8 Month Pics All in a Day

This blog post is a glimpse of Grace's 8th month of life.  This is the month that we were without a camera so I have very few pictures.  However, a study abroad student who is involved in Navs named Michelle took some impromptu pics of Grace during our planning weekend in Tauranga.  Michelle is a photography student and you can tell- she has some amazing skills!  I am so thankful that she took these photos!  There are also some 8 month photos that I took at the bottom of this post after Michelle let us borrow one of her cameras.  They are technically during her 9th month of life but they are really close to the 8th!

Before the pics, here are some highlights of Grace this month:
-Cut her first 2 teeth, the bottom front ones!
-Loves to babble ALL DAY LONG.  I love it, though it can be hard to keep her quiet at church!
-Really moving!  Rolls all over the floor and shuffles around on her tummy.
-Able to stand on her own while holding on to stuff.  Every time we hold our hands out to her she       grabs on and pulls herself up to standing with our help.  She loves this game- it is so cute!
-We increased the solids and she is getting more and more interested in food every day.
-More opinions about stuff lately- she actually is starting to show preference for things where as she used to just go with the flow all the time.
-Experiencing some separation anxiety.  I'm not too concerned because I know it is healthy for babies to go through this, but I do hope she grows out of it quickly!

Now on to some pics of our growing baby girl!

Family Pic at Karangahake Gorge.  We stopped here for a picnic on our way home from our Nav Weekender.

L&P stop in Paeroa- One of New Zealand's favorite drinks.  It's "Good Lemonish Stuff".  

Beautiful Baby Girl

Love how chubby and happy she looks in this pic!

Grace loves her daddy!

Trying to get the camera

Awesome selfie :)

Thanks for the pictures Michelle!!

Grace absolutely loves this ball- it might be her favorite toy!

Still such a happy, fun-loving girl!

Good shot of those teeth!

My beautiful girl!  Can't believe how fast she is growing!

7 Months and visiting the Coromandel

I have had a few setbacks with my baby blogging.  First of all, we came back from the US and I was so overwhelmed by all the pictures that I took.  I'm embarrassed to say but it was somewhere close to 800!  You would think that I was visiting a country that I had never been to before.  It was such a special trip because Grace met her family for the first time, and I took probably 50 pictures every time she met someone new!  Secondly, I'm so sad because we lost our camera!  We are sure we left it at a park and it has yet to be returned to us.  We lost several pictures that we had not backed up yet and couldn't take new pictures until a generous study abroad photography student loaned us one of her cameras (thanks Michelle!). Thankfully, I'm a facebooker and instagramer, so I have a few pictures from the ones I had lost. Grace is almost nine months and I'm just posting her 7 month update.  I hope to get an 8 month update out soon and sometime in the near future I will post a highlight blog post from our trip to the US (Grace's 6 month).  For those of you following, I'm sorry I'm so behind!

We started solids this month!  We decided to wait until our trip back from the US just to make things easier.  We are doing a bit of a combination of puree and Baby Led Weaning.  This month Grace loved to eat kumara (basically sweet potato), carrots and banana.  She also loves making a mess with her food!  We usually strip her down to eat, then give her a bath before bedtime.

Grace started sitting up on her own this month!  She loves sitting and the change of perspective she has.  Plus it is much easier to reach her toys!  She can sit for long periods of time without getting tired.

Since we gave up a month of our summer to enjoy a white Christmas with our families in the US, we were sure to take a few beach days when we got back to NZ.  Grace isn't a fan of the cold Pacific water, but she loves trying to eat the sand!

One of the students in Navs invited us along with her family to spend a few nights at their family bach (beach house) in Moehau.  It was gorgeous- real raw beauty of NZ.  It was a refreshing and relaxing time, and we loved getting the time to bond with her family!

Beautiful Moehau

After we left Moehau, we drove 3 hours to the other side of the Coromandel to Whitianga, Hot Water Beach and Cathedral Cove.  Petrol is so expensive in NZ so we wanted to make the most of our first family trip to the Coromandel! It is gorgeous!  North Islanders love to holiday there and they don't know how good they've got it (actually they do, but I'm just saying).

All ready to hike to Cathedral Cove.  You can see Grace's arm- she slept most of the hike!

Grace at Cathedral Cove.  This spot was made famous by one of the opening scenes of The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  (the whole beach was actually really crowded but Andy cropped out the other people :))

Grace and Andy at Hot Water Beach.  This is where a geothermal river meets the surface and by digging down a few inches into the sand you can get the hot water to spring up creating natural hot tubs! So cool!  Grace felt the water a little bit but once again preferred the muddy sand.

And just a few more cute pics of Grace from her 7th month of life!

Love her rolls!

I love this sweet smile! Thanks for the bumbo Becca!  

Launch!

It has been a while since we've updated this blog, sorry. Please comment below if you'd like to be added to our monthly ministry update emails as well. I do have aspirations this year of being much more active on here!

We are already into the fourth week of the semester at Auckland Uni. Several encouraging things have been happening! To try and keep from overlapping too much I'll share stories via pictures here!

Here's what we've been up to...

Two weeks before the start of the year we took a group of returning students (and one American study abroad student involved with the Navs in Missouri) to Tauranga for a weekend of visioncasting, planning, and relationship building.

We had a really encouraging time with Glen, our National Director, who hosted us at his home for our meeting times.

This was the first marker that the rush at the start of the semester was about to start! Exciting times. A few days before the start of term the University put on a Fresher's day where new students get a chance to tour campus, interact with their respective faculties and meet some of the clubs available on campus. We had a great time chatting to students about faith! We gave away ice creams and a chance to win tickets to a local pro basketball game if they'd fill out a simple survey.

