Three months, huh?

It has been over three months since the last time I updated my blog. I have accepted the fact that I will never do this regularly. But one of the thing that hold me back is pictures. I always feel like I should have pictures to include, but I don't like the hassle of adding pictures! Plus, we haven't taken any this month, so there all "old" from the summer. I guess I can come up with all kinds of excuses.

So, our big news is that we're expecting Baby Rock #2! Finding out I'm pregnant was such an amazing blessing! For those of you who may not have been following us at the time, we went through a long two and a half year process to have Andrew and ended up having IUI, which worked the first time and produced Andrew! We had talked about doing that again around the time that Andrew turned one, but when the time came, we realized that, though we were ready to be pregnant again, it just wasn't a wise time financially to spend that kind of money! The cool thing was that both of us were at peace about that. In the mean time, we just prayed that things just might happen naturally, and sure enough, they did! When I took a pregnancy test in the end of June, part of me was shocked and part of me already felt like I knew! We ended up having a couple of nervous weeks because, at our first ultrasound, there was no heartbeat! It turned out we were just a little off in our timing, so when we went back, there it was! I'm now almost 18 weeks, and it's going so fast! I've felt pretty well overall. We are very suspicious that we're having a boy after an ultrasound at 15 weeks, but we'll have that confirmed in a couple of weeks.

Being pregnant while handling a toddler is certainly a different ball game. It's better now, but I was so tired during that first trimester, which was also the time when I was trying to figure out Andrew's nap schedule since two were not working for him any more! The other problem is colds! I was incredibly lucky and didn't have a single cold when I was pregnant with Andrew! I've now already had at least two with this baby, and the latest has been a doozie! Andrew just picks up so much, and I can't fight it off when he gets something. I'm sure this one won't be the last! I just hope there is no flu in my future!

Andrew is growing so much! I can't believe he's 18 months old. He's tall - like a head taller than most of the kids his age. He's also really mechanical. He wants to take everything apart and try to put it back together. He's not as verbal as some of our friends, but I'm sure that will come. He can say a lot of words, but right now he just chooses not to much of the time. But he really likes music and he loves to sing! He is a sweet boy and very good in some ways, but he's also very stubborn, throws big tantrums, and has recently started hitting me when he gets frustrated. We're using all the wisdom we can find to nip that stuff in the bud. We always appreciate advice from others who have been there! I sure do love him! We have a lot of fun and do everything we can to stay busy! Andrew loves his Fridays with his Gigi (Dan's mom) when I work. And he was so excited this month to have separate visits from Dub and Mimi!

Well, that's enough for now, I suppose. We have certainly had a great summer, and I'm so glad now that it's fall. I just wish it felt like fall down here! Andrew and I survived a trip on our own to SC and enjoyed visiting Ross, Heather, and Zach and my friend Melanie and her family! We also got a visit ourselves from Ross's family, and had a fun time with Dan's family at the beach. I'll include a few pictures from those events since those are the last pictures I've taken!

Not Much of a Blogger!

I guess I'll just never be much of a blogger!  It's really not that I don't have time.  I waste plenty of time each day just wasting time online, but I think it's that sometimes I don't have the mental energy to blog.  I also think that I overwhelm myself since I tend to be long winded about everything!

We're doing very well!  Andrew is so big!  He's walking and sort of running everywhere!  He's saying lots of words.  One phrase he loves right now is, "All gone!"  He says this immediately after he throws whatever he's holding onto the ground.  He's been getting so many teeth lately.  I've lost count, but it's definitely challenging for him to have that many teeth, particularly four molars, coming in at the same time!  Overall, I think he handles it well, but I do sometimes call him "Molar Andrew" when he's quite a grumpus! 

On the mommy front, I've been quite blessed to develop a little "mommy's club."  I mean, I didn't start it, but I'm happy to be a part of it.  My friends Jancey and Leesa both have babies Andrew's age - Jackson and Sydney.  They are now the three musketeers!  We get together and play at Jancey's pool or at the local Splash Park, and it's fun for them and for us.  Now, Andrew, always a daredevil and handful, has no fear, even at the pool.  I have to be very careful with him because he just wants to keep getting out, running to the other end, and get back in, whether or not I'm there.  I definitely need to sign him up for some kind of swim class!  He definitely loves to be outside, and they only way to do that this time of year is to be near some water!  I'm so blessed to have friends to play with (for both of us!)!

