Johnson, Johnson, and... Johnson

Florida Update!

2010-03-21T07:57:00.000-06:00

It's time for an update! (Scroll down to see pics first if you'd like... I did write a bunch!)

Things are going well here in Florida. Josh is up to his ears in training. In addition to his time at the office, he's doing talks at schools and nursing homes and other places, screenings at local fairs and events, and an intensive training for a few days in Naples last month. He's doing well and learning like crazy. Although we are both ready to move up to Bloomington soon to open the office!!! (I think... )

I'm training in the office, too. One morning a week, I'm training in insurance and office management stuff. And one afternoon a week, I'm training on the front desk procedures and such. I also got to come in with Andrew one day to help promote a makeover event they were doing in the office. I made a healthy chocolate cake recipe without sugar(or artificial sweeteners) or flour that I found online and was AMAZING. I brought it into the office one day for patients to try, and then told them we would give them the recipe at the makeover. One of the ingredients in it was black beans, so we had the patients who tried a sample try to guess the secret ingredient. If they guessed right, they won a free ticket to the makeover. All but maybe one or two of the 80 or so people that tried it loved it, but no one guessed the black beans. (the guesses were hilarious and ranged from applesauce to chicken!) It was really fun and gets me looking forward to doing stuff like this in our office. Andrew had fun, too. He handed the cake out to people, it was adorable.

Andrew is enjoying his time here, too. He loves riding his tricycle and car from Grandma, playing with cars, kicking the soccer ball around with us in the backyard, jumping on his bed, and playing with his friends from church. Also, I recently taught him Go Fish and he LOVES it. It's so fun to play a game with him. He's becoming quite a pro at putting together the 24 peice puzzles. I think it's time to move up to the 36pc! He also enjoys reading books, and his favorite... when I tell him stories. He's learning his letters and numbers right now. A fun game he likes to play is find the letter. I have a game called bananagrams with a bunch of letter tiles. I grab a handful and lay them out for him. Then I have him find the "A"s and "B"s, etc. He loves it and does pretty well. He likes the shows Super Why and Word World on PBS, which are both about letters and words. So, I'm thinking I'll have a little competition in Scrabble and Boggle in the future!!! As far as food, he's still enjoying fruit more than anything. It's funny... he likes chicken as long as it has the bone in it for some reason. Then he chews on the bone... silly guy! Oh, he's given me my first nickname. I am now "Mum-pers". I have no clue where that came from. I guess I give him enough silly nicknames, he's just doing what comes naturally. He still amazes me in how quickly he advances in language. The other day we were at the store and pointed to some gum and asked "what's that?" I said, "oh, we're not getting gum today" and he said "Mom, I didn't ask that, I said what IS it!" Growing up, man. I'm sure I could ramble on about him awhile longer, but I'll move on.

Ironically, the one winter we will spend in Florida is the coldest they have had in years and years! I don't mind it though... still not the frigidity of the IL winter. Although I'm sad I missed out on all the snow there this year! As soon as it warms up though, we will be making a few trips to a nice little public beach in Melbourne we found that we really like and it's a little less than an hour away. Josh may join us if the madness ever slows down for a day! Also, we're looking forward to a churchwide camping trip in April. I LOVE camping and haven't been since I was like 20 or maybe even younger. I can't wait to take Andrew.

Speaking of church, I cannot begin to tell you how much God has blessed us with the one we are at here. They are seriously our family down here. Right now we are going through reading the Bible in two years together as a church (we won't be here that long, but plan on keeping up with them). The sermon on Sunday is from the same passages we are reading and then we discuss it as well in our small groups once a week. I love it. God just keeps getting more and more amazing... okay, maybe he's always been that amazing and I'm just seeing more and more of him! The small group we are in has a few families with young kids and teenagers, so while we are having our study, the older kids watch the younger ones. It works out pretty well. It will be really hard to leave all of our new friends and family, but as God showed when we moved to St. Louis, and then moved here, that he provides friends and family wherever we go. (That reminds me how much I miss all of my St. Louis friends as well as our friends and family in IL and KY... I can't even begin to tell you all...)

Right now, our time here is in limbo. We thought we may be moving back in May, but it's really up in the air. I'll let you know as we know.

Soon, I'll post about Christmas, the beach, his 3rd Birthday and more, but for now, I will just leave you with some random pics of my amazing little man:

Him and Daddy with new shades:

And being silly in Mommy's!

And now with my real glasses... I think he looks adorable...

A face that I just thought was hilarious...

Cars Galore!

Andrew loves avocados again! One of my favorites.

Playing with his paper boat in the sink after reading about them in a Curious George book.

Showing off his new shoes... he couldn't wait the show "the kids" at church on Sunday. Every time he saw someone he'd kick his foot to light the shoes up, get a really bashful look on his face and watch to see their reaction :)

Not unusual silliness...

Andrew loves doing "flips" and tackling and wrestling and dancing and all that fun stuff.

Interesting guy... he loves this scrubber in the shower and spends forever brushing his hair with it... he knows he's funny.

Master of Puzzles...

New Tattoos

Getting creative...

Getting messy... at least it's with chocolate. Yum :)

Just plain cute and adorable!

And one last one... a fitting pick to end on.

Merry Christmas 2009

2009-12-25T15:36:00.004-06:00

We want to wish all of our friends and family a Merry Christmas!

Time to reflect on the birth of God into the world as our Savior. He is so precious to us and gives meaning and purpose to our lives. This is first and foremost our reason for celebrating Christmas. We are spending time together as a family building deep and meaningful, as well as fun and crazy traditions. Okay, maybe a little more crazy than deep sometimes, but I think those are needed!!! These strengthen our bonds as a family and deepen the love and admiration we have of our great God, who has blessed us with hearts to love and laughter to share.

May the God of all peace fill your heart and home with love and laughter as you worship the King of Kings who humbly came into our world as a tiny baby so many years ago.

Family Updates:

We are doing well in our new state. God has blessed us already with a home-away-from-home church family. I can hardly believe how quickly this happened.

Josh is busy with training and I started my training this week. Assuming we continue to find help watching Andrew, I will be going in 2-3 mornings a week, probably for the rest of our time here.

Andrew is growing up, as always. Our little boy is turning 3 next month! He's been enjoying the parks and his church friends and... well, cars! He loves cars... even when we go to the park, he takes some cars to play with. It's a great ice-breaker with the older older boys there ;-)

I'll update you with some more pics and tell you about our Disney trip sometime soon. Enjoy the day! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Our First Thanksgiving

2009-11-27T09:13:00.014-06:00

This is our first official Thanksgiving as a family, just us. Every other year we have been with either my side of the family or Josh’s. Although we would have loved to spend time with them, we did enjoy having it just us this time! The best part of it was that Josh was able to spend the whole day with us. He’s been rather busy with his training, so time with him is so valuable!

We started the day by sleeping in. We are usually up and going before 6, but we let Andrew come wake us about 6:45. The extra time was great. Then we made an awesome green smoothie and got ready for the day. The boys went and rented a movie while I got some homemade stovetop popcorn ready. I’d never done it on the stove before and it was so fun. I think I giggled a little. We used coconut oil and then put a bunch of melted butter on it. So yummy. The movie we got was “Up”. I’d have to say that is one of the cutest movies I have seen in a long time. I laughed, I cried… it moved me. Andrew liked it, too, but only paid attention for the first half. The other half was spent playing cars on one couch cushion, while Josh and I watched the movie on the other. Isn't he cute eating his popcorn???

After the movie, Josh and Andrew played with cars outside. Big and little. Andrew like looking under the hood and Josh liked showing it to him. Andrew also rode around on the Cars tricycle with some of his toy cars in the “trunk”.

Mommy was cooking, but came out for a while.

I made a coconut flour coffee cake for our lunch and started getting the turkey ready for dinner. Oh man, I have never cooked a turkey before. I’ve cooked whole chickens several times, but when I pulled this guy out of the plastic, I started laughing. It was so big and cute. It looked like a turkey! Not that it should have surprised me, but I was a little surprised… in a good way. Just look at that guy... (sorry for the blur)

The whole process was fun and I realized how much I enjoy cooking and just making the holidays really special for my family. I was in a pretty giddy mood all day. I even let Andrew take my picture with my good camera. I think I might get him one of those toddler cameras for Christmas.

We had our lunch out on the porch on this unusually pleasant Thanksgiving day (at least for us, normal FL people probably didin’t even think about it!). It was fun and relaxing. Just look at the beautiful weather through the screen door...

Here's Josh and Andrew being silly and "conducting" the music we were listening to.

And Andrew enjoying his lunch

We even had a friend pop in…

This, by the way for all you northern people is really common here apparently and doesn’t even phase me anymore. In fact, it’s kind of uncommon to look out the window and NOT see a lizard. They're fun to watch.

