Crawling!

Wow has our life changed. Katie is into EVERYTHING and I spend most of my days chasing her around. We are so excited to celebrate our first Christmas with Katie. She will love chewing on the tissue paper! We included the most recent pics of our family. Shoes have become quite the delicacy. Becky is in the best shape of her life and Taylor continues in his life-long ambition to be more like Chuck Norris:)

Katie's Baby Dedication

Sunday November 9th we dedicated Katie at Vanguard Church. This means that we, as parents, have commited to raising Katie in a home that loves and follows God. Our hope is that one day she will choose to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. It was a great time and when we were up she was very curious about what was going on! Also included is a picture of Katie in her adorable new hat!

Halloween and my new favorite thing!

Katie was a duck for Halloween and loved her costume. We went over to Taylor's parents house for dinner and then went trick-or-treating at Grandma and Grandpa Walker's. Grandma had a great treat of Organic baby food for Katie! We then took a very tired Katie out with her cousins Halle and Charlee. it was probably more for Mommy and Daddy's sake than Katie's!



So, I have a new love of my life . . .CHEERIOS! I think Katie is close to loving them as much as I do . . . and Oakly is rather appreciative too, come to think of it. Katie shovels them in as fast as she can and Mommy runs around the house while she is distracted. I can get a good 15-20 "free" minutes as long as I keep the Cheerios well-stocked.

Katie playing with Daddy

This is Katie a couple of months ago but she is pretty funny. Taylor literally made her laugh until she cried!

My first try uploading video!

Katie loves to play this and we happily oblige her:)

Is it really October?

Time has really flow by. Katie is now rolling over, sitting up, has two front teeth and can finally say her consonant sounds . . . Mommy was getting worrried:) Teething has not been a great experience. We have been up 2-3 times a night, which we think is horrific compared to the 12 hour stretches we are used to! We started feeding Katie solid food which is another hilarious experience. Taylor started his new job at T Rowe Price and is loving it. Yeah for group health insurance! I am still figuring out this stay at home mom thing but am enjoying spending time with Katie. I have joined the MOPS group at our church and it is such a great time hanging out with other moms. I will try to update this againg with Halloween pics! Katie is going to be a duck.

July Pics

August 2008

Katie is already 4 1/2 months old, and even though everyone tells you how quickly time goes by, it doesn't hit you until it is your baby growing up so fast. We still are amazed by the precious little girl God has blessed us with.

I (Becky) am getting more of a routine established. I am missing teaching, especially now that all my friends are heading back to school. I might do some tutoring or subbing this year to get back in the system:) I found a new website,(flylady.net) that has really helped me to get our home organized and me dressed in the morning. No easy feat some days.

Katie loves babbling and giggling, especially to her Daddy who seems to bring out her talkative side. She is drooling like crazy and chewing on everything. We are keeping an eye out for her first tooth, but no sign of one yet. She loves playing in her exersaucer and sitting in her high chair. She is becoming more and more interested in her surroundings, but Mommy and Daddy are still her favorites, Yeah!

Sadly, we sent Marley our yellow-lab on to a new home this month. We were not able to exercise her as much as she needed and her new home with 3 little boys is proving to be wonderful for her! We miss her, but our house is so much calmer!

We took our first camping trip with Katie and luckily we have wonderful friends who haven't abandoned us after the experience. Between a whining Marley, crying baby and Katie drool in the eggs, it was quite a memorable experience. We now know what to do differently on our next trip . . .which may be put off until next summer:)

All in all we are loving life right now and are very content with our normal day to day lives!

Month Two

Well we have made it and Katie will be 10 weeks old tomorrow. We are getting 6-7 hours of sleep in a row at night, which is fantastic. Katie is such a joy in our lives. Being parents has definitely changed our routine. Evenings used to be a spontaneous schedule of dinners with friends, TV watching, shopping or other outings. Now we eat at home, watching Katie in the swing or trying to get her to smile. We wouldn't change it for anything:) Yesterday my day started at 3:30 a.m. and when I would normally go back to sleep I just stayed awake thinking of all the things I could be doing. I finally surrendered and got up at about 5 a.m. The day then proceded to follow a predictable routine with Marley attacking my in-laws dog, who until then we had been planning to dog-sit, Katie producing a monster spit-up, which required an outfit change on both our parts, and then, while I marvelled at how good Katie was being in her bouncer seat while I showered, she filled her diaper and much of the seat with an impressive blowout diaper. Just a typical day in our lives now:) Even though we are cutting back on a lot of our previous activities, we are finding new fulfillment in the everyday activities and just being with each other. I will be attaching new photos as well. Enjoy!

