Good News!

Timmy and I are happy to announce we are expecting our 2nd child! I am due toward the end of April. We found out about a month ago and we wanted to wait till I went to the doctor to share the news. Well of course I couldn't wait to tell my mom so I called her right away. Then we slowly told the rest of the family members within the next few weeks. Last Tuesday I went to the doc and found out my estimated due date (April 22nd) and how far I probably am so then we decided it was ok to tell everyone. Well last week Tim told one of our friends from church and his 12 year old daughter. Then one of Marissa's friends announced it to her Sunday school teacher this morning so the word is pretty much out! We are very excited. We knew we wanted another child but didn't want our children to be close together at all. I have had 5 great years with Marissa as my only child but now it is time for her to experience a sibling. Back in July Tim told me he wanted to try for our second. Within 2 weeks I was pregnant!
We are very happy and anxiously await our new family member. Marissa is already picking out names (Miley, Mira, and many other disney characters appear on her list of names).
We will find out what sex the baby is sometime in November.
Thank you God for this wonderful blessing!

Tagged -Six Absolutely Unspectacular Things About Me

If anyone visits my blog (and I'm not sure if anyone does:) they have probably noticed I am lacking on the posts. I am new to the blogging thing and have a hard time coming up with interesting topics to write about. Well my friend Gregg has helped me out today! He tagged me in a blog so I am supposed to write a meme about 6 Absolutely Unspectacular Things about Me. Pardon me if I don't follow the rules but I'm new to this!


1) I work in a 500 sq ft office all day with my husband. I have been asked many times the following questions:
1)have you ever wanted to strangle each other? 2)How are you still married? 3)Do you still want to be together when you get home?
Here are the answers: 1)YES!!!! 2)Love?? Insanity??? 3)and of course we still want to be together when we get home. We work great together and wouldn't change a thing. Well, I wouldn't but I would have to ask if he feels the same:)

2) I look at real estate online when I am bored or even when I have things to do (atleast once a day) and secretly dream of being a realtor or investor. this goes along with my obsession with the TV show House Hunters and House Hunters International. I would also love to drive around on Sundays to look at Open Houses but gas prices do not permit me to do this.

3) Between the ages of 11 and 18 I had a strange obsession with Charles Barkley. My room was decorated with 8 posters of him. I had 5 or 6 tshirts of the Phoenix Suns (from before he went to the Rockets), I have over 40 of his cards and I have atleast 3 of his books. I was a big basketball fan and he was my favorite player. I watched almost evey game he played that was on TV. I was very sad when he retired from the game and I haven't watched much basketball since.

4) My husband and I look forward to coming home at night to watch Fox news. Especially Greta Vansusteren and Bill O'Reilly.


5) I live in St. Louis and love to drink beer but have never toured the brewery. WOW! That sounds totally pathetic. I love going to the city too so I'm not sure why I haven't been there. Well I think because I didn't know until recently that you could take kids there so I never wanted to get a babysitter to go. Now I really need to take the time to go because some friends told me the brewery is totally kid friendly. Why would I think YOu couldn't take a kid to a brewery??


6)I absolutely positively can't stand to be at home and be bored. Sometimes this drives my husband nuts but I think it might have rubbed off. I always need to have something going on and I love to get involved with as much as I can. From February to June I work on VBS at home after work. Then from August to November I work on the fall musical. Then I have a little time off for Christmas and Thanksgiving. Next comes the Spring Musical and then time for VBS again. I don't just do these things because I'm bored though. These are all outreach programs through my church. I love my church family and like to help in any way possible with mission outreach programs. For me, I would rather target my energy toward something I hope can make a difference. Other things I do if I am bored: visit family, go to parks, watch movies, bug my kid or husband, shop for things I have no intention of buying, etc.



Meme terms & conditions
1. link the person who tagged you-Gregg http://onedadslife.com
2. mention the rules on your blog
3. list 6 unspectacular things about you
4. tag 6 other bloggers by linking them- I am going to break this rule because Gregg already tagged all the bloggers I know except my sister in law who I am going to tag-http://keepingupwiththehaners.blogspot.com

Goodbye Summertime

Yesterday's cool weather made me realize summer is pretty much gone. Alot of people look forward to fall but I will really miss the hot summer weather. I was a little sad that summer is over so my husband reminded me of all the things we got to do over the summer. Here are a few of our summertime highlights:

1) Our trip to Daytona and Siesta Key in which we got to visit Grandpa and eat at Sharky's twice. and dance in the rain at Sharky's.

2) Our camping trip in July to Bennett Springs with the Anderson's and Eberley's.

3) Four trips to Goose Creek which means relaxing and swimming in the lake with friends

4) VBS

5) my nephew visiting St. Louis for a week. He lives and Chicago and his parents let him stay with Grandma and Grandpa for a week over the summer.

6) our final trips to great Grandma's on Fridays. This was a tradition my cousin Stacey started about 3 years ago. Whenever she was in town from Chicago she would call me to meet her at Grandma's Friday. I started going there every Friday even when she wasn't in town. We met for lunch for 3 years and it finally ended when Marissa started Kindergarten.

7) many BBQ's

8) Marissa's first sleepover

I will miss all of the fun things you can do when the weather is hot but now I can look forward to Thanksgiving, Christmas and the fall Musical.

