Underwood Family 2012

Merry Christmas One and All from our new house in Yellow Springs!

This has been quite a year, and the process of moving house has been a big part of that. We had about a bazillion showing from the time we listed our house in September of last year until May, when we finally received an offer. I lost count early on, but I know that we had at least one showing nearly very week the house was on the market, and one memorable week with nine showings! Being out of the house that much is a disruption I don't miss one bit. We found a nice old house in Yellow Springs that was built in the 40s. The July day the movers came was the hottest of the summer, no joke! We have put some not-fun work into the house -- updating the electric and plumbing, for example -- and we're just starting the fun part of painting walls and renovating our small kitchen.

The other big change is that the weather the weekend of the Cityfolk Festival was miserably hot and stormy, and the resulting financial loss led to my hours being cut way back, and working from home. I have since picked up work from Culture Works and the bluegrass band Joe Mullins and the Radio Ramblers, as well as a little transcription. Working from home is proving to be a harder adjustment than I expected, but it's a change for the best.

Tom is still at Dayton Metro Library. A levy was just passed in November which will lead to his branch and two others merging into a new building in the region. It will take a couple of years for that to come to fruition. At home, Tom is stretching his handyman skills to fix up the new house, including building a decent coat closet, which is the first stage of the kitchen reno. (Come visit, you'll understand when you see the layout!)

Zach is now five fun years old. His birthday is three weeks too late to make the cut off for kindergarten this year, so he's in preschool here in Yellow Springs. Most days I can take him to school by bike, which is a treat! The school is right across the street from Glen Helen and the bike path, and I taks advantage of running there around those pick ups and drop offs when weather allows. Zach  loves Legos--especially Ninjago--drawing, playing dress up, playing outside on the climbing tower Tom built, and being read to. His teacher predicts that he'll be reading on his own by the end of the school year, which is exciting! We're teaching him to ride a bike without training wheels; riding to the library, park and ice cream shop under his own power are great incentives. Back in September, he started taking piano lessons and is doing great. He and Daddy have played some duets on piano and fiddle (Twinkle Twinkle, Up on the Housetop), which is cool! He likes to sing in general, and to make up new words to songs, which is great entertainment in the car. Zach still loves to help and is good at playing by himself, which has made the whole process of moving out and settling easier. Listening to his solo play is delightful.

After a very hectic summer, we are enjoying staying home a lot, making this new house our own, hiking in Glen Helen and doing all sorts of cool stuff in our new home town. The path to get here wasn't terribly fun, but all the change was worth getting to where we are now.

May you know peace, joy, love and laughter in the coming year!

Holly, Tom and Zach

320 West Davis Street

Yellow Springs, OH  45387

937-767-0193

hollybu@gmail.com

Photos are at https://picasaweb.google.com/hollybu. I'll post more of the house changes soon!

Holly and Tom Underwood Family

Zach is now a very lively and talkative three year old. He’s very creative and imaginative, enjoys reading and playing with animals or dinosaurs. He loves to cut paper with scissors, paint, and color with what looks like utter randomness to us. He often pretends it’s someone’s birthday, wrapping up a toy in a towel or cloth napkin as a present. He loves to make music (with real or improvised instruments) and sing, and is getting better at singing the real words to songs. His version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer has already changed drastically in just a week of hearing it. He is testing the world around him to see what he can do (and some days, I think he’s testing to see just how much patience Mommy has…) but is still good-natured and great company. He’s a joy to have around.

Tom’s still at Dayton Metro Library at a branch that he doesn’t feel well suited for. But library funding has been cut so drastically in the last couple of years that there are very few jobs available to move to so there he stays, enjoying the good days and the steady paycheck. He plays music and reads a lot.

This fall marked 15 years at Cityfolk for me. I’m working there three days a week which leaves lots of time for being Mommy. We’re thankful that I get to spend so much time with Zach. Over the last year I’ve made a point of spending more time being crafty – sewing and embroidering, mostly – which has resulted in several new shirts for Zach, decorations for the house and handmade gifts for most occasions this year. It goes a long way toward keeping me sane and happy. In November I opened a shop on Etsy.com (like a craft show on the web) to sell a few things. We’re not traveling too much these days, but made it to Michigan a few times for festivals and family visits. The big deal was flying to Colorado to visit my brother Bryan and his wife and kids. It was the first time he and I had shared Thanksgiving in over 20 years! My parents were there too, which gave us all some very rare family time. It was fun to watch Zach and his cousins get to know each other too.

