Updates on What Happened prior to Oct 28th, 2007

Fall time is upon us now and things are starting to get back to normal here in the Ross household.  Logan is 2 months old and starting to sleep through most of the night.  He is also now smiling and cooing.  Allie is keeping herself busy by getting into anything and everything.  She is also learning to use the big girl potty, some weeks are better than others but we are getting there.  Maddie is in the full swing of Kindergarten and loving every moment.  She has made many friends and really loves her teacher.  Maddie also loves it when she has homework and spends every afternoon do "homework", it really just copying words from books and cutting lots and lots of paper.  Tina is enjoying a bit more sleep and loving being a mom of three. She recently went to her 10 yr class reunion and had a very nice time. Joel is keeping busy with work and Tourney Logic.  Not much else to report except now that Logan sleeps longer times at night you find him staying up later again LOL.  The family as a whole is looking forward to their trip to Orlando coming up in Dec and the Holidays surrounding it as well. We hope that you home is filled with as much love and happiness as ours is right now!!  God Bless you all for being such a special part of our life and helping to make it as happy as it is.

It started off as what seemed to be a fairly normal rainy Monday on August 20th. We went to Tina's NST and Logan failed his NST. He heart rate would decel really low after big movements.  We headed down to OB triage for futher testing. We were there for about 2 1/2 hours for heart monitoring and a ultrasound.  We were sure at about 2:40pm that we were going home soon. When the Doc came into the room he said he was a bit concerned by the fact that at the end of every contraction Tina was having,  Logan's heart rate was was decel'ing. He felt that he was doing something to his umbilical cord and even though things should be fine there was always the chance of it being wrapped around his neck and with Tina in early labor he didn't want to take any chances. So he said to us want to go meet your baby? Of course we said yes  So this was now 2:45pm. Then all of a sudden our room got super busy and we were rather confused because we figured it would be a few hours before it went down but then a nurse says oh you don't know they are aiming for a 3:00 start . So they are flying around getting Tina totally prepped for the OR. She was on her way walking to the OR at 3:10. At 3:45pm Logan was born and we found out that he had his head lodged into Tina's pelvis and they had to use forceps to get him out and also found his cord wrapped around his neck. Thank goodness They decided to take him right then!!! Logan was 8lbs 2ozs and was 20 3/4 inches long, with his head off the charts at 37 cms (average size is 32 cm). Logan is a great baby and is already a huge joy to our family.  Maddie and Allie love their new little brother and enjoy spending time holding him.  Tina is doing well, her BP did go up a bit afterwards but is evening out already.  Joel still has a week off from work before it's back to the grind.  Another big thing happening in our household is Maddie starts kindergarten next week.  Not sure is more excited Maddie or Tina :) We pray that God is continuing to Bless each and everyone of you as he is blessing us.
 

Wow we haven't tried hard enough to keep this site updated and there are are so many things that have happened in the last year to tell about.  As most of you've seen in Feb we announced the impending birth of our 3rd child!!!  We are very excited and have kept his part of the website up to date with pics and info.  However the rest of the site hasn't seen that kind of attention at all... now it's time to catch you all up and hopefully get some new pictures up within in the next week or so.  So much has happened since our last update.  We once again pulled our house of the market due to lack of interest.  Joel also agreed to have a third child if we stayed in this house a bit longer (we plan to be here through 2008 most likely).  We pulled the house at the end of October and we were pregnant for #3 by Christmas time. We had a great Christmas and we were very excited to jump into 2007.  Allie has celebrated her 2nd birthday and just amazes us each and every day as she tries to out do her big sister.  She also seems to think that she is the one carrying the baby and not mommy.  Just after Allie's birthday and right before Easter we found out that we are going to have a little boy.  It was a bit of shock at first but now we are very excited (we thought that it would be a girl because we already had two of them).  May has brought some new stuff into the life of miss Madeline.  She will be done with her preschool in just over a week and preparing herself for Kindergarden starting this fall!!!  It's a very exciting time as she will be 5 very shortly also. Things are going well for Joel at work and he is keeping very busy.  Tina's pregnancy is going well and that is all she could ask for right now!!!

