Merry Christmas!!

We had such a blessed Christmas - what a perfect one for Andrew's first! After being delayed a day due to an ice/snow storm we ventured to Ankeny for and early Christmas. The trip unfortunately took 5 hours - not too much fun with a 9 month old who prefers to be crawling all over instead of strapped in a car seat. Pete however did an excellent job of entertaining - they even watched the movie we first fell in love to...Zoolander! Too funny! Once we did arrive the power was off! We only had to survive about 30 minutes in the dark before power was restored and we could enjoy a meal with the Elgin family.

The next day to our surprise Sophia arrived with shirt announcing she was going to be a big sister!! How awesome that we will be becoming auntie and uncle in 2013!! We were able to celebrate with the whole family later that night.

Andrew loved playing with Sophia and being at Nana and Papa G's house. We had a wonderful time.

Sunday we returned to the Quad Cities to a houseful! All of Pete's siblings and spouses made it home with two new babies! It was a busy house and Andrew was as usual non-stop. He paid little attention to the babies but enjoyed playing with Cole in the new train room. And we will have the addition (officially) of one new spouse next year - Steven and Ellie were engaged Christmas Eve. It's so exciting to have the family expanding once more! We also got to have Abbie home for 11 days and Andrew loved getting to play again since he hadn't seen her since he was 3 months old.

All around it was a very busy but very happy week of family, friends and lots of blessings!

Much to be thankful for!

We had a wonderful time celebrating Andrew's first Thanksgiving. We got to hang with both of our families and saw both cousin Sophia and cousin Rachel.

We also hosted a sip and see for Joe and Kristin so people could see their adorable bundle of joy! We had over 50 people at our home and it was just perfect! Lots of food, drinks and fun!

Andrew is really motoring around. His crawl is a full on sprint and he's pulling himself up on anything he can reach. He gets such a kick out of exploring the house and finding us. He's also very into patty cake, trot-trot, and loves to dance.

More Stopulos Cousins!!

We were excited to go and visit our new niece Rachel Marie today (she was born November 15)! Her mother was quite the rock star - doing 12 hours hard labor and 3 hours of pushing, all without an epidural or pain meds! She is a beautiful baby and we are so excited she is here! Joe and Kristin were so adorable and its so much fun to see them as parents! The holidays are going to be even better this year with all the new arrivals in our family!

Spooky Stuff on Halloween

It's my favorite time of year and we enjoyed it thoroughly!

PART 1: We began the day at Ruhl&Ruhl's annual corporate Halloween costume contest. We were the Flinstones - complete with Bambam and Pebbles. I think the cuteness of the kids won over the judges as Marketing took first place (finally!)! We were thrilled to have Pete participate too!

PART 2: We didn't do much trick or treating but brought our little dragon over to Mimi and Papa's house for dinner. He loved it - but I think loves anything that puts him in the center of attention!

Cousins!

Andrew has a new cousin!! Blake Hunter Kearney was born October 11th. We made the trip down to Kansas to see the little guy along with big brother Cole. Cole was incredibly cute - waiting in the front living room for Andrew to get there. We had fun playing with Cole's Elmo train track - Cole played rather as Andrew laid across the tracks and stuck the train cars in his mouth. Cole kept asking me, "why is Andrew doing that to my toys?" He's going to have fun when Blake is ready to play!

We also got to stay with my parents and saw cousin Sophia - so much fun to have the kids together even though they don't really play together!

6 Months Old!

We can not believe its been 6 months that our little man has been in our world. It's amazing how wonderfully our lives have changed - we couldn't feel more blessed! It's also crazy how much he has grown already!

At his 6 month check up Andrew weighed 18 lbs 6 oz (67th percentile) and was 25.5 inches tall (18th percentile). So we have a little shorty on our hands - but I think he'll catch up to his weight and head size (which is also 67th percentile!).

Andrew is also crawling and sitting of propped up. So there's no leaving this little guy be - he's on the move and will get to anyone or anything he so wishes. He also enjoys dumping out his toy basket and spreading out his toys all across our living room. So our house now looks like a toy store that a tornado went through - I am sure it's only going to get worse from here on out!

Here are some updated photos!

Yum Yum Cereal!

Andrew is turning into a big boy! He ventured into eating cereal this week and is truly enjoying it! It was kind of a non event ;) We can't wait to try some veggies next week after our trip to the doctor for our 6 month check up!

Andrew is also done with breast milk (at least from me - there's plenty in the freezer!) We had to try 2 different kinds of formula to find the right fit but he's taking to it well and it's such a relief for me to have so much more time!!