Back to the day. While Andrew was napping, Josh and I pulled out the Christmas stuff we brought. I didn’t bring our bigger tree, but we have a little one and some lights and a few other random things. I think we managed to make our place a little bit cozy for Christmas. When Andrew got up we let him play with the ornaments and help put them on the tree. He loves it. We ended up putting our lights above our sliding glass doors because a strand of lights with white wiring didn’t look so hot on our tiny tree! Didn't think about that one. We piled the ornaments on and the ones that didn’t fit, are resting on the table next to the tree!!

Well, the meal was soon prepared and we enjoyed the time together at the table. We had some mighty fine turkey, I must say. I was nervous about my first one, but didn’t need to be. Anyways... we also had some gravy, green beens, mashed sweet potatoes, and cranberry sauce. Yum, yum yum. What is it that makes the food on Thanksgiving taste so amazing... is it really the food?

After dinner, we made turkeys out of construction paper. It was so much fun. I enjoyed cutting out the construction paper. The smell of the paper took me back to elementary school art class. I LOVED art. Still do. Now I have a little boy to share it with, not to mention my husband who was an art major when got married! Not that construction paper turkeys are fine art, but we had a blast… aren’t we a cute little turkey family?

We put tape on the back and Andrew had fun flying the turkey's around and putting them in different places and saying "gobble, gobble".

I think I will treasure these memories in my heart for years to come. Oh wait, Blogger does that for me!

As far as what I'm thankful for, it seems pretty obvious, but my great family. And our awesome extended families and all our friends. And most importantly for the love of the God we thank. He's given us more than a day of thanks could express.

Oh, one last thing… be careful buying a 14 lb turkey for two people and a little grazer! Good thing we like leftovers :)

***By the way, St. Cloud has a city wide wireless internet, but it is soooo slow, so it is harder to post pictures and update the blog. Sorry the picture quality is so low because of that. I had to downsize so I could actually get them up on here! But no worries, I’ll tell you a little more about life in Florida in a post sometime soon. We’ve been here 1 month. 1 down, at least 5 to go.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Johnson Family Adventure Continues

2009-10-06T08:01:00.025-06:00

As one chapter in our life comes to a close another begins...
4 years ago in August, Josh and I began our second year of marriage, in St. Louis. Josh was in the ASP(accelerated science program) at Logan College of Chiropractic and I was working as a nurse, fresh out of nursing school, on the Cardiac Unit at Des Peres Hospital. As Josh started Tri 1 of the Chiropractic program that next May, we found out we were expecting our first baby. 2 1/2 years into our marriage, Andrew was born and the real adventure began! And 2 1/2 years after that, Josh graduated and now we are ready for the next part of the journey.

An unexpected plot twist...
It all started with an unexpected change of plans at the end of July. We had been planning for well over a year to come back to the St. Louis area after Josh's graduation and FL training.. It wasn't until a week before we needed to turn in which specific community we would be locating in that we discovered, for various reasons, St. Louis was not much of an option anymore. Before we started that process I remember Josh specifically praying that God would make the choice obvious to us. And He did. Big time. There was almost no question in our minds that Bloomington, IL was the perfect location for several reasons. So, that meant a TOTAL shift in thinking and plans. We would no longer be returning to St. Louis after training(explained later), including all the friends and the church we had come to love. In addition to that, we would be leaving a month sooner than planned to save some money before training by moving in with my family.

This chapter... hiatus.
So, we sold most of our furniture and took two trips back and forth to move our remaining items into my parents basement for the month of October. We had two beautiful, almost perfect days to move. The next two days (our original move dates) were cold and rainy. We were thankful that my Mom suggested the earlier dates! We have now settled into as much of a routine as possible for this month long stay. We're trying to squeeze as much as we can into these 4 weeks, including a trip up to Detroit to visit my Mom's side of the family. It's a fun little roller coaster, fitting the fun and relaxation in with the stuff that needs to be done before heading to FL.

The next chapter... our great adventure.
The last week in October we will be moving the bare essentials in our two cars to a furnished aptartment down in St. Cloud, FL, near Orlando. We'll be training in a Maximized Living office in the area. Josh's training will be long and intense, learning every aspect of being a Maximized Living Doctor(***For those who don't know what Maximized Living is, I'll explain just a bit about it below in the red***)The training will include marketing, patient education talks and events, and all of the business aspects and in-office procedural dynamics. My training will probably be about a month total, learning how to help him run the office. Actually, I don't really know what all to expect! We're just prepared to be busy. We have the best intentions to make the best of the situation, remembering the whole time no matter what happens, we should be grateful that we will be skipping out on Winter this year! (Boy will we be in for a shock at the IL Winter next year!) The stay there should be around 6 months, and the goal is to have his office ready to open as soon as we get back. Josh is already working on the site selection right now, and he will have the help of some great people during training to finish getting everything ready. So, we could be up and running in Bloomington by the end of next spring. But, as we have learned, our plans are never as perfect as God's. We'll just continue to trust Him and put our future into His hands.

Please keep us in your prayers, especially our little guy, as we embark on the journey. Love you all!

***Short explanation of Maximized Living***
Maximized Living is a group of passionate chiropractors around the country and world who are on a mission to save and transform as many lives as possible through the five essentials of wellness. These are:
1. Minimize Toxicity
2. Maximize Nerve Supply (Restoration of the spine to it's natural curves so that the nervous system can communicate to the rest of the body at 100%, and then maintaining those curves)
3. Maximize Nutrition
4. Maximize Oxygen (exercise)
5. Maximize Mind (healthy relationships, time management, etc...)
We feel so blessed to be a part of such a great group of people. Both Josh and I are very passionate about this, please let us know if you have any questions!

Summer Vacation 2009

2009-08-15T07:15:00.029-06:00

Okay, I'm finally going to get this posted!!!

At the beginning of August, we put 2800 miles on my car. We drove from St. Louis to Central IL to Owensboro KY to Chattanooga TN to Atlanta GA to Orlando FL and BACK again. Crazy, but so much fun. My sister, Beth came with us to help with Andrew during our conferences in Orlando. It was so great to spend our vacation with her, too. She's so much fun :)

Here we are about to depart:

Andrew settles in for a long trip with Beth's teddy bear.

On the way down, we stopped in Owensboro to have a picnic lunch with Josh's side of the family. It was maybe only 15 min out of the way, so why not? It was also a great break in a day of traveling.

Andrew's cousin, Kale

Both cousins on this side... Kale and Taylor. (Should have gotten a pic of all 3 cousins together!)

And the travelers are off again. We stopped in Chattanooga TN for the night. GORGEOUS!

Oh yeah, and on the way, we caught a glimpse of Optimus Prime in Nashville.

By the way, is this normal?!?!

Highlight #1: Stone Mountain, GA
The next day, we drove to Stone Mountain near Atlanta, GA. It is really fun. It's basically the top of a gigantic hunk of granite sticking up out of the ground that has a carving of a scene from the civil war. We got to take a train ride around it. We also took a sky box thing up to the top to walk around and soak in the view, and then watch a really cool laser show on the side of the mountain when it got dark.

The train ride:

Put this next pic in here because it looks like Andrew is about to slap me upside the head (maybe he did, I don't remember!)

Here are a few pics of us in front of the mountain and carving:
Here are the adults:

And now Andrew!

Now for the ride to the top... AMAZING!

(yes, our feet where here)

Oh yeah, Andrew's favorite part, "the balls" in the Great Barn. Basically a Huge Barn filled with foam balls that are used as tokens for all sorts of games. Andrew was all over the one where you put the balls in, turn a wheel and watch them go up a big conveyer. He could have spent the whole vacation here!

At night we came back for the laser show on the mountain, which was very cool. I had never seen anything like it before. We all enjoyed it.

Andrew fell asleep again... in the middle of booming fireworks. Go figure!

Highlight #2: Cocoa Beach, FL
The next day, we drove the rest of the way to Orlando. Even though we spent the majority of time in FL, we only got the the beach for one morning. Cocoa Beach was the closest to Orlando so we went there. It was gorgeous! I've heard since then that the longer drive to the gulf side is worth it, but I wouldn't have known any different. We all loved it. Andrew did not like when the waves were crashing, but when we took him further out and the waves just kind of rocked us up and down, he liked that. He also had a blast in the sand until he couldn't get if off his hands! Although he had fun, I'd say it was me and Beth who had the most fun playing in the waves ;)

He's proceeding with caution.

One of our fun nights out:
We found a whole bunch of the coolest little wind up toys I'd ever seen. I'm not kidding, it was amazing. We spent forever winding them all up again and again. I'd have to say that this is another time that Beth and I had more fun than Andrew, and he had a lot of fun!