The many curves of life and the sheer pleasure of raising two children has kept us from updating this as much as we really should.  More pictures have popped up here and there but in regards to updates we really stink. Things are going very well for us and we have lots of new news to share.  A big part of our news is that we put our house on the Market again.  This is very exciting for us because we really hope to build in a new neighborhood going in Spring Lake Township.  In regards to what the heck we have been doing for the last few months we'll give you a quick run down. In late February Allie finally started to crawl and this was a very good thing because she hated not being able to do things all by herself.  April 1st Allie celebrated her first birthday and it was a great day. May brought the end of preschool for Maddie and MoPs for Tina.  We went camping for the first time over Memorial Day weekend and it was very very very hot.  Joel and Tina celebrated their 6th wedding anniversary with Tina gone for the morning and the evening spent at a neighborhood block party. Maddie's 4th birthday party and our annual BBQ had a Dora Fiesta theme and it was a great day spent with friends and family. We spent the 4th camping in Bay City and had a really nice comfortable time. Joel turned 29 on July 8th and admitted that it's one too close to being 30. End of July is when we put the house on the market. The latest fun was had last week where we spent the week in Myrtle Beach again with Tina's parents.  It was a very nice time spent by the pools and the ocean.  Tina keeps dreaming that she is going to open the front curtains and find the ocean..she is missing the view and the feelings of being by the ocean can bring. Well that is pretty much all for now but don't worry we have lots to do in the next two months so hopefully good news comes soon about the house and we can share it all with you. God Bless until next time.

Oh my where has the time gone??? Allie is now 10 months old today.  We feel like the last few months flew by with a blink of an eye.  It so unreal how much the girls have grown and changed in the last few months too.  Allie is 22 lbs and 29 inches.  She is in the 95% for height..now where did she get that from. Maddie herself is only 36 inches and 29 lbs.  I think Allie is going to win that weight contest.  Allie is almost crawling and loves to eat big people food especially when her sister sneaks her something.  This has become quite the challenge though for Tina because Maddie is trying to be a mother hen in the not so good ways which also include discipline too.  Allison still has not teeth at this point and no signs of much either.  Maddie is doing well.  She started preschool this fall and talks about it non stop.  She also is in swim classes.  Maddie got tubes again for the second time this fall. They are working great.  This holiday season was a great one. For those that did not receive the annual Christmas letter check back later as we will have a way for you to view it.  Joel is keeping busy with work and is still working from home a lot.  He has only had to travel for two weeks since having Allie.  Tina is just loving being the mom of two little girls and keeps rather busy between running Maddie around, going to the gym, and her new position on MOP's as the creative activities coordinator.  All in all things are going well here and we couldn't thank God more for what he has bestowed upon us.

We know it's been a while since we updated this actual page but as most of you know we were keeping the baby info page updated on a regular basis.  Now that Allison is here we no longer need to keep you informed of Tina's pregnancy.  Allison Grace was born on April 1st at 4:19 pm.  She weighed 7 lbs 3 ozs and was 18 inches.  Tina's c-section went well even though it was her blood pressure that forced Allison to be taken a week earlier than planned.  There was an ultra sound preformed the day before to check lung maturity and it only took 30 min to get the positive result for healthy lungs.   Tina is still having to take blood pressure meds but it looks as though that won't be for much longer as her blood pressure continues to drop.  Allie is doing well and gaining lots of weight.  Maddie is loving being a big sister and she has her moments, but don't all big sisters?  Joel went back to work today and was able to get a good 5 hours of sleep last night too :).  So as you can tell things are going well and we are feeling truly blessed by God at this point.  We hope to have both of the girls dedicated in our church on May 8th, at the 9:15 am service. This also happens to be Mother's Day so we will go out for brunch afterwards, with cake following at our house.  Hope that you are all feeling God's love as much as we are at this point.  God Bless till next time.

