As promised......

just a little late. Jude is mobile. It is not exactly what I would call crawling, but it gets him where he wants to go and is extremely entertaining for us. This video is a little dark - but we are novices at trying to video spontaneous events.

Cousins Ava and Eden

I could not get enough of my nieces Ava and Eden at the Meendering Thanksgiving. What sweet girls.....

Computer on the Fritz

Sorry our pictures have not been showing up lately. THanks for those of you who emailed me to let me know. I would have been in the dark. Jon figured out that our home laptop hard drive is almost full and our internet connection is super slow at home so we are having some sort of issue with uploading pictures. Check back tomorrow and hopefully the pictures will be there!

Who wants turkey (2)

We enjoyed a second thanksgiving in huron with gma and gpa meendering, aunt sam and uncle nick, and cousins ava and eden. Jude spent most of his weekend watching ava sing and dance and staring at his cousin eden, who is only 2 weeks older than he is. When you watch Jude next to his laid back cousin Eden, it confirmed our suspicions that Jude is a little bit high strung. Where ever did he learn this?....like mother like son??

Who wants turkey?

Jude had a great first thanksgiving. We spent time with my family on Thanksgiving day and Jon's family the day after thanksgiving (pictures to come). Although Jude didn't get any turkey, he had a great day with his familly......

Hanging out with Great Grandma Sylvia (and really into the ceiling fan)....
Hanging out with the Moran Cousins....
My great uncle larry....

Jude with Grandpa Gee....

Thanksgiving Morning

We had a lovely morning in our new house before heading to grandma and grandpa's house for thanksgiving. It was the first morning we spent in our new house that we were not running off to work and could take time and enjoy the sun streaming in the windows, a hot cup of coffee, and and story with Jude.

We are Thankful....(part I)

The weekend before thanksgiving we drve to Omaha and spent the weekend visiting friends and checking out our old stomping grounds. It brought back a lot of great memories and made us homesick for so many things we miss from Omaha, especially some dear friends....

Thanks for making our visit great. We miss you all!

THE WORM

Jude had us laughing pretty hard a few weeks ago as he was trying so hard to crawl and it totally looked like he was doing the worm dance. He made some big progress this week on his mobility - I will post an updated video tomorrow to show his progress! For now, enjoy the worm.....

Welcome Fall

It has been a beautiful few weeks here...cool air, warm sun, and fall colors. We are crossing our fingers that it sticks around for awhile. We have to get the boxes in our garage unpacked so we can park our cars in there before the snow comes! Hopefully we have got until Thanksgiving - at least.

Who loves Candy Corn?

Looking cute in my candy corn halloween outfit from Greta.

Practicing my spooky face (or blinded by the flash) .....

We are behind scheduleing with the posting because we made the move to our new house. We have been busy trying to get a few boxes unpacked and get settled in. We will post more on the new house later - but for now enjoy the pics of Jude from Halloween.

Growing Up

It is hard to believe he is six months old already. I was looking back and older pictures today and saw these pictures in the same sweatshirt taken was he was not even 2 months old. He still loves this sweatshirt - doesn't quite fit the same way it it did months ago and will be close to retirement soon. Anyway......just fun to see how he has grown and how his personality is developing!

Hobo Days Parade

It was Jude's first Hobo Days at SDSU. We had a great time with Grandma and Grandpa at the parade. Jude espeicially loved the marching bands. The heavy bass drum and horns would get him every time. He also helped the little boys behind us get candy. You wouldn't think people would give a six month old candy, but it was like they just couldn't help themselves. I can't imagine what will happen when he is actively trying to get candy.

Moran Family Visit

The cousins came to visit last weekend. As you can see we had fun with markers! We love you Sophie & Rita.

Renovations

I know...we are constantly doing renovations. We are in the homestretch on the main floor of our new house. The electrician has come and gone, the drywall is hung, and the texture goes on tomorrow. We are busy painting and filling in the tile floor where we took the wall out between the kitchen and the dinning room. We hope to be done with phase one of renovations in just two weeks. Then we plan to take a break on remodeling for awhile.....ahhh we can't wait.

New hallway to Jude's room - will be a floor to ceiling bookshelf for much needed book storage
Jude's new wall and closet - this used to be another living room on the main floor and we made half of it into a bedroom and other half will be the master bathroom.

No more wall between the kitchen and dining room! Woo Hoo!

Can't wait to repaint that mauve wall in the kitchen

Ball Popper

The ball popper is judes very favorite toy. No matter what his mood he will watch in awe and giggle at the site of the ball popper. He wimpers and crys when the music stops and I think that this toy was responsible for motivating Jude to sit up on his own. Thanks aunt sam and uncle nick....what a hit!

Pumpkin head

Jude got to wear his pumpkin hat from our neighbors in Omaha for the first time this weekend. (We finally found the box with Judes clothes in the mass of boxes still sitting in our garage). We found the box just in time because we got our first dusting of snow this weekend and it is clear that winter is upon us. We spent most of the weekend working on the house, catching up on work and time with Jude, and staying warm next to the fire.

I will miss....

my boys. I am headed to Wayne NE for work and will spend my first night away from my boys since Jude was born. Luckily I will be heading home on Friday night. Anyone can make it two days and one night away....right?

Jude is 5 months

Jude is over 5 months old! He has been a trooper dealing with all of the change in the past few months ad holding strong during the last push of our house renovation. He is sitting up on his own with the occasional tip over, laughing and smiling a lot, trying his hardest to get moving and learning that he has his parents wrapped around his finger!

New Tricks

Jude really wishes he could just get moving. He can roll just about anywhere but is beginning to be discontent with this mode of transportation. He has been pushing himself up pretty high with his hands for a few weeks and then this weekend he started lifting his whole body up off the floor like he is doing a push up, but he has not figured out how to put his knees beneath him yet. It is only a matter of time - hopefully more later than sooner because we are not ready to deal with a mobile baby yet!

Change....

We closed on our house on Friday. As promised - a few pictures of our new house. These were taken during our home inspection with the previous owners belongings still inside. It is on my to do list to take some pictures of the inside now that it is empty. I actually wanted to take pictures before we started the renovations, but guess I am too late. We ripped our carpet and took down kitchen cabinets today already (lets hope that progress continues). But you will get the jist of the inside from these shots. I will take some pictures this week and show you the inside in progress.

I love the screened in porch....
Kitchen - we have big plans for this - the wall on the left side of the picture is coming out.
Dining room - the wall on the right is the one that is coming out to open the kitchen up to the dining room.
Bedroom 1
Living Room
More pictures to come.....