Apparently the feeling of sauce on Andrew's hands was a little too much for him.

Other than an awesome conference, Beth watching Andrew and taking him to look at the lizards running everywhere in the parking lot(or as he called them, snails?) and a few trips to the pool, that was it!

Oh yeah, on our 16 hour trip straight home, home we stopped in Metropolis, IL. No need to fear, citizens, we have a new superhero in town.

Funny Boy

2009-07-20T08:38:00.005-06:00

Andrew says some cute and funny stuff, like all kids I'm sure. I decided to try and write them down here to share and and so I'd remember, too! I know I missed some, but here's some of the highlights from the last month...

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"Dear God, please take Grandma Dianne and Grandpa Bruce, please take Grandma Marla and Papa" (My P.S. to God... Please do take care of them, but don't take them until it's time!)
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"I'm reading the Word about God." Who is God? I asked. " He's so I don't have to be afraid of Caterpillars. Here's the page about the Caterpillar video, the Curious George Video, the Baby Bach Video..." (I'm not sure which version he was reading... :)! )

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After getting a cut by grabbing Daddy's razor, Andrew said, "I grabbed Daddy's razor and got a burnout."
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When Josh was coughing, Andrew said in a serious tone, "Daddy's sick and old! I'm not sick... I'm happy."

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When Andrew and I were talking about eye colors, I started asking about our neighbors. I told him that Yosiah has blue eyes. Then asked him if he know what color Jedi's eyes were. He said, "Red! And Shaloma's are purple!" I asked about Ben's "Red!" Does anybody want to meet our neighbors now???
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When I was telling Andrew about our move coming up and how we'll meet new friends, he said, "I don't want to meet sad people, only happy people!"

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"I got lot's of beetles on there!" (showing me his chain of beads on a string)
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What a silly guy. I love when he talks, and it's such an added bonus when it's funny! I'll try and keep a list every month so I can add to everyone else's entertainment, too!

I LOVE This Place

2009-06-29T10:12:00.016-06:00

The Missouri Botanical Gardens.

So beautiful, so much to see, never enough time. Sometime I would love to go there for a whole day with my better camera and just walk around, sit on a bench and relax for awhile and then take some pictures. Maybe someday! Soon?
But for now, here are some pics from a trip we took there as a "family date" about a month or so ago. It was great. Added bonus, it's free before noon on Wed and Sat for St. Louis residents. :)
Did I mention I love this place??? I think my son does too, until after a few hours he realizes it's just plants. Just plants? I love plants! Well, don't worry Andrew, we'll be hitting the zoo a few times this summer and seeing a few animals, for sure!

He really did love the place. Andrew was so excited about the flowers at the entrance to the building that he got really upset when we told him we had to actually go in. Just wait until you get in, Andrew :)

He even gave the flower at the entrance a hug. So sweet.

There was a section of over a thousand different kinds of irises. I've never really paid much attention to them before, but these were beautiful. And with crazy names like "Grandma's Pajamas", it was fun to walk through them :) Andrew thought the little orange thing inside the one below was a caterpillar. He loves caterpillars!

Andrew loves the water... any kind.

The best part was watching Andrew explore, of course. He's so adventurous and funny. Definite entertainment!

We met a little friend while we were walking.

We were watching it for awhile and a lady came up to us and very close to the snake, leaned over the bust that he was on and said, "Oh, are you looking at the baby squirrels?" When she saw that what we were looking at was a snake a few inches from her, she screamed rather loudly, squeezed my arm rather tightly and ran away rather quickly yelling, "Sorry, I'm so sorry! I hate snakes!" I thought it was pretty fun except for the fact that my arm was a little sore for a while!

Trees... clouds... ahh, so beautiful!!! It was such a perfect day.

A few family pics, but none of us ALL together. I need to just grab a stranger to take our picture together at some point, or if anyone wants to join us some time, let me know!

Oh, there was one animal. Andrew took advantage of the situation.

Rock Throwing

2009-06-15T15:43:00.005-06:00

This activity does not require much... just some rocks and some water to throw it in. And I'm telling you, this kid LOVES it and would do it for... well, I don't know how long because I've always had to take him home after an hour or so. So maybe for days. Who knows.

Are you ready for this?

2009-06-06T13:40:00.021-06:00

I've heard from too many people that it's about time to post some more Andrew pics and updates... and you're right! So, where have I been? Well, probably the main reason I have not posted in awhile is the fact that Andrew is in a big bed for the last month. Keeping him there has been EXHAUSTING to say the least. We are sticking to our guns, though, and I'm sure it will pay off! One negative side effect is that he has been sleeping a lot less than he used to. Translation... less alone time. It's alright, I'm adjusting, accepting, and dealing. But, it has pushed a lot of things to the back burner. Like blogging... and cleaning. But, as promised this will hopefully catch you up a bit on the highlights of the past few months and keep you entertained for awhile :)

Andrew Changes

Andrew is continuing to grow up and he loves to say that, too! He is talking like an kid and saying things that are beyond hilarious and I should really write them down! Here are a few that I do remember:
-"Mommy's pretty" (okay, not funny, but adorable)
-"Daddy, can you teach me to drive?" (funny, but a little scary)
-"I want to wear my naked shirt" (when asked to decide between two non-naked shirts)
-"Daddy's naked!" (when Josh walked in the room with just his shirt off)
- After his nap he said, "It scared you" (you means me).. when asked what scared him, he replied, "The Parmesan Cheese scared you." with a very serious tone.

Andrew is part monkey, just like his daddy. He loves to climb and is SO good at it. Ladders, monkey bars, ropes... not a problem. I love his adventurous side and can't wait to see it develop. He also is LOVING the pool this year. Maybe we can teach him to swim! He also loves helping Daddy work on the car. (Daddy loves that he loves it!)

Andrew loves books and when I tell him stories. I could probably tell him stories for hours and he wouldn't get bored.
His favorite stories are:
-Daddy and the the Man with the Yellow Hat take Andrew and Curious George to get smoothies after a fun day at the park.
-Mordecai helps Esther decide which puppy to take home to keep.
(I gotta tell you, storytelling is great creative outlet!)
His current favorite books are:
-Where's the Poop?
-Curious George Story Collection
-Hop on Pop
-The Very Hungry Caterpillar
-I'll Love You Forever

Something that Andrew gets from his Mom... hmm... is uh... I don't know... I can't decide. We'll that's just it. He is very indecisive. If you've ever gone to a restaurant with me, then you understand where he gets it. Mom and Dad, I now understand what you had to deal with as I grew up. Ask my parents about our trips to the Convenience Store in Bloomington sometime! But anyways, dealing with this really has been a challenge and maybe I can learn a little bit about how to make decisions as I try to teach him! (I am at least a little better than I used to be... I hope)

Family Changes

Josh is done with all of his boards and classes! He's just finishing up in the clinic and hopes to be done a little early and preceptor with a doc up in St. Charles that he likes a lot and has been screening for for the past couple years. And so, in August, he will graduate. Our four year adventure in St. Louis will be coming to an end(sort of... I'll explain later). I am soooo proud of him.

Also, as many of you know, we will be heading South for the winter. Josh will be training with a Maximized Living Doctor down near Orlando, Florida for four to six months. We'll need to be there by November 1st. So, really it's not that far away! I'll actually be training as well, since I'll be the office manager and need to learn pretty much everything about how to run the practice. We are so excited to be doing this together and cannot wait. I've heard that opening our practice will be 5 times harder than we could imagine, but as hard as it will be, we're ready.
After training, our plan is to come back to the St. Louis area, but we are still up in the air. Going near both of our families is still an option, even if it's small... and I've been hearing some amazing things about the Northern West Coast. We'll let you know when we know :)

Pictures
Yes, I cannot end this without my signature mountain of photos... especially since it's been so long. I know you all love me for it :)

outdoors:

his new bed

Looking proud of his accomplishment:

Mother's Day:

Daddy's Little Helper:

Just plain cute and/or funny :)

And because there are so few of us together... here's one of me and Josh at his class party on the river.

Riley Sue

2009-05-07T13:59:00.006-06:00

My sister Rachel had a baby last February and I think it's about time to share that! Her name is Riley Sue and she is the cutest little baby girl in the whole world. She is 3 months now! A lot of you reading have probably all seen her and seen pictures, but this is for those of you who haven't and for our own memories. I look forward to seeing her and Andrew grow up together!

Andrew pretty much ignored her when she was born. The above picture
By the way, Andrew when from no interest to minimal on our second visit. The first acknowledgement was when he said "Baby Riley has a diaper just like me!" after about an hour or so of being there. That's progress :)

Here's a cute pic from one of our last visits. I love how she maintains eye contact and likes to communicate.

