Friday, July 31, 2009

Jude meets Greta

We were ambitious parents and drove to Peoria IL to visit Rachel and Sam last week and celebrate Greta's first birthday. It was a fabulous party and Rachel and Sam have the cutest pictures of Greta here. I don't have any pictures of Greta with Jude - but I think someone has a few. I will post them when I get my hands on them. I am sure there will be many more pictures of these two together as they grow up. We hope they will be as close of friends as we are to their parents. We love you guys and we had so much fun.


Larry, Rachel and Jon setting up for the party

Jude had to borrow a bath towel from Greta. He got to wear her princess towel and when he grows up he may not appreciate that I took a picture of him wearing it, but it is pretty cute!

Rachel, Jon & Jude

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Introducing Walter

I would like to introduce you to Walter the dog. He was the only toy we bought for Jude before he was born. We think Jude likes Walter because he gets countless smiles and stories each time they hang out.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

A bit of history


Jude was given the baby bonnets that his papa Meendering and his great uncle Gerald wore when they were babies from his Great Grandma Van Abbemma. Jon and I took a break from packing before we left omaha and tried them on Jude. Would love to find a picture of his papa and his uncle wearing them too to put with his pictures in his baby book. Thanks Grandma V - it means a lot to us and we will make sure Jude's family gets them when he is grown!

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

All by myself - kind of...


Jude loves sitting in his BUMBO chair from his aunt Sam and uncle Nick.

Goodbye Old., Hello New?

It is official....we have moved. It was such a whirlwind week. We got back from the black hills and had one week to wrap up our lives in omaha, pack all of our things, and say goodbye to dear friends. Packing was a challenge with Jude and I can't say that our boxes are packed with any sort of organization. There could very well be a combination box of diapers, the coffee pot, and socks. Jons parents came down to help us finish packing and to load the u-haul which was a godsent (thanks randy and sue). Someday you may just be able to come visit without being put to work. In the final hour we got everything packed and loaded and then it was time to say goodbye, which proved to be much more difficult than I expected. I shed many a tear saying goodbye to friends (which I knew would happen) but, who knew it would be so hard to say goodbye to a house. When the madness of packing was over and the house was empty Jon and I and Jude went back into the empty house and just stood there in disbelief. We were really about to move and embark on a new chapter. It was sad knowing we were leaving our very first house that we worked so hard to remodel and put our personal touch on. We planted our first flowers in this house and watched them grow, we created a room we loved for Jude and brought him home to this house. Oh, there were so many memories that made the house more than just a house for us and made it so hard to leave. Goodbye house....and Hello to finding a new house for the Meendering family.

It was so hard to take down Jude's room. He has been waking up the last few weeks and looking over his head to try and see his animal pictures. It breaks my heart so I may have to go rummage through our storage unit until I can find the box with those pictures for the short term...
The living room...empty....
One of my favorite features of our house. The door. We will miss you....
Goodbye House....(can you see the tears??)

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Loved

Jude got plenty of attention on our vacation. He loved meeting all of his family! I thought this picture was cute of him hanging out with his grammie. We are so happy that he will be able to see his grammie, grampie, papa and oma more often when we move to Brookings. On that topic - we are frantically packing this week. Perhaps we should have realised ahead of time that packing with a 2+month old would take 10x the time it took us to pack last time we moved when it was just the two of us. Frantic packing pictures to come...

A little bit of Heaven



We are back from our trip to the Black Hills. Although parts of the car trip were a bit stressful (Jude still lothes his car seat), our time spent out of the car was great. Our camera battery died half way through the trip so we don't have a lot of photos, but here are a few from the beginnig of our trip.....
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