WALKIN...FOR YOUR LOVE.

Well, the big day has finally arrived. Abraham is a walker! He's been taking steps for a while, but he is consistently taking many more together now. We have a quick video just to let you see. When Aber's is walking, he likes to have his arms way up in the air, rolling his wrists around. I guess it helps with the balance. Enjoy!

We are in the process of rearranging our house today, so this is it for now.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! May 2010 be as exciting as 2009.

Love
The L-Bs.

11 months old

Favorite zoo activity...feeding the giraffes!

Whoa!

Hard to believe we have an 11 month old person living in this house. It feels like no time at all has passed and I was gigantic, anxiously awaiting the arrival of some baby we now call Abraham!! The developments as of late: 11 teeth still with 1 more molar just about through. We have quite the make-out artist on our hands. He loves to give big, open mouth, slobbery kisses. Beware to any visitors making their way out here! Aber's is also very, very mobile. He has actually taken 6-7 steps on his own without realizing what he's doing. Once he figures it out though, he face plants and giggles.

As for his measurements, he is 23# and 32 inches, give or take. Anybody that's out this way is welcome to come over on January 17th for a 1st birthday party!

Stay warm. Get outside. Merry Christmas!

Love
The L-B's.
Monsieur le Castor, on a walk at the zoo.

Free rider.

Enjoying the plains of Colorado at the Paint Mines in Calhan.


Hitching a ride with dad on a beautiful Colorado day in December.

I. WANT. OUTSIDE.

Happy Hanukkah

Happy Hanukkah to those that celebrate this holiday. It is a first for Abraham this year. David has been teaching him about the menorah, the number of candles, and what it all means. Abraham, of course, is amazed by the flames on the candles. He also thinks the paper is fun to play with. He's not too worried about what's inside yet. Enjoy!

Opening presents with mom's help! A Luxury yacht to help make our troubled bath time more fun!

On his way to the "Abraham train", a wooden toy that Mickey Landry helped us find in the French Quarter, New Orleans. At this point, the McDonald's cup was perhaps of more interest to Abers!

Opening presents with dad's help.


Even Toiyabe had a good time opening Hanukkah presents this year.

Thanksgiving

Sorry for the delay! Hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving. We were lucky enough to have turkey day with both of our families. We celebrated with my family on Wednesday and then headed to MSP on Thanksgiving to celebrate with David's. It was a fun trip to see David's brother and family. As always, Mom had to get her Black Friday shopping trip in, just not with Grandpa this year. David stepped up to the plate and took Abraham and I shopping. It was a very bizarre morning as absolutely no one was out at the Target we went to at 0700. The food was great, the weather was beautiful, and we're glad we got to visit! Enjoy the pictures...Colorado Thanksgiving


MSP ThanksgivingBlack Friday shopping!
Kisses from Pop-Pop

New Orleans!!

Well, what a busy week for the L-B crowd. We have just returned from a quick trip to New Orleans and are heading to MSP on Thursday. Thought I'd try to get a few pictures up from our trip. We didn't really take that many while in NOLA. The site of the hurricane damage seems wrong to photograph when there are so many families, houses, and complete parts of the city that have yet to be helped with rebuilding. We all stayed at the Landry's house and are so grateful for their hospitality! Mickey also proved to be an amazing tour guide. One day, he took us on a drive through the city, so we could see the devastation for ourselves. It is quite hard to explain what we really saw...

Needless to say, it was a great trip and I think both DB and I fell in love with the city. Probably a good thing Mickey works in an elementary school. It would be hard to turn down a job in such a cool city.


Helping shovel snow right before we left for New Orleans.


Walking down a famous alley in the French Quarter


An advertisement for chocolate milk while eating world famous beignets in the French Quarter with an old grad school friend of David's.

More French Quarter with the best tour guide around...Mickey Landry!


Laughing at dinner after playing peekaboo with his dinner napkin.



Saying bye to Mickey and Katie.

Sadness...

Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy your family and friends. Find a turkey trot.

10 month updates: weight-didn't take it, but feels about the same. height-is the same. colds-got his first one in NOLA. Eats lots and lots of stuff still. Loves bath time. Is cruising all around the house. Lots of babbling.

Love,
the 3 of us.

Fussy day fun

Getting ready to go play outside after a weekend snow/ice storm. Thanks Bubbie for the hat and vest!

Hiking last weekend in lots of snow!

Sorry for the delay in updates! We've been a little busy out here with grandparents moving in to town, and the house until they close on the new place. As for the 9 month measurements, Abraham weighed 21# 11 and was 30.5 inches long. That puts him in the 75% for weight and "off the charts" in height. At least, that is what Dr. Mulder said. We didn't get the actual percentile for that. Everything checked out fine at the visit. Aber's currently has 11 teeth, with at least 3 more coming in. We'll all be ready for these teeth to be in. He is having a hard time figuring out what he likes to eat. We go from having him eat ANYTHING to eating pretty much nothing. Even the old standby's won't cut it these days.

Abraham is a mobile monkey. He is a super fast crawler, great stair climber, and walking toy pusher. He tries to pull himself up, like a pull up, to see what is on the table. He has just mastered coming DOWN the steps all by himself, by sliding down on his belly. We have a bit of a hard time getting him to turn around to come down, but once he gets a bit of assistance, he's down in no time.



These days, we are hearing lots of Dadada, mamamama, babababa, and we even heard guh-ma! He is also making tons of other sounds, clearly trying to tell us what is going on. One day last week, he was having an unusually fussy day and I was out of ideas to make him happy. He was already in his highchair, so I just dumped 1/3 c of flour in front of him to play. It was a great activity actually, giving me 45 minutes of no fussing!!


We are heading to NOLA for a quick trip. David has a conference and I get to visit with the Landry's, the former head of CSS. We'll be sure to update with fun pictures when we get home!

Things you can do while at the cabin...

Happy Fall everybody

Abraham and I just got home from a week at the cabin with Grandma. We thought we would tell you about our trip with pictures. Too bad it rained all week, we didn't get to go the St. Louis zoo as planned. Sorry, we don't have a picture of tooth #9 that came in while we were there. Here are Aber's favorite activities of the week...


Playing with the carseat before we left.


Wearing an outfit mom and her brothers all wore when they were little.


Playing INSIDE the cabinet.

Watching the fire in the mornings with Grandma.

Unloading the storage container cabinet.

Feeding the deer.

Playing in the play area at the mall.

Checking out South Dakota.


Sitting by myself, until the flight attendant told me I couldn't.

Helping rake leaves when we got home.

We head to the doctor next Friday, so look for the updates soon.

Love

Jess and Abraham

8 months

Well, it seems that fall is setting in here in Colorado this morning. We woke to big winds, cold rain/hail, and no sun! Maybe we'll have a wet, snowy winter so we can get some snowshoeing in!! Abraham went out with me to inspect the work in the backyard that was done while I worked this weekend. He kept trying to eat the wind!

With mom measurements, he is 20lb 5oz and 30.5 inches today. He keeps getting bigger and bigger. We have to go out and get new clothes. He's in 18-24 month stuff and we don't have any of that except for his carhart overalls. Guess I can't keep him running around in his diaper/cover anymore with cooler weather setting in.

Handsome blue eyed men...

Hard day at Model UN in Denver with dad on Saturday. Mom worked.

As of now, he refuses all baby food. He loves spicy thai food, vegetarian meals better than meat options, cheese, yogurt and most fruits. Vegetables still aren't the best unless they are sauted and super soft. Meals always go better if he can feed himself but then we've got quite the mess!!

