Just Hanging Out

Erin & Donny stopped by last weekend.  Abram loves visits from his godparents.

Abram is a pro at wearing me out

Abram showing off a pea from his costume

Happy Halloween!

We had a great Halloween.  Peter AKA The Hawaiian Lion and Liz AKA The Great Pumpkin came over for the evening.   They were able to take over trick or treat duty while we took Abram around our neighborhood. 

Peter, Liz and Abram

Abram was the cutest little pea pod we've ever seen!

He was even certified organic

Josh has been growing his beard all year so he could be Teen Wolf - check out those sneaks!

I was a carrot to go with Abram's peas.

The whole family

On Friday Abram dressed up for school as a Moo Cow

Here's my cute little tail - thanks Aunt V for a great outfit!

Family Pictures

Last weekend we took family pictures.  We ended up with great weather and Abram was a trooper.

Some of my favorite shots are below.

5 months old!

Abram turned 5 months old on October 17th.  We had family pictures taken on the 18th, so here is a picture of Abram at 5 months and 1 day of life.  I cannot believe how quickly Abram is growing up! 

Everybody Loves Abram

I had to share this story with you.

Abram did a great job flying to Houston and back until the flight from Dallas to Cedar Rapids when he just got tired and cranky and I'm pretty sure he was having a hard time with the cabin pressurization.

Josh and I tried everything.

Binky...no
Bottle...no
Book...no
Binky again....no
Blanket...no
(babies do have a lot of things that start with 'b')
Anyway we were trying everything when I started singing a song I had made up for Abram when he was first born and still in the hospital.  When I first tried to sing to Abram in the hospital I soon realized I only knew the first couple of lines to any lullabies.  I was determined not to fail at my first parenting challenge so I quickly started singing to him the only thing I could think of......

Momma loves you
Papa loves you
Nana loves you
Everybody loves Abram

repeat

He loved it and quieted right down.  Well we were soon both bored of the first verse so we started adding in Auntie, uncles, and various other family members.  We sung it a lot in the hospital and on occasion since we got back home.  It's an easy song to remember when the baby is screaming and you can't remember your own name let alone the words to a nursery rhyme.  So flash forward to the flight and I started singing the song - I think it's now programmed in as part of my fight or flight response.  As soon as I started singing it he quieted down and started smiling - the crazy kid. 

I sang it a few different times and then stopped once I thought he had calmed down - well he started crying as soon as I stopped so we sang the song over and over and over and over one more time.  We had to get pretty creative with the verses so we began singing things like...

Cows love you
Duckies love you
Horses love you
Everybody loves Abram

Neighbors love you
Strangers love you
The lady in seat 8D loves you
Everybody loves Abram

Josh figured we shouldn't be telling him strangers love him so if you would like to be included in Abram's emergency song let us know and you too can be featured in upcoming editions.

So thank you to everyone's name we used without permission or awarded royalties - and thank you especially to the woman in 8D for putting up with my singing...and the crying....and especially for the smells that were coming out of him. 

Until next time -

Josh, Sara and Abram

Houston

Josh, Abram and I traveled to Houston this past week for a conference.  The conference was great but we were even luckier that my best friend from grad school, Kellie, and her 9 month old son Jake, were able to join us for a day.

Have you ever seen such cute little boys?

Abram tried to hang on to Jake so he couldn't get away. 

Jake and Abram got along well even though I think Abram was quite jealous of Jake's mobility.

It was 90 degrees while we were in Houston and we came back to a windy 40 in Iowa.  Texas sure looks good with weather like that and friends like Jake and Kellie (Jake's dad Kevin teaches school and wasn't able to make it over). Too bad papa Josh still has a look of book learnin' left to do.

Abram did great on the flights and spent the entire time flirting with people on the plane.  He was shocked with what a captive audience he had to entertain.

Winter

I was going to write that fall has skipped Iowa and we've gone straight to winter but as I write this it is 60 degrees and sunny.  The weather has been pretty chilly around here - enough that we've been searching for warm weather baby gear so I thought I was post some pictures of how cute Abram looks in his mismatched outfit.

Abram's about as happy as I am that the cold weather is here.

We are so fortunate to live in a wonderful neighborhood with great neighbors.  We are even luckier that two of our neighbors had babies that are only a few weeks younger than Abram so he already has two little friends on the block.  This past Saturday we celebrated Oktoberfest with a neighborhood party and here is a picture of Josh and Abram, Mike and Annie and Joe and Adele.

If you look closely you'll see socks on Abram's little hands - we've yet to find mittens that will stay on but his socks seem to do the trick!