Thanks Rachel, for letting me steal a few pics from your blog. These are more recent than mine. Isn't she adorable?

I can't wait to watch you group up, sweet little Riley girl.

Easter Weekend

2009-04-14T12:18:00.015-06:00

This year we spent Easter with Josh's family. We had such a great time seeing everyone again.

We hoped to teach Andrew a little of why we celebrate Easter. I think he's starting to get it :) He knows that Jesus died on the cross for our sins(like when we don't obey our mommy or daddy) and he knows that Jesus is alive. How much more complicated can it get?! And it is so amazing to hear your little child say those things. It is so precious!
I realized just how much I love to do fun stuff for Andrew on the holidays, as well as any other day. But, I just had so much fun putting together and Easter egg hunt and basket for him. We did it right before we left for the trip. He had 6 eggs around the house, each with a clue where the next one was. The last clue led to the car where we had his Easter basket waiting. He had a lot of fun finding the eggs and really enjoyed his basket while we drove. (I did learn that you don't have to really hide the eggs for 2 year olds unless you just want to show them where they are!) By the way, I was trying to avoid a lot of candy, so I put a mini playdough and toy fish in each egg and then filled his basket with toys and books and movies, and dried fruit bars instead of candy. He loves those things from Trader Joe's. Here's a picture of the basket and then some from the hunt...

On Saturday after we arrived in KY, we went to go see Shane(our brother in law... Kandace's husband) do his practice runs on the race track. It was really cool and Andrew loved it. After that, we had fun just hanging out and then having a cookout around the fire at night.

Andrew and Kale's reactions:

On Sunday, we went to Granny and Pop's church. It's crazy how different churches can be and all still have a passionate love for the Lord through and great preaching on the death and resurrection of Jesus. I say that because we go to a great church that is strikingly different than the small country church we were at on Sunday (even smaller and more country that the one I used to go to, and a lot of you reading still go to!!!). It's just really cool because even though as Christians we're all different around this world, we love the Lord and will spend eternity worshiping him together in our diversity.
Anyways, the afternoon was fun with more family and food and Easter Egg hunts. There was so much family there it was great. We even got to see Daniel, Josh's cousin, who we hadn't seen in awhile and Brian's kids and family were there,too.
Here is Andrew's conquest of eggs in the hunt... he even found the golden egg that had five dollars in it (which he later spent on a cute little play dough set with mini beach toys in it... he payed for it himself, too, which was so adorable)

A few more pics from the weekend:

This next one is of all the girls with candy teeth in our mouths.

And Kale(Andrew's cousin) was very interested in Andrew, but Andrew's face in this picture pretty much sums up his feelings for Kale, as well as any other babies!

It was a great weekend and hopefully we'll be back there sooner than later.

I Will Remember You, Winter

2009-03-20T06:14:00.012-06:00

In nice contrast to the lovely Spring season we're expecting to roll in today, I thought I'd post some cute pics from the snow this Winter. I think this was least snowy winter of my life. We had a couple good days, though, so I won't complain! (Hmm... maybe Summer will take the hint and only give us a couple days of high heat and humidity...)

Now he's already for some sledding... he went down once, but hit a snow bank so he decided it would be more fun to just watch Mom and Dad. So, as much as we wanted him to enjoy sledding, he still had fun in the snow and we had a lot of fun, too.

By the way, a great tip to keep gloves on is to duck tape them to their shirt. It worked like a charm. In fact, he couldn't get them off when he tried!

For some reason, Andrew has fallen in love with hats and winter gear in general, but with this bright neon yellow hat in particular. It was Josh's from when he worked at UPS and loaded planes. You may still see Andrew in this hat, he may be wearing it well into the summer as much as he loves that thing! He loves trying the stuff on and putting it on his stuffed animals. Anyways, here are the pictures...

Goodnight Daddy

2009-03-16T18:23:00.004-06:00

Hey Josh,

Since we are not there for you to tuck Andrew into bed, I thought I'd send you a little video through the blog to make you smile. Goodnight :)

Love you!

Sarah

Monkey Joes

2009-03-07T19:49:00.017-06:00

This is the most amazing place to take your kid when it's cold outside. Andrew loved it and Josh and I loved watching him love it. It's a bunch of blow up things for kids to jump on and slide down and crash into. It was great. It would have been cool if we could have jumped, too, but who's complaining?! We have gone twice and both times Andrew could have gone another hour or two after the few we were already there.
Seriously the best place ever... for a mom. :)
Anybody want some pictures? (they are from two different times)
I'll start out with some cute pics of the way there... we kind of make it a really big deal for Andrew. We stop to get a smoothie(just get him a banana/strawberry one) at Tropical Smoothie Cafe and he LOVES it, then we head out. I had to include the insanely adorable pics of him in his shades from the car, too.

Okay... onto the Monkey Joe's pics.

You gotta love this cheese...

And this next one needs a little explanation... Andrew was so excited to climb to the top and did great. BUT, he was too scared to come down. First, the worker girl there tried to get him come down and finally Josh went up and had to slide down with him screaming after about 5 minutes. We'll try again another day :)

And, besides the inflatable fun, there are some other things we enjoyed:

Car fun without even needing to actually play... I'm sure that will change in a short while.

(the pony ride was only a quarter!!!)

And of course, a fake mustache from the gumball machine to end the evening.

So try it, you just might like it... not the mustache... Monkey Joes :)

Andrew's 2nd Birthday Party

2009-02-05T14:33:00.021-06:00

To celebrate his birthday, we actually had two mini-parties. We scheduled the party with our families the weekend after because Josh had a seminar the weekend of his birthday. On the actual day, I wanted to make him a Rainbow Chip cake because that is me and Josh's favorite. I ended up doing cupcakes, because Andrew talks about them a lot even though he's never had one that I know of. I would have to say that if you asked Andrew anything about his birthday around that time, he would say something about cake! We ended up inviting our neighbors in our apartment building that we're good friends with to celebrate with us. It was a lot of fun.
Here are Nicole and Micheal with Yosiah (not their baby!)

Shaloma came over with a blanket around her waist, so of course Andrew wanted one too!

Finally the cake you've been waiting all week for, Andrew!

Present time... another exciting thing... I guess that's what it's all about when your a kid! We got him a real slinky (which sadly didn't work on our apartment stairs that were a little too wide), a mini Lightning McQueen, a stuffed LarryBoy(VeggieTales), and a set of real tools to use with daddy. His sweet neighbors got him a talking frog, a Monster truck, and a red wagon. He loved it all.

Then, the Saturday after his Birthday, we had the "Big" party with our families. Grandma Marla, Granny, and Josh's cousin Samantha were able to come from KY in spite of the horrible ice storm and power outages a few days before. Grandma Dianne and Grandpa Bruce, along with my sister, Beth also came. It was a nice group of family that made the day extra special for Andrew. We realized that the Grandmas had not been in the same place together since Andrew's birth... so it was two different worlds colliding for him! We did a Thomas the Train theme since Andrew loves anything that moves. We probably could have done Cars again this year and he would have loved it just as much or more than last year.

We had to wake Andrew up from his long nap. It took him a little while to catch on, but soon he remembered there was a party to enjoy!

Andrew had a great time opening gifts. He loved them all, including the clothes! I didn't take a ton of pictures, but you get the idea. We did have to take a few breaks while he played with the balloons... we probably could have just got him some of those!

And again, the much anticipated cake. Marla found a train cake pan and it turned out great. It didn't even need frosting (of course until we added it on after it was sliced!)

Yay! Andrew blew out his own candles!

Thank you, wonderful family for making it such a great day for our boy!

And just to show you that our lives are not always "blog perfect" as it may appear... here's another moment from party:

A few other friends popped over to say "hi" and "HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANDREW!" (actually they were a fun little birthday gift that Andrew really enjoyed)

And all too soon it will be #3... oh how the time flies by!!!

Rock Band Party

2009-02-05T14:27:00.010-06:00

Josh has started doing Rock Band Parties up at our apartment complex's clubhouse. My sister Beth was so sweet to lend all the equipment to him while she is busy at college. It is usually a bunch of guys playing because the girls usually have kids there to run after! If anyone wants to be invited to future nights, let me know. The game itself is not my favorite thing in the world, but it's fun to watch and just be with friends.

Andrew looooves it. This last time he went a little crazy on a little too much pizza, but he had a blast dancing around until way past bedtime. I will attempt to post my first video on here. It is kind of long, but worth watching if you are interested. The hat is Shaloma's. He sneaked away while I was trying to change him into his PJ's, grabbed a piece of pizza, and started dancing on the couch. Fun stuff :)

Here are a bunch of pics from the evening:

And here is the biggest rocker of the evening.. YOSIAH!!!

