Celebrating 5 years!

On July 30th, 2005 I married the man of my dreams. He is my best friend and as cheesy as the saying is, it's definitely true..."he completes me" .

When we started dating on April 9th, 2000 (yes, I know the exact date), I knew that I was going to marry this man. I'm not sure I can explain it and looking back if you would have asked me then, I'd have probably given you some silly teenage answer like, "because he's HOT and totally brilliant" which is true. He is hot AND brilliant but that's not why I knew. Again, I just knew - sorry I can't explain more for those of you looking for "steps to finding the man of your dreams" but I just can't in words.

I'm not sure Matt felt the same way about me but that makes total sense if you know us well. I jump into most things head first, making gut decisions and then later worrying about whether they were right or wrong. Matt, however, thinks looooooong and hard about anything and everything and then once he has decided is totally content with his decision. Can you see why we were meant for each other? We definitely even each other out.

In July we celebrated 5 years of marriage! This past year has been especially wonderful (and sometimes hard) with our baby girl joining our family. I didn't think I could love him more but seeing him as a Daddy is the most beautiful thing. (we are totally going to end up with a ton of kids!) BUT we needed some time to ourselves. So we sent Lily off to spend some time with her grandparents (which she and grandparents LOVED) and Matt and I took off for Cancun!

I did have some personal goals for the trip. 1) I wanted to reconnect with Matt and just enjoy spending my time with him 2) I wanted to RELAX.....as in do NOTHING. I wanted my biggest decision to be pool or ocean. 3) I wanted to feel beautiful. What I mean is that I wanted to do my hair, put on makeup, a pretty dress, new shoes, and go out to a nice restaurant and have my husband look at me with those eyes that say, "Wow....just WOW". And it's not that Matt doesn't make me feel beautiful or that I don't get out much but when you are trying to keep the house clean, take care of the little one, make dinner, etc. things like putting makeup on and curling your hair just don't happen. So I'm happy to say that I was able to accomplish all three of my goals and we had a wonderful time. It felt way too short. We got home a week ago today but it already seems like it was months ago. *sigh* We are already thinking about our ten year anniversary trip (or maybe our 6 year anniversary trip :)

The view from our balcony

Every night the maid came in and made fun towel animals.

The waves were huge! Matt jumped right in. I however, didn't feel like being pummeled into the sand.

I mean, who wouldn't LOVE this man!

1st Birthday!

This past weekend we celebrated Lily's 1st birthday! It was quite the event and had lots of family and friends come over to celebrate with us. Now looking back, I think I may have went a little over board being that Lily is only 1 and probably won't remember this birthday but I truly wanted to create some great memories. My goal/hope is that Lily will look back at pictures and hear stories about her party and feel very loved by Matt and I because she definitely loved (maybe a little spoiled too!) by her parents (grandparents, great grandparents, friends, etc.). I also think this party was for me as well. I realize that sounds a little selfish but hey we worked really hard this past year. A whole year ago I gave birth to our little beauty and we can't even imagine life without her. I think I would liken this year to the first year of marriage. Granted there are some VERY big differences but what was that same for me is that my first year of marriage was one of the best years of my life yet probably the hardest and I feel the same about our first year of parenthood. Now looking back it went by really fast and she is changing so much. I feel so thankful that God has blessed us with her and that he has blessed our family in a way that allows me to be a stay-at-home mama. I get to experience all the ups and downs with my baby girl. I'm also thankful that Matt loves and supports our decision for me to be at home with her.

One year down....many more to come! I can't wait!

On the move!

Lily is crawling everywhere! She has definitely been a happier baby because of her new ability to explore the house.

We finally had to drop Lily's bed down because she is pulling herself up. (Note to Lily: Please stop getting so big....your mama doesn't want you to grow up so fast! )

Pulling herself up on the couch. (Seriously...are those not the cutest thighs you've ever seen!)

