Resolutions....Happy New Year!

We can't believe how fast this year has flown by for us! We have experienced so many blessings in 2008....mainly becoming parents for the first time! We look forward to what the year 2009 will bring our way! Josh and I have made our resolutions....me, to lose my pregnancy weight...I still have a ways to go :-(...and Josh wants to eat healthier and lose some weight too. Ty's resolution is to sleep through the night and let mom and dad put him down without screaming! :-) Together, our resolutions are to be more disciplined in reading our Bible and devotional books, and to be more devoted to praying together as a family. We wish you all a Happy New Year, and hope the new year brings you numerous blessings!

Ty is rolling over!

Ty was playing with his new Christmas toys on Monday, and he surprised me by rolling from his belly to his back for the first time! I quick grabbed my camera to get a video of it! Yay Baby Ty!

Our Christmas

Well, we hope everyone had a fabulous Christmas! We had a great, but very busy, Christmas back home in Cincinnati. Lots of family events to make it to, and many of our family members met Ty for the first time! So let me tell you about our eventful Christmas. To start it all off, I get a call from Josh the day before Christmas Eve telling me he was on his way to the emergency room! Yikes! Turns out, he was training with some guys (boxing) and his cheekbone split open while slipping a punch. So, Josh spent this Christmas explaining what happened to his eye! I wish I could take the credit for it, but no, I didn't knock him out! :-)

Ty's first Christmas and daddy has a black eye! Lol!

Josh, Ty, and I had our own little family Christmas on Tuesday night, because we went back to Cincinnati on Christmas Eve. Here is a picture of Ty with his new Transformer toy that is almost as big as he is!

Christmas Eve was spent at my sister's house with my dad's extended family. Here are some pics:

Grandma Mertz and Great Grandpa Mertz with Ty

Cousins! Maddie and "Ty-Ty" (as Maddie calls him)

Aunt Lisa and Maddie-girl

Great-Aunt Debbie

Uncle Bubby and Ty

Great Grandma Mertz

Aunt Michelle

Great-Aunt Peggy and second cousins Natalie and Molly

We spent Christmas Day with Josh's immediate family, and the Saturday after Christmas with Josh's mom's extended family. Here are some pics!

Aunt Brandi and Uncle Chris

Mamaw Kinsel

Papaw Kinsel and Cousin Gabrielle

Great-Aunt Kathy

Great-Aunt Donna

Second cousin, Danielle

Great Papaw Stone

Ty got so many toys and clothes for Christmas, it was crazy! Thank you, family, for all the nice things you gave us! Josh and I got some really nice gifts too! We are so incredibly blessed! Josh and I got a Wii (thanks to our friends the Sunderman's) for our family present! We are so excited to get it set up and start playing!

Josh and I also got to have a night out with friends, Matt and Teresa, while we were in Cincy. We had a blast hanging out with them! We also had a blast watching the UFC fights on Saturday night at our friends, the Hupp's, house. It's been a long time since we've done that, and we had so much fun!

So, that was our fun, but busy, Christmas holiday. Thanks, again, to all our friends and family for the awesome gifts, and just being together for the holidays!

Kinsel Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities - Collage - Morph

I found this fun website thanks to my good friend, Kathlyn. Josh and I are always talking about who Ty resembles more, and when I saw this "look-alike meter" I thought it would give us a good answer. As you can see, it says that Ty looks like the both of us equally! I disagree. I think Ty looks just like Josh, although lately more people have been saying he looks like me too. So, I put up a new poll for fun...Who do think Ty looks like?

Merry Christmas!

We just wanted to wish all our friends and family a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We are praying that you all have safe travels, and a happy, healthy holiday season!

Festival of Lights

We went home this weekend to get our crib and changing table from our good friends, Greg and Kathy (see post below), and we also took Ty to his first "Festival of Lights" at the Cincinnati Zoo! Both of our families went, and we had fun spending time with them! Luckily it wasn't too cold, and we bundled up Ty pretty good so he stayed nice and warm! We had a good time!

The Kinsel's and The Miller's

Our niece/cousin, Gabrielle, all bundled up!

Daddy and Ty

Our niece/cousin, Maddie, and "Ty-Ty"

Josh, Lisa, and Ty

Uncle Bubby and Aunt Kelly :-)

Awesome friends!

So, now that Ty has his own room, we needed to get some furniture to fill it! Well, thanks to our awesome friends, Greg and Kathy, we are off to a great start without even spending a dime! They gave us (yes gave us) a crib and the matching changing table! Isn't that wonderful?! The Lord has blessed us by putting truly amazing people, like them, in our lives. We have been so overwhelmed by the generosity of all our friends and families. We don't know where we would be without them! Thanks, Greg and Kathy, you are amazing friends!!!


