Five years...continued

Happy Anniversary, Matt! It's hard to believe that we have been married five years already! But at the same time, we have experienced so much and been blessed with so much in the past five years...

-got married 3 weeks after the end of our first year of teaching
-moved to India about a week after getting married
-adopted our first cat, Scout (although poor Scout was eaten by dogs...)
-moved to Colorado
-each ran a marathon and 2 half marathons
-drove down almost the entire western coast of the country
-adopted 2 cats, Lulu and Diego
-bought a home
-coached track together
-survived a fall where we were both head coaches and I was pregnant
-had our first son, Xavier!

God has truly blessed us with one another! As we grow older, I see more and more why He placed us together and why he meant for us to be together. Thank you for being a wonderful husband!

Love,
Rachel

Five Years!

Disclaimer: I don't have any digital copies of our wedding photos or a scanner to scan them in...but these are digital pictures of some of the pages I made for a scrapbook for my mom. (The one page has a typo...it was 2003, I know!)

scroll down...

I finally posted X's eight month update...only two and a half weeks late...

Happy Father's Day!

Month eight

Dear Xavier,

Wow…eight months old. You just aren’t a little baby any more at all. And your mommy wanting you to stay a little baby isn’t changing that fact one little bit.

Your world—and ours—changed drastically this month! No more are you dragging yourself across the ground with your forearms. I called your grandma one night and told her that you had just crawled about three “big boy” steps to get to your new toy…and then I called her back ten minutes later to tell her that you had just crawled across the entire room AND pulled yourself up to standing!

Your lightning speed crawling, your ability to stand up and cruise, and especially your lack of judgment have all contributed to a recent influx of head injuries. So much so that your daddy worries constantly and wishes he could build you a foam playroom. As many times as you have banged your head or taken a tumble, you stop crying immediately if we take you outside to play with the leaves or the grass. I’m trying to convince Daddy that you aren’t going to be a football player and would be more suited for cross country, but your ability to withstand shots to the head isn’t really helping my case.

The end of the school year has brought more free time for us and more adventures for you! We were off to St. Louis again at the end of the month and you were able to experience your first Cardinals game! Despite being truly worn out after flying, we literally went straight to Busch Stadium with Grandpa and Erica and you didn’t cry at all! You even listened carefully while Grandpa explained the game of baseball. You also experienced the St. Louis Zoo and your favorite animal was the “kk…kk” (the kitties). Except that those gray kitties were really elephants.

You amaze me every day with your ability to learn new things! You can now clap, wave, and do “So Big”! And sometimes you do some combination of the three all at once! We recently toted you around to eight graduation parties in one weekend. Apparently you felt it was your duty to entertain others, because you never fussed once at any of the parties and instead tried to show off your new skills.

Xavier, I’m so proud of you and I love you so much!

Love,
Mommy