I heard Lily fussing in the Living room yesterday and when I came in she had managed to get the laundry basket on top of her but couldn't get it off. So instead of immediately saving my child from her awkward position, I got my camera instead. I couldn't help it. It was just too funny!

Twirly Bird Craziness!

Annoyed...no, that's not strong enough. Angry....well maybe that's too strong. Frustrated...that might be more like it. This year our backyard is COVERED in twirly birds. For those of you who don't know what a twirly bird is well that's what we call maple tree seeds. (Not sure where the name came from or if I just made it up.) Anyway, after last week, we have SOOOO many of those little, what will soon become, weeds in our yard, garden, flower boxes and landscaped areas. So now I have to decide if I want to pick them up or just get the Shopvac out and seriously go to town on the back yard not caring what gets sucked up along the way. I've also had the pleasure of cleaning out the gutters, which is really fun if you're sometimes clumsy and accident prone, like myself.

This is the scene of the accident...the one where I break my leg and possibly my arm too. As you can see the ladder doesn't actually get you right up to the gutter so you have to stand on the very top (kids don't try this at home) to get the twirly birds out. Which is EXTREMELY dangerous and a super bad idea - not to mention there are warning signs all over the latter telling me not to do it. BUT I did it and thankfully I didn't actually break my leg or my arm. I was just freaked out and clinging to the roof the whole time. So at this point you might be wondering why I was doing this instead of my super agile and coordinated husband. Well...he was at work and it was supposed to rain pretty hard that afternoon. And well, the last time our gutters overflowed, the water washed all the mulch in my landscaped boxes out into the yard, AND my wonderful husband decided that he had to go out in the storm, with lighting i might add, and clean the gutters out so the rain wasn't overflowing them. So to prevent my hubby from getting struck my lighting or knocked off the roof by hail or strong winds, I decided that maybe I should just handle it. So this is why I now hate twirly birds and will be reminding myself that should I lose my mind and decide to plant a maple tree. Oh and by the way, we are going to start pricing gutter guards. :)

Baby Dedication

2009 was a big year for our church as far as babies are concerned. Eight new additions(seven born and one adopted) were dedicated at church this past Saturday, which for our little ministry is a LOT of kiddos. We parents all lined up with our little ones and made a few VERY important promises to God, with the church as witnesses, about how we will raise our children.

Do we, this day, dedicate Lily to the Lord and to His will for her life?
(we do)
Do we promise to pray regularly for Lily?
(we do)
Do we promise to faithfully share the gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ with Lily both by our words and through our actions?
(we do)
Do we commit to training Lily in a way that honors & reflects God, His Holy Word, and the Bible?
(we do)

After we stood up and promised to do these things, I was immediately struck by just how significantly important our jobs as parents truly are. And I was reminded how much of a blessing my child is and how much love God bestowed on me when He thought me worthy of having her.

I realize that I'm going to make mistakes and need forgiveness but it is truly freeing to know that God is in control of Lily's life and He has a plan for her. A good plan.

Easter!

Sorry it's been SOOO long since I've posted anything. We've been so busy with church, house projects, trips home, and tending to the garden that I haven't posted anything since February! Anyway, we had a great Easter a couple of weekends ago. We enjoyed spending time with family and Lily had her first ever Easter egg hunt. She is so cute!

Honduras kick-off!

Well tonight was our first team meeting for Honduras and we leave on May 17th for a week of serving and loving God's people. I feel like the last few weeks have been a whirlwind of events and planning for the semester. This year is bittersweet for me. I love going to this country God has put so deeply in my heart but leaving my little girl for a week is hard for this mommy. It will be the first time I've been a way from her for more than one night. I know she is going to have SO much fun and be totally spoiled by her grandparents but I can't help but worry that I'll miss something big - like her first steps! However, I'm know that God has a plan for us in Honduras and I pray for guidance and peace about leaving.