Christmas Fun with Family

2009-01-29T08:37:00.035-06:00

A little belated, and a little(okay... VERY) long... but I know you don't mind ;)

***edited to add PB pics at the end***

Josh's Side

Early afternoon, after our Christmas morning at home, we headed down to KY for some time with Josh's side of the family.
~On a side note, car trips are becoming much better! Andrew does fine. One of us usually stays in the back with him. We watch some videos, play with toys and he was able to play with his new reusable stickers that he now loves. I no longer dread trips of endless screaming!

We had a great time hanging out, spending some time at Marla's and at Granny and Pop's. Andrew got a little trampoline from everyone that he absolutely loves.

Marla got toe socks for all the girls. Here is our pic...

On Friday and Saturday we spent some time out at Granny and Pops. Andrew got to ride the train that Pop made and uses in parades. They only put on 4 cars, but it has six. Andrew loved it, of course.

His expressions ranged from curious to thrilled :)

He also loved Pop's workshop. When Pop turned the saw on, Andrew didn't flinch. In fact, when he turned it off, Andrew said, "again?".

He also was pretty fascinated with Nick's(Josh's cousin) skateboard:

All of the guy cousin's got to hang out, too. Josh, Jared and Nick. Who knows what they do, but they sure have fun goofing off together.

And here is Andrew's new cousin, Kale. He is so cute and precious :)

For the sake of time and space, I've kept it brief, but we had an amazing time with all of them! And here are just some more pictures... mainly of Andrew (I do have a habit of getting him and hardly anyone else, don't I!?)

Sarah's Side
My family came down on New Year's Day and we had a great time with them as well. We had a present time for Andrew and he got some great stuff and loved it all :)

The boys...

We all went to the Incredible Pizza Company, which was pretty cool and I think everyone had a good time.

This is Andrew, getting down on his knees and staring at a little girl for several minutes... foreshadowing some day in the future, I'm sure!

The next day we went and played a little at the mall and then just spent some time together before they had to go. Andrew got to ride on the Carousel. That is always fun :)

Rare pic of me and hubbabub...

Also, that next week, Josh had transformation camp for Maximized Living down in Orlando(whole other post!) so Andrew and I headed up to see my family again. Andrew hadn't seen Rachel /Riley and Matt over Christmas, so we got to spend some time with them. Andrew loved to "play" with Riley in Rachel's belly, he even brought her toys, and then a cell phone because there was a call for her ;) Rachel got Andrew a remote control Thomas, which he LOVES and usually sleeps with. It's sooo cute!

Some more cute pics from the trip!

I cannot leave without posting pictures of him exploring peanut butter. I put the smiley pic of him with it in the last post, but here is the full spectrum of fun from that adventure:

So those are the cute PB pics.
We had so much fun with both family's... we are so blessed :)
I am so glad there is a time of year to connect with family, not to mention the reason we do it!

For my two year old boy...

2009-01-24T20:06:00.013-06:00

My dear sweet Andrew,

In some ways, it is so hard to believe that you are already turning two, but in other ways I've been thinking of you as my little two year old for the past few months now. Time has flown by and I have so enjoyed watching you as you are growing into a wonderful little man. You are already such a big boy. You really have astounded me with how you have changed in the last year.

I have watched you go from wobbling legs to running and jumping and dancing and flopping and even tackling on the bed. Your few sweet words a year ago have soared into full sentences and you are understanding concepts that surprise me everyday. I cannot believe that you can finish every line from one of your favorite books, "Everybody has a Teddy". You have an amazing memory. I love that you can sing your ABC's, TwinkleTwinkleLittleStar, and Jesus Loves Me. It is the cutest thing in the world when you play with and talk to your stuffed animals and how you named your big bear "Puppy". I think it is hilarious that you know your numbers up to 12, but rarely remember to put them all in there when you count! It used to be 4, 6, 7, now it's usually 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12!

I even love when you make messes, although I never let it show, like when you spilled a whole new jar of cinnamon all over the kitchen. I laughed on the inside and had to get a picture. You never knew that your uncle John did the exact same thing when he was your age, did you? And one day I was in the kitchen thinking, it's cool that Andrew hasn't tried to put anything up his nose yet, and little did I know you were stuffing raisins up there that would later come out in sneeze.

I love that you like to snuggle with me sometimes even though you never did as a baby. And your hugs and kisses and smiles and laughs are so sweet, they melt my heart every time. I am so proud of you for giving up your paci during the day... I'm sure I'll be proud of you for giving it up at night well before your third birthday! I think it is so great that you love being with your grandparents and other family. I think Grandma Marla, Grandpa Bruce, and Grandma Dianne are your 3 favorite people other than your Mommy and Daddy, even though your aunts and uncles are not far behind! I love how you smile at people, even those you don't know. Sometimes it takes awhile for you to warm up, but once you start to know someone, you are such a little social boy and it is so fun to watch.

It is so cool to see you have certain things that you like, to see your little personality and preferences come out. You have such a love for cars and trains, for animals... especially frogs, for pizza and pink yogurt, for wearing your jammies, for having a lot of blankies on you, for dice and "baby" balls(marbles and such), for big daddy plates, for reading the "Dump Truck" story from your curious george book... and so much more.

I think it is too funny that every grown up book in the house is a Bible to you. I was tickled to pieces when you opened the hymnal while I was at the piano and said, "It's a Bible...(looking through the pages)...God says... obey!... put cars away!" I love that you like to pray and always want to pray for Shaloma, with the occasional ItsySpider thrown in.

My prayer is that you will continue to grow into a little man who sees God all around you and that you learn to know and love him, and accept that you are a little sinner in need of a big Savior who loves you more than you or I could ever dream.

I cannot wait for this year ahead. Every new day with you is so exciting... I look forward to your every new discovery and adventure. You are growing up fast, but you will always be my baby and I will snuggle you anytime you want!

Love always,
Mommy

...I'll post some more pics later, but here are a couple recent ones that capture your cuteness... playing with peanut butter and laying down with your peice of bread on your cars blanky :)

That's my little 2 year old :)

Christmas Eve and Morning

2008-12-24T09:02:00.019-06:00

This year we are celebrated Christmas Eve and Christmas morning here in St. Louis as a family.
We went to the Christmas Eve service at our church. Afterwords, we came home and had a birthday party for Jesus, complete with a birthday cheesecake and a few gifts for Andrew.

And then the gifts... that night we let him open his Car's blanket, a book and a game.

He loves playing with our games so we got him one of his own... he thought it was pretty cool when Josh made all of the pieces Andrew had just put in all fall out:

He got a book called "Where's the poop?" where you lift flaps to see if you can find the animals poop. Anyways, awhile after he looked at it and had moved on to something else, he said, "I found the poop!". Great stuff.
Here's Josh reading it to Andrew on his new Car's blanket before bed:

We also got him an ornament (I didn't take the best close-up pic, but you can almost tell it's a snow globe that says Andrew on it!). I would love to get him one every year.

Christmas morning was awesome. I'm so glad that we decided to spend it at home as a family. Josh read the Christmas story from Luke in the Bible while I attempted to act it out with the characters of our nativity. Andrew knew baby Jesus, which was pretty cool, but he also thought driving on the stable was pretty cool, too.

Josh, the sweetest man in the whole world, got me a camera for Christmas! I love the camera I have (Canon Digital Reble Xti), but it's so big that I leave it at home a lot and I always talk about getting jsut a little camera to keep in my purse for random moments. (like I don't already have a million pictures anyways!) . But my hubby picked out a nice one for me that is more than perfect for what I've been wanting(Canon Powershot, Digital ELPH), plus an 8gig memory card. I'm set now... maybe this means I'll post more often??? We'll see :)

Sad story... I was going to get Josh an iPhone for Christmas, but I found out a few days before that our contract with ATT won't let me get the cheaper price until May($200 cheaper). So, he'll be getting a belated gift, plus I got him a few little things. Just not the same. He still loves me, I'm pretty sure.
So pretty much, Andrew got cars, cars, and more cars. His big gift was a pretty cool car racing ramp. I know every parent probably says this, but it is so cool to see the excitement and smiles on your child's face... the best gift ever.

Here was one of his non-car gifts... reusable sticker scenes. Ton's of stickers for him to play with over and over again. Perfect for car trips! I got him a Thomas the Train one and a race car one. He loved them.

Family fun pics... including a few rare pictures of myself, the one who is almost always behind the camera.

No Christmas morning would be complete without Babylympics, right?
So after a fun, relaxed morning and some quick last minute packing, we headed to KY.
To Be Continued...