We had a great trip to Calgary last month!  I, of course, meant to post on here all about that, but never did, so I wont' go into detail.  I will include some pictures from that time.  It was great to see the beautiful city surrounded by the Rockies.  And we went for a day to Banff and Lake Louise, which were, by far, some of the most beautiful places I've every seen!  It was a blessing to go to my parents' church and meet some of the sweet people there.  There is no question that they are right where God wants them to be.  While I miss them very much, I'm so thankful that they are following him!  

Hmmm...what else?  Well, next month, Dan and I are officially getting on the Dave Ramsey train!  We have both read Total Money Makeover, and we're ready to "live like no one else so that later we can live like no one else!"  We're both ready for the journey to being debt free and hopeful for the positive message that will send to our children as they grow up.  We know it won't be easy to be on a tight budget for a while, but we're excited for the adventure it will be!  Have any of you done the Dave Ramsey thing?  I'd love to hear about it if you have!

Well, I guess that's it for now.  I mentioned earlier this year that my word for the year has been contentment.  God is teaching me a lot about this word this year, and I love what I'm learning.  I see the positive effects in many areas of my life!  It makes me think, though:  I can't believe this year is almost half way over!  

MY BABY IS ONE YEAR OLD!!!!

In honor of Andrew's birthday, I seem to have waited an entire year to update this blog!  Maybe not quite, but so much for that New Year's resolution!  Oh well, there are just more important things to me than blogging, I suppose, although I love reading others' blogs!  I decided to put some early pictures of Andrew so we could remember what he was like a year ago!  He has changed so much!  He's such a delight and a joy.  Dan and I talk all the time about how much more we love him every day!

This is a picture I took recently when I went in to wake Andrew up from his nap.  I often have to wake him on Wednesdays so I can go to work.  Dan meets us at my office and takes him home for the evening.  He had been sleeping on his tummy with his legs tucked up under him for so long, and I was surprised to see him stretched out on his back like this!  He always has one of his "babies" close by while he sleeps!

These pictures are after his first hair cut a couple of weeks ago.  We took him to the Magic Kingdom for his first hair cut, which I had been anticipating since I found out about it a few months after he was born.  I was so excited to see his mullet come in because I knew the hair cut was coming, and I was more excited to see the mullet go!  He did great with his hair cut!  By the way, that ten dollar balloon in the family picture is still floating!!  I never would have guessed we would get our money out of that one, but apparently we have!

And here are some pictures from Andrew's first birthday party!  It was so much fun, and it went perfectly!  I really couldn't believe it.  I was prepared for meltdowns or whatever may come.  We ended up having a pretty big crowd, so I wasn't sure that would go over well with Andrew.  But he took his two naps that day, so he was well rested, and he LOVED it!  It was an Elmo party, and we had lots of fun decorations.  I made his cupcake cake, and he at just about all of his cupcake!  He was definitely on a sugar high for a while after that.  It was such a special day, and I couldn't have done it without all the help from family and friends.  We were sad that most of my family, especially Dub, couldn't be there.  But Mimi represented them, and Andrew loved having her here!

We're doing well overall!  We're staying very busy, and it makes me overwhelmed to think of all the things that I could update on here!  Dan and I are leading a couples Bible study for our Life Group, which I'm putting together.  It's a lot of work, but it has been going really well so far!  I'm learning a lot in the process.   Andrew is not walking yet, but he has taken a lot of steps.  He can do it, but he just chooses to crawl most of the time because it's faster.  I'm sure he'll walk when he's ready!  He babbles a lot and says a few actual words.  His main word is "hot."  He says "hot" whenever he wants something.  We weren't sure why for a while, but we recently realized that he learned it from Gigi, Dan's mom.  She stays with him on Fridays when I work, and she often has coffee.  He always wants to taste it, and she has, of course, told him that it is hot!  I guess he associated those two things, so everything he wants is "hot."  It's very cute and a little uncomfortably reminiscent of Paris Hilton!!  

Well, I guess that's all I have time for right now.  This is a very stream of consciousness update, but at least it gives you a little picture of our life right now!  It's been a GREAT year!  We are inexpressibly blessed to have Andrew Christoph in our lives!

10 Months and Counting!

Hi there!!!  I thought this was a fun picture for greeting my readers!  This is Andrew a couple of weekends ago when we ate in Germany at Epcot with our friends, John and Sarah.  The band was performing, and we were seated close to the front.  Every time people clapped for the band, Andrew thought they were clapping for him.  He was delighted!