Update from Abram

Since this is apparently my blog I thought I should be able to say hi to everyone who loves me so much.  Don't tell my mom and dad that I can type - they go crazy when I do new things.  Like I rolled over and they acted like I won the baby olympics or something and when I laugh or giggle they think it's the best thing since strained peas.  Anyway - thank you for being my people and checking up on me, I will try to keep you in the loop with my busy life.

So for starters I've been sick lately, let me tell you it is not very fun.  I cough and sneeze and it's hard to sleep on my back - I'm lucky that my mom and dad love to get up several times a night when I wake up.  When I wake up at 11 and 1 and 3 Papa makes all these great noises - they're the same ones I make - only I grunt because I can't talk.  I think he makes the noises because he likes getting up so much.  Sometimes momma doesn't even realize papa and I have gotten up.  One night momma saw papa get up and go to my crib and then she said, "Well are you going to feed him?" and it was funny cause papa had already fed me and was putting me back to bed - momma had fallen asleep and didn't know...I don't think papa thought it was so funny!

Momma and me on Saturday morning - I gave my sniffles to momma and papa.  Sorry!

It's homecoming week for the Hawkeyes so momma made me dress up.

Papa and Mama's friend Jenna came over to play.  I let her play with my puppet Katie made me.  She thought it was really funny - it takes so little to amuse these old people.

I hope my momma and papa feel better soon -

I'm learning new tricks everyday and they're going to need all their strength to keep up with me.

Momma says if everyone is feeling well we're going to a place called Texas this week - I sure hope everyone is feeling better my friend Jake lives in Texas and I want to be able to meet him.  My momma and his momma went to school together.  I thought school was only for little people but I guess big people go to school too.  My papa goes to school.

He's trying to find someone to pay for his school and books and stuff.  He asked these people called the National Science Foundation for money for his school and he's gonna find out by Christmas if he's going to have money for school - I sure hope he gets it or I'm going to have to take care of him during the day...have you seen how much he eats?

Well it's late and I need my beauty sleep - it takes work to be as cute as me.  Love you!

Abram Comstock Livermore

Summer Squash

Abram has been eyeing our food for awhile so we talked to his doctor and started him on rice cereal about a month ago - he's been sick the past week or so with a cold so we haven't been giving him the cereal because it was hard for him to breathe and he was sneezing a lot.  Sneezing and cereal do not go well together.

Once he was feeling better we tried cereal again and he decided that the cereal wasn't nearly as yummy as it was before.  Since he was still interested in our food we decided to try something a little more adventurous than cereal in hopes that he would like it.  After much debate (really) we decided on summer squash that I had blended and frozen a couple of weeks ago.  We had high hopes he would be so grateful for something other than cereal or milk that he would gobble it up.

Things are looking good...

still interested...

You have got to be kidding me!  This tastes like pureed squash - handover that cheeseburger papa!

Some of Abram's Favorite Things

I don't update the blog very often because we're all pretty busy around our house, so I go a little nuts when I get time to do updates.   Here are a few of Abram's favorite things

1.  Milk
2. Making people laugh
3. Books
4.  Waking up at 5 a.m. (he is very happy at this time of day)
5. Bouncing in his new chair
6. Starring at himself in the mirror...He's so vain...I'll bet he thinks this blog is about him...he's so vain...
7.  Giggling
8.  Taking baths
9.  Peeing in his bath
10.  Plotting world domination

Thank You NaNa!

Abram was able to come with momma to the Iowa Cancer Summit in Ankeny this past Wednesday - Friday because Nana Comstock came down to stay with him.  Nana and Abram read books, played patty-cake and generally stole the show whenever he came down to meet mommy's co-workers.

We didn't even get any pictures because mommy was busy working and Nana was busy taking care of me.

Thank you Nana for coming and playing with me -

Love you-

Abram

Our Lil' Pumpkin

Abram is celebrating the beginning of fall in his pumpkin outfit.

Unfortunately the little guy has the sniffles and had to stay inside all weekend - hopefully he'll feel better by Monday.

Grandpa Terry drives right by Cabella's on his way to visit Abram and he couldn't resist these long underwear.  Thanks Grandpa!

Abram gets a new form of over stimulation

Josh learning Portugese

Erin and Donny were also visiting when we were putting together our cat mansion - Donovan and Josh are getting great at deciphering technical writing in Spanish.

Step 1:  Insert Child....no that can't possibly be step one (this was seriously step one - Mama even checked)

Step 2:  Insert brightly colored fabric thingy into toilet shaped plastic thingamabob

Step 3:  Stub toe on protruding metal piece

Step 4.5 Insert Child and check for giggling

Thanks PaPa and Donny I love my new bouncy chair!!!!

Peter & Liz

Some of Abram's favorite people, Peter & Liz, were over for lunch and we got some really great pictures.