Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Hi All,

We have returned from our trip south. It was very nice and Andrew was quite a good traveler too. We enjoyed the warm weather, green trees, and of course seeing all of our families. Andrew enjoyed his first Christmas. He loved playing with the paper, ribbons and of course his new toys. We spent a few days with my family first and he thought Matthew was the best. He copied everything Matthew did and Matthew even enjoyed copying him (talking in baby talk and crawling). We ate tons, and it was all good. We enjoyed building a ginger bread house with Matthew too.

Then we went to spend a few days with Nelson's family and had a wonderful time. We spent an afternoon with Aunt Sam, Maddy and Macy and enjoyed an indoor picnic - Andrew enjoyed stealing Macy's bread, it was funny. We went on a few walks and Andrew enjoyed spending time with everyone.



During our trip Andrew turned the big 9 months. Where oh where did the time go (not that I am complaining however). At nine months he is quite a character. He loves to eat (and I mean EAT!). He loves pancakes, grilled cheese, bananas (eats a whole one every morning), red beans...and the list could go on and on. The kid can eat! He loves to walk while hanging on to our hands. Today that is all that he wanted to do. With this new desire to walk we have witnessed the first real tantrum (when we wouldn't walk him), kind of scary :) However, he is the sweetest little boy there is and we love spending every minute with him.



Enjoy the pictures from the trip. We certainly enjoyed going. We are happy to be back home, but it is WAY too cold here. We miss everyone!

Do I Smell Cookies?

Andrew and Auntie K playing by the castle.
You can try, but you can't hold me down, I just want to stand.
Please, let me out of the jail.

Disregard the bite out of the xmas tree.Andrew loved the gift wrap from his xmas gift from Auntie K

I love to play at my activity table.

What a great weekend. Andrew is doing so much and is so fun (and adventerous too! Three falls with minor (but loud) head bumps). Today Auntie Katherine came over to play and bake some Christmas cookies with us. Andrew finds her facinating and stared for about the first 10 minutes.

Look at me, I just love to stand up!

Sugar Bear

Please keep Sugar Bear in your thoughts. She is having abdominal surgery right now. She hasn't been right since last Wednesday and appears to have ingested pieces of a towel that are causing an obstruction. What a weekend, I'm sick, Nelson is sick, Andrew is sick, and now Sugar Bear is sick. We will know more later and hopefully may be able to bring her home tomorrow.

Woahh...I'm standing
I love ravioli, and I like to put it in my hair!

Dad, this is fun!

Andrew is busy getting into everything! You wouldn't even know that he has bilateral ear infections....again! He didn't seem quite right so off to the doctor he went yesterday. He seems like himself again, just a lingering cough.

It has been another cold weekend in Iowa, 11 degrees was the high yesterday. We didn't get as much snow as was predicted, that is good. It is only the beginning of the season and we are already tired of the cold. It will be fun when Andrew can actually play in the snow.

Bubbles....cats...oh my!

A Cold Weekend in Iowa!

What a weekend! Lots of ice....and a little snow. We didn't venture out until Sunday, when it was still a little slick outside. Andrew has had a great weekend, he has a new tooth (that totals 5 now, and explains the weekend crankiness). He also sat up all by himself, what a big boy! We went to Walmart for pictures with Santa (free nowless) and will post that later. I just had to take a picture (or two, or ten or 30) of him in his Christmas outfit.