All in all, we feel blessed to have each other, good health and reliable jobs and a wealth of dear family and friends. If you'd like to see more photos of us, they're here.

Holly, Tom & Zach

Holly and Tom Underwood Family

In just a few weeks, Zach will be two years old! Man, that's hard to believe. The time has flown by and dragged, by turns. Usually both in the same day!
 
Zach's talking more and more every day. He still signs a little bit, usually saying the word at the same time. I am so glad that we decided to use sign language; he was able to sign long before he could talk. Of course, most of his words aren't quite the real thing yet, like mih (milk), pees (please), ankoo (thank you) and oos (juice) but mommy, daddy and bye bye are clear as a bell. He's starting to 'sing' which is totally adorable, and moos, meows or ruffs at animals, as appropriate. We'll, he also moos at pictures of horses, I'll admit.

Zach loves dancing, music and climbing. He likes being outdoors, playing with water in the kitchen sink and blocks. We call him our relocation specialist, because he loves to dump everything out of the laundry basket, pull everything out of drawers, and generally surround himself with mess and chaos. Thankfully, he's usually good about helping us pick it up too...eventually. He's not a very picky eater but we are still having issues with sleep. We intend to try to potty train him some time in the next few weeks. Since it's our idea instead of his it may not work, but since he's eager to please it might. Here's hoping! His hair is in ring curls which are adorable, but tangle like crazy. Paybacks for how little I liked Mom untangling my hair when I was little, I think.

Tom is still working at Dayton Metro Library, thankfully. Times will be rough ahead though, with the big cuts in state funding and an upcoming levy on November's ballot. The Director is figuring out what to do to adust to the state cuts now, and even if the levy passes, more cuts will have to be made in 2010. I'm working for Cityfolk (nearly 14 years now). In October, I dropped back to 8 hours a week, mostly from home. In May, that jumped up to 24 hours a week in the office through our Festival in early July, because a coworker quit. Now I'm back to 8 hours/week. They want to increase my hours, but have not money to do so. Some time in the next couple of weeks, I'll talk to my boss to see what we can work out.

Back in October, we started looking for a house in Yellow Springs. We miss being able to walk and ride our bikes to restaurants and on errands like we could in my old house in Dayton, we like the atmosphere out there, and have lots of friends there. The schools aren't rated as high as Beavercreek's, but aren't overcrowded either, so we're hoping that balances out. Given the upcoming uncertainty with Tom's job, we feel we need to move quickly or wait who knows how long until our incomes are predictable again. We'll see what happens. We have to sell our place to afford to buy, which could complicate things. Luckily, we like our house so we'll be happy if we have to stay a while longer. Either way, we're purging our stuff, boxing up things we'll never miss and doing some simple repairs.
 
Otherwise, we're trying to get back into some kind of exercise routine. We're slowly getting back to traveling a little, though our trips are only as exotic as visiting friends, family and festivals. We love introducing Zach to Lake Michigan and music festivals though! In a few months, we hope to visit Bryan & Leigh in Colorado too. We don't seem them nearly often enough, so that will be a treat.

Pictures of Zach, mostly are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/hollybu/

Holly and Tom Underwood Family

The past year was like no other I’ve known: pregnant for the first 8 months, then a new mom! Luckily, the pregnancy was very smooth for me. I didn’t want to find out the baby’s sex, though Tom did. Since I was doing all the hard work, we didn’t find out. Maybe next time, honey! Tom dubbed the baby ‘Acorn’ in the meantime. I loved feeling my body change, especially when I started to feel Acorn moving around. What an amazing feeling! The only hard part, really, was enduring this summer’s incredible heat. Usually I’m not a fan of air conditioning, but this year was a different story.

  

On the morning of Saturday, August 18, what I thought was indigestion turned out to be labor pains. Several hours later, as the midwife placed the baby on my chest, I saw that we had a son. And so, at 11:09 PM, we welcomed Zachary Ryan Underwood into our family. He weighed 7 pounds 15 ounces and was healthy as can be. (Here he's one week old. His onesie says 'iPoop'.)

The next five weeks were rocky ones for our new family. I bled more than most women do, and it took two trips to the emergency room to finally discover and remove some placenta that had been missed after the delivery. Thank God Tom was home each time I had a bleeding episode, or it could have been much worse. 