On the other hand...I'M GOING TO HONDURAS IN MAY! YAY! And truly I am excited. Our team is full of friends and interesting people that I'm excited to share this experience with. If you'd like to be praying for our team and for us then please pray that our support raising goes well/smoothly for our team. Pray that God would prepare people's hearts to be sensitive to our mission and support us. Please pray that I can lead these people and love them well - that God would give me peace, patience, understanding, etc. Also pray that Lily's mommy will enjoy her week serving the Lord and will remember what a wonderful gift grandparents are to her child.

Here are some pics from last year:

Rolling over...

So I thought rolling over would be an awesome milestone for Lily and I even worked with her on the floor to help her learn how to do it. Well I'm now convinced that wasn't the smartest thing to do. Lily has always been a tummy sleeper and has slept really well whether it was at night or during her nap time. However things have now changed. She has now figured out how to roll over from her tummy to her back and does this as soon as you put her in her bed. BUT she doesn't like to sleep on her back so after awhile she starts to cry and we have a come in and roll her over. Which really wouldn't be so bad but Matt and I are pretty spoiled. We've had many many nights of wonderful uninterrupted sleep, more than new parents should probably have but not any more. So it was Matt's turn last night...she woke up around 11:45pm because she rolled over and then started crying because she really wanted to be sleeping but couldn't. Luckily, Daddy came to the rescue and went in and rolled her over and she immediately went to sleep. Unfortunately, nap time is hard too. If she is not REALLY tired then she rolls over, plays with her feet, and never really goes to sleep. So now we are waiting (maybe not so patiently) for her to learn how to roll from her back to her tummy and then maybe we'll go back to uninterrupted sleep.

She is pretty stinking cute though when you come in and she is supposed to be sleeping.

Happy Valentines Day!! (just a few days early)

So I had just put up a post about how great a dad Matt is and well he's a great husband too! Look what just arrived at my door 5 minutes ago! Aren't they beautiful!

Daddy & Lily

I feel such love for Matt when I see him with Lily. He has become a wonderful father and I truly thank God for him everyday. He doesn't always get to spend as much time with her as he'd like but when he does I really think it's special for Lily. This past weekend, he got up with her (so Mommy could sleep in - Yay!) and fed and dressed her. When I got up and came into Lily's room, Matt kinda smiled and said, "I didn't know what to put on her...does this match?" I thought is was so funny & cute that I decided to share.

Playing with Lily

Lily is so much fun right now. She is constantly babbling and squealing. I'm really loving this age - 6 months. Right now we are working on sitting up independently and it's going really well. I've attached a video of Lily and I playing with her favorite dolly, Samantha - a gift from Grandma Patti. Matt decided that the dolly should have a name so he came up with Samantha and it stuck. Usually she tries to bite Samantha or chew on her hair but that's just Lily's way of saying, "I love you dolly." Honestly, she tries to bite or chew on everything these days. It's so funny unless it happens to be your finger - ouch!

waiting for spring...

So lately I've been really longing for Spring. It wasn't so bad when the whole ground was covered with a few inches of snow but now that it's melted and I can see my yard again, I've been daydreaming about my flowers and garden. This has probably been brought on by being stuck in the house for a while but I've been itching to get my hands dirty and watch my little beauties grow! I'm going to have to be patient but I just can wait to get started. I think I'm going to really increase the size of my vegetable garden this spring. I had wanted to do it last summer but being in my last months of pregnancy, I wasn't sure I'd be able to care for it adequately. And I was right because July I was too uncomfortable and August I had Lily. So this is the year! I'm not sure what size or how I'm going to do it yet but I'm going to starting planning and thinking and dreaming of Spring...*sigh*

Here's some pictures of flowers from last summer...

My day lilies and hydrangeas. I really love my hydrangeas and it's a good thing b/c they are a huge pain the rear. But so pretty!

You can't tell from the picture but there is a climbing rose behind the trellis and I can't wait to see what is looks like this year! I'm so excited to watch it grow.

Stuck at home...

