Summer has come, so the beard has to go

It finally had to go. I have twizzled my beard far too many times for Emily's liking, and I didn't want to annoy her any longer so I shaved my beard off last night at 11pm. Well, almost all of it. I guess it's fitting since I do work in a law enforcement related field.

I had a fun time feeding Abe his dinner tonight while Emily was out swimming. Abe was looking so cute and all, I figured it would be a good time to break in Emily's new camera that she received for Mother's Day.

Governor Parnell is coming by our lab tomorrow afternoon to ceremoniously sign a few bills. One of them related to retention of DNA evidence and handling of DNA samples, expungements, etc. He was there last Friday too for the Slain Officer Memorial.
Who is this funny looking guy and why is he so surprised?
"I want that camera!"
That's how a boy opens up for his dinner.
Someone sure does love his dinner-time.

When 493 = 548

The Social Security Administration released the list of the top 1000 boy's and girl's names last week. Jacob was still #1 for the boys (I think 10+ years running) while Isabella beat out Emma for top spot for the girls.

So where did our little Abram rank? Number 493 of course, right between Khalil (492) and Javon. And there were 548 Abrams born last year, compared to over 20,000 Jacobs. It should be no surprise that we were going for a sort of esoteric name with Abram, and now we know that our pick is validated.

The number 1 boy name when I was born was Michael. The funny thing there were over 60,000 Michaels, way more than the Jacobs of today. The number 1 girl name when Emily was born was Jennifer. I had 2 Jennifers in my class of 30 at Assumption!

Happy Mother's Day!

No one ever said that being a mother was easy (or pretty). But it's pretty darn awesome! This morning Abe decided to tell me how much he loved me by waking up at 4am. And because that just wasn't enough, he decided to make it absolutely clear how much he loved me by only wanting to see me. When I'd try to hand him off to Neil, he'd scream his little head off. Thanks Abe. I love you too. He finally went back to sleep around 7. Then I opened my present from him (and Banjo) around 9. They got me a new camera to replace the one that Neil broke.

Where it all began.


Abe opened up the present for me, and then started eating the wrapping paper. It made him gag.

Flattop

Last Monday we took a trip up to flattop. It was super nice out in town, so we wanted to go out and enjoy the sunshine. It was still quite snowy up there, but there were signs of it melting. Neil pushed the stroller the whole way, which proved to be really difficult, because of how slushy it was. It was a great day for an outing!




The Dood of course had a blast.

I tried to help with the stroller, but I was too weak and couldn't even make it up this little hill. When Neil had to push Abe up the giant hill I helped by pushing his butt like a little caboose.

Check me out

A few weeks ago we went to a "babes in the woods" class that talked all about taking your baby out camping and into the great outdoors. It was a really helpful class. We learned all about the right gear (including these cool shades), tips for packing the baby in, food, trails, and activities. Some of the other women who go to cuddlers were also there, and now we have a big camping trip planned for a week from now. It should be pretty fun.

A boy and his dog: best friends for life

There's a moose on the loose!

Just a little after dinner I spotted this guy walking into our yard. If I would have opened up our front door I would have been about 8 feet from him. A younger guy joined him a few minutes later.

Abe the racer

Check out Abe flying around in his racecar. Vrrooooommm!!!!!

Fun in the sun

Abe turns 8! (months)

The two guys smiling for the camera. Check out those two big top teeth! He even has two more popinn' out up top.

We always take a picture of Abe and Banjo together on his birthday. Doesn't Abe look big next to Bannie?

Today is Abe's 8-month birthday! We celebrated by going to Moose's Tooth pizza for a slice and a salad for lunch. Although Emily was tempted by the triple sausage, triple mushroom special pizza so she order a small of that instead of a slice and a salad. The fun part was that we gave Abe part of bread stick to chew on. At first he didn't know what to do with it, so we could tear off tiny pieces for him to eat. Then we gave him a bigger chunk that he could put in his mouth and chew on. I was a little surprised that he was able to take out some bites out of the stick!
Momma and son waiting for their lunch to show up.

"Check me out! I can feed myself now!"

Ah, a nice piece of bread makes a Birthday Boy happy.

After lunch we went to Barnes & Noble and got Abe some birthday stories. We bought him a Dr. Seus 6-pack (6 stories in one book!), Rikki Tikki Tumbo, and The Little Engine That Could. And then the adults bought themselves a little treat (Dark Chocolate Cherry Frappacino.....yummm........).

For dinner we made a Pumpkin Soup and a Quinoa salad out of a Moosewood Cookbook. The salad was so-so, but the soup was super tasty.

It's not even 8:25, and the Little Buddy is already down for the night. SCORE!

Check out the video I shot tonight of Abram. He's beginning to skootch backwards and pivot. He'll be crawling around our place in no time (Gulp!).

mini faux

That's right!

That's running gear you see me in. Yesterday we went running for the first time in a looooong time. I pushed abe along in the jogging stroller, and neil ran with banjo (or should I say banjo pulled neil?). I have less than a month to train for the gold nugget.

Abe and I had to hydrate after our 2 mile jog. (Do you like his mini-me water bottle? We got it for him at REI since he's always wanting to drink from mine.)

Curtain time!

With all of the extra daylight (it's still quite light out right now--and it's 9:30), we've had to improvise with making a dark room for Abe to fall asleep in. Of course, for Neil, this meant duct tape. But this weekend we de-ghetofied Abe's room a bit, and made him some curtains with actual black out cloth.

We went over to Kari and Jared's for dinner on Sunday and Kari let me use her sewing machine to crank out some curtains. I bought the curtain rods at Lowe's for less than $3, and apparently there was a reason why they were so cheap. Oh well.

Finished product.
Abe hung out in his crib while I helped neil hang them. He's started leaning over to the bars and trying to pull himself up. That's about as far as he gets thankfully.

Professional Eater

Abe prefers to grab all of the puffs in one foul swoop and then shove his fist in his mouth. It's proved to be rather effective.

Just when we thought we could change out the tires...

So it's been pretty warm these last few weeks - in the 40's, and even in the 50's a few days. As a result, most of the snow had melted away. Our driveway was completely bare, and most of the snow in our yard had gone bye-bye. But this morning we woke up to a bit of a surprise - more snow! And it kept snowing all day long. Since it's so warm out (mid-30's), it's pretty slushy out. And of course today when I was waiting for my bus in the morning I got sprayed with snow by one car and one bus. How rude!

Here is part of our driveway/backyard. All of this was bare and dry yesterday. You could even see the bulbs popping up. Now they're under that big pile of snow.
Here is Big Boy covered with snow again. I thought we were done with this.

Ooooo!

Not much is new up in the AK, except for the snow that fell today. It's been snowing all day long, and it is suppose to snow 6 - 10 inches tonight. Here in Alaska, April snow storms bring May mud puddles. Yuck. Here are some more Abe pictures for that all of you addicts out there can get your 'fix'. I kid because I love. ;-)
We have given Abe some finger food so he can work on the whole dexterity thing. He is actually pretty good at grabbing them. But he likes to grab about 6 of them at a time. And he gets them into his mouth by putting his whole hand in his mouth. Funny stuff.
Sometimes we use toddler spoons to feed Abe his meals. But since they're so big (and he now has teeth on the top and bottom of his mouth) he likes to clamp down when we feed him. So I try and put just a little on the end of the spoon and slip it in his mouth real quick-like.
After all of our guests left, I noticed that we still had two Budweisers in our fridge (thanks Clave!). So I cracked one open watching LOST one night, and the 'Dood laid down next to me. Our old roommate Matt used to say that if Banjo were an alcoholic beverage he'd be a Bud. So I posed this picture for our amuzement. Looks like Bannie had a hard night of drinking.

REI Dividend time!

Yesterday we went to REI to spend our yearly dividend. It and the gift card he got for christmas were burning a hole in his pocket. So, we did not get this bike for Abe, but we did get a bike rack, so once the slush is off of the trails we can all go for a bike ride. With the chariot and abe's car seat in the back of the car we can no longer just chuck our bikes in back, so it will be perfect to have the rack for transporting them. Now no more excuses. I need to start training for the gold nugget!

Back in Business

4 phone calls, one service visit, and two trips to the GCI store for a new ethernet and modem, and we finally have our internet back. Stupid GCI.

Don't knock my toes.

Easter and the great bone hunt

Abe didn't hunt easter eggs, but the dood won! Yesterday morning we got up and let Banjo loose around the living room. It appeared as though the easter doggie had hidden a bunch of yummy chummies and milk bones for Banjo to find. Poor Abe just watched. No eggs for him this year. Next year will be a different story for sure.

I made a great breakfast, and then we actually went to church. We went to a methodist church by our old house. Then in the afternoon we worked on cooking our easter day feast. We had a bunch of friends over and had ham, scalloped potatoes, asparagus, ambrosia, passover rolls (thanks rachel!), punch and yummy fruit dessert (thanks kari!) and a bunch of munchy little appetizers (yay tracie!). After dinner we played a great game of cranium. It was great because my team won! Now we have enough ham for another easter dinner. Any ideas for the leftovers?

Uncy Scott visits Anchorage!

NOTE: Our internet has been on the fritz lately. I.E., it's so slow we can't do anything on the internet, let alone upload pictures for all of our loyal blog followers. Right now it's a Monday afternoon, and Emily, Abe and I are at Kaladi Brothers Coffee using their internet to make this post. We're not sure if our troubles are related to our computer or internet provider, but we may be getting a new computer soon.
My Mom, Dad, Abe, Emily, Banjo and I went up to Flattop a few weeks ago. It was a gorgeous day, and we went for a nice long hike. This was the only picture I was able to take before my battery ran out....D'oh!
Uncy Scott came up to visit two Friday's ago. He stayed in our luxurious living room. It was really fun to have him up here. He stayed for a week, and then drove back down with my folks to Seattle. Today I think they are in British Columbia somewhere. Here we are watching some NCAA-action last weekend. Go Butler!
While my Mom was still up here, she and Emily went and got a mani and petti. Don't their fingernails and toenails look nice and pretty!!!

Sadly, my parents had to cut their visit up in the Great White North a little short. My Dad got pulled out of retirement by an enticing consulting job (it's so he can afford the kind of retirement he wants, at least that's what he told me). So everyone left last Friday morning. It was a lot of fun to have Mom and Dad up here for an extended stay, and even better that they got to hang out with Little Abe and get to know him better.

Hopefully we will fix our internet issues so we can post a little more frequently!