Merry Christmas 2008

2008-12-24T08:53:00.006-06:00

We would like to wish all of our friends and family a very Merry Christmas.
We give thanks to God for humbling himself and coming down to earth as a fragile little baby so many years ago. We are thankful for that little baby Jesus, who has become our Savior, God's greatest gift to the world he loves.

Christmas Time is Here

2008-12-09T19:28:00.020-06:00

About a week ago, we had a great evening of decorating and getting ready for Christmas. I was not anticipating how much fun it would be to decorate this year. Andrew had such a blast, which led Josh and I to have a lot of fun, too. Not that I didn't enjoy it before(Josh may say otherwise!), but it just added a whole new level of enjoyment to it.

Andrew absolutely loved the little piano that plays Christmas music and has magnetic snowmen that dance in a circle. He laughed at it for several minutes. It was great. Here are a ton of pictures of the cuteness:

Here are Josh and Andrew being boys while I decorate the big tree...

Then, they had their turn to decorate Andrew's tree. Andrew chose to put all of his toy cars in there... or at least try! It was great :)

Here's our little decorated corner... not much, but it's ours :)

Afterwards, we made homemade chocolate pudding... which Andrew loved.

That was the end of our fun evening!
Wishing you a....

It is so much fun to have these little traditions, but I cannot fail to mention the center of our Christmas celebration. That center is God's love for us in sending his Son, Jesus, to this world to save us. If you know him, take time to focus on Him and worship Him. If you do not know Jesus Christ, I would really encourage you take some time to explore who He is, who he claimed to be, and why He is so important to so many of us.

Thank You, God...

2008-12-01T13:11:00.013-06:00

...for such a wonderful family, for amazing friends, for every good thing we have on this earth, and for the wonderful gift of your Son, Jesus, who died so that we may live. You are awesome.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with my side of the family in IL. Everyone was able to be there for a great brunch in the morning, with most of us there for the evening meal. It was so great to hear my husband, parents, brother, and sisters all share about how God is at work in thier lives and what they are thankful for. I don't think I've ever cried so much on Thanksgiving before... good tears, of course!
I don't have pics of the meal, but here is Andrew with a cute smile and with his "pony-train" made with the most awesome mini my-little-ponies that used to be mine when I was little. They are soooo cool.

Here's one of him with his Aunt Mary... he loved this and we heard "again?!?" I don't know how many times afterward!

One more set of cute Andrew pictures. Josh put the towel around his waist after his bath and it was completely adorable! He's headed for the toy closet and makes it with incident... almost...

Oops!
Anyways... that Friday we had Rachel's Baby Shower. Little Riley Sue Hermann is due in the beginning of February and we are sooo excited to meet her. I even got to feel her kick this weekend. The shower was fun and Rachel got some great gifts to help them out with their new little one.

And here are all of us sisters together. Aww, we're looking so grown up...

...sort of...

Saturday we had our 3rd annual ThanksMas(combined Christmas and Thanksgiving) at my Grandparent's house. Everyone one was able to be there. My Grandparents, all of the kids and spouses, all of the grand kids and spouses, and all of the great-grand kids. 35 in all I think. My dad was saying this will probably be the last time we'll all be together like this before heaven. We got a whole family picture(above) and a 4 Generations Picture(below)... pretty cool stuff.

And here are a couple other pics from the day. The Basement was the "Under 40" room for the meal. We were thinking they should have just called it the "Under 27" because Josh was the oldest at 26. It was definitely the fun room :)

And here is my cute hubby...

It was a great day, and could have lasted a lot longer to be able to spend time with everyone. Andrew loved all of the attention, but I think he got a little overwhelmed by the end of the day!
Sunday was Harvest Sunday at my parent's church. It is mainly to celebrate God blessing us with a good harvest for all of the farmers out there, but now more about thanking God for all that he has blessed us with. The fun part of the service it the bank-braking, where all the kids break the banks where they had been saving change for the missionaries all year. Andrew was able to do it this year... how cool :) The pics turned out too dark... maybe I'll get a good one next year of him smashing a the pumpkin bank!
After a good potluck at the church, we had to say our sad goodbyes and drive home in the beautiful snow (until til we hit Springfield, then it was just wet!)
Have a great holiday season as we look forward to celebrating God's greatest gift to us on Christmas.

Car Man

2008-11-20T19:16:00.007-06:00

So, yes, Andrew is a car man, just like his Dad. :)
He loves playing with them, sleeping with them, sitting on his "Cars" couch and watching the movie "Cars". He just doesn't like riding in them! We'll work on that.
Here are some cute pictures of him doing what he loves (if you can't tell, he's playing with his car in the pic above... I just thought it was a sweet one!)

Here he is on his "Cars" couch. This was one of those moments where the Mom in me said, "that's dangerous, I should get him off of there", but the other Mom in me said "that's adorable, I need to capture that". Well, I should have listened to the first Mom, but I did get a fairly cute picture before the fall!

Or... at least I should have stopped at one picture.

At least God made our bodies to heal themselves after a good bump in the noggin. Don't worry, he can still say at least half of the words he knew beforehand... just kidding, he's fine :)

Green Smoothies

2008-11-18T21:05:00.008-06:00

As some of you may know, we drink green smoothies just about everyday. Our neighbor, Jedi, got us hooked on them about a year ago. Basically, it's a bunch of some kind of greens(spinach, kale, etc.), plus fresh/frozen fruit and just about any other supplement or oil or spice you want to throw in there. It's great because when you add fruit to greens, it doesn't taste green! In fact, it usually tastes pretty darn awesome (well, you can definately throw the ratio off by putting way too much of the wrong greens in there!)
Andrew absolutely loves them. It's great because even if I can't get any other veggies in him all day, I know he's had a serving or two of fresh greens and tons of fruit.

I've tried a million combinations of things over the past year and have found some that are awesome and some that are disgusting. The best green to use in our opinion has been baby spinach. Our favorite combo is...
1 bag or blender full of baby spinach
2 bananas
frozen mango chunks
frozen pinapple chunks (0r fresh is even better!)
(fresh or frozen strawberries sometimes in there,too)
A couple tablespoons of flax oil
I usually mix the greens with some water first to make room for everything else and then blend it all until it's smooth. So yummy :)

Halloween Fun

2008-11-07T20:19:00.012-06:00

Andrew was Thomas the Train this year for Halloween and boy did he have fun :)
We went to Sarah and BJ's house for a little party and since they live in a great neighborhood, we came early and took Andrew trick-or-treating around there. He was a natural. He would walk right up and knock on the door, smile, pick out his candy and then say, " 'nother one?" Who could say no to that? Then he would say "bye-bye" and "ween" for "happy Halloween". It was so cute. We ended up going to like 10 or 15 house because he loved it so much. When we got back, we thought all he would want to do would be to eat candy. We were prepared for that, but he wasn't really that interested in eating it. He spent most of the night taking the same couple pieces of candy to everyone and saying "here you go", and then coming back and grabbing it and saying "thank you". And when other kids would come to the door, he would run over and try to give them the candy he'd been holding for the last few minutes. Too funny. It was such a great night. Everything becomes so much more fun when you have a child because you enjoy them enjoying things even more than you would yourself. It's great :)

Here's a pic of Andrew with Sarah at the end of the night. I loved her costume and earlier in the evening her hair was in grape clusters, if you've watched Jane Austin-ish time period movies, you'll know what I'm talking about :)

Before all that, we took Andrew to a Farm to get pumpkins. It was crazy becuase there was almost no one else there... I guess they had other plans for Halloween or something! It was fun, they had a great park and maze to run through as well. Here are some pics...

Here's Andrew looking for Josh...

Here's Andrew finding him up in the rafters and saying "up!"

Goodbye from the crazy Johnson family!

Josh's Trip the the Dominican Republic

2008-10-27T07:39:00.012-06:00

A few weeks ago, Josh had the amazing opportunity to go the the Dominican Republic with an organization called ChiroMissions. He went with several friends from class and spent 2 1/2 days going into schools and villages adjusting people. He alone was able to adjust over 700 people. The group of 100 chiropractors and students adjusted a total of 55,000 people! This group comes here twice a year to help and it keeps growing as word spreads. They also did a waterfall challenge on one morning where he got to hike and climb up waterfalls, slide down some and jump off cliffs. Overall, the trip sounded like a great chance to reach out as well as a fun experience. I would tell you more, but I think you better just ask Josh because I'm sure I'll get the details mixed up!
Here's a pic of him and Ben(our neighbor and in Josh's class)

Here are some pictures of the adjusting and the people who were adjusted...

(I love the boy's face on the left in the pic above!)

Here are some scenic pics he took...

Gotta Love the Zoo!

