Oscar's Odyssey/Stella's Story

After a year hiatus our yearly Kaser family update is back for your reading pleasure. We hope and trust that this note of cheer finds you surrounded by loved ones during this most joyous time. Our big news is that we are expecting our 4th child this summer. Julie is due the second week of June and we are glad to report that so far she is feeling well and the baby is healthy. Everyone in our house is very excited, except maybe our youngest Brooks. He is not too keen yet on becoming a big brother or having to share his mom but we have the next six months to prepare him for our 4th bundle of joy. Theodore started 2nd grade this year and is enjoying school. He has begun to love writing and reading and can always be found crafting or creating around the house. He joined Boy Scouts this year and had fun selling popcorn and on his first camp out. Brooks spends his days with Julie and looks forward to his weekly music class and play dates. They keep themselves quite busy with errands around ...

  Merry Christmas from the Kasers. We did not get to our annual letter, but will definitely try and get to it next year. 

In the hopes of providing some remanence of normalcy I thought it best to wrap up our year with our typical holiday cheer and look back on our family happenings. We hope and pray that you and your family are doing well during these strange times and look forward to hearing from you during this holiday season. It is hard to believe that we have a kindergartener in our house as Theodore started school this year. We have been forced to balance mostly learning from home with schools in our area being either closed or on a modified schedule. We are blessed to have Julie at home so she can use her expertise and help guide Theodore in his learning. Brooks is motoring around the house while always trying to keep up with Theodore and his older cousins. He has fallen in love with his Tory Story characters and the phrases “To Infinity and Beyond” and “Howdy Partner” from Buzz and Woody echo through our house. The pandemic opened an opportunity for Julie to start Oscar’s Garage which quickly turne...

3 years today since Oscar left us and went to Heaven. I can't help, but replay his last days in my mind and vividly recall certain details. For any parent with a sick child whether that child was an infant, child, teenager, or adult those last days, hours, and minutes are such a blessing to have, but still so painful when you allow yourself to really remember them. You look back and you can't help, but wonder if you made the right decisions, did you push them too hard, why didn't you see how sick they really were. Those are things that after 3 years I still wonder and I am sure always will.  To someone that hasn't lived through their child dying you are probably thinking that doesn't seem healthy, but for us that have lived through this I beg to differ that I think it is completely normal. You see as a parent you always want to do what is best for your child to make sure they are happy, healthy, and feel loved. My child is not here to think about those things prese...

Gaining and losing weight has always been something that I have done. It started my sophomore year of high school when I put on 20 pounds from December through May then would lose it over the summer training for the upcoming cross country season. I continued this trend through my freshman year of college then finally broke the cycle when I decided to run my first marathon.  I was able then to maintain a healthy/steady weight through the remainder of college and beginning my professional career. Into my fourth year of teaching and third year of being married I started the gain/lose weight cycle again and was able to get back on track with training for another marathon. Then came our Theodore and literally for women that have gone through pregnancy, childbirth, and then breastfeeding your baby for a year or more your body is literally never the same. A woman’s body does amazing things for almost a year and a half of growing a tiny human, giving birth, and then providing all the nutri...

In one week our rainbow baby boy Brooks will be one. It is hard to believe he has been with us for a whole year. I remember the morning I found out I was pregnant with him and the tears of joy and hope that came with the promise of his precious life.  For any of you that have a rainbow it is as if you live in between joy and sadness so often during their first year of life. Oscar graced this Earth for 29 days and I remember when Brooks turned 28 days and 9 hours it was 4am on Saturday, August 3, and I just watched him because I wanted to be sure he lived and didn’t die like his older brother. He didn’t our Brooks is here and is such a joy to our family. As I think back on these past 12 months I always wonder what it would be like if Oscar was here too. How would our visits to Plummer Pool looked last summer, Cedar Point trips in the fall to HallowWeekends, playing in the snow outside, and our many quarantine bike rides. I am sure they would have looked a little different, but ...

5 years ago I started sewing items for Theodore as a baby. First a baby burrito then a car seat canopy. When I was on maternity leave with him I looked into starting my own Etsy shop, but never pursued it. Here I am 5 years, 2 babies later, in the middle of a pandemic and Oscar’s Garage was created. I never would have thought the first product I would sell would be a face mask, but so far it has been my bestseller yet ;-). In Luke 12, Jesus is talking to his disciples and speaking to them about “Being Ready”. He goes on to talk about doing the master’s will and being set over all his possessions. Jesus ends this message by saying, “Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.”  I think during this time more than ever we are called as believers to use our skills and gifts for good whether that is sewing masks, baking cookies, writing a card, using our humor to lift others up...