My plan was not to use our blog to whine but sometimes you just need to get things out...
So about 2 weeks ago our car (which we park on the street) was hit in the middle of the night and was totaled. The person that hit us drove off so we don't know who did it and because it was an old car we only had liability insurance and so it was not covered. Matt tried getting some parts from the junk yard to fix it but now it looks like the whole car is going to the junk yard. So we've been looking for a new (to us) car.

I'll be honest, I haven't been handling this situation very well. My patience is being stretched. Being stuck in the house for almost 2 weeks and not being able to go anywhere has been extremely hard! Matt has been trying to carpool but that only happened one day last week. (however, I was very thankful for that day) If it were summer, Lily and I would go and walk around the neighborhood and visit friends and I could live without a car but when it's 18 degrees outside, I'm just not sure it's very responsible of me to take my 6 month old for a walk. So needless to say, I'm a little stir crazy. But my hubby is taking me out on a date tonight and that brightens my day immensely!

Oh btw we just bought a car last night however there are a few things that need fixing so it will probably be another week and a half before we have it. Please pray I don't go absolutely nuts.

Books,books, and more books!

So I devour books. I'm not sure how else to put it. When I pick up a book and it catches my attention, I have to finish it immediately. I'm sure it has a lot to do with my personality. I have trouble being patient and when I find a great book I MUST know how it ends. (Luckily, I have a very patient husband!) So about a month ago I started reading the Diamond of the Rockies series by Kristen Heitzmann. My mother-in-law has them and brought them to me to read. I'll be honest, I was pretty skeptical about reading them being that is was Christian fiction. I'm not sure why I was skeptical. I guess I thought they might be too cheesy. Boy was I wrong. I absolutely LOVED it! So I immediately started looking into what other books she'd written and found another series call the Rocky Mountain Legacy. Well I got online and bought the series right away and just finished the 5 books this past week. I cannot say enough wonderful things about these books. I don't think I've laughed or cried as much with any other books I've read.

Both of these series are historical christian fiction novels and love stories. (I just can't resist a good love story!) They are both set out in Colorado in a time when people were mining for gold, seeking out land for homesteads, and their main mode of transportation was horses. Maybe that's why I loved them so much. I've always loved westerns and cowboys. If I ever had a chance to go back in time this is the time I'd want to see. Life was hard but at the same time simple. I guess my love for the west started with my dad. He, to this day, only wears flannel shirts, blue jeans, and cowboy boots. In fact, I remember asking him as a little girl why he didn't wear tennis shoes and his reply was, "Cowboys don't wear tennis shoes. They only wear boots." I guess that stuck with me.

So anyway, these are amazing books in my opinion. As a Christian woman, a wife, and a mother I really connected with the main character in both series. I highly recommend reading them if you get the chance. They have both moved up to my all time favorite books. Here again is the series. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

Author: Kristen Heitzmann

Rocky Mountain Legacy:
Book 1: Honor's Pledge
Book 2: Honor's Price
Book 3: Honor's Quest
Book 4: Honor's Disguise
Book 5: Honor's Reward

Diamond of the Rockies:
Book 1: The Rose Legacy
Book 2: Sweet Boundless
Book 3: The Tender Vine

Water proofing basement part 1 - DONE!

Well this weekend was the big basement project. We jack-hammered concrete from around the perimeter of the basement and hauled it out to be recycled. Mitch, Donna, Danielle, and Justin all came to join us in the "fun". We were SOOOOOO thankful for their help. Matt would probably still be jack-hammering if they had not been here. We feel so blessed to have family that gives so generously with their time. So with a lot of sweat but luckily no blood or tears we finished it - definitely some sore muscle though. This Thursday Woods Basement Systems comes and finishes the job by installing the water guard gutter system and pouring concrete back over the trench. We are so happy to not have to worry so much about the basement every time we leave and we can finally put a nice family room down there- although that's probably a project for 2011 or 2012.

Mitch did a LOT of the jack-hammering. Luckily he allows me to pay him in chocolate candy!


My sweetie - getting after it with the sledge hammer!