Month 1

Well we have been parents for 5 weeks now. We can't believe how much Katie has changed in that short amount of time. We have become expert diaper changers! I am beginning to settle into a routine with Katie and we even made it out hiking with Katie, the dogs and some friends yesterday. It has been great to have beautiful weather to get outside in. We have many funny late night stories, Taylor's favorite is the night of the "Trifecta!" He got spit up on, peed on, pooped on, and then again spit up on all in one diaper change. I guess we are officially christened as parents. Katie is just beginning to smile at us and I don't know what we would do without a digital camera. There are a lot of wierd faces until we get the perfect smile! She is such a joy to have in our lives and even at the three a.m. feeding we just stare at her and can't stop talking about how beautiful we think she is. We will try to keep the pictures coming!

The arrival

Katie Madison Andrews was born March 29th at 11:37 am. She weighed 7 lbs. and was 19.5 inches. We are so glad to have her here and finally meet her. My water broke at about 10 PM but it was only a little bit. Since I had been having contractions and pre-labor for weeks we weren't too excited and went to bed. At midnight my water really broke and we knew Katie would be joining us in the next 48 hours. We didn't realize how quickly things would start happening. Taylor and I tried to go back to sleep and within 15 minutes my contractions started about 5-6 minutes apart. We knew sleep was out of the question so we got up to finish packing for the hospital. By 3 am my contractions were 90 seconds to two minutes long and 4 minutes apart . . . and very painful. I told Taylor it was time to go to the hospital. We called both our parents on the way in. I was not very happy about all the bumping in the car. When we arrived at the hospital I was 4 cm dilated and in a lot of pain. They admitted me and gave me some Fentanol which took the edge off the pain and made me very loopy. Within an hour I was 7 cm dilated and about to enter transition. We decided to opt for the epidural at that point which was the best decision of the night! It slowed my labor down some and allowed me to rest and truly enjoy the rest of my labor. At 9:15 the nurse told us it was time to start pushing and I was shocked. I couldn't belive we were already at that point . . . I felt great with the epidural absolutely no side effects! After a little over 2 hours of pushing Katie was with us. The epidural started to wear off at the end, but at that point I knew how close we were and didn't care. I was able to watch the entire time I was pushing because the hospital brought a mirror in. The entire process was the most amazing thing we have ever been a part of. We are so blessed and thankful to have our beautiful daughter with us!

Katie has arrived!

Katie's Room

Katie's room is finally done. We are hoping to have her in it soon! We had lots of help from friends and family. Thank you!


















Katie will definitely be well dressed! The closet is full and that doesn't include the full dresser, and other side of the closet!

An update at last!

We apologize for how long it has taken for us to update our blog. Our schedule has been really full! We are in our 35th week of pregnancy and I am getting increasingly bigger and uncomfortable. We checked into the hospital last weekend because I was having contractions every two minutes. They gave me two shots of Terbutaline which finally stopped the contractions. They told us that should stop them, but some people have to go back every other week to get another dose. . . We went back Sunday morning having contractions again. They put me on an oral dose of the Terbutaline and told me to rest a ton. This all happened the week before our CSAP testing which is a state-wide assessment and is really important. I was given a second proctor to be in my room so I could sit for the 4 assessments. Needless to say it was a tiring week. As long as I take the medicine the contractions are sporadic and don't form a regular pattern. I am hoping to continue working until spring break which starts the last full week of March. After that, I am ready for Katie to join us whenever she pleases! The baby room is almost done and the list of things to get done is getting smaller and smaller. We will try to post baby room pics in the next week or so. Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers.
Becky and Taylor

Baby Shower # 2

The staff at my school threw me a shower too.
The most creative gift I received was a laundry bag with a clothesline sticking out of it. As I pulled and pulled and pulled it out they had clipped tons of clothes to the line. It was really cute!

Baby Shower # 1

Just in case I ever forget that Mom is just a phone call away!



My mom had set up a whole table of decorating supplies and each time had to come up with a fashionable maternity outfit for me. Extra points were rewarded for useful accessories (like hidden straps for helping to hoist me up:) We had everything from sporty daywear to lingerie!