Christmas 2008!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Christmas Blessings from our family to yours!
Last year we celebrated our 1st Christmas with Eddie, although he had no idea that we were celebrating anything at all. This year has been different already. He is into everything, especially the Christmas tree & decorations. He also enjoys seeing the lights and ornaments as we are out and about. It’s fun to watch the magic of Christmas come to life through your child’s eyes. We are so thankful for all this year has brought us. We’ve had a great time raising Eddie. It’s a blast to see his personality develop more and more each day. He’s a very happy boy, loves people, knows no stranger, and has John’s energy level (too bad John is working all day). He is now walking lots & talking some. His words include ball, dada, momma, this, up, truck, outside, hot, hat, light, bike and a few others. We look forward to watching Eddie continue to grow and change, although a part of me wishes I could capture a little bit of each new stage and bottle it up.
John is a Grrreat Dad and has really filled that role perfectly. Eddie truly loves his Dada and I know the feeling is mutual. Aside from parenting (sometimes it seems there isn’t time for much else) we feel blessed because of John’s work. John continues to work as a manager for Medi-Share’s Health Initiatives Department and Lord willing will continue this as long as he is called to. John is still passionate about working to help people reach their full health potential and in my opinion has a real talent for it. As a former employee working side by side with John I’ll brag on him a bit and say that co-workers often sent him the people they had been challenged by and John always has a knack for being able to help people see things in a different light. In addition to work John’s talents in home renovations have helped us make our house into a place we love to call HOME. We’ve wrapped up the majority of our renovations and celebrate with a sigh of relief. After 3 years we welcome the break.
In 2008 we’ve been blessed to do a lot of traveling. We took full advantage of Eddie not being “on the move”, packed our things with him in tote and traveled to Indiana (twice) to visit my family. A 12 hour plane trip took us to beautiful Hawaii for 3 weeks where John was able to surf the waves, shape his very own surfboard, with the help of a friend in Kauai & then travel to the Big Island to spend time with his brother Baron’s family. We also traveled to N.Y. State to visit John’s parents at their summer lake home on Lake Ontario, which we look forward to making an annual event!
As for me, I am blessed to be able to stay home each day with Eddie and be fully involved in his life. I’ll have to say that Motherhood was challenging for me in the early days and even months. Change is never something that I’ve welcomed and change definitely happens with a new little one! However, I can now say that I feel comfortable, more confident and so happy that I’ve grown into my role as a Momma. Motherhood also has helped me to see the Lord in new ways. He is forever faithful, cares about every detail of our being whether we feel it’s significant or not & He is always, always by my side. We are hopeful to grow our family in the upcoming 2009 and will be sure to keep you all updated there! .
So for each of you, we pray that you are blessed this Christmas with the love and joy of family and friends. We also pray that the love of the Lord shines in you and through you and that you may find peace in knowing Him.

In Christ, John, Katie & Eddie

By the way, if you aren’t already keeping up with us on the online blog be sure to check out the latest at www.loveeddie.blogspot.com . I try to update things a few times a month so you can watch Eddie’s latest & greatest! The slideshow above is a quick recap of 2008, just click the play feature to view them!

Pitter Patter

Eddie has been walking for several weeks now and it's so odd that sometimes I catch myself wondering...who's in this house with me? I can go into the opposite room as him and in a few minutes I hear pitter patter, pitter patter as his little feet hit the wood floors. He comes walking towards me with a huge grin on his face as if he's thinking how proud he is that he made it to me all on his own. I welcome him with open arms,excitement and am just in awe how he has grown up so quickly. I also have to mention that the sound of his feet on the floor is already changing, you see, he's already nearly running so the pitter patter is a little more rapid!!

Giving Thanks

Hey Yall! I had a delay in posting because my Blogger is acting goofy but I'm hoping this is going to come out okay. Since my last post we celebrated Thanksgiving. This year our Thanksgiving was spent with family but was held at my sister-in-law Kim's parent's home. John's mom recently had shoulder surgery so she wasn't up for the gang and I would have enjoyed having it but our house is a little cramped for so many people. It was nice because I only had to think about making 1 dish which was a yummy Apple Walnut Salad with homemade cranberry dressing. It turned out yummy and I've made it a few times since to eat here at home (we didn't get enough on turkey day).
This was Eddie's 2nd Thanksgiving & it's hard to believe that last year he was just shy of 3 months old! I'll have to say that he had alot more fun this year interacting with his cousins & the rest of the family.

My Top 10 of Things I'm Most Thankful For this Year:
1. Growing into Motherhood more & more each day
2. A Healthy Boy.
3. A Supportive Husband who gives me encouragement
4. A Loving/Faithful God who loves us
5. Work to provide all of our comforts
6. Family & Friends
7. Eddie's cute smile
8. Being able to stay at home with Eddie
9. The wonderful neighbor who gave us his awesome swingset/fort for Eddie!
10. The upcoming Christmas holiday that I get to spend with all my family here in FL.

Entire Fall Photo Shoot

Lots of Visitors = Loads of Fun!

This past week was a busy one in the Reinhold household. Early in the week John's college buddy, Scott & his wife Erika, came for a visit from California. Another friend, Jon, also came to spend a couple of days. Our time with them was fun with fellowship, food, the beach, the shooting range, surf & 2 trips to the zoo (for us)...John was thrilled to see his old friends! As usual, Eddie warmed right up to them in a hurry. It always amazes me how he doesn't seem to ever meet a stranger.

Grandma & Grandpa Reinhold came over a time or two to watch Eddie while the "adults" went out for dinner. Eddie's always thrilled because he gets to go crazy playing his drums & making lots of noise.

Then, our week rounded off with a quick weekend visit from Grandpa Baker. We went to the beach and enjoyed good weather & family.

Happy Fall

Our great friends Sam & Silvia took time out for a photo shoot of us this past weekend. We're so thankful to them and to have some really nice pictures of our sweet fellow. They took over 300 pictures and it was very hard to narrow down my favorites but here are some of them.

Costume Ideas

When trying to decide what we should dress Eddie up as for Halloween this year he stepped right into this one. Couldn't resist & wanted to share. Trick or Treat!