TO ALL MY FANS!!!

I performed in my 1st piano concert this weekend. If you like loud head banging tunes, you would like my style. Mom says "good thing there was a volume button." It was quite fun. I do need some practice. Maybe I can actually take lessons sometime.

"No Cameras Please, I'm in Concert!"

So Grandma had to hold me during the concert. I was hitting the keys so hard, I could hardly sit up.
After my concert I took a break and went for a swim. It was refreshing.
Another fun summer weekend.

More pictures soon!

All my love - Jakob

And Here's Mom:

I went to the doctor today. It was my 1st appointment with my new doctor. I really like her alot. We listen to the heart beat today. She said it is about 160 beats. Not that really means anything today. Other than it was a very strong heart beat. She said that the "grandmas" would say that means it is a girl. Who knows. We will find out soon enough. I didn't have an ultrasound today, so she is sticking with a due date of Feb 18 for right now.

I also have more news to share with you that my friend Jill is also pregnant. Ted & Jill were the couple that went with us to Ethiopia and picked up 2 daughters. We met for the 1st time just before we went to Ethiopia. They live about 2 miles from us and now we are pregnant at the same time. How fun. If you think that is exciting. Our due date is within days of each other. Maybe we will be at the hospital together too.

Otherwise life is good. Starting to feel a little better. Enjoying summer and loving Jakob.
Have a great night.
Lots of Love,
Mandi & Rick (Jakob too)

Christian Books For Kids!

Hey Friends and Family!

My Aunt Crys is an author of Christian Children's Books. She has written over 50 books that have been published.

She just finished her website where you can order books. You can click on the book that you are interested in and then it will take you to Christianbooks.com to order.

I just ordered two from the site for Gifts. It works great.

I provided the link at the right by my other links so it is easy to access.

Her web address is http://www.crystalbowman.com/.

Jakob likes looking at the books.

I know your kids will love the books too. They also make great gifts for others.

Happy Reading!

Love,

Mandi, Rick & Jakob

A Weekend At the Beach!

The weekend started out with a restful Saturday. We had a birthday party on Saturday night. It was my mom's 30th Birthday. Here is a picture from the party. My great grandma, my grandma and my mom and me. It was a fun time. I slept most of the party, but I heard it was fun.
On Sunday we spent the day at the beach. It was my 1st time to the beach. I really liked the sand at 1st but after playing a while , I changed my mind. I really don't like sand.
We had a group of people from mom's work join us at the beach. We played Volleyball, swam in lake Michigan and ate food. I loved to play with my papa.
My auntie was there too. It was really fun. She is good at Volleyball.
Eventhough daddy really doesn't like the sand much. We had a fun time together.
What a fun weekend. The weather turned out to be beautiful for our party on Sunday. Thank you everyone who came to the birthday party it was fun.
Enjoy the pictures. Still no luck on posting the video. We will keep trying.
Lots of Love,
Jakob & mom & dad

It's About Time...The real reason of not posting lately!

Sorry for the delay in posting. Things have been a bit crazy around here. We hope to be back on track and posting regularly soon.
Here are some recent pictures for you to enjoy.

Jakob likes Popsicles.
He definately needs a bath after eating a popsicle.
He still loves his bath.
We used this bright orange basketball to get Jakob crawling. He was cute posing by it too.

This video was taken when Jakob 1st starting crawling. He is now crawling everywhere. He is pulling himself up on furniture, starting to take stairs and likes to walk holding your hands. He is very active. Here is a fun video of him starting to crawl.

Video to go here. So for some reason blog spot is not letting me post the video here. I will work on it over the weekend and it get it going.

Jakob still has no teeth, but is definately working on them. We spend many hours bonding during the night with Oral Gel. .

Jakob weighs 22 lbs and 12 oz. He is continuing to grow rapidly.

So for the real reason of not posting.....

I have been completely exhausted and feeling very sick. I had a lot of abdomonal pain so I went to the doctor. I told him that I was sick of having cyst and endometrosis. Let's just take it out. They advised me that now was not a good time. I am pregnant. SURPRISE!

I am due in February. Interesting how things work isn't it. God says he will never give us something we can't handle. However I have had many days lately where I have questioned it. We always manage to make it, but I can't help but wonder.

Here is how my Thursday morning went - Jakob had a horrible night. He was up often. Typically I get up at 6:30 and take a shower and he wakes up between 6:45 and 7:30. No problem. Well this morning he was up at 6:15. Screaming none the less. We make friends with the Oralgel and a little tylenol. Finally at 7:00 he stops and starts to dose off. Completely exhausted I dose off. We wake up 1/2 hour later. He is doing better so we proceed to breakfast because at this point I had to have food, I thought I was going to throw up. I put him in the bath hoping to relax him and get him dressed. He was doing well, so I put him on the floor in my room so I could jump in the shower and get ready. He did great. Much to my surprise when I get out of the shower Ginger is throwing up all over the floor. Standing there in just a towel, trying to get Ginger from not walking through the puke, Jakob eyes it and belines right for it splashing his hands in it. Immediately I grab my cell phone in desperation and call Rick at work. He comes home for a few minutes to help bail me out. We finally made it work only a hour & 1/2 late.

Overall I am starting to feel better and am approaching 10 weeks. My energy is starting to come back, but just a day of work and taking care of Jakob wipes me out. I will try harder to post more often.
We have my 30th Birthday party tomorrow night and Sunday we are taking Jakob to the beach. So we should have some fun pictures to post over the weekend.

Check back again soon.
Thanks for your support and continued reading.
All our love,
Rick, Mandi & Jakob

Congressman Pete Hoekstra & I!

I went to work with my mom this morning. It was a special day at Quality. Congressman Pete Hoekstra was pumping gas for customers and talking with customers about the economy, gas prices, fun things like that. Here is Congressman Pete Hoeskstra, my mom & I.
Here I wanted to get down and crawl in the parking lot.
Mom says she has to catch you all up on lots of information. She has been very tired this week and will post later tonight all the information. I'm crawling! She has video to prove it.
Have a fun day.
Love, Jakob.

Happy 4th of July!

Hello Everyone!
We are very sorry that it has been so long since our last post. We have been pretty busy over this past week. We will go into details this coming week. However life is good. Jakob is growing. We have been out at the cottage since Wednesday night. We were without power for over 2 hours Wednesday night before coming out here. Once out here we had a garage sale on Thursday, Friday and today. Wish we would have sold more, but oh well. We sold some stuff.
Here are some pictures of the weekend so far. The weather has been beautiful and we have spent lots of time outside.

Cousin Isaiah and Rick go for a golf cart ride. Enjoying the beautiful day.
We saw Jakob's friends Zuri, Josie, Paige, Madison, Luke & Carson and tons of other people at fireworks on Friday night. We were able to watch the fireworks from inside and Jakob really kept his eye on them.
Jakob sitting by the garage sale enjoying the morning.
Uncle Jon and Jakob sitting in the pool. Jakob spent lots of time chilling in the pool.
Nothing else new around here. Jakob is so close to crawling he starts to go, but just doesn't keep going yet. Maybe a video this coming week of it.

Have a great weekend.

Lots of Love,

Rick, Mandi & Jakob