Wow it has been way too long.  We are so sorry.  Tina claims most of the responsibility except that Joel changed web hosting services and had yet to show this new way of doing things to Tina as of a week ago.  But that has now all changed.  This past spring and summer went so fast that we are having a hard time remembering all of the fun stuff that we have done along the way.  Well we should probably start with the fun stuff from May and then bring you to date.   Labor day weekend was a very big weekend here.  We took on a large project of knocking out the front picture window and replacing it with two smaller ones and extending the porch across the front of the house, with the help of Tina's parents.   There are new pictures on the Our house page in the photo book.   At the very beginning of June we took a trip to Baltimore over our 4th wedding anniversary.   We drove and it wasn't too bad of a drive.  We did split it in half both ways by staying a night in Independence, Ohio (both ways).  When we arrived in Baltimore we got a quick tour of the neighborhood by Sara and Ryan's house.  For those of you that know them we added pictures of their house in our trip photo book , so check it out.  On our second day we went to the National aquarium which Maddie had a really good time at.  She just loves the fishies.  We then spent the rest of the day strolling around the downtown area.  It was a very nice city to check out.  Also on our trip we spent a day at the Baltimore Zoo.  It's a bit smaller than the one in Battle Creek.  When the trip was all done we agreed it was fun but it was great to be home.  Maddie celebrated her 2nd birthday on July 3rd with a really nice party and gathering of friends and family.   She also said goodbye to her first best friend, Ayla, this July because her Daddy got a new job in Madison, Wisconsin.  Later in the middle of summer we took our newly bought pop-up camper to Midland for 2 nights and saw Joel's Grandmother.  It was nice trip and we can't wait to camp again.   Over Labor Day weekend we set off on our adventure trip to Myrtle Beach.  We called it the adventure trip because we were uncertain as the Weather people were as to the direction that Hurricane Frances was heading.  It took us two days with an over night stop to get to Myrtle Beach.  We had two 1/2 days of sun while we were there.  We didn't do much while we were there.  The guys took two mornings and went golfing while us girls took in the sun.  The afternoons were also spent pretty lazy too.  Labor Day was rainy and we went shopping.  As you can guess the girls had more fun than the guys.  Tina's parents were to leave on Tuesday and us on Thursday, but due to the remains of Frances heading our way we packed up and head home with them.  As we left South Carolina we would get about 30 min or so out of a county and there would be Tornado Warnings for them.  Also that night after we got of North Carolina parts of I-40 was closed and we had to take part of I-40 to get home.  So needless to say we were so glad we did leave because Myrtle Beach got lots of rain and storms for the following few days.  That weekend was also a very big weekend for us other than Tina's Dad turning 50.  We were able to tell our parents that we are expecting our second child in April.  So as you can see these last 6 months have been rather busy.  Hopefully Tina can do a better job of keeping things going on here even with this second one on the way and all.  Until next time, God Bless you all.

Hello out there.  Bet you all were beginning to think that we forgot about you.  Well we didn't and we are still alive and doing great.  Time can really fly by when you are having a ton of fun.  Things in the Ross household have been really keeping us all on our toes.  A lot has happened since the last update.  Joel and Tina celebrated their 3rd anniversary this June and Maddie gave them a present that they would never forget.   She decided that today is the day I'm done crawling and use my feet to fly around the house.  Maddie also celebrated her first birthday in June with style as Elmo took the main stage as the theme to her party.  We took the house off the market at the end of August due to the fact that we couldn't find a new home and had no offers made on ours.   Tina tried going back to school this fall but was unable to imagine not being involved in Maddie's life as much as she had been in the past, so she has postponed her last five classes for a few more years.  She then decided to baby-sit two boys from across the street, Caleb who is 12 and Cole who is 4, a few days a week after school and is just loving it.  Maddie also has made a new friend out of this adventure, she and Cole are inseparable when the boys are here.  Maddie and Tina also went back to swim class this fall and made yet another new friend who lives a block around the corner.  Ayla is 3 months  younger than Maddie, and she comes over once a week for 3 hours while her Mommy (Amy) gets their house ready for a new baby due in September.  Christmas was a bit hectic we spent 5 days straight from Christmas Eve making the rounds.  As you can guess we were all jollied out by the end of the 5 day run.  Joel's job with Sagestone has been keeping him very busy.  He started a company with the friend that got him his job at Sagestone.  The name of their company is Tourney Logic, please feel free to check out their site.  The best way for to describe what they are doing is to say that they build pool management software.  It has been used by some very big companies this March to run pools for March Madness.  I'll let you check out the site to find out who they are, you will also see why I'm not mentioning the biggest one in this update.  As we look forward to the summer we are planning on making a few trips and just enjoying our time being able to go more places than last summer.  We will start the summer with a trip to see Tina's cousin Sara and her husband Ryan in Baltimore.  We hope to get season passes to Michigan adventure to enjoy being able to live so close and if you are up for a lazy day  in a water park let us know and we can join you there.  We then plan to end the summer with a trip over Labor Day to Myrtle Beach with Tina's parents to celebrate her Dad's 50th birthday.  We think it's a bride so we won't throw a party, it worked :).  That is all for now and we promise to do better on keeping you updated as now Tina knows how to upload the new info.  God Speed.

