broke in the evening on November 18th, and she was born at 4:16am on November 19th. She was very small at 6lbs 2oz, but she was healthy.

We celebrated our first holiday, Thanksgiving, as a family of 5. That was all I wanted, honestly. I kept saying I hoped she would be just a few days early so I could have her for the holiday.

December 2025

We had a very low-key month and really adjusted to life as a family of 5. We celebrated Christmas with our family, and I enjoyed every moment.

Today

Not every moment of 2025 was blissful and easy, but not every moment was hard. We had our ups and downs, which is what life had to offer last year. Tears were shed, missing Archer, and many of the milestones I didn’t have. However, I am so grateful for where I am today.

Archer is still living in heaven, praising the one who made him and loved us enough to die for us.

Stryder has really started to understand that he is the ‘middle child’. It’s so sweet to see him love Teddi. He will give her hugs and kisses, tickle her toes, and put in her pacifier when she cries. Stryder also knows ‘where’ his brother is. We ask him where Archer is, and he will point to his urn. Then we ask where Archer lives, and he points to the sky. We tell him, “Yes, Archer lives in heaven.” Stryder has even started saying, “Archer.” Stryder is funny, smart, dramatic, and genuinely a loving little boy.

Teddi is living her best life as a 2-month-old. She is a small girl, but she is doing so well. She has started to really recognize Mama and Dada, socially smiles, and is finding her voice.

Theo and I are enjoying this new life of watching the kids grow up and being intentional about connecting with one another. We are tired, but we have found ourselves laughing at the little things, growing and stretching our patience, and loving our family hard.

I don’t know how much I will write going forward, as life with two littles has been an adjustment. But I don’t want to stop sharing my life and what it looks like to find joy and have grief all at the same time. Recently, I heard a saying, “Your grief is always heavy, but you become stronger and can carry it more easily.” This is the perfect way of describing how I feel about my life. My grief is the same size, but I see the strength I have, from the Lord, daily to carry it.