December 2010

Practically all of December was spent in Joplin/Stockton.  Drew spent the first part of the month in Colorado finishing things up with work and prepping for the move.  He stopped in Missouri for a few days and then drove to meet the movers down in Georgia to get moved in.  He then flew back to Missouri to spend Christmas and a few more days of leave.  Since he left his vehicle in Georgia, we were able to all drive down together as a family for the long drive to Columbus.  It's SO much easier when we're able to travel in one car together (we're definitely not looking forward to that part when we make our trip to California in September). 

We rented an apartment in Georgia since we were only going to be there for a few months.  We would prefer it to be our last stay in an apartment ever.  There are perks, but we have found it to be more of a nuisance for many reasons.  Drew's parents kept Roxie for us while we're away and my parents kept Rico.  It was so nice to be able to leave the pets there so we wouldn't have to pay a ridiculous amount in pet deposits and worry about dog barks/howls in an apartment.  

Here are some highlights from December:

The boys and I were able to visit my friend Erika.  Luke didn't find Mom and Erika yapping for a few hours to be too entertaining.  He fell asleep under the tree.

I love this picture of Luke because he's actually smiling.  He almost never smiles for pictures anymore.  I don't love this picture because he's got the horrible chapped face/chin we dealt with all winter long.

While we were in Joplin, Luke "helped" a lot around the kitchen at Nana and Papa's.  I'm not sure eating out of the serving dish before we sat down for dinner constitutes as helping, but we're all family, right?

Helping Papa feed the puppy dogs

My grandma and aunt were able to come down from Nebraska in early December to visit and to meet Levi.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to recover those photos from the camera fiasco.  It's always great to see them.  We sure wished we lived closer to be able to see them more often. 


We always have a list of things we want to make sure we do when we're "back home". This trip back it was Bass Pro and Lambert's.  Who knows what we'll decide we can't live without next time.

This is totally random, but there's this little church somewhere in between Springfield and Stockton that still has outhouses.  I finally stopped and took a picture.  At least they are very nice outhouses, being gender specific and providing privacy!

We were able to celebrate in Stockton the weekend before Christmas.  Drew's brother and his family were there and we had a lot of fun with them. 

Luke was obsessed with Grandma's train set

Opening presents with cousin Avery

I found a Nancy Pelosi book on the clearance rack for a buck.  Drew was less than amused by my gag gift.

Luke and Avery had a lot of fun together and maybe made just a little bit of trouble.  Next year's Christmas should be really interesting with all 10 grandkids there.

Tractor rides and/or golf cart rides are a must when we're at Grandpa's

We spent actual Christmas in Joplin with my parents.  My brother was able to come down so that was great to see him.  Drew's parents were able to come down and eat Christmas dinner with us as well.  It's so nice our parents live so close together so we're able to spend time with both while we're there.

And here are just some other random shots...

November 2010

I don't have many pictures from November due to the malfunction of our camera.  I was able to restore some pictures from the year, but the November ones were gone for the most part. 

We had Levi's baptism on November 14.  Drew's parents were able to come out.  Grandpa (Drew's dad) has baptized all ten grandkids so it was special to have them out for that.  Our friends from Denver, Zach and Kelsey, were able to stand in as sponsors.  Aunt Meredith and Uncle Steven are his sponsors on paper but their little Laura had just arrived five days previous to Levi.  Plus, they lived in Wisconsin.  Here are the only two pictures where you can kind of tell what's going on:

Early in November we decided that we would drive home to Missouri for Thanksgiving and that the boys and I would stay there for a while.  It was perfect timing, really.  I was just finishing my maternity leave/vacation time at work and it would nice to spend some time with family before moving to Georgia.  Drew would go back to Colorado and get all the moving and loose ends taken care of.  We were able to spend Thanksgiving at Drew's parents and my parents came up for the day.  Uncle Jon, Aunt Carrie and the girls were there too.  Here are the only pictures I have of the rest of November.

Avery and Luke eating pumpkin pie

Halloween 2010

I was glad I had Levi in plenty of time to be able to spend Halloween with Luke.  I had found the perfect costume and he was finally old enough to have fun with it all.  We just went to a local church for their carnival and Luke had a ball!

 Look at that cute butt:

Drew taught Luke to take his hat off and say "Howdy, Ma'am":

The couple weeks leading up to Halloween called for practice in his cowboy boots:

We carved a pumpkin and Luke didn't know what to think.  He very cautiously looked inside, even utilizing a flashlight.  He just wasn't too sure about reaching inside for the seeds.  Who knew he'd be such a pansy?!  We finally got him to reach inside by dropping pennies down inside.  Then he loved it!

Levi Andrew Rossow

Levi Andrew Rossow arrived October 15, 2010 at 11:30pm.  He was 8 pounds, 5 ounces and was 21 3/4 inches long.  He was healthy as they come and adorable.  Here's a quick story on how things went that day:

I had gone to my midwife appointment the evening before (Thursday) and there wasn't much progress from the last week.  So not to gross anyone out, she did a quick "procedure" to maybe help things along. There was no guarantee it would help, but she said if it was going to work it would do so in less than 24 hours.  The evening was very uneventful so I figured there was going to be nothing for a few days.  I went to work like usual on Friday morning and again, nothing eventful happened overnight or that morning.  I ate my lunch at noon and then started to feel some pressure/cramping when I would stand up or walk around.  So for the next bit I stayed sitting down.  I would get a little bit of cramping about every 45 minutes or so.  I went ahead and told my boss that I was going to go ahead and go down to the hospital and get things checked out (yes, I worked at a hospital, but A) they don't have labor & delivery and B) we were delivering at the hospital on Ft. Carson ).  I called Drew to tell him to meet me at the hospital but to not get his hopes up.  I think that was around 2:30pm.  I was totally convinced they were going to tell me to go back home and that nothing was really happening.  So I drove home and grabbed my bag and the baby's bag and went down to the hospital.

When we checked in on the floor, I explained the situation.  The response I got from the first nurse was that I didn't look like I was in enough pain to be in labor but they would check me out.  They hooked me up to a monitor and I had two contractions in about an hour.  The midwife came in to check on me and didn't think I was probably in true labor yet.  Well, she checked and I was already at a 4!  So, we stuck around and had a baby a few hours later!  Labor itself was okay.  Things progressed super fast as soon as I got into the labor room.  They were able to get an epidural in just in time so I had that for the actual birth.  I delivered pretty fast but I hemorrhaged some after.  I started to shiver and shake really bad for the hour after the birth and had to get medication to help with that.  The medication made me a little weird and I evidently acted like a very drunk lady for a couple of hours.  They were worried and there was some drama, but everything was fine within a few hours.  We went home Sunday morning and started our life as a family of four. 

Nana and Papa got there a few hours after Levi arrived to meet him.  You can't see Levi's hair in the pictures, but he had a matching hairdo with Papa!  He was bald on top and had hair on the sides and back for about two months or so.

All snuggled up to head home:

Roxie's such a good big sister:

Luke didn't want much to do with Levi for the first few months.  This picture was forced and Luke was kind of horrified:

Pumpkin Patch

We took Luke to a pumpkin patch/ranch a couple of weeks before Levi arrived. This was one of our favorite seasonal things to do in Colorado.

(October 2, 2010)