Reliant Community BBQ

Saturday we had a free afternoon so we decided to head to Reliant Church for their community BBQ. Reliant Church is located in the Central West End at Pendleton & Olive. Obviously this is no where near the community where I live but Reliant is a church that was formed by one of the Pastors at Christ Memorial and a few other young adult members so I wanted to go and check it out. Before Reliant held there Sunday morning service there the church was known as Saint Stephen's Lutheran and they were down to only about 10 members. I think there are currently about 80 people that attend the service on Sundays now. The church is a beautiful building that could use a little restoring but still has great wood work and stain glass windows. Here are some pics my husband took for me:

Check out their website for more info:http://www.reliantchurch.org/.

Marissa had a great time too. My aunt came with her grandson and her great nephew. One of Marissa's friends from church came too. They did face painting, games, ate BBQ, and played on the playground. There were quite a few members from Christ Memorial there to help so we had good adult company too.

Here is a pic of Marissa with her face painted:

It turned out to be a great time and a success for the community out reach. Some people from the neighborhood came and said they were going to check out the Sunday morning service.

McCain Rally

Sunday our family headed to O'Fallon to join the John McCain rally. We left around 2:15 pm. Our friend Jeremy and his daughter followed us out there. Once we arrived we met our friends Jen and Shawn and their two kids. Here is a pic of my family at my mom's house before we left for the rally:
The rally was at TR Hughes ballpark in O'fallon, MO. We could have gone at 2:00pm to try for good seating but since we had 4 kids in our crew we figured it would be best not to go too early. We were stuck sitting in the field but it worked out great because the kids sat and colored while we waited for McCain and Palin.

After the political speeches (Mitt Romney, Matt Blunt, Kit Bond, Mike Huckabee, John McCain and Sarah Palin) we made our way toward the front to see if we could get better pics. We saw some of our friends from church. My friend Larry emailed me his pics this morning, which I decided to use since they turned out better than mine.

John McCain at the O'Fallon rally. Picture by Larry Jost.

another John McCain pic by Larry Jost.

It turned out to be a great day even though it was incredibly hot. Th kids kept entertained and we got to show our support.

Musicals at Christ Memorial Church

Every year my church puts on a fall musical. The first one they did in 2005 was Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor dreamcoat. I went to see the show but was not involved in the performance. The show was great (it was nominated for some Arts for Life Awards) so they decided to do it again in 2006 (total of 5 shows in one weekend). That year I was asked to be the Props Director (even though I had no "props" experience). I had alot of fun and decided I would definitely be involved again. In 2007 we did Once Upon a Tree in the early Spring for a Passion Musical. I was Props Director again and also took part in the women's chorus. This probably seems funny to anyone who knows me very well because I don't have a great singing voice. My husband and dad were both disciples. Once Upon a Tree was a wonderful experience. I was able to get to know alot of new people at church and we were able to show the story of Jesus' death and Ressurection on the Cross. The fall of 2007 we performed Narnia. This show was nominated for 5 Arts for Life Awards! Again, I was Director of Props and also in the chorus as a "Crulie". My husband had a part in the end as one of the children once they became adults. Here is a pic of my family before the Sunday Narnia performance:

In the Spring of 2008 our church did Once Upon a Tree again. My whole family was in the production. My husband was Judas and Marissa and I were townspeople. Here is a pic of Marissa in her custume before the play with her friend Rachel.

Here is a pic of Timmy and I:

I love the story and I am sad that last year would be the last time we did Once Upon a Tree. But after 2 years in a row we have to move on in the spring.

This fall our church is doing The Music Man. There are two main differences this time than all of our previous shows: 1) this is a secular play 2)they opened auditions to the public.

I think they opened auditions to the public because just using the members of our church doesn't usually give us enough people for the cast and we end up begging people to join. Also, this is a way to involve people outside of our church and bring more people into our church for the performances.

I am VERY excited this year. Expecially since I made the cast and they didn't take everyone! (maybe they took pity on me or was afraid I wouldn't do the props).

I will post more info on the Music Man as it becomes available or feel free to check out the website for CM Productions: http://www.christmemorialproductions.org/.

Florida trip June 27,08-July 4,08

Over the summer Tim, Marissa, Kathy (my aunt), Trever (her grandson) and myself went to Florida. Part of our trip was a Farmers Acheivement club (for top agents in the country). The Farmers part of the trip was in Daytona. Kathy came to help us with Marissa while we went to the company dinners and because we wanted a fun vacation together.

Here is a pic of the view from our hotel room :

Hilton Daytona Ocean Walk

Rissa on the beach.

A favorite pic of Rissa and I on the beach.

On Wednesday we left Daytona and headed over to Venice to visit Grandpa. We went to dinner ar Sharky's that night.

Our family dancing in the rain at Sharky's.

We went to the beach all day Thursday. We went to Siesta Key. I like that beach better than Daytona. The water is very calm and you can sit in it without fighting the waves. It is also clearer so you can see a little of whats swimming around.

Beautiful Siesta Key

We went to Sharky's again Thursday night so we could walk along the pier and dance on the patio.

my family on the pier

Sunset at Venice Beach

We hope to go back to Siesta Key sometime within the year to visit Grandpa and hang out on the beach and eat at Sharky's.