We ended up in the ER with Zach too. When we took him to his pediatrician on day 6, we learned that he has a cleft palate. Over the weekend he just wasn’t acting right, so we returned on Monday and she sent us straight to the ER at Children’s Medical Center. There we learned that because of his cleft, he can’t create enough suction to get the nutrition he needs from nursing so he was dehydrated. Zach was in the NICU for three and a half days, during which I learned how to use an electric breast pump so that we could continue to feed him breastmilk. In those early days he had a lot of formula, but now is exclusively a milk man. We’re happy about that, because it’s important to us that he gets all the natural goodness that is found in breastmilk.

Zach is now healthy as can be, seven months old and weighing in at about 19 pounds. He loves to smile and giggle, can sit up unsupported and is figuring out how to roll over. Crawling isn’t far away now! There is a cleft palate team at Children’s which is made up of a plastic surgeon, dietician, audiologist, and other folks. We have met with them a few times now, and they will follow his progress until he’s 21! We will schedule his surgery soon, for some time in early summer.

 

Other than the huge change that comes from learning how to be parents, Tom and I are much the same. Tom is working at the Dayton View branch of Dayton Metro Library, and likes it most of the time. I switched from full- to part-time at Cityfolk at the beginning of August, and now work three days a week. I bring Zach to work with me two days out of three; on the other day either Tom or my Mom watches him. That arrangement is working out pretty well so far. 

If you'd like to see more pictures of this cute little cousin, click here.

Take care!

Holly

Holly & Tom Underwood

Usually, I put the parents before the kids, but this time, Bryan & I have great news to share, so I’m putting us first. What could be so important? Grandkids, that’s what!

On the Friday before Christmas, Tom and I found out that I’m pregnant! (This is us shortly after we found out.) We told Mom & Dad when they were over on Christmas Eve, and were able to reach all of our brothers by phone the same night to share the news. I’m currently 13 weeks pregnant, due on August 28. After a year of trying on our own, we got help from a fertility practice. we’re thankful that it took only a few months of non-invasive help before we were successful.

Due to my age (ripe old 38), we had some standard genetic testing, and know that the baby (who Tom dubbed ‘Acorn’) is highly unlikely to have any of those problems. So far I am also doing well: no morning sickness, I’m still working out several days a week, and I feel pretty darned good! I’m not showing yet, but my clothes sure don’t fit like they used to…

Are we going to find out Acorn’s gender? No. Have we chosen names? No, but we’re working on it. Do we know what color the baby’s room will be? Not really, though I made a rug that everything else will be based on.
The other great thing that happened last year was Tom finding a full-time position at the Dayton View branch of the Dayton Metro Library. It was quite a journey to get there, too. Last year at this time, he was working two jobs, shelving books at the Main library and holding on to his job at the cable council. That lasted until May, when he quit both jobs in order to be a sub for the whole library system. He was able to sub for 2 different positions, and did so at about 7 branches in all, over the summer. The job paid much better but the hours were not guaranteed; we were lucky that he only had a couple of slow weeks. He started the full-time job in September, where he’s in charge of the computers (the ones patrons use to get on the internet and the employees’ system), the teen-oriented programs, helps out at the circulation desk, and is the main reference librarian. The job is full of challenges and new things to learn, but he’s doing well with it so far. And maybe best of all—he only works two nights a week, and two Saturdays a month, which is a whole lot better than before!

Holly is still working at Cityfolk, for 11 years now! Once again, most of our travels were related to her job. One new trip we took was to Chicago, one weekend in September when there was both a Celtic and a World Music festival going on. And a Turkish festival and some sort of Mexican traditional celebration, it turned out. We got to stay in Oak Park with a friend that we don’t see often enough, which was a treat in itself. Oak Park is the neighborhood where Frank Lloyd Wright designed a lot of homes so we were able to take lazy walks while viewing an abundance of fabulous architecture. In fact, we walked a LOT while we were there! We saw a lot of wonderful sights and heard a lot of great music, and still missed a lot! We would love to go back for a week and see more.

Our vacation was a week spent at a cottage near Lake Michigan in the Frankfort, Michigan area (just south of Sleeping Bear Dunes). It was a very relaxing week, filled with rock hunting, visiting lighthouses (here we are in front of one), hiking, sitting on the beach…and watching the Tour de France! We have decided that we really should plan our vacation at another time next year, so we don’t feel compelled to spend so much time in front of the TV!

The next few months will be busy ones, as we prepare for the arrival of our little Acorn – but we can’t think of a better way to pass the time!
Take care,
Holly & Tom