Well we have some very exciting news to share with all of you.  As of May 19th, our house will officially be on the market.  I am sure many are saying, "wow but they just moved out there 2 years ago".  We sure did and found out real quick that our life was still in the Grand Rapids area.  With Joel traveling to Cascade everyday, which is close to a 45 minute drive and going to church in Rockford every Sunday.  We have found that we are really putting some miles on our cars and it makes for a long day for Joel.  We are either looking to buy or build in the Cedar Springs area.  This will bring us so much closer to all of the things that we do on a regular basis.  So as you can tell we are very busy.  We forgot to mention in our last update that we had bought our first mini van.  Tina absolutely loves to drive the 2001 Chrysler Town and Country.  We think Maddie loves it too because she can see out much better.  Speaking of Maddie, her birthday is only a month and a half away.  We are going to have a huge bash for her on June 28th.  You are all invited to share in on the fun.  Maddie is also very close to walking now.  Just this week she was sitting on the floor in the middle of the room and decided to stand up.  She did this without the help of anything around her, and she is doing it all of the time.  Her new words are baby, puppy, Elmo (well sort of, it sounds pretty close), and we think she said her name a few weeks ago.  She also has two bottom front teeth now, that make for a great grin.  So that is really all there is for now.  As news comes up about the house we will let you know.  Until then God Bless all of you.

It's weird to look back at our previous updates and to see how much Maddie continues to change.  Since our last update Maddie has learned to crawl and really gets around now. She is into pulling on speaker wires and climbing the stairs and using her toys as jungle gyms, which of course is not what they were meant to be used as.  Maddie is also walking along furniture and getting into everything that she finds, especially what Mommy doesn't see.  She is really babbling up a storm now and says Mama, Dada, Bye bye (which sometimes includes a goodbye wave), Hi, Bob (we have no idea where that came from), and a word that sounds a bit like doggie.  Most of her time is spent trying to chase the cats around the house and climbing all over Kelsey, who tolerates it very well.  It's amazing how fast almost 9 months has gone. We are already talking about how we want to spend her 1st birthday.  We recently found out that Maddie's Uncle Brandon is moving home from California and this has made all three of us very happy.  Well that is all for now.  We will continue to try and update at least once every other month.  Maddie will have her 9 months pictures taken at the end of March so watch for those to be up very soon.  Until then God Bless.

Hard to believe how time flies by.  It has been 6 months since we had Maddie but yet it seems just like yesterday.  Maddie is doing a ton of new things.  She is eating baby food and loving it.  Maddie has learned to roll over, sit by herself, and stand while holding onto an object, other than our fingers, all within the last 2 weeks or so.  So as you can guess things have been very exciting around here and not only because of her new accomplishments, but also it was her first Christmas and we were very busy.  Maddie made out like a bandit this year on Toys.  In fact, that room that use to be a den is no longer.  We now call it Maddie's playroom.  She will not be bored for a long time, for this new playroom of hers is filled to the brim with lots of cool toys. If you stop by you might even find Joel or Tina having just as much fun in there as Maddie does.  There isn't all that much more to talk about at this point.  We hope that you all had a Merry Christmas and that this new year brings you all much joy.

