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!

Cake Balls!

I normally only write about Abram because he is adorable and takes up pretty much all of our time.  But this morning he took a 2+ hour nap and Josh and I were able to make this delicious dessert that we first had back on Father's Day (thanks Carol!).

The dessert is called cake balls and they are so yummy and better yet, they are easy!

The recipe is as follows:

1 cake mix
1 can frosting
Almond Bark
vegetable shortening 1 T


1. Mix and bake the cake as directed. 
2.  Let cool for about 10 minutes.
3.  Crumble the cake into a mixing bowl
4.  Stir in the can of frosting and mix well.  It should look like wet dirt.
5.  Refrigerate mixture for a couple of hours or overnight.
6.  Make into balls (size of your choosing)  1" - 1 1/2" works best
7.  I put the balls back in the fridge to keep cool while I melt the almond bark.  Follow directions on package to melt bark.  Melt bark carefully - we burned the bark twice before we figured it out. After almond bark is melted stir in 1/2 to 1 T. shortening.  This helps thin the bark.
8.  Coat balls with bark.  You can use a toothpick to drop bars in  or just roll them in the bark with a spoon.
9.  Set coated balls on wax paper.
10.  If you like to decorate you can apply sprinkles or other decorative edibles before the bark cools.
11.  Enjoy!

You may ask what kind of cake and frosting but that is the beauty of this recipe you can mix and match to your hearts content.

Examples:

Dark Chocolate Cake Mix
Chocolate Frosting
Chocolate Almond Bark

Red Velvet Cake
Cream Cheese Frosting
White Chocoloate Almond Bark

Josh's suggestion
after crumbling cake soak with 1/2 cup of kahlua or so
white cake
milk chocolate frosting
chocolate almond bark
**this has never been tried - just something he is dreaming about


I will try to add some pictures later today.

Visit from Grandma and Grandpa

Grandma and Grandpa Comstock came for a visit and Abram was able to skip school and stay home with them on Monday and Tuesday.  He had a great time with looks of books, new outfits and a trip to the toy store.

Here is a picture grandpa took of Abram in his new outfit and fishing hat.

He even got a new lion

Abram had tons of fun with grandma and grandpa

All I want for Christmas is my 2 bottom teeth!

Abram got his Christmas present early.  In the past week both of his bottom teeth came in.  It wasn't without some discomfort and a lot of drool but he was a trooper.  In the shots below he is putting his new teeth to good use by trying to eat ham, bacon and sausage out of two smokehouse catalogs.  This afternoon we received 2 magazines selling smoked meats and Abram tried to eat the meat right off the page!