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.

Maxi Skirt, my first sewing project for me!

I am loving my new sewing machine! After making Caden some shorts, I made myself a maxi skirt! It seriously took about 30 minutes and was very easy. I bought some cute, stretchy, on the expensive side, fabric from JoAnn's. Since I spent $16 on the fabric after my coupon, I really didn't want to mess this up. I took a skirt that fits me around the waste. I laid it over the fabric. I cut a little extra around it on the sides. I then laid on top of the fabric to measure how long I am. I'm sure there are other ways to do this. Then I finished cutting the skirt out. I sewed along the one edge inside out. Then I put it on to check how long to make it. I hemmed the bottom. Then I put the skirt on and folded the waist in. I sewed two stitches to secure the waist. Since the fabric is stretchy, I didn't need elastic. I just made my own waist band using the skirt itself. This was a fast and fun project! I think I'll wear it to church on Sunday.

What do you think? I think I'm going to either make another skirt or try making some yoga pants. I bought some black stretchy fabric as well.

Lay the skirt you own on top of the folded fabric

Cut in the shape you want

Turn inside out and line up the edges and pin

I pinned the bottom and did the same with the top to hold the fabric in place

All done! It is the perfect length with my boots, which I'm not wearing.

First clothes- son's shorts and my skirt

How I sewed boys shorts without a pattern

I made my first clothing item for my son today! I made him a pair of shorts. I bought some flannel to line the inside of my rice hot/cold packs and my son wanted shorts made out of it. I don't know how to read a pattern, yet, so I took a pair of his pajama pants and studied them. Then I cut some fabric and sewed it together. I added an elastic waste, which was easier than I though it would be. The whole project took me about an hour. I think they turned out cute and my son loves them, which is the most important thing!

Hot/Cold Hand and Neck Rice Packs

I finally got a sewing machine that I can use! My grandmother gave me a Singer Feather Weight 12 years ago but I never got the hang of using it. For Christmas this year, Collin bought me one. I got a Brother CS6000i sewing machine. I love it! My first project was making some hot/cold hand and neck warmers for Christmas gifts. Over the course of 3 days, I made 6 neck warmers and 9 hand warmer sets of 2. Here is a picture of a few of them. I made some in a few other colors but forgot to take a picture before giving them away.

This was a great first sewing project. I'm just learning how to use a sewing machine and I thought these gifts would be personal and useful. To make them, I cut cotton fabric at the length I wanted for the neck warmers and the length I wanted for the hand warmers. I also cut flannel to line the inside of the warmers. I sewed them inside out like you would a pillow. Then I turned them right-side out and filled them with rice. Then I sewed the end up. To use, you heat the neck warmers in the microwave for 1 minute. For the hand warmers heat for about 20-30 seconds. You can also put these in the freezer in the summer to cool you down. I loved my first sewing project and hope you do too!

First Christmas as a family of 4!

This was our first Christmas as a family of 4. Gracie's 1st Christmas was very nice and Caden loved having someone else to play with. It was almost like they got double the toys because they were both interested in what each other got as well as what they got. It was so cute and fun to watch!

My friend, Emily, came over for breakfast Christmas Eve. Collin worked half a day and then as a family we went out to lunch. Christmas Day we spent with my family. Overall we had a wonderful time! I feel like I was the most blessed this year. I have two beautiful children and one on the way. I also got a sewing machine and a serger. There will be lots of fun projects in my future!

This was our first Christmas without Collin's dad being on this earth. That was tough. I really wish his mom lived in our city or was closer but I am so glad she lives close to one of his brothers. 

I hope your family had a wonderful Christmas and has a blessed New Year!