10 Months

When Grace turned 10 months old the reality that her first year of life is almost over really sunk in for me.  It makes me sad to think about how quickly time has gone by, but I really think Andy and I have enjoyed our little baby to the fullest during her first year.  We are so thankful that she is growing and learning and healthy.  This month we had some fun activities we did together from the Auckland Easter Show to a trip to her first NZ farm.  Grace continues to have more and more personality and will and it is so fun to watch her interact with the world around her!  

Always giving such sweet, bright smiles

G is for Grace!

Look how she has changed compared to the picture in the background!  

Looking so sweet in her Easter dress.  

The Auckland Easter Show was basically like a big carnival.  Grace loved the petting zoo!

Petting zoo

Auckland Easter Show

We spent a few days at our supervisor's farm in the Waikato.  It was a restful time, much of it spent without electricity!

Just had to show off her cute baby cankles!  I love everything about this sweet baby girl!

9 Months and on the Move

I am consistently behind now on my monthly baby updates, but to be honest that doesn't surprise me or those who know me well at all!  I am just happy that I am getting them done eventually and can have these posts to help us remember Grace's first year of life!  I actually thought I posted this a month ago but when I went to write Grace's 10 month post, I found this still in my drafts. Grace has just started her 11th month of life now but below are some highlights from her 9th month.

One of the biggest things that happened mid-way through the month is that Grace started crawling! She is on the move and so is her momma!  At first she was slow and still easy to catch, but she has definitely picked up her pace and loves to go after the stuff that momma says is not for her!  She also loves to pull herself up on anything that she can, and she likes to take steps as she holds on to things. Grace also cut her 3rd tooth this month, the top right one.  We love all her big, cheesy, toothy grins!

As always there is lots more to say.  Below is her 9 month picture update which says it better than words can!

My little sweetheart is 9 months old!

Grace loves Phoebe, one of our key students in Navs.  I thought this picture was so sweet!

Family pic at our Nav Paddleboarding event

Check out those teeth!

Still exploring the world 2 pointer fingers at a time!

Grace will eat ANYTHING we give her- she loves to eat.  She is way less picky than Andy and I!

Bath time- so thankful we have a bath tub now in our new home.

Grace and me, the household trend-setters.  Jeggings and slippers are a common occurrence!

Love her sweet face!

Eating her veggies.

Excited about eating!

Skyping with Papa.  So thankful we can call and skype our families so easily!

Pretty Girl- love her rosy cheeks!

You know, cause everyone needs a baby picture in a box.

Grace is so much fun and we love her so much!  I can sometimes be caught watching the day's videos of her after she has gone to sleep- who knew parenthood would do that to you!?

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.