Once again it is time for an update.  Maddie is really the only one doing much changing here in the Ross family.  She just turned 4 months, and we had her pictures taken.  We have a few pictures up from that session and will have more up shortly.  Maddie has a new past time, and it's called testing her vocal cords to see how high of a pitch she can make and how loud it is.  Most times it's rather funny, but there are times when Tina wishes she would go back to enjoying sucking on her shirt sleeve, that was much quieter.  On October 27th Maddie was baptized at Rockford United Methodist Church.  We were very excited to welcome her into Gods family.  Pray for us in our journey that we continue to raise her to become a strong, loving, and Christian woman one day.  If you would like to write her a special message that she will open when she is 16 or becomes a member of the church let us know and we will get you one of the sheets that everyone at the Baptism used.  We would also like to put out a special thanks to all of you that were there to worship and celebrate with us, it was a very special occasion that we will always hold dearly in our hearts.  That is really all for now.  If you check back on November 20th there will be more pictures up to view.  Until our next update, Godspeed.   

Hello all.  Things are going great here in the Ross household.  As you can see from the Maddie page that she is growing more and more every day.  She is starting to eat cereal and baby food now.  Her favorite is beans, go figure!!!  She loves to smile and is really trying hard to laugh but right now it's more of a cackle.  Maddie is also working on trying to roll over.  Her thumb has become her number one thing to suck on, unfortunately it means that her shirt sleeves are getting soaked too.  If we gave Maddie the choice to stand up all day by hanging onto our fingers I am pretty sure she would take us up on the offer, for this is her favorite thing to do at this point.  When she isn't standing she is wanting to sit in a sitting position.  She continually amazes us with her new tricks everyday.  In fact today for the first time she grabbed a toy that Tina was holding in front of her from Tina's hands.  Well that really is all for now.  Not much has changed for Tina and Joel, but we will let you know if it does :).

Things have really changed in the Ross house.  As most of you know on June 29th 2002 at 4:22 am we were blessed with a beautiful baby girl, Madeline Jade.  Our lives have been forever changed and she has stolen our hearts.  Tomorrow Maddie will be two months old.  It is so hard to believe that she has blessed our live the last two months in so many ways.  She continues to grow everyday.  She now has mastered the art of smiling even when she isn't suppose to, like when she is suppose to be eating.  She also loves to spend her days cooing at her bears that hang above her swing.  Joel swears that she even got into a fight with them once.  She has made up with them since and they continue to find new things to talk about every day.   We have added some new pictures of her on her website.  Joel's new job is going great and he is really enjoying it.  Tina is also loving her new job as full time Mom.  We will try our very best to stay on top of updates for all of you die hard fans ;-). 

As you can see we once again did not keep our promise to keep you all updated.  A lot has been happening since the last time.  Tina has grown a ton since March, so we actually have picture of her now that you can find on the "All About Baby" page.  We are 36 1/2 weeks along now, and so ready to meet this little one.  Mom and baby are both doing great and everything is going along as expected.  There have been no complications so far and it has been a very wonderful experience.  To make things a little more crazy Joel has decided to leave Crowe Chizek and start a new job at a place called Sagestone.  They are very similar to Crowe Chizek in the fact that they are a consulting company but most of their work is local.  This move came because of Joel's decision to want less travel and more time to do family things.  Sagestone is located on the east side of Grand Rapids and isn't going to change his commute too much.  This move, however, has made us consider moving back close to Grand Rapids in the next couple of years, but there are no plans at this time.  Joel's last day at Crowe Chizek will be June 7th and his first day at Sagestone will be June 11th.  On June 10th we will be celebrating our second anniversary.  This year has been so great for us because God has blessed us in so many ways.  We look forward to sharing the news of our child with all of you real soon.  Until then, I pray that God continues to Bless you all. 

