Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

I’m cheating this year and sending out a Christmas E-letter; forgive me!! I hope all is well with all of your families and that you are taking time this year to stop and remember the birth of our Savior.

It has been a busy year in the Prox household—we started out running (err…driving) on January 1st and just kept going! I started the year by driving to MN on New Year’s weekend so the best doggy surgeon in the country could operate on our dog’s knee. (Thanks Dr. Katie!! He’s doing great!) A 26 hour drive is long enough but I was 7 months pregnant so, Dr’s order’s, I had to stop for 10 minutes every 2 hours. That makes for a very long drive! Kyylyn was out of commission for 8 weeks—crate and leash walked for 8 weeks!! It was torture on all of us! We went through a LOT of acepromazine—for the dog not me!

Our new baby was suppose to be born on April 3rd so I quit (yes, totally quit!) my job at Animal Health Center two weeks before that. I was planning on one week of Spring Cleaning and one week of doing nothing. Well, the cleaning got done but on March 28 (my first day of “nothing”) my water broke at 9 am. Josh, who had gotten off work at 8 am, had just gone to sleep, so I had to wake him up to take me to the hospital. He made it through the day on coffee and adrenaline and at 8 pm that night we were holding a 6 lb 14oz, 19 inch long beautiful baby girl. Charys Alyzabeth had made her appearance a week early. By the way, her name is pronounced Care-iss A-lizabeth, and it means “a special kind of kindness” (ask Josh about that one). She has been a wonderful blessing from God!!

The end of May we bought a house in Ozark, Alabama, about 20 minutes from where we’d been living and from Josh’s parents. (Who, by the way, are thrilled to have one of their grandchildren near! The other is in Germany!) Josh loves owning his own piece of God’s earth. It is a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, with large kitchen and laundry room, as well as a carpeted den. The rest of the house is hardwood floors—they are beautiful! It also has a huge fenced in back yard (that Kyylyn enjoys) and is in a nice quiet neighborhood that I enjoy taking my morning walks in.

I started Happy Tails Pet Services (Josh came up with the name) and do some pet sitting, dog training and puppy classes. This month marks 2 years for Josh as a security guard on the Army base near our home. The company he works for (CDA) was in the process of switching to a new company (Santa Fe) in May. The week before we were suppose to move, Josh (who was working nights) found out that for the next several weeks he had to do training (during the day! Who needs sleep anyway?!) and multiple doctor visits. (Of course you can’t combine checking blood pressure and a drug test—everyone from the night shift has to come at the same time on two different days and wait for 3 hours each time!!) Some wonderful friends from our church got us moved to the new house so Josh didn’t have to worry about it. When the new company took over, Josh was moved to a tough schedule 3 days, 2 nights. It was suppose to last for 3 weeks tops, 3 months later he was still on it. He did eventually get to the schedule he is on now, which is wonderful! He works Friday to Tuesday 5:30 AM to 1:30 PM. So, we get to enjoy our afternoons and evenings together.

In July we flew out to Colorado for a 10 day visit at my parent’s house. Both of my brothers and their families were there with us, so we had a wonderful time! The nieces and nephews had a great time and they all adored baby Charys. God has blessed us with a wonderful family on both of our sides!

Charys is now 9 months old and just as sweet and beautiful as can be (ok, so I’m a little biased, but she is!) She is crawling around and just last week crawled up to Josh, pulled herself up on his leg and said “Da Da”; I think she actually knew what she was saying!!!

Well, that was our wonderfully busy year--God truly has blessed us!!!


With all our love,

Josh, Sarah and Charys Prox

New Arrival

Hey everyone!

Well the newest member of the Prox family arrived--and she came one week early!! My water broke Saturday March 28th at 9:15 AM. Poor Josh got a whole hour of sleep after working all night before he had to get up and take me to the hospital. We got there at 11 and I was dilated to 4. I got my epidural and at 8 pm Charys Alyzabeth arrived. (By the way, her name is said Care-iss Ah-lizabeth--and yes, she has a burp rag with the pronunciation embroidered on it!!!). My mom flew into Panama on the following Monday and just left on Tuesday. It was wonderful having her around!!! She cooked and cleaned when I didn't feel like doing anything--and she helped on the night shift before Charys had her days and nights straightened out!! She was wide awake for several hours each night. (ok, so all 3 of us were!!). She about has it figured out now--she eats and goes back to sleep--which is very nice since I'm on my own at night--Josh works midnight to 8 am. She will stay awake for 1-2 hours twice a day and then sleeps the rest of the time. Which is nice--I can usually get at least one nap in during the day. I haven't quite gotten the hang of getting up every morning and having breakfast ready for Josh yet, but I'm working on it!! And I'm proud of myself--he has had breakfast several times this week :o) Right now I'm hanging out at my in-laws watching movies on TV. Josh is sleeping and hasn't called that he's awake yet but he should be getting up soon.

