Ava's Turns Three....

Happy Birthday Ava! We loved celebrating with you.

3 Months

Jude is three months old. He is full of smiles and has adapted quite well to all the change that has happened over the past few weeks - (probably better than his parents). We are officially moved to Brookings. All of our things are in storage and we are living with Mom and Dad Gee for now until we find a house. It is quite the dificult task to live our of a suitcase with a 3 month old. Jon starts work on Monday at Design Arch a new architecture firm in town and I have a few weeks and then I will start at the University. We are busy trying to get all of the moving logistics taken care of and find a house for our family to get settled into. Man - I had forgotten what a pain it is to move! We are really looking forward to getting settled.

Visiting the Hofers

On our way to and from visiting Rachel and Sam we visited Sam and Nick in Cedar Rapids to celebrate Ava's third birthday. We had a great time - grilling out, sitting by the fire pit making smores, building a built in bench for their dinning room, and celebrating Ava's birthday.

Jon sitting outside with Jude...
Eden and Jude chillin on the chase lounge outside....

Ava laughing on her blanket after running through the sprinkler...

Ava drinking the water out of her sprinkler....

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

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.

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!

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??)

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.....