Here's a video of dinner last night:


Lots of changes going on in this neck of the woods. Grandpa Al gets out here soon to start work with a visit from Uncle Christopher for 24 hours to drop off the stuff for the apartment. Uncle Jake is moving out and up to Parker for work. We'll be down to 5 people and 1 dog when he leaves. Sad to see them go...Aber's loves Uncle Jake time. Then, Abraham and I head out to the cabin middle of October to visit Grandma Lynn since she is staying in Ohio until their house sells. Should be a good time! Nothing like travelling alone with a crazy, crawling man.

Way to go Uncle Jake...Getting the stink eye from a floating Abraham for leaving!

Labor day fun

Hope everybody had a great weekend! We headed out of town Sunday to the little town of Westcliffe, CO. It is a super cute little mountain town sitting at 7888 ft. We've gone down there for the last 3 years for a nice night of camping at the Alvarado campground. This year, we were just about at the top of the campground, closest to the trail head. We had great weather and good food. David made pita pizzas for dinner and omelets and sausage for breakfast. It was quite delicious! He might be a convert to the car camping stove after all! We had a good time with Bertrand as well...one of David's best friends from Cameroon.

19 weeks and 7.5 months. One year, big difference. Pretty awesome!

Chef extraordinaire!

Teaching the man about aspens.

Abraham, as it seems to be the case, far prefers the outdoors. He was great the entire time, fell asleep easily in his tent, and then had a rough night as the evening got cold. I guess his thermarest isn't quite as nice as his parents. It lets the cold come right through. Dad being the trooper that he is, slept at the bottom of the tent curled in a ball so mom and Abers could have the 2 good thermarests. As soon as we did that, he slept like himself. The moon was big and full for us. It looked like there was a street light right over our tent!

Here are some older pictures as well, from Robins 14th birthday. Also, Aber's chowing down on some corn on the cob. He can pull himself up in his crib to standing these days. When we go in to get him, he is up, crying super loud, looking like a pitiful jailbird....poor guy.

Yummy corn on the cob...7 months

A look of shock at getting her phone.

7 months old!

Hard to believe that the man is already seven months old! Cheesy as it sounds, it gets better every day and there is even more love floating around. The big guy weighs in, on the home scale, at 19#4. Definetly getting to be a heavy guy to lug around. He is now 19 1/8 inches. Needless to say, Abraham is big. He eats tons of real food. If he could talk, I'm sure he would tell us that baby food is for the birds. He'll eat just about anything we let him, as long as it is the same thing as what the big people are eating.

Now, for the long awaited other accomplishments. I know, only a mama can be truly excited about most of this stuff. Oh well. He has 6 teeth, four on top, 2 on the bottom. There are 2 more that are super close to in on the bottom. His other big feat of the month was learning to crawl. He's been trying for weeks and finally figured it out for Grandpa's birthday present. Here's a little video of the "crawl" or more of a belly drag.







I'll try to post of video of his giggle. He loves, loves, loves to laugh and it is the great sound ever!! It makes an entire room of grown-ups laugh right there with him. Can't wait for Grandpa Al and Grandma Lynn to get out here! Abraham, as well as mom and dad, are looking forward to having more family around to be a part of raising Mr. Mandela.



'Til the next round...

Pictures to go with our trip

Waiting to catch the clipper over to the island. Dad holding on tight as the catamaran cruises along at 30 knots.

Getting blown away on the observation deck. Hanging out with second cousins Evie (curly hair) and Elise (short hair.)


Big old bear in downtown Victoria. Crazy Dr. Suess tree in front of the Empress Hotel.

First backpacking trip!!

Cool suspension bridge on the Juan de Fuca. Cousin Drew and Anna...

Lunch time break...stick for Aber's! At our campsite!

Hanging out at the beach, eating gourmet dinner!

Lunch break on the hike out!

BC's youngest driver. He laughed for 15 minutes! His belly kept getting in the way and honking the horn. It was very cute! Next to cousin Evie who is four days older.

In Strathcona Provincial park.