Josh setting up the crib

Smile! This is so much fun!!!

Finished product!

The mommy cut!

So, last Saturday, we got Ty's 3 month/Christmas pictures taken. While we were waiting, Josh found this adorable reindeer outfit and I made him buy it so we could put him in it for pictures! We also used his Santa outfit. He did so good, and smiled so big for the photographer!

Also, you may notice in our family picture that my hair looks different...yep, I did it...I got a mommy haircut! I always noticed that a lot of mommies get their hair chopped off after they have a baby, and I always told myself I would never do that, that I wanted to keep my long hair. But, I was ready for a change...my hair has been the same for such a long time! I have to admit, it is much easier having short hair! Now I understand why so many mommies get their hair cut short...there's just not enough time to blow dry and style long hair when you have a screaming baby in the background! :-)

So, here are the professional pics:

Baby reindeer

Baby santa

Family pic

Santa Baby!

This is our Santa Baby! Aunt Kathy, Uncle Dennis, cousins Jared, and Parker sent Ty this adorable outfit (thanks, guys!)! He is going to wear it when we go get his professional pictures taken tomorrow. I am so excited for our first Christmas as parents!

Our Thanksgiving Holiday

We had a wonderful trip home for Thanksgiving! We ate lots of yummy food, and got to see our families and some friends who hadn't met Ty yet. We had so much fun visiting our good friends, the Sunderman's and the Hupp's. Both families have the most adorable kids, and we were thrilled to spend time with them. We hope everyone else had a lovely Thanksgiving too! Christmas is right around the corner and we haven't even started shopping...yikes!!!

Our little Thanksgiving Turkey

Matt and Teresa

Liam, Morgan, Katie, and Ty

Kathy and Greg

Avery, Ty, Sydney, and Colton

Huge post to make up for being a slacker!

I apologize, faithful blog followers, for being such a slacker! It has been way too long since I have posted, and there has been so much going on! So, this will be one huge post to update you all on what has been going on in our lives!

First off, Ty got his first immunization shots about a month ago. I thought I was going to cry just watching the nurse stick my baby boy, but I did surprisingly well! Ty was a tough little man, and didn't cry much at all! He got spiderman band-aids, and they were too cute! Ty is doing very well, and growing fast! He now weighs about 10 and 1/2 pounds. He is also smiling and cooing so much now!

A couple weeks ago, we went to Louisville with our friends Jay and Heather (Heather is expecting a baby boy in January) to see the Muhammad Ali Museum. Anyone who knows Josh well knows how much he loves boxing, so we had to take a pic of him and Ty in front of the boxing ring! The Museum was very cool, and we had a lot of fun!

Our friends, Kathlyn and Seth, had us over for dinner a couple of weekends ago. Kathlyn is expecting a baby boy in February, and she has become a very good friend of mine. The dinner and company was excellent, and we had a great time! Thanks, guys!

We also recently got a new laptop computer. Josh had a Dell Inspirion 5160, and we had all kinds of trouble with the power adaptor not working. So, Josh called Dell, and they sent us a brand new computer!

The most recent news that we have to share is that we just moved into a new house this past weekend! Yes, we moved...again! That makes 4 moves in the past 14 months! We are super-excited about this move! We have been trying to get into a house on post at Ft. Knox for many reasons, and on Thursday, Josh called and told me to start packing! So, we started packing on Thursday afternoon, and by Friday evening we were in our new house! Thanks to our friends Katie, Rafael, Lance, and the King family for helping us pack up and move...we couldn't have done it without you! Thanks to Mom and Dad Mertz for watching Ty for us so we could unpack too! So, now we have a newly remodeled 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house on post with plenty of room and storage! It is so much bigger than our old apartment, and now Josh doesn't have such a long commute! We are so blessed to have this new house, and we can't wait to have visitors to show it off!

So, that is what has been going on with us lately! Again, I am sorry I have been such a slacker, I will try not to let so much time pass between posts. We hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!


Here are some recent pictures:



Ty's spidey band-aid!

Daddy and Ty at the Muhammad Ali Museum

Happy Ty in the onesie our friend, Kat, made

Daddy and his mini-me in their Wildcats gear! Dad definitely can't deny him, huh?

Aww, so cute!

Are we seriously moving again?!?

Started packing Thursday afternoon, and moved into our new place by Friday evening!

Our new house!



Our backyard

Guest bathroom

Kitchen with brand new appliances!

We can finally eat at our kitchen table because our place is now big enough!

Huge living room with vaulted ceilings!

Another view of living room

Laundry room

Guest bedroom

Ty has his own room...now we need to get some baby furniture!

Master bedroom

We have a HUGE walk-in closet in the Master bedroom...my favorite part!