Livermore Christmas

Tonight we had Christmas with Josh's parents and brothers.

Abram and Uncle Jon (who is newly engaged to the beautiful Rachel) Congratulations!

 

Rachel & Abram

Whoa Dude 

 

Abram and Grandpa Martin

Great Grandpa Rex made this great tractor and a car for Abram.

 

Yeah!  A glow-worm!!

Abram giving Grandma Linda a great big hug

I love you Uncle Nick!

Comstock Christmas

My parents and Andy came over yesterday to celebrate Christmas.  Abram was all rested up and ready to go with present-fest #2.  He knew exactly what to do.  The best present of all for Abram was spending some quality snuggle time with Grandpa Terry since Grandpa is up in Duluth we don't get to see him as much as we would like.

Abram emptying out his stocking

 

He got a stuffed basketball which was almost as cool as the shiny paper!

 

Abram had such a good time with nana and grandpa

 

A little help from grandma

 

Tito go in on the action too

 '

How cool - my very own phone - now I can stop chewing on mama's phone

This present is bigger than I am

Abram got papa his own cheesemaking kit.

 Uncle Andy and Abram

Snowed In!

As I mentioned in the last post we were snowed in until just about 8 minutes ago when which is the first time a plow came down the street.  While the main streets in Omaha had been plowed all along the side street that Chris and Vicki live on wasn't plowed until tonight (Saturday) the snow started fall this past Wednesday.  Below are some pictures of us trying to dig out.

Due to our layers I'll tell you who is who.  I'm in orange, Andy is in red and Chris is in black.

Our little Matrix was completely covered!

A very, very kind neighbor came over with his snowblower and helped with the end of the driveway which probably cut the shoveling by an hour or tow.  The entire driveway was drifted from 2 - 4 feet.

This was taken from inside the garage looking into the driveway.

Thank you Uncle C and Aunt V for putting up with all of us!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!  I am writing this on day five of our snow-bound Christmas getaway to Omaha, Nebraska.  We had intended to come over on Wednesday evening and head up to Sioux Falls, SD for Josh's family Christmas.  Our plans were derailed when a snow storm (Josh calls it Snowpocalypse 2009!) threatened our celebrations.  We tried to outsmart the storm by leaving on Tuesday ahead of the predictions.   While we managed to get to Aunt Vicki and Uncle Chris's before the storm hit we didn't manage to escape it's wrath.  We have been snowbound for the past 5 days (I'll include shoveling pictures in my next posting.

While we were stuck at least we were stuck with family...

anyhow we've made the best of it and have enjoyed Chris's wonderful cooking.  Unfortunately Grandpa Terry, Great-Grandpa Terry and Uncle Randy all had to celebrate on their own due to the weather. 

Weather aside we had a wonderful first Christmas with Abram.  He got the hang of unwrapping presents pretty quickly.  He was definately spoiled by his Uncle Andy and he's loved all the attention.

Abram with G.U.C. (Great Uncle Chris)

Abram showing Uncle Andy some love.

I'm so glad we were able to make it out to see my grandpa Clayton before the weather got too bad.  Pictured here is four generations. 

Abram getting a tickle attack from mama.

Abram and papa on Christmas morning.

Playing with a new 'talking' book

This is the cutest - he got a toothbrush in his stocking and was so excited about brushing his teeth we actually had to take it away because he brushed for so long.

Abram got a ride-on Tonka Truck from mama and papa.  He's still too small to ride by himself but he loves to push the horn.

G.A.V. (Great Aunt Vicki) had some reindeer antlers that were pretty cool.

