Welcome Frances Jeanne Lorimer!!!!

Today Sarah and Katie welcomed Frances Jeanne Lorimer into the world! After a LONG 28+ hours of labor (they were admitted into UW at 2:30AM on Monday), Katie gave birth to the beautiful Frances at 4:24 this morning. Emily, Abe, Hannah, Ruth, great-gramu-Jeannne and myself went to go visit the two new moms (and two new grandma's as well - Paula and Ellen were there) when Emily got of work. Now Abe has his first Second Cousin that he can play with!

Frances Jeanne Lorimer at 7 pounds, 8 oz., 19 3/4 inches long. And a beautiful head of hair.
Abe and his cousin Frances posing for the first of probable thousands of photos together.
Great-gramu-Jeanne, Frances, Emily, Abe, Paula, and Ellen getting cozy.
Frances felt like a little cloud compared to Abe. She is very cute.
Abe being gentle with his new cousin.

500th blog spectacular!

This is our 500th post to our blog!!! That seems like an awful lot of posts, but I guess we've been at this for over three years, so it's not that crazy.

Today we bought some paint samples to help us decided how to paint the rooms in our new house. It's a good thing we bought the samples, because the two colors we thought we liked for the living room/dining room were WAY too orange. We have a better idea now of what colors we like, so it's back to Loewe's tonight to pick up some actual gallons of paint, and a few more samples.

We even had our first visitors - Sarah and Katie. They brought over very useful housewarming presents - toilet paper, garbage bags, and some drinks!

Emily and Abe posing infront of our new house.
SOLD!!!!
Abe and Banjo enjoying the vastness of their new backyard.
We went to Maruta's for sushi for lunch - a Seahawks playoff game tradition.
Emily and Abe making creative use of a step stool.

We're home owners!

Today we closed on our first home. We are now the proud owners of a nice house (with a large, fenced back yard) in the Seward Park neighborhood of Seattle. We received the keys at 5 PM tonight, and after we put Abe down to sleep for the night we dropped off a few cleaning supplies and looked around a bit. Of course we had to bring Banjo with us so he could check out the new digs, and have some runs in his new yard. On Saturday we'll start painting some of the rooms (while we listen to the Seahawks playoff game of course). I couldn't think of a better way to start off the first day in our new house!!!

Not the best spot for the family shot (sans SaanZai). This is part of the kitchen.
Banjo was getting ready to explore his new territory in the back yard.
Emily giving Banjo some love.
The 'Dood made himself feel right at home on the hardwood floors.

2011!!!

So it seems that I have not been so good at updating our blog since we've returned to Seattle. I'll try and be more consistent in the New Year. Happy 2011 everyone! Now where's my flying car and holodeck???

Here is the family getting in the Christmas Spirit. It's hard to see, but Abe has two Christmas trees on his headband.
If there is one thing Abe loves doing these days, it's hugging Banjo. Those guys are best buds.
More Banjo-loving going on. This is Abe at 16 months.
I wish I could pull this off, but I don't think it would look at cute. Plus, I'm pretty sure Emily couldn't hold me like that.
On New Year's Eve Day, Emily, Calvin and Ruth went clam digging. Abe and Banjo are checking out the catch. They made some darn tasty clam jook (rice porridge, and toss in the clams right before you eat it so the clams just get cooked).