We're doing very well!  Actually, Andrew and I are getting over colds, but we both seem to be on the tail end of them.  I'm in the stage where I feel better but I can't stop coughing, which is annoying, but much better than feeling lousy!  Andrew turned 10 months old last week!  The sad thing is, I felt so bad that day, I didn't even think about the fact that it was his 10 month day.  Oh well, I guess that's going to happen sometimes.  He's still just growing and changing so much.  I took him to the doctor yesterday to make sure there was no ear infection, and he weighs 21 pounds.  He's such a big boy!  Every time I tell people how old he is when they ask, they are surprised because he's so big.  He's also more and more vocal.   His latest "word" is kitty.  My parents had two cats before their move, and he loves them.  He started saying "ki, ki" at Christmas, and he was saying it more during our brief visit up there before they moved.  Now, when I asked him where the kitty is, he finds a picture of a cat on one of his toys and says "ki ki".  It's really cute and definitely melts my heart.  He's not walking yet, but he's so mobile.  He can walk behind his push toy anywhere he wants to go, and he crawls so fast.  We have to stay on our toes.  I can't imagine having a larger house!

We're staying busy.  We had a nice visit with Mimi and Dub, and it was not as sad for me as I thought it would be.  It was good closure for me to see the house empty and be there as they were wrapping things up.  I know it made it real, but every time I would start to be overwhelmed with sadness, I would feel excited for them about all that they had ahead and their faithfulness to God's call. We gave them a book with pictures of their house and our family time together (my first on the Mac).  It's called, The House that Dub Built, and they loved it.  My dad couldn't even look at it at first because he was so overwhelmed.  That was cool.  I did have a breakdown the night they actually left.  I cried some good tears about not having a "home" in SC, and it was good to get some of that out.

We had a great visit with our friends, John and Sarah.  They came in from Houston and stayed for a few days.  I miss them a lot and so wish they still lived close to us.  But it was great to spend some good time with them. 

Well, I've included some random pictures from the past month or so.  One is actually from Christmas, when I had the rare pleasure of visiting with my two closest friends, Melanie and Julie and Julie's family, at the same time!  It was brief but precious to me.  I miss them tons!  One is the night of the big Gator victory, Dan's birthday present!  There are some cute ones of Andrew, bundled up for a cold jog and one of him trying to escape out of the doggie door.  And, of course, some from Disney!

Just a little Update

One of the thing that keeps me from blogging regularly is that I feel like I need to have pictures to post every time.  With my old computer, that was a problem because it really couldn't deal with holding pictures any more!  Now, in the past few weeks, we've taken a bit of a picture hiatus.  Andrew is just as cute as ever, and he's doing some fun things, but we have not been on top of capturing his cuteness on film.  

So, here's an update with no pictures.  And now that I'm writing, I'm thinking, what do I really have to say?  Andrew had his second night away from home last night.  He stayed with Gigi and Papa (Dan's parents), so that I could work today since I'm going out of town later this week.  I was a little more nervous this time than last time because he's so much more aware now.  He's starting to show some little signs of separation anxiety.  But at the same time, I want him to be used to being over there and staying with them sometimes so that he will look forward to it.  Anyway, he did great last night - no problem at all!  He's such a big boy!  

Speaking of grandparents, my parents are making their big move next week.  I can't remember if I mentioned this last post, but they are moving to Calgary in Canada, and my dad will be the pastor of a church.  We're very excited for them and what God will do, but the reality has definitely been sinking in for me over the past couple of weeks.  I'm sad that they will be so far away.  My mom will come visit pretty often, but my dad won't have as much freedom.  And they were hoping to be able to keep their house in NC (or we were hoping), but they decided it would be best to sell it.  I'm definitely grieving the loss of a a place to call "home" in SC/NC.  We're looking forward to our visits up there, but there is no doubt that it's a bittersweet situation.  Andrew and I will be headed up to NC Wednesday through Friday to see them one last time before they leave.  I'm sure that will be emotional for me!

Andrew is crawling all over the place, and "walking" as long as he's holding on to something. He can walk behind a push toy or walk down the couch while he's holding on.  I spend most of the day following him around the house!  He makes me laugh so much.  It's fun to see his personality coming out.  He's funny and serious, a lot like both Dan and me really!  It's fun to experience how my love for him (and Dan too) grows and grows and grows with each passing day!  It's also amazing to see what God teaches me through motherhood!

Dan celebrated his 32nd birthday last weekend!!!  I always like when he catches up with me!  He got his favorite gift when the Gators won the national championship!  But we also spent his actual birthday at Disney!  They are doing this promotion this year where you get free admittance on your birthday, but if you are a passholder, you have a couple of options. The one that we chose is a free birthday funcard.   It's a $75 gift card that you can spend in most of the stores on property!!!  Free money!!!!!  We had fun shopping for Disney stuff that we normally would not buy.  It was a great birthday celebration!