Everyone had a job - Mitch was jack hammering, Matt was busting it up with the sledge hammer, Justin was prying it out, and Danie was sucking up the dust with the shop vac. (Oh! and I was diligently taking pictures of the whole process :)


Do you have tickets??? TO THE GUN SHOW!! (in reference to Justin's huge muscles) Those buckets were HEAVY! I carried a few of them myself although mine weren't quite as full.

Feel the pain!

So some of my goals for 2010 include eating healthier and working out. So far I think I've been doing pretty well. I started at a new gym this week and I'm REALLY loving it. They have a daycare that I can take Lily to while I'm working out. I cannot tell you how wonderful that's been and I've only been going for 2 days! Here in Illinois the high temperatures have been in the teens and Lily and I have been stuck indoors most days. So I'm actually really motivated to go to the gym because it means I get out of the house and hang out with some adults for a while. I took a step class today with my friend Steph and is was awesome! Awesome meaning - it totally kicked my butt and I thought I was going to die at the end. It did feel really good though. So I'm praying for discipline and motivation as the next few months go by. Hopefully, they'll go by quick - winter is so long and cold in Illinois, blah!

The BASEMENT...

So Matt and I are constantly doing house projects. In fact we probably have about 3 to 4 projects going on at any one time. We love starting them but finishing them is a different story. We've been fighting with our basement since we moved in. We were told that the basement had a small "seeping" problem but was mostly dry. Well that may have been true for the previous owners but that wasn't true for us. One side of the basement was finished with carpet but that got wet and we had to pull everything up in that room. Luckily I worked for a water restoration company during that time and so I got lots of help. But this past spring was the last straw, we got home one night from going out to eat and it was pouring down rain. We were having a serious storm. I told Matt that we really needed to watch the basement because we were getting tons of rain and sure enough the basement started to flood. A few different things were happening at once. Water was coming up through our floors and corners of the walls as well as the storm drain was backing up because the streets were flooded. So Matt got his shop vac and I sucked water while Matt emptied it into the sump pump. He has a 10 gallon shop vac and we probably dumped it 7 or 8 times. (And let me just mention that I was 7 almost 8 months pregnant at this time as well.) So after that we decided that we have to do something about this problem. We can't push it off any longer. So this last week we have been prepping the basement for the "water guard system". Basically it is a drain/gutter system that goes into the floor of your basement and directs the water to the sump pump and then out of the house. Which is exactly our problem. We have a sump pump but the water wasn't getting to it so it was coming through in other places. Well you can't buy the water guard it is patented by Basement Systems so they have to put it in. However, it's about 3 times more expensive if you have them do all the labor. So guess what? We are doing it ourselves! Yep, we (well maybe not me but Matt) will be getting jack hammers and busting up the basement floor around the walls so the water guard can be installed. Oh and we'll be carrying out all the concrete from the basement out as well (this I'm probably going to have to help with). Doesn't this sound like so much fun!? Well fun, maybe not, but definitely saves us a substantial amount of cash. So in 2 weeks all the Dobsch family - Mitch, Donna, Danielle, Matt, Lacey, and mostly likely Justin and Shannon will be busting concrete. Let me know if feel the desire to come and use a jack hammer! Here are some before pictures of the basement. I'll post the after pictures once it is done.

Lily's first Christmas

We had a wonderful time over the holiday getting to spend time with family that we don't get to see often enough. Lily's first Christmas was amazing and we feel so blessed to have such a generous family. Matt managed to fit almost everything in the car but we had to leave a few things behind to be brought back to IL at a different time. Matt complained that we had too much stuff but secretly I think he likes the challenge of figuring out how every thing is going to fit into the trunk of our car. Here's some pictures:



I made Christmas shirts for the three of us to wear to our ugly Christmas sweater party we were having at our house. However, I don't think they were actually that ugly - maybe just obnoxious

Lily's gifts were as tall as her!

It really didn't take her long to figure out how this works.