A Blessed Mess

Our Decade in Review

Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Yes, our decade. It has been a decade of the Wollenbergs. I'm going to break it all down for you here in this lovely post!

2010: Our Wedding!

On February 27, 2010, Nate and I were married at St. John's Lutheran Church in Arnold, MO. We took pictures at Busch Stadium, danced the night away and then headed off on a cruise to the Bahamas.

2011: Vicarage

From July 2010 to June 2011, Nate served as the vicar for Hanover Lutheran Church in Cape Girardeau, MO. Cape has some of the most fantastic people and we are still blessed to call some of these people close friends almost a decade later.

2012: Nate became a pastor!

Nate was ordained as a a pastor on July, 8, 2012. A couple of weeks after his ordination we moved to McAllen, TX to begin his first call at St. Paul Lutheran Church.

2013: Katie received her first call as a teacher in the LCMS, teaching middle school at St. Paul.

2014: Zoe was born!

Our lil Zobug was born March 8, 2014. Our lives have never been the same.

2015: Traveled to Savannah, GA for Aunt Vivi and Uncle Kurt's wedding!

2016: We moved to Hoyleton!

On December 7, 2016 we rolled into Hoyleton and started our life here. We are so blessed and happy to have been here for 3 years already!

2017: Zach is born!

On April 19, 2017, Zach made his appearance. Much to Mommy's chagrin, he was 5 days late, but waited until Daddy was done with Easter services.

2018: Our first Hoyleton Hofbraufest!

Our first year we lived in Hoyleton we were out of town for Hofbraufest. We learned that we would never make such a grave mistake again and have made sure to be in town for the next two. We LOVE Hofbraufest. We love the atmosphere and we love hanging out with our Hoyleton family for a whole weekend.

2019: Max is born!

Max man entered the world on September 24, 2019. He was a big guy weighing in at 9lbs 9oz but his labor was only 6 hours long start to finish. These days he is smiling all the time. He was the perfect end to our decade.

This decade has proved to bless us beyond measure. We have a wonderful home, church, family and friends. So happy and so blessed.

God is good! That's all for now!

Max is Two Months!

Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Our Max Man is two months old! I can't believe he is growing up so fast. He had a rough first month with all of the medical tests and being in the hospital, but month two has been a lot less calmer. He sleeps about 5-6 hours at night and he eats very well. One quirk that he has is that he eats the best for mama. If someone is having trouble getting him to drink his bottle, when they give him to mama he drinks it right down. Silly boy.

Max was also baptized on November 3rd! This is also Mommy and Daddy's dating anniversary! Max godparents are Angie, Jacob, Caleb and Chloe Kelm. The Kelms are good family friends. Max's middle name, Peter, is the name of Angie's late husband. He was my pastor when I lived in Cincinnati. We are so blessed to have them in our extended family.

Max likes:

Bath time
Eating
Wiggling on the floor
His sister making noises at him
Having socks on
Being held

Max doesn't like:

Being cold
Being hungry
Having the boogers sucked out of his nose
Getting in the car seat
Loud noises

First Halloween! Toy Story Gang

Max is one of the Alien Toys from Toy Story

Smiles!

Making funny faces with Jake!

Max and Leb

Max and Chloe

Max smiling at Jake.

Max and Aunt Vivi

Matching Brothers

That Face!!!!

That's all for now! God is good!

Joyce

Friday, November 22, 2019

Tonight I have been going through many, many pictures working on a photo book for Zoe. I am trying to make a photo book for every year of each of my kids' lives. I'll probably only get to year three for Max. I apologize right now buddy. Anyway, I was going through pictures and came to this one.

This is Zoe with two of my favorite ladies in January of 2018. Norma is sitting next to Zoe and Joyce is helping her in the picture. What is Joyce doing here? She is teaching Zoe how to reload a straw wrapper onto a straw so she can shoot it across the room again. This is my favorite memory of Joyce.

The LWML ladies of my church assemble braille Bible pages on the last Thursday of the month. After braille, they visit their favorite neighborhood bar and grill, The Blue Room. In January last year, they invited me to come along and bring the kids. There we sat in the tiny hole in the wall, Blue Room. Seriously, there might be holes in walls you can see through right to the outside. The Blue Room looks like it may fall down, but I'm pretty sure it should be a national treasure. Anyway, the ladies got Zoe blowing straw wrappers off of straws and when they ran out of ammunition, Joyce made sure to help Zoe reload. Everyone was laughing and having a great time. This is my favorite memory of Joyce because it was just her being her fun self. She was also loving on my girl by playing with her.

Being the pastor's wife, I am blessed to get to meet and build relationships with people that not everyone is privileged to have. I got to know Joyce through LWML. Joyce was a funny and sweet woman. She was one of those women that you couldn't help but smile when you saw her. She was always sending Nate home with baked goods when he came home from visiting Joyce and her husband Kenny, who was home bound.

Joyce was diagnosed with stomach cancer in late 2018 and passed away on Thanksgiving a year ago. As the anniversary of her death comes around, she has been on my mind. Joyce was not only funny and sweet, she was a woman of great faith. Nate and I went to visit her in the hospital hours after she had gotten her terminal diagnosis. We walked in. We hugged her. She told us she was fine with God wanting to call her home but was worried about her husband and who would take care of him. She was just told that she was dying and she wasn't scared, she was just concerned for her loved ones. Over the next few weeks, she declined rapidly and passed away. It hit me hard. I was so heartbroken. I sat at her funeral and sobbed. I had only known her for about 2 years and she had made such an impact on my life.

Once when Nate went to do a shut-in visit with Joyce and Kenny in their home, Nate had mentioned that we have a peach tree. The next time I saw Joyce we were talking about the peaches and I had said that I was afraid of canning the peaches because I had never canned anything in my life. She told me that she was going to teach me how to can peaches. I look out on our peach tree many days and think of Joyce. As I was gathering the peaches with Zoe this year, I couldn't help but be sad that Joyce and I never got to can peaches together.

Even though Joyce never taught me how to can peaches, she taught me these two things: you are never too old to shoot straw wrappers off a straw and have to have faith in all circumstances. Joyce's husband Kenny died three days after her. She didn't need to worry about who was going to take care of Kenny because God called him home too. One day I'm going to can peaches and I am going to show Zoe this picture of Joyce while we can them. I am going to tell her all about how Joyce canned peaches, had fun, and was not afraid to meet Jesus.

That's all for now. God is good.

Max is One Month!

Monday, October 28, 2019

Max man is one month old. If you've been following us on social media, you know that Max has given us a run for our money so far. He has been diagnosed with a tethered spinal cord (read about that here) and laryngomalacia which he will most likely grow out of. He was also hospitalized a couple of weeks ago for some breathing concerns. After all of the tests and scares, the good news is that he is healthy and growing. At his one month check up he was 10 pounds 7 ounces.

Max likes: