Christmas Morning

Santa brought Austin a cool work bench and a bunch of tools. Isn't that tool belt the cutest?

As you can see, he's quite pleased with his ride on the truck. One of many great scores we got off of Craigslist this year.

Austin made out very well this year as far as toys go. I'm sure we're not the first parents to go crazy for their kid at Christmas. We'll probably just get him clothes now for his birthday next month.

The cats did alright too, here's a neat dual perch so they can look out the window.

We greatly appreciate all the generous gifts we received from