Our pastor challenged us for the second year to seek the Lord for a word for the year.  Mine this year is contentment.  I find myself consumed so often with things that I want.  Sometimes it's stuff.  Sometimes it's relational or emotional. I know I have a lot to learn about contentment, and what a good lesson to learn!  I have so much to be thankful for and so much richness to draw from in my daily walk with Jesus!  But I miss those things so often when I stay consumed with things that I WANT or that I'm waiting for.  Hopefully, I'll remember to post on here the things that God is teaching me through my word of the year!

Well, that's about it for now.  I mean, I'm sure there's other stuff, but that's all I feel like writing!

New Year, New Bedtime, New Computer, New Resolution?

I'm not really one for New Year's Resolutions.  Never have been.  Dan is!  He make his new goals every year, and I think that's great, but he just hasn't won me over yet!  This year may be a bit different, however!  For one thing, Andrew has a new bedtime!  We had been putting him to bed at around 8, but he had to fight to stay awake. I was afraid to put him down earlier because he's such an early bird that I thought he would end up getting up at 5 or 5:30 every morning!  But one of our friends suggested that we just try it (offering a book called Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child), so we did.  It has gone so well!   He now goes to bed at 7ish, and I feel like I have an evening again!

In addition to this, I got a big surprise for Christmas!  My computer has been pretty much dead for quite some time.  That's one of the reasons I haven't been a very good blogger.  But Dan surprised me with a MacBook for Christmas!  It was the biggest Christmas surprise I've ever gotten!  I love it, although I'm sure I'll be figuring it out for quite some time.  So, having said all that, I may actually resolve to blog more often.  I've really made that goal more than once, so we'll see.  

We had a wonderful Christmas!  We spent a couple of days with Dan's family in Leesburg, and then we spent a week with my family in NC!  We made sure to spend some good time up there because my parents are moving to Calgary, Alberta, Canada at the end of this month!  I still can't believe it!  My dad will be the pastor of a church up there for at least three years.  It looks like they will have to sell their house, so we're bummed about that, but we're excited for this adventure that God is taking them on at this point in their lives!

Andrew enjoyed Christmas, although it wore him out!  He's changing so much.  He got his top front teeth for Christmas!  He also got some really fun gifts!  He's crawling and pulling up all the time.  We really don't think it will be long until he's walking.  Although we have to watch him a lot more, he's so much fun to play with!  He's also very talkative - lots of babbling! We surely do love him more and more every day.  He's a really sweet, good natured boy even though he also has his demanding and stubborn side!!

Well, that's it for now.  I'll add some pictures so you can see my sweet little boy!

What a Month!

October has been a full and wonderful month! We visited some great friends, celebrated our fourth anniversary, dedicated Andrew at church, and celebrated my 32nd birthday! It has been full and lots of fun. All the while, Andrew continues to grow and change, which is amazing!

We spent time in Wellington, FL with our friends, Vaughn, Jaime, and Kate Stoll. Dan went to UF with them, and we both love spending time with them! Their daughter, Kate is almost exactly a year older than Andrew, and she is quite a beauty! Andrew had a great time playing with her, and he must have learned a thing or two because, by the end of the weekend, he was babbling up a storm and saying "da da."

I know it's not very original for us, but I LOVE spending time at Disney World for special events! So, for our forth anniversary, we spent the weekend there! Our first night was without Andrew, which actually went quite well! Andrew had a great time with his Grandparents, and we had a great time dining at the California Grill! It overlooks the Magic Kingdom, and we had a really nice window seat! Andrew joined us on Saturday, and then we had some fun family time.

The following weekend was the Parent/Child Dedication at our church. That is where we commit to raise Andrew in a Christ-centered home with the hope that he will also grow to love Jesus and follow Him throughout his life. My parents and Dan's parents came, and we all enjoyed our time together. My parents were here for a whopping 36 hours -way too short! But it was great to see them!

This is Andrew's Halloween costume. Obviously, it's not Halloween yet, but this is when he was trying it on. His costume is really cute, but I think it's going to be a little short. That kid is long!

God gave me a special birthday blessing with some cool weather this week! Oh, how I have loved the crisp, cool air, and Andrew seems to have liked it too! This morning, I felt like I needed to cover his ears when we went out for a walk because he has had a cold. Dan's Grandma Rock made him this hat before he was born, so we tried it on this morning. It was super cute and it's almost too small now. Unfortunately, it was actually pretty warm by the time we got outside, so I had to take it off. Hopefully, he'll have another chance to wear it!

Well, that's about it for now! Enjoy the pictures of my little man!