Well so much for staying on top of the website.  There is however an excuse for this late update and it was the temporary death of Joel's computer which houses all of the website program stuff.  Enough excuses, you are probably wondering how everything is going.  The pregnancy is going great we are 24 weeks along and doing great.  Tina has been feeling the baby move a lot lately and is really enjoying the whole pregnancy.  We have had our 20 week ultrasound already and have the picture up on the "All About Baby" page.  We also have a 10 week ultrasound up on that page now too.  We did not find out the sex of the baby, and even if we had wanted to the baby decided to fully keep it from both us and ultrasound technician.  In the next month or so we will probably add a belly shot to the baby's page, but right now Tina really isn't showing all that much of baby yet.  We plan to use the baby page to keep you updated about the baby and look for the announcement of the birth between the end of June and the beginning of July.  We will also put up a ton of pictures too.  Joel is almost done traveling to Ann Arbor, but he will not be done working on a project for Domino's because they have asked him to do more work.  He will be doing the same stuff he has been doing but he can work from home or the office on it now.  Right now this is planned until the end of May but we are hoping for another extension.  For now that is all of the new news that we have for you and we promise to try to keep you all better updated.  Have a great Easter and a wonderful time spending time with your families on a very special day!!!

Hello Friends and Family.  It has been a while but we are back up and running again.  It's hard to run a website without a cable modem, but as of today we are set to go.  Well as many of you already know the most exciting news that we have to share is the expected birth of our first child on July 2, 2002.  We will keep you all updated as the pregnancy progresses.  On a not as exciting note, Joel has been in Ann Arbor every week now since the middle of August working on a project at Domino's Farms.  He has an apartment down there and leaves every Monday morning and returns on Friday nights.  The hope is that he will be done the end of March, but we will let you know what happens.  Tina has also been going down to Ann Arbor  with Joel some weeks when she isn't busy.  The plan of going back to school this past fall was changed for Tina when GVSU lost her Financial Loan applications and her classes were lost.  The pregnancy was a nice little change in pace and she decided not to go back for the winter semester, so that she could get ready for the arrival of the baby.  She hopes to go back when the baby is a year old.  We will also try and keep things more up to date than in the past so please come back often and visit.  We hope that you all have a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year!!! 

Well this update brings new news!!! We have decided not to build in Belmont after all.  We have found a home in Spring Lake and if all goes well we hope to be moving in, in 2-4 weeks :).  We will of course expect all of you to come visit us ;-).  We are hoping to have a house warming/ BBQ June 9th, but we will let you know more once that actually get closer.  On another note we will be celebrating our 1 year anniversary on June 10th.  It has been a wonderful year and we hope with many many more to follow .  We will be adding pictures of the new house this weekend so be looking for them on here some time next week.

Spring is finally here!!!  I hope that this wonderful time of the year has brought you all new blessings.  Things are going well in The Ross home.  We are currently working with a builder and it looks like we may start breaking ground on our new house in 14 days.  Things have been really busy for Joel he has been back and forth between Boston every week since March. (Only 4 more weeks to go).  He is working on a project right downtown next to the bay for a company called SSgA.  He is really enjoying himself, but is ready to get back to a more normal life.  Tina has been spending her time finishing up this semester of school.  This has been a very rough semester for her and do to this she has decided to take a break for a while from school.  She has also been missing Joel, but was lucky enough to get to accompany him out to Boston for a week.  We had a fun time seeing historic Boston and of course Cheers.  We hope to have a ton more news for all of you within the next few months so watch for an update and more pictures to come.

Well, we made it through the Christmas Season and we are still alive :)
Right now things are looking great!!! We are currently in the planning stages for building our new house in Belmont. The plan is to the house built and ready for move in some time between November -December 2001. At the same time Tina will be graduating from GVSU. (She is so ready) Work is keeping Joel mighty busy this time of the year, but he doesn't mind.

Hello All. I hope that this update finds you all doing well. You are probably wondering what in the world are Tina and Joel up to these days? Well let us tell you.  It has been a crazy start to a new life, we are so busy. Joel will celebrate his one year anniversary at Crowe Chizek next month. He is really enjoying his job. He is also really happy because Hockey season is underway :) Go Wings!!! Tina is keeping herself busy with school at Grand Valley State University. She just added a minor of Anthropology to her course load so that will keep her busy. She has also started an internship at an Adoption Agency called Adoptions of the Heart. She is really enjoying her time there. Again we hope all is going well for all of you.