New House

The biggest development in Waldroup World is that we are buying a new house...tomorrow. We found a great deal on a house in Copperfield subdivision. It's just outside Man O' War between Harrodsburg and Nicholasville Roads off Clays Mill Extended. It's right in the area where we wanted to be...close to Porter, my parents and closer to Andy's job at UK. It is a bank owned foreclosure. The bank bought it back at auction and installed new carpet, new appliances and painted. We had a full home inspection without anything to report, which was a huge surprise to me who expected at least a few substantial fixes to be required.

We will begin moving a few things over soon, but with an open house at our present home in less than two weeks, I didn't feel like we could be completely out by then. So, we'll be moving sometime after that...mid to late January. We're excited about the new house and feel very blessed to have found it and be able to move gradually.

We have not sold our present home, though about half of those who have visited have really liked the house (or at least that's what their realtor's say), and we feel fairly confident that we'll be able to sell it in the spring. However, we realize that with the market going up and down, we are certainly emotionally and financially prepared for a longer wait. We feel like God will provide the right buyer in His timing.

Baby's First Christmas...and Joshua's crawling adventures

First, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone! As I'm sure everyone has, we have been busy these last few weeks. We spent most of last week in Lexington, visiting my Aunt's Thursday night for Christmas Eve Dinner (Andy and I took time out and enjoyed the babysitters while we went to Porter's Christmas Eve service). We spent Christmas morning at my mom's then drove to Owensboro to spend Christmas evening with Andy's family. Joshua had a great first Christmas...and was very blessed with lots of toys and clothes. It was a little overwhelming (both for Joshua and his parents), but we're grateful for so many family members that love him and us. Most of all, we're thankful for God's gift of salvation through Christ, which is why we can celebrate and have hope all year round.

Before Christmas, we celebrated my grandfather's 92nd birthday. He is in Country Place nursing home, which is attached to the Lafayette where my other grandfather and uncle Johnny live. My grandfather has not able to get out of bed for the past several months after a fall in September, but he is now comfortable, and we appreciate your prayers for him and our family through this season. We feel blessed for the long life God has blessed him with and hope he will continue to be comfortable until the Lord calls him home.

We had a get together at Mark & Traci's two weekends ago and enjoyed getting to see many friends. Joshua was able to play with two of his friends, Ben Marsh and Hallie Johnson. It was great to catch up with so many of our friends.

We went to Eric & Joni Beth's in part to move furniture after their painting finished up. We had a great visit. First, we laughed as Joshua pulled all the bows off Aunt Joni Beth's Christmas gifts. Then, we all played Beatles Rock Band, which was so much fun. We're again glad they found jobs and a great house in Lexington, and we look forward to many more times together.

Joshua continues to crawl everywhere and has started looking for anything possible to pull up on. He can cruise along the couch, his pack-n-play, and on some of his toys. The funniest development of his new mobility is his interest in Emma's cage. He often crawls in the laundry room, opens and closes the cage door and sometimes even crawls inside. He also likes to bang Emma's food bowl on the floor or the cage. This upsets the dog to no end. When Joshua moves to the laundry room, Emma will sit outside the door and whine. She looks at Joshua, then looks at me, then back at Joshua as if to say, "Do you see that he is messing with my stuff! What are you going to do about this!" She then sneaks in the cage as soon as he moves to one side and begins to save her things (blanket, sleeping pad, toys etc.) from his evil grasp by pulling them out into the kitchen or living room. All the while, Joshua remains generally oblivious to her stress level. This Joshua/Emma showdown moved to Owensboro where Andy's family enjoyed it immensely. As you can see, Joshua sat in an empty cage since Emma had already rescued all she could carry.

Since he's now 9 months old, he is allowed to try all kinds of new foods. Almost nothing is officially off limits anymore, but with only two teeth, the list is still narrow. Though, Joshua gets better at chewing/gumming every day. It's been exciting to see his expressions as he's tried cheese, potatoes, rice, lots of fruits, breads, muffins and soft veggies. Our favorite was his experience with our peppermint chocolate chip Blizzard. We gave him a tiny taste, thinking the extreme sweetness or peppermint flavor might be too much. At first, he cringed at the unexpected taste. Then promptly opened his mouth as wide as he could to let us know he wanted more of that.

Crawling Everywhere!

First off, we had Joshua's 9 month pictures taken today. To see those, go to www.babyboophotography.com, choose client proofing, password is waldroup, and type an email address. He was not in the best mood, but there are still some cute ones.

Here are a few pictures from the last few weeks.

We spent Thanksgiving in Owensboro with Andy's family. We enjoyed getting to see Mimi and Pops as well as Andy's grandmother's, aunt, uncle and cousins. Lee was gracious to buy a high chair just like the one we have, so he ate great. With the excersaucer they already had, we didn't have to pack hardly any baby gear...which as awesome! She also had a silver baby spoon. He wasn't born with it in his mouth, but he sure put it there on his first Thanksgiving dinner :).

On the way back, we stopped to visit the Hoskins, close family friends of the Waldroup's, who were visiting from Georgia. We also visited Andy's Uncle Vaughn and Aunt Lina and cousin Sam a few weeks ago.

In case you hadn't heard, we are working on selling our house and moving back to Lexington, since Andy's now working at UK. It's exciting, but it's been quite a challenge to get the house in showable form when someone calls to see it. We put up the Christmas decorations last week (in a terrible rush on Tuesday night since someone wanted to see the house Wednesday), but it did free up our weekend. Joshua likes the Christmas tree, but he loves the dancing Santa. He makes a bee line for it every time he's on the floor in our living room. I need to take a video because he bounces ad taps his hand on the harth to the music. It is adorable.