2008-10-17T07:08:00.020-06:00

The zoo is so great, especially as Andrew gets older. Bonus...the Children's Zoo is free the first hour.
So I have to tell you about how Sarah Self and I were outlaws for a day. I told her we needed to get there before 9 so we could get into the children's zoo for free. So we walked in around 8:30, got a few stares from workers and noticed there was NO one around! Finally, Sarah called her Mom and found out the zoo didn't open until nine this time of year! So it was nice to have the zoo to ourselves for once :) It did feel a little weird, but it was nice and quiet. We enjoyed "cat country", where it is usually hard to get a glimpse of them, but saw them all, including playful tiger cubs. It was great.
Here is the beautiful morning sunlight that we would have missed if had we waited until they opened!

Here are just a few shots of the amazing animals we saw. So cool.

And, of course, more of my darling Andrew:

We also got to go with Jedi, Shaloma, and Yosiah recently. We were supposed to meet up with Tara and some others, but we kept losing each other. Oh well, still a lot of fun :) The most interesting part was when Andrew got to touch a snake. He loved it. So cool.
I think all of the pics are from inside the Children's Zoo, where we spent most of the morning:

Here are some pictures of the kids at Turtle Park after the zoo, which is really cool if you've never heard of it. Its right across the interstate from the zoo, and where we usually park.

Don't worry, we got him out just in time :)

More updates coming soon!

Hiking

2008-09-19T17:50:00.011-06:00

This was a couple months ago, but so much fun. We went hiking at Castlewood Park with the McCay's. It was beautiful and we had such a great time. The kids loved it, too! We should go more often because I love hiking! I forgot my camera, but they were nice enough to share their pics with us :)

Growing Up and Moving into the Fall

2008-09-12T11:24:00.011-06:00

It's about time that I did an update on Andrew and his parents.
He's almost 20 months now. Crazy how that happens. I cannot believe how grown up he is and how fast he is advancing.
Here are some cute pics of him and his shades:

He's playing with other kids more now. Josh and I started helping out at the Jr. High ministry. They have childcare, and after we picked him up, we let him play for awhile. He heard drums playing and got up on the stage and started dancing all over it while a little boy not too much older than him played... he loves dancing, anything with a good beat. He also saw a couple of girls crab walking across the floor and tried to follow them. He couldn't figure it out so he just started crawling after them. He was so excited to see all the kids, he almost couldn't contain it. It was so cute.

Speaking of cute stories, Andrew tried to eat his fingers in the tub. I kept telling him they were going to turn into raisins, so when he looked and saw they were wrinkly, he tried them! It was so funny. Even now, if I say his fingers look like raisins, he'll stick them in his mouth, even if he's not in the tub. He also loves playing hide and seek with his toes, in the sand and under blankets. Another cute thing is that he calls any little piece of grass or brown thing, like dead leafs, a bug. We'll walk outside and he'll point everywhere, saying "bug", "bug, bug, bugs...".
He's saying too many words to count now. I made a list at 18 months for memories and it was over 100. Since then, he's just accelerated and says pretty much anything we say now and surprises us with words we had no idea he knew. He's also been saying small sentences. His most frequent one for awhile was "right there". Like he would say, "kitty right der." Just yesterday, he said, "I found it!". He's been saying thank you and please, like a little gentleman (with prompting most of the time!). It's also amazing to see his little character develop. He is affectionate, learning how to share, and he loves to help me with what he can around the house.

His big thing with eating right now is dipping. He loves to dip in anything. If I give hime chicken or something, he'll say "dip, dip!". And once I give it to him, he'll use it once and ask for more, even if there is still a bunch there. He also LOVES yogurt. One container is not enough. He'll cry when it's gone and I have to throw the container away. It's so sad, yet so cute! I love this stage. He's developing so quickly. It's fun to watch.
Lately, his big thing when I ask him to smile for it picture is to have this big, cheesy, squinty grin. I absolutely love it :)

Andrew also had his first day of "school". I started going to a Mom's Day Out on Wednesdays. It's from 9 to 2 at a church in the area. Besides the fact that I will love the personal time, Andrew will hear Bible stories and songs and be able to interact with other kids his age. Andrew does wonderful there, by the way.

This fall will be busy in a good way for us. In addition to the Mom's Day Out, I'm going to Tuesday morning Bible study at my church, and have MOPs every other Thursday. I also joined a gym (yeah!). So we're busy, but not crazy busy. Enough to not go stir-crazy at home. Even when we are home, we have such great neighbors to hang out with. God has really blessed us with them!

Josh is busy in Tri-8 at school. He's still involved with Maximized Living. In October, he's going on a Chiro-Mission's trip to the Dominican Republic. I'm also going with him to a Max. Living conference in Florida for 5 days at the end of the month. It should be great to get out together. But we will sure miss Andrew who will be staying with Grandma Marla!
Wow, you should be pretty caught up with our family now! I will try to keep up with pictures a little more frequently for those of you who have been requesting! :)
Okay, now here are just a few more cute pictures...

(in this next one, he's trying to eat a banana peal...)

Goodbye for now!

Good-bye Baby Johnson

2008-08-21T12:20:00.004-06:00

As most of you know, we lost our baby who was on the way a little while ago. It was and still is very hard and very sad, but we both are totally trusting in God and feel his peace that is beyond understanding about this. We know that he created that precious little life and that we will one day see our baby in heaven.

Precious Little One,
Oh how much I miss you already,
Before I ever really knew you I have loved you.
I will always wonder who God created you to be
And I will miss all the time we could have had together here on earth
But I know that God is good
And he is taking care of you now.
Please be patient and know that without a doubt
Mommy and Daddy will come be with you soon.

Kitty Cat Dance and Fashion Show

2008-07-29T16:36:00.006-06:00

Andrew and I are at my parents for a few days. My mom came and stayed with us all of last week (which was so much help and we had a lot of fun girly time, too). And then we took her home Sunday afternoon and decided to stay a few days.
Anyways, we found this video online that Andrew just loves, so I thought I'd share.

Here are a couple pics of him enjoying it:

He also put on a fashion show for us of winter accessories that grandpa found in the wardrobe. It was too cute to leave out. Here are a few of the highlights. I was much too absorbed in it to remember to get my camera until halfway into it, but here are a few of the cute shots I got. Isn't he such a little ham? :)

Andrew's Question

2008-07-28T08:43:00.003-06:00

We just had to spill the beans, it's no fun to keep a secret this juicy!

Summer Vacation

2008-07-17T05:57:00.014-06:00

For a vacation this year, (instead of Traverse City, MI like usual)most of my family(minus Rachel and Matt) came down to spend time with us here in St. Louis. They came on Wednesday and stayed through Sunday so we had a good amount of time together. It was great. I miss them SOOOOOO much!
I'll just go through some of the highlights/pictures of the trip.
Grant's Farm:

Girly Fun:
Except for the first night, when John stayed with us, Mary and Beth, stayed the nights at our apartment. I'm never as silly and have as much fun as when I'm with my sisters, so it was great. Beth brought the 1st season of 30Rock, which I'd never seen before, so we stayed up late most nights watching some of that. It was actually really funny. The "lucky doughnut" even inspired Mary and I to go on a 10pm doughnut run. Let me tell you, the few doughnuts that have survived the day don't look so pretty at 10pm. So we didn't get doughnuts, but we did run into some great July 3rd fireworks on the way.
Zoo:

Andrew loved the penguins so much that his aunts each bought him a stuffed one, and he loved those just as much!

4th of July, Fireworks:
On the 4th, we had a big cookout out and just enjoyed each others company. Later that night, we woke Andrew up and we all went to go watch the fireworks. This was Andrew's first time seeing fireworks and he loved them. He kept saying "Whoa!" We stayed pretty close to home and sat on a hill that overlooked several fireworks displays. It was fun, and we wondered if Andrew thought this is what we did every night after he went to bed!
Transportation Museum:
We had never been the the Transportation Museum, even though it's less than 5 minutes away! It was pretty fun to see all of the cars and trains. They also had 3 train tables to play on, so Andrew was in little boy heaven :)

The Loop:
Josh and I had never been to The Loop, so actually just us girls(Mom, Mary, Beth, and me) plus Josh spent an evening there. It was so much fun looking at all the cool stores and scoping out new places to eat. We ate at the Pizza Haus. It was great. My favorite store there was a very unique children's store that I can't remember the name of. Expensive, but a great place to find something unique! Mom loved the clothing and jewelry, and Mary and Beth loved the little book store(so did I!).
On Sunday after church, they all had to leave and go home. We had a great time, and as usual, it was hard to say goodbye!

I Made Poo!

2008-07-16T20:51:00.002-06:00

Today, Andrew had his first poop in the potty. He said "poo" and pointed to his diaper, so Josh went to change him. When he checked, the diaper was empty and Andrew kept saying "poppy", so Josh put him on his potty seat on the toilet and after about a minute, he pooped! It was so exciting. I still think he's a long way off from potty training, but this is a great start :)

Summer Fun

2008-06-24T18:51:00.014-06:00

I just love summer. Andrew does, too, if only for the fact that he gets to be outside a lot! (I think that's my main reason, too!). There is just so much to do and enjoy, especially here in the St. Louis area. Lately we've been to the Botanical Gardens a few times, the zoo, Grant's farm, our apartment complex's pool, cookouts, outdoor play-dates, all sorts of parks, walks and bike rides (we're up to Andrew lasting 15 minutes now!). It's great. I don't know how we survived all winter! Even though he's still got school all summer, Josh is able to be with us for a lot of the fun.
Here are a bunch of pictures from all the fun times.
Other than this first picture of him dripping by the pool, I haven't gotten any good pool pics yet, but here he is in the next picture, all ready for a swim:

We went to a cook-out at Logan, and they had tons of stuff for the kids. Here is Andrew on the big air-bouncer with slide(I'm not sure of the real name!). He loved jumping, until he discovered he could climb up to a slide. He climbed up once, looked down, and then climbed back down. The second time he went up, he looked down, and then slid down. After that, he was up and down for quite a while.

He was really tired afterwards, and on the way back kept saying "Oh". It's the cutest.

Here are a few pics from one of our trips to the Botanical Gardens with our neighbors:

A few from the zoo... Andrew loved the "Ipp-boow"

Andrew, Lily and the sprinkler. Lily loved to chase and bark at the water, Andrew was pretty cautious about it, but I think they both enjoyed it :)

Play-date at my friend Tara's house(I would love to have a nice big backyard like they do!):

And a few other cute ones to end this post:

Lot's of Updates :)

2008-06-06T13:28:00.012-06:00

Andrew...
Not much baby left. Toddler-hood is dawning quickly. He has 9 teeth now. They came slowly at first, but are now it seems there is a new one everyday. He's 28lbs, 32inches, and his summer tan is already the envy of all the little ones around town.
Andrew is learning body parts. He can say and show you his head, nose, ears, shoulders, and toes. He loves toes and it is the cutest word uttered by a child ever. EVER. Apple (pronounced "appoooouu") is a close second.
He's also enjoying his ability to exert his own independence. So we are hearing a lot of "NO!"s lately. Don't worry, we'll lay down the law ;)
He is ALL BOY, with all the growls, grunts, vehicles of transportation, puddles, and everything else that goes with it. If it's dirty, he touches it. If it's wet, he jumps in it. If it moves, he chases it. If it's outdoors and away from mommy, he explores it. He loves to play with train tables and walking on ledges. He loves rocks(especially throwing them into water) and animals. He likes turtles and birds and dogs and bugs. He has also been known to give a hug or two now and then. I love my little boy.

Josh...
Well, Josh started up his 7th trimester in May after a few weeks of break. This tri he has started seeing patients in the student clinic. He's doing great, a little overwhelmed at first, but he loves it. Actually being with people is what he thrives on, so he's enjoying it. He'll start in the outpatient clinic next fall. That's pretty much his life now. Well, that and his wonderful family, of course ;-) Oh, he was in his good friend, Lee's, wedding a few weeks ago, and while we were down there(KY), he got to drive his Mustang. His other love!

Sarah...
I'm still loving being home with my baby, and doing some other stuff on the side. I took my sister, Beth's senior pictures this past April. That was so much fun. She looked so beautiful and they turned out amazing. I did Mary's back when she graduated, and I think I'd like to do more of this sort of thing. It is so much fun.
I also did the announcement for Jedi, my neighbor when she had her little baby boy a couple months ago. I love doing this sort of thing. Did I mention that yet???
Also, I'm re-connecting with another one of my loves. Piano. I'm playing for the kid's summer program, Passport, at our church. I haven't really played for people much since we've moved here. I used to play at my old church all the time and miss that, so I'm glad my friend recruited me for this! There is an opening part where all the kids are together(I think about 150??) and we sing and then they have a drama that has to do with the lesson. Then, for the second half they go to different "centers", one of which is music, where we teach them the songs. Then, they have a closing with a few songs before they dismiss. I just had my first Sunday with the kids and it went great. I just love, love, love it!

Here are some more pictures. Not all are current, but they're at least in the last few months.
I had mentioned before about starting to go bike riding with Andrew. So far, not so good. He doesn't like being in the trailer or wearing his helmet for more than 5 minutes, but we'll keep working on it!

At the Science Center, they have place for kids to play. Josh and Andrew had some fun daddy-son time building a house, and then a car.

Here's Andrew feeding Lily(Kandace's dog). It was the cutest. He would go in the thing, get a piece of dog food out, give it to Lily, and then say "'nother-one'?", and do it all again. This went on for quite awhile. I think Lily got bored first!

Table dancing...

Yes, the front wheel is off the ground...

More to come soon!

Where's Andrew?

2008-05-20T14:15:00.006-06:00

In the hamper, of course... and loving it :)
This was back in April, but still an event worthy of sharing!

The "Un-Used" Pool and other Toys

2008-05-13T13:23:00.006-06:00

So we bought on of those little kiddie pools at Target. It's actually pretty decent size, like we could fit in with Andrew. It has yet to be filled, but it has definately been played in... and under... and on... and over...

We also got a little basketball hoop for him. It was no match...

First Haircut

2008-05-07T21:10:00.008-06:00

Last week while we were down visiting in KY, Andrew got his first haircut. His aunt, Kandace, cut it. It was so sad. It turned out looking great, but I miss his curls! He looks like a full grown toddler boy now. So many people have commented on how much older he looks since we've been back. It's true. My baby is growing up.

Here's the before, admiring himself from the chair and enjoying his cape:

He actually sat through it great, with the help of his very first lollipop, which he thought was the greatest thing in the world!

The After... different "do's", plain, mo hawked, and gelled.

It's from the back that he looks the most changed. Bye-bye curls, agian :(

Andrew was quite the gentleman and helped Kandace clean up afterwards.

Getting your first haircut is exhausting enough to make you fall asleep on the way home.

Bicycle Baby

2008-04-28T09:07:00.008-06:00

Here are a WHOLE lot of pictures of the little guy with his bike and some with his push-toy.

Venturing out, with a hug from Conner...

Andrew, didn't your Mama tell you not to drink and drive??? (I know it's only a bottle, but you need to be more careful!)

Please Use as Directed (aka, do not try this at home!)

You're too cute, Andrew! He also rode/pushed this thing around the tennis court while Josh and I attempted to play(we haven't played at all since he's been born.) I didn't get any pictures. It was fun for all of us... we just could hit the ball too hard!
And... as an exciting side note, I got my bike fixed, got helmets for me and Andrew, and ordered a toddler trailer so we can go biking while Josh is in class this summer. I'm so looking forward to getting out and enjoying a good bike ride. But if trying on the helmet is any indication of how Andrew will like it, we're in for a rough ride! I'll update you all on how that goes later on :)

Talking, Teething, and Pictures

2008-04-26T07:17:00.008-06:00

Another tooth has appeared. His top, left front one. That makes 5 at 15 months! It's okay, Andrew-babe, I was slow getting mine, too.

He is advancing in talking so quickly. There's hardly anything we say that he doesn't try to repeat. I'll try to list some of the new words he's pretty consistent with.

Doggie (along with "woof" or panting with his tounge out to immitate)

Aria (the name of one of Sarah and BJ's cats)

Squirrel

Duck

Flower

Walk (as in "go for a walk")

Uh Oh

Yeah

Wow

Cheese (the food, not like "smile for the camera" cheese)

Also, he calls my friend Sarah his "bum-bum", for buddy!

(and there are a million other words in his vocabulary that I can't make heads or tails of!)

He'll attempt pretty much anything, but these are the more consistent ones along with the ones he's already said. We were playing outside the other day and Josh told Andrew to come to him, and Andrew said something that sounded exactly like "NOOO WAY!" We gave him the benefit of the doubt, but that won't work for long! He actually said a sentence the other day, too. Grandma Dianne was chasing him, saying "I'm gonna get you!" and after a while he said "I ga ge you". It was soo cute :) Ok, I'll stop bragging.

I've been told by an anonymous source that I don't need to write so much if it keeps me from posting pictures, just post pictures! So, I'll try to keep that in mind and post more often. (I've literally taken over 1400 pictures since my last post about Andrew so I'm a little overwhelmed, but I'll try and get at least some up soon!)

Here's a start:
"Too Cute for Time Out" (cute shirt, cute kid, but yeah right)

His continuing love affair with the vacuume...

Finally, "Muscle Man"...

...and "Sleeping Beauty"

More to come soon!