I'm loving being able to stay home with the baby!! And I'm really loving that I'm not going back to work!! I'm not sure how we'll pay off medical bills but I guess God will have to provide for us.

We also have a contract on a house in Ozark--we're waiting for the loan people to inspect the house to make sure its up to par. It's a USDA loan so the house has to pass their standards. If we get it I'll put pictures up and tell you all about it. It would also be nice to have a bigger house b/c I wouldn't have to be as quiet in the house while Josh sleeps, our house is not really small, just laid out weird, so I try to stay pretty quiet so he can sleep.

Anyway--just in case you're not on facebook--here's some pictures of Charys!!! (sorry I don't know how to turn the pictures the other way--I know I'm not high-tech at all!)

WOW......

Hey look at this!!!!! After several months of not being able to sign into my blog--the computer decided to let me sign in!!! How cool is that!!!!! Anyway--I do apologize for not writing, but I just didn't get to a different computer to write.

As of this coming Thursday, Lord willing, I have 5 weeks (give or take a little!) before we are holding our little girl!! She's due on April 3rd and I could be wrong, but she may decide to come on March 28th, for 2 reasons. #1 My mother-in-law said it couldn't be on that day b/c they are going to Atlanta to watch the play The Passion of the Christ and #2 my mom said not to have her the last 2 weeks of March since she already has 3 grandkids born those 2 weeks. And since I have SO MUCH control over that they are telling me this :o) I guess we'll just have to wait and see what the baby decides!!

I'm still working for now, I'm trying to take at least one afternoon off every week just b/c I get so exhausted by the end of the week. And today happens to be my afternoon off. Which I desperately need. I have to pay bills and then do dishes--other than that I am going to relax and put my feet up!!!

So updates from the past several months. The pregnancy is going fine and we decided on a name--Charys Alyzabeth (pronounced Care-is Alizabeth), like I said, she's due April 3rd but we shall see :o) She may be an April Fool's baby like her Aunt Ashleigh (so if we call y'all on that day to tell you--we're not making it up!!!)

Kyylyn tore the cruciate ligament in his knee, so over New Years I made a very long, very quick trip up to Minnesota (about 26 hours there and 23 or so on the way back--yes I stopped for two nights!). I got up there late Thursday evening, Dr. Katie did the surgery on Friday and I left Saturday am to head back to the warmth of AL. It was SOO great to see my "family" up there!!!! Heartland will forever be "My clinic" even when I'm working somewhere else. The Lord was gracious and I got to drive in the week between two massive snowstorms. Kyylyn's been on cage rest since-though the last week we've let him loose in the house finally. And for any of you who know my dog--yes, we went through a LOT of tranquilizers!!!! He is very ready to be off restrictions--we'll take x-rays on Friday and see if he is free to go yet---I hope so!!!! He is SOOOOO hyper!!!!!

Josh found out his new work schedule 2 weeks ago. It'll be interesting...He's now working nights; Midnight to 8 am, Wed thru Sun. And the first week he got changed to that we had revival meetings at our church every night, so it was a tough week for him--he didn't get a whole lot of sleep!!! We had the Musical Merrills at our church (www.musicalmerrills.com) and they are wonderful!!! I really enjoyed the music and the preaching.

Well I think that about sums up things for now. Again a apologize for not writing the last many months--I would occasionally check to see if it would let me on and low and behold--it worked today!!!!!!

I'll talk to you all later--hopefully in not too long :o)

Sarah

Here it is....

Hey Everyone,

Ok so this the "official" announcement I guess--for those of you who don't know yet :o) Lord willing, on April 3rd, Adyson will be a big sister. I went and got my first ultrasound 2 weeks ago at 13 weeks. (yes Josh came with me--I refuse to go to apointments alone anymone) Everything looks fine so far and according to the ultrasound tech we have a "very active little one". (um, must be related to it's daddy :o) It had it's little feet sticking straight up and kicking and would wave it's little hands (couldn't get a picture of that) and it had the hiccups and the little mouth would open every time it would hiccup and it's whole body would bounce! It was adorable!! (no we don't know boy or girl yet--can't tell that for a few weeks yet.)
I must admit I was very very scared going into that apt--I have not had good experiences my last 3 ultrasounds. I was crying the whole time. But for the first time after that I got excited, still very scared, but at least a little bit excited. I still have my moments of "flashbacks" to different times with Adyson and will start crying out of the blue. I suppose that's normal. I do wish for the "naively happy" pregnancy again though. I didn't have it for long but it was great while it lasted. Guess I probably won't ever have that again. Oh well.

But SO FAR this one seems healthy and all is going well!! (other than health insurance, but that's another story). So here's the ultrasound pictures of our 2nd child.