Coupled with Orientation Week, the first week of the semester, we interacted with around 900 students! It was an exhausting yet encouraging week!

We had several new students during our first Navs group and we have had a few more each week! It has been fun watching students build relationships; our returning students have done a fantastic job relating with new students as they've come along.

After the first week of classes had finished we went to the beach to go paddleboarding and have a BBQ! It was great; afterward, everyone came to our place for a movie!

During our weekly Nav Nights we have been taking a look at a few main themes of the Bible -- Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Destiny. Last week we discussed the now all pervasive sin of Adam and Eve and how that wreaks havoc in us and in the world. This isn't a popular topic by any means and as one student put it "it's a bit depressing". Tomorrow night we will be looking at how God has responded to this throughout history and what it means for us today. How encouraging to get to interact with genuine questions and concerns that arise from reading the overarching story of the Bible! In two weeks we will be using these themes to help us wrestle through the nitty gritty of our daily lives and see how they provide a framework to view and interact with the world around us. Kathryn and I are excited to see how God will continue to work in those times and in the students that are a part of it.

5 Months and Traveling the Globe

Finally, a 5 month baby post.  I am a bit behind so there will be a 6 month post coming soon from our trip to the US!  This has been a big month for Grace!  From sucking her toes to plane trips to meeting her family, we have captured a lot of memories on the camera.  Here is an overview of Grace's 5th month of life...

Grace still enjoys swimming.  She went under water this month and came up smiling- it was so cute! 

Month 5 has been a big month for travel.  Grace is racking up the air miles!

At the airport waiting for our flight to the South Island.  I don't know where we would be without our Ergobaby carrier- thanks mom!

First plane ride to Christchurch for some Navigator planning meetings- practice run for our big overseas trip.  

She flew like a champ!

Grace had her first trip to a NZ beach this month.  She didn't know what to think of the water, but there weren't any tears!

Grace is getting so close to rolling, which she hasn't really done since her first 2 months.  I'm excited for her to roll, though I know once she gets it down my job will become a lot more difficult!

Enjoying a little reading...

We spent the month of December in the US so Grace could meet her family.  We had a wonderful time!  I have A LOT of pictures to sort through from that trip, but I hope to get a post up soon.  Thanks for following our family as our little baby girl grows!

Grace in her bassinet on the plane as we attempt to keep her routine going.  She slept the whole 12 hour flight to the US, waking up just in time for landing!  She is starting out as a good little flyer- hope it lasts!

4 Months and Growing so Fast!

JUST 2 WEEKS OLD IN PICTURE ABOVE!

Grace is 4 months old and each month seems to fly by-  she has grown so much!  Below is a glimpse of the last month with our sweet baby!

We had a free photo session with a photographer this month.  We didn't really like how the pictures turned out, but we took a few of our own below.  Hoping to get some good professional pictures soon!

We even coordinated our outfits for the photo shoot- too bad we didn't like how they turned out!

My loves

I really like the following picture because it captures so much of Grace's bedtime routine.  We hang up her little fish mobile as she sucks on her hands and kicks her legs and we read her a story from "The Jesus Storybook Bible" (our favorite kids Bible by far).  Grace loves her routine and knows what to expect, and she goes to sleep really well at night.  Usually she falls asleep around 7 (give or take 30 minutes.  Andy gives her a bottle around 10pm (aka dream feed- basically she is still asleep while she takes this bottle), and she sleeps the rest of the night! I don't have to feed her again until 7am the next morning!  I think that she has become a really good sleeper. Since 2 months we have had several nights where she slept the whole way through, but it wasn't a regular thing.  She would often wake up around 3 or 4am and wouldn't be able to settle herself so I would have to get up and give her the pacifier, which sometimes would lead to me having to put it back in her mouth every hour or so- not fun!  We have worked hard to break this habit, and now at 4 months she is consistently able to settle herself back to sleep when she wakes up, and she is regularly sleeping through the night!  We still have her in our room but we plan to move her to her room this weekend- I'm really sad to see her go but I'm ready to not wake up when she stirs!  I think it is also time to move her out of her bassinet, though she does still fit because she is pretty petite!

Bedtime routine

Abby Wachter and Grace.  We love having the Wachter family here in NZ, and I am really thankful to have someone from back home alongside us as our little baby grows.  And the Wachter kids love Grace and Grace loves them!

Students in Navs have also had fun watching Grace grow, and have even done a little bit of babysitting for us.  We really want to do ministry in a way that people can know and be a part of our whole family!

Below is a picture of Grace on Halloween.  Everyone said it was very American of me to dress up my baby, but I couldn't resist.  And I'll be honest, I purely did it for my own enjoyment!  I decided about 2 hours before students were coming over that I really wanted some pictures of her in a costume on her first Halloween, and somehow I pulled this together.  I'll do a post soon featuring more of her in her costume and how I did it, but here is a taste until then!

Grace the Owl 

I adore this face- it is so her!

Another cool thing we got to do this month was take Grace to her first infant swimming lesson- for free! She really seemed to enjoy the water (though at times she was way more interested in getting her hands in her mouth- her new favorite hobby).  She didn't cry a bit and she even handled her face going in the water really well.  Maybe we will have a water baby, which would be great living in a place surrounded by the ocean!  After lessons she was in a daze and slept for about 2 1/2 hours!

Love that Andy captured her  little smile in this one!

Grace loves her Daddy so much, and he is so good with her!  I am so thankful for him!

 My friend Mindi made me some adorable dresses for Grace, including a few Aggie ones!  Gotta start influencing them while their young  ;)

That's a glimpse of 4 months!  It would be so awesome if all the family and friends that I love so much back in the States could be a part of our baby's daily life, but I'm thankful for all the ways to stay connected like this blog.  Thanks for following and getting to know our sweet little girl!