Goodbye Summer and Hello Fall!

Fall is in full swing and we've been busy! I (Chrissie) went back to work half-time in September, so we've been spending these last few months adjusting to our new schedules. Thankfully, Miriam is enjoying her new routine and continues to thrive. She started walking in August when our friends Christoph and Annette were here visiting from Germany, which was very exciting! She's such a busy girl - climbing on everything and running after mommy and daddy. She's trying to talk too, and we have lots of fun deciphering what she's saying to us...we're hearing lots of 'mama', 'dada', 'nana', 'bye-bye', 'baby', and other "words". Her sign language skills are getting pretty good too, so she's able to communicate things like 'milk', 'please', 'all done', 'more', and 'thank you'.


We spent lots of time at the pool in August. Miriam loved swimming in the big pool:

We also threw Miriam a party in August for her first birthday. Even though we celebrated her real birthday in July while we were in Romania, we wanted to celebrate with our friends and family at home too. We served burgers, salads and (of course) cupcakes and watermelon for dessert. It was a beautiful, pink day! We had so much fun celebrating Miriam's first year:

 

 

 

Our friends Christoph and Annette came from Germany to visit us for 10 days in August:

We had lots of fun acting like tourists in our own city and we took them to the lake for 4 days. It was a nice, relaxing time. They took us for dinner to the Old Spaghetti Factory on their last night here. I think Miriam enjoyed it the most, as spaghetti is her favourite meal these days:

 

 She liked it so much, in fact, that we went back for more spaghetti a few weeks later with my (Chrissie's) grandpa.

Sorry for the blurry picture...she demolished that plate of spaghetti!

We spent quite a bit of time outside this fall because the weather has been so nice. Miriam enjoyed going for walks and spending time in the park while her daddy went slack lining.

 

 We also got some really great news this fall! We found out that we're expecting baby #2 this spring!

  

Here's a snapshot of our newest little one:

We're quite excited and very, very thankful for this wonderful gift from God! 

I (Chrissie) have been experiencing some pretty serious morning sickness this time around. We've just been trying to make it through one day at a time these days, but now that we've hit the three-month mark the sickness seems to be subsiding a bit.

So, that's what's been going on with us these days! Hope you've all had an enjoyable fall so far too!