We hope you all had as wonderful a Christmas as we did.   Here is a video of Abram opening a present on Christmas Eve http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWQEQfOJ4vI

Aunt V comes to town

 Aunt Vicki  came to stay and play while Josh was at "Deer Camp".  I was unable to figure out how to get the pictures from this website, but click here to see pictures from the visit.  Thanks for coming Aunt V!
http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=utt90nz.3cdizlyj&x=0&h=1&y=-lfke78&localeid=en_US

7 Months

Abram turned 7 months on the 17th.  He is growing everyday and is an extremely happy and flirtatious baby!   He has perfected sitting up but shows no signs of further advancement (i.e. scooting, crawling, scaling Mount Everest).  He's come to the realization that through very little effort Mama and Papa will pick him up and move him to wherever his heart desires.

Yesterday I had the hiccups and Abram thought it was the funniest thing he had ever seen (which doesn't take much when you're only 7 months old).  He was laughing so hard Josh got out the camera and took some pictures and we uploaded our first video to YouTube.  We decided we had to share Abram's contagious laughter with the world.


                              Video of Abram Laughing:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFASQ4rf53s 

 

December

First of all, I can't believe it's December.  Where did Fall go?  Anyway - we've been busy.  Abram had a friend from school over this weekend (along with her parents) and we made Christmas cookies for their teachers. 

Abram and Katelyn after cookie baking

Liz came over to help watch Abram so Josh and I could get some chores done.  He looks pretty comfortable!


Just to warn you this next story has nothing to do with Abram and is pretty much the ramblings of someone who spent to much time in the cold.

For those of you not in the midwest, we had about 10 inches of snow this past week.  Josh and I both spent time in the driveway shoveling late into the night.  Josh started at one end while I watched Abram and then once he got tired he came inside and I went back out.  This was really cold, wet, heavy snow that stuck to the shovel.  So as I'm scooping only a few bits of snow would come off and the rest would still be stuck on the shovel so it was a long process.   As I got closer to reaching the part of the driveway Josh had already scooped I got excited and was reminded of the main character in the movie Shawshank Redemption.

He was digging his way out of jail....I'm digging my way out the driveway
He could only dig as fast as he could bring the dirt out to the yard in his pant leg...I could only dig as fast as I could knock off the snow
When he finally escaped it was raining...When I reached the end it was snowing

I was so happy with my analogy that I made Josh take a picture of me after I finished.  I've inserted a picture of Andy after his prison escape to show you how similar we are :)  Happy Winter!

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  Abram had a great time with both sets of grandparents.

Abram and Grandpa Terry got some good cuddling time in.

Abram doesn't look to happy about being on Grandpa Martin's lap :)

 

In addition to having tons of fun at Thanksgiving Abram learned to sit up on his own.

 

Here he is playing on one of Uncle Andy's old toys.

6 Months!!!

Abram turned 6 months old on the 17th. We can hardly believe it's been 6 months. He's pictured here with Papa and some Yummy's pumpkin cake that we're going to enjoy on his behalf. Currently some of his favorite things include laughing, reading books, being tickled, drinking milk and anything to do with paper (eating, crunching, tearing, etc.). We have been blessed with about a week and half of him sleeping through the night so we feel like a new family! We are enjoying while it lasts.

Fabulous Fall Fun

This past weekend we were able to spend a very short weekend with Josh's friends from college at a lovely cabin in NE Iowa.  Abram was enamored with all of his new friends.  He is definitely a cuddle bug and ate up all the attention.  This Thanksgiving gathering has been occuring since 2005 and always includes good friends, too much food and very creative photo shoots. 

Josh and I need to work on our modeling skills but it seems Abram is a natural.

John and Abram bonding - they even created their own secret handshake

Mary, Abram and John

Jasper was the best man at our wedding and has been traversing the eastern seaboard of the United States the past few years so this was the first time Abram has met him.  They seemed to have hit it off.

I was trying to capture a moment - the cabin has no T.V. and so everyone was gathered around a radio listening to the Hawkeyes game.  Unfortunately the game didn't end so well but luckily we had all kinds of delicious Thanksgiving food to drown our sorrows in after the game had finished.

Thanks so much Jenna for arranging a wonderful weekend!