The Blueberry Chronicles

We have some friends at church who invited us to go and pick blueberries with them. I was very excited because the farm was giving them away for free to anyone who wanted to pick. This was my first batch: I took those and made blueberry muffins, blueberry freezer jam, and blueberry pudding! Yum!!

Abraham even got in on the blueberry action:

We decided that they were so good, and free, that we'd go back for Family night and pick some more. Ken and I took turns picking while the other entertained the buddy.

This is batch number two! I made some blueberry Jello and we gave a lot away. Ken keeps a frozen bowl in the freezer so he can munch on them, but the rest I froze to save for later treats.
Picking blueberries brought back so many wonderful memories of Arkansas and going to the Hubbard's farm. I remember waking up to blueberry pancakes and syrup and singing "There's a Hole in the Bucket" while picking. The taste of a blueberry fresh off the bush....yum!! The paste few weeks have a been a lot of blueberry fun!

9 Month Birthday!!!

The time has come for another monthly birthday report! I can't believe Abe is already 9 months old! This is the month that means he has officially been out of the womb longer than he was in! We headed to the doctor this morning and here are his new stats: He weighed in at 22 lbs and 11 oz (decreasing from 90% last visit to 78%). His height was 30 inches (95%). His head was, well, the doctor very kindly put it, "Well...his head is kind of off the charts, but don't worry that is okay." The shots were terrible, as they always are and as we walked out we made our appointment for his 1 year visit!!! This past month has been one of great discovery. Crawling is second nature now. He can crawl on his hands and knees, but prefers to continue doing the worm and crawling with his arms and stomach. He is starting to pull himself up more and like to get up on his hands an feet with his bum flying in the air. We had to lower his crib from the baby setting. He is making lots of sounds, but our favorite is when he "vrrrrooms" as he moves his trucks around the room, we are still attempting to get a good video of that. He loves his cars and trucks and loves dinosaurs! Such a boy already. He loves other kids and watching and playing with them whenever possible. He is such a delight and brings so much joy into our home.

Surprise in the Mailbox

Don't we all just love a good surprise in the mailbox? A letter from a friend, a birthday card, an unexpected package, a free sample, a good magazine? These are all things that make me look forward to checking the mail every day, even though there are a lot of bills and junk mail mixed in with the good stuff. Abe and I went out to check the mail today. As I opened it up, I could see a letter from my pen-pal and old roommate Robyn just waiting for me! I hurriedly pulled the mail out and got a spiderweb with it. "Gross" was my first thought. Then I saw a flash of legs and another flash of red. I dropped the mail and stomped it. Luckily the spider was on a piece of junk mail and not my precious letter. I took the, now dead, spider inside to show Ken because red on a spider is never good. We are pretty sure it was a black widow trying to take residence in our mailbox. Shudder. I'm sure by tomorrow though, I will have recovered and I'll be ready to see what kind of surprise waits for me in the mailbox.

Happy Birthday!!

Yesterday was my 28th birthday!! Wow, I'm old! Ken surprised me by taking the day off work, which was wonderful, the best present! I woke up at 8 with a changed and fed baby and chocolate chip pancakes on the table! He'd also stopped at a special CVS the day before and gotten me some awesome coupons. I was very excited about them. We drove out to some outlet malls so I could buy some new clothes for my birthday present. We stopped and ate lunch at Chili's on the way home. As Ken got Abe out of the car, Abe decided to give him a little present by having blown out of his diaper. Let me tell you how appetizing that was, right before our meal! We got home and a friend of mine from church and her girls brought over sugar cookies and birthday cards they had made. Then I went to my book club meeting and came home to a fed, bathed, and sleeping baby. What a great day! It was also nice to recieve gifts from Mom & Dad and Sue & Lonnie in the mail...thank you!! My recently moved neighbor, Jess, also brought me a beautiful plant today. I forgot our camera on our little trip, so here is a picture of my new clothes and my new plant and the Murder Mystery Game that Mom and Dad sent! Thanks for all the calls, emails, and wishes! I had a wonderful birthday!

