Grace is 1!

Dear Grace,

Today you are 1 years old! Where has this past year gone? You are such a sweet and beautiful girl! You have a beautiful smile and infectious laugh! You love smiling and talking with people you see. Your walking has gotten really good. You have lately mastered walking from tile to carpet very well. You love to follow Caden around and try and copy what he's doing, including trying to "help" him build things. You also can color pretty well since you watch him color and write a lot. You still have a love of music and love to dance to any beat you hear. You are very smart! For example, you know which animals are what in most animal books we have. You are able to copy the sounds they make as well. You are very aware of your surroundings and love to explore and especially climb our stairs! 

This last year you have kept us busy. You still don't sleep through the whole night but will go back down pretty easily after waking up once or twice. You take one nap a day, usually for 30 minutes to an hour. You go to bed around 7-7:30pm and will sleep usually until 8am. You wear 18 month clothing and are really good at feeding yourself. Actually you seem to get quite offended if we try and feed you. You can drink through a straw and have only drank water and breastmilk. You love taking baths and playing with your toys. You also love books are will bring me different books to read. 

You are a very healthy baby! Thankfully, this first year, you haven't had a fever or needed any kind of medicine or antibiotics. You had an upper respiratory infection in early December that we think you picked up at church. It lasted about a week. We took you to the doctor just in case and she told us to do exactly what we were already doing. We feel so blessed to have such a healthy baby!

This year, Lord willing, you will become a big sister! You love kids of all ages and I know you'll welcome the new baby with open arms. 

God has blessed us with a beautiful, smart, healthy and lovely little girl. We love you so much and look forward to watching you grow!

Love,
Mom

Here are few pictures from your 1 year old pictures. I'll post the rest once we get them back! I also have a few from when you were born!

I'm pregnant!

A week before Christmas I found out I was pregnant. We told our families on Christmas Day. Today I went in for my first prenatal appointment and sonogram. Praise God! The baby looked great! He/she has a great heartbeat, is growing well, and everything looks really good. I count this is a huge blessing. This is my 7th pregnancy, I sadly lost four babies between Caden and Grace. I'm almost 8 weeks along and my estimated due date is August 26, 2015.

Please keep my family in your prayers. We are excited about having another child. Children are true gifts from God.

11 Blessed Years!

Collin and I recently celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary. Over the years, we have had our share of ups, downs, shares of blessings, sadness, overseas moves, and overall have continued to build a stronger friendship, thanks to God's help. This year we celebrated by eating lunch at a seafood restaurant called Waters. It was delicious! This was our first time to leave Gracie with a babysitter. She did great. We went after church since she naps around lunchtime. It was nice having 3 hours to ourselves. A very rare thing!

Here are some things about our last 11 years:

- We met while attending college at a local church.

- We have lived in 5 homes and spent around 4 months living in a hotel, and 2 months living in a temporary house while waiting searching for a house when we moved from Germany.

- We have owned 7 different cars, thankfully not more than 2 at a time!

- We have lived in two different cities in Texas and one city in Germany.

- I gave birth to one child in Germany and one in the U.S.

- We have two precious children and one on the way!

- We have lost four precious children through miscarriages.

- We love to travel and have been to 29 countries together, which consists of 3 continents. Here's where we've been in no particular order: US, Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden, Italy, Portugal, Czech, England, Ireland, Spain, Morocco, DR, Mexico, Jamaica, Grand Cayman, Belize, Honduras, Netherlands, Belgium, Malta, Greece, Turkey, Croatia, and Norway.

- We love church ministry and serving in ways that help people.

There is no one else I'd rather spend my life with. Collin is my best friend and a wonderful dad and husband. He works so hard for our family and is the definition of a servant leader. Our family is so blessed to have him as my husband. I included a few pictures from our wedding day.