After a couple weeks or rocking on his hands and knees, Joshua officially started crawling last Monday...and boy has our world changed! We had been warned by about every parent we know, but you just can't quite prepare yourself. He loves garbage cans, any type or cord, and closing doors. Here's a picture of when he crawled in the pantry and pulled a can of coke out of the package. I thought it was too cute when he put it to his mouth and placed my bets that he couldn't chew it open before I got back with the camera.

Halloween pics and more

So, it's been a while since I updated, but we had a crazy October...as you can see by our many pictures. Joshua is almost 8 months old, and he is rolling everywhere. He loves to sit up and play, and usually doesn't fall unless he plans to. At Mom's-Day-Out, they said he is like a new baby now that he can sit up, play and watch all the other kids. He's starting to say da-da all the time. Andy swears he knows what he's talking about, but if he does, he thinks the dog is his daddy :).

We officially put our house on the market a couple weeks ago. With Andy's new job at UK, we would like to be back in Lexington. We've been looking around at houses, and even made one offer on one in my parent's neighborhood that was older but had a very good price for the size and the large lot. Someone else had an offer before us, so we're waiting till the end of November to see if that person can get financing. We have looked at others, and we'll just see what the Lord might have in store for us. We're glad to be in no hurry.

First is a picture of Joshua's new friend Cora Leigh Waddell. Our good friends Erin & Jeremy welcomed her back in September, and we've visited a couple of times since. We traveled to Auburn, Alabama the third weekend in October for the UK/Auburn football game. We stayed with Amy Cole's parents along with Brian, Amy & Caroline. We had so much fun getting to fellowship with them and Amy's family, who made us feel so welcome. But it may be a while before they invite us back, since we brought the Cats enough luck to beat Auburn for the first time in 40+ years. Andy was excited, but I felt bad for Brian, Amy and the rest of the crushed city.

Then, the next weekend, we traveled to Owensboro for Andy's 10 year high school reunion. We showed off our Tigger Halloween costume to Mimi, Pops, Grandmommy & Mamaw. They--not so surprisingly--thought he was the cutest little Tigger they had ever seen :). He also got a pumpkin full of baby goodies from his Mimi. No candy yet, but several baby toys were a fun surprise.

There's a picture of Joshua trying to chew on my Dad's wallet. He knows just where to look for the cash. We visited Shannon, Mark, George & Teresa at the Glancy's creek house. They were glad to finally all be able to come to Kentucky together, and we enjoyed getting the boys together.

We had a fun Halloween weekend. We went to the Eric & Joni Beth's new house for dinner Friday night. I was glad to finally get to see it. Saturday, we went to the Lafayette to see Grandpa and Johnny, and we trick-or-treated at Grammie's. Next year, he'll be glad to get his hands in her giant candy stash :). Then, while Andy and Eric went to the UK football game, Joshua and I headed to Chris & Julie's for our final Halloween stop.

Sunday afternoon, we went to Mom & Dad's, and Dad gave him his first haircut! I can't believe he already needs one, but it was starting to grow over his ears, and he was getting a little baby mullet in the back.

Greg & Marci brought little Emerson over for dinner last week. It was good to catch up with them. It's amazing to think he's already almost three months old...and growing quickly.

And finally, there's a picture of Joshua helping me with the laundry this morning :)

7 Months Old...and a trip to Holden Beach

Joshua is 7 months old tomorrow! We can't believe it's been that long, but he is (still) at a really fun age. He is still mostly stationary, though he can roll across the floor if given enough time. He's happy in his exersaucer and still fits in his bouncy seat (though he won't be in that too much longer). He can sit up now, which makes playing on the floor much more fun for him and us.

We just returned from Joshua's first trip to Holden Beach. Joshua, myself, my mom, aunt Beth and uncle David, Grandpa, Chris, Julie, their 7-week-old miniature Dotson puppy Molly, and Shannon and George Sloan all spent last week enjoying nice weather and time at the beach. In October, it's not swimming weather, but it was nice to just relax, let the babies do as they pleased, and get some time with family and friends. We ate out almost every night and played games after the boys were in bed. George and Joshua (and puppy Molly when she wasn't making messes on the floor) were the hit of the party, and there was lots of willing hands to help out in any way. George and Shannon definitely got more of the beach experience than Joshua and I since he could crawl around in the sand. I'm not a huge fan of sand or salt water myself, so Joshua and I both just watched. It was certainly a different beach trip with the babies.

Also on our trip, Grammie bought Joshua his Halloween costume. He will be going as Tigger, since he loves his Jumpster and the costume came in his size. He also has two other Halloween shirts, and here are some pictures of all three outfits. Mimi got him the black shirt and babies first halloween bib. We've also had to break out his winter clothes for the colder weather...and because the 3-6 month summer stuff just doesn't fit like it used to :)

We arrived back late Saturday afternoon just in time to meet Andy at the Sunday School social at Grace & Morgan's house. Most of the spring babies were in attendance as well as some of the older siblings. The kids had a blast, but it was also a different experience with everyone focused on the little ones and the party wrapping up much earlier than it used to.

We'll be in Auburn, Alabama this weekend for the UK football game, and the following weekend we'll be in Owensboro for Andy's 10 year high school reunion, so we'll post pictures of those as I get time.