When my baby, isn't a baby anymore...

So, the past few days Ken and I have been noticing what a little boy Abe is becoming. He is no longer a little infant, but quickly becoming a toddler. His top front teeth (all 6 of them!) are getting big enough that you see them when he smiles. He is so mobile and is crawling all over the place. He has learned to move from sitting to crawling and then back to sitting, which has made him really independent in his play. He loves trucks and has some big Tonka trucks I brought home from my classroom that are his new favorite toys. He's already starting the "I want", "I want now" and "I want to do it myself" stages of life. I gave him some Gerber Graduate snacks on his high chair tray the other day and was doing some things around the kitchen. I looked over and his tray was empty. This happens a lot because he knocks all the pieces off. I took off the tray to get the pieces from his seat and put them back and there weren't any pieces to get!! He'd eaten them all, by himself without dropping any! He's not nursing at all now, and even holding his bottle by himself, which I think is causing me a little seperation anxiety. Anyway, it is fun to watch him learn and grow, but the mother inside me is a little sad to see my baby stop being a baby (I'm sure all you kindred mothers understand).

One Man's Trash...

Became our TREASURE!!

Ken and I were in a thrift shop last week, trying to help gather items for a youth trek for our church. Behind the register Ken spotted this treasure chest. We inspected the price and saw that it had been marked down from an original price of $150 to $45. We've looked at several of these before and Ken knew this one needed a home in the Man Room. I had to squeeze in the back and we lowered the front seat all the way back to fit it in the car and bring it home. It is vintage and in pretty nice condition. I can only imagine the great ways it will be put to use in the future. I'm sure Ken is going to argue to use it instead of a crib next time we have a baby! Now quit coveting our treasure you scurvy dogs! Argggh!

Proud to be an American

We had a pretty relaxed 4th of July here. My Mom had gotten Abe this adorable romper when she was here and I'd been saving it for today. He looked very cute, as usual. CVS had sent out a special 4th of July coupon for $4 off, so I did some shopping in the morning. I got everything in the picture and actually made more CVS dollars than I spent! Ken worked in the yard and we just hung around this house. By the time afternoon came, we decided we'd better do something exciting to celebrate. Ken came up with the idea of making home made rootbeer...which I was eager to agree with. We headed to Kroger and picked up our supplies....including dry ice! We found a recipe on the internet, since neither of us had made it before and we combined everything together. I think we put too much dry ice in because in the end we had more of a rootbeer slushie than a liquid, but it was still delicious. Abe was fascinated by the smoke created by the dry ice. After Abe went to sleep Ken and I watched a movie and had rootbeer floats and popcorn. It wasn't a big, fancy day for us, but we enjoyed being together and remembering the freedom that we enjoy and those who sacrificed to make it that way.

8 Month Birthday!!!!

I am very tired....and playing with Dad wears me out!!!

Since we just posted our new family pictures, instead of posting an 8 month photo for Abe, I decided to post these cute videos. You can see how good he is getting at crawling, although it is still more of an army crawl than anything else. The dolphin laugh is our favorite and we love to make him giggle for us. He's sprouted 5 top teeth this past month!!! He's also started imitating sounds, which is really fun. He is very observant and loves to watch people, especially little kids. He makes friends wherever we go, seriously the kid has more friends than I do at this point in time! He's started being very interested in eating and wants to eat everything off of our plates. He loves bread and rice and pasta. He got his first real haircut because his hair was so far down over his ears. I trimmed the sides and the back. He loves swimming and we spend a lot of time in our little pool or at our friend's neighborhood pool. He also decided to wean himself a week ago. He previously wouldn't take a bottle and one night Ken got him to take one. We were excited because we were leaving him with my sister the next day and we could stay out a little longer if we could leave a bottle for him. He happily took the bottle for Tami and hasn't nursed since. He absolutely refuses. 2 bottles and he forgets 8 months of nursing!!!! I kept trying to nurse him for about 3 days, but all he would do is bite and cry until he got a bottle. I don't know how that happened! I guess he has a mind of his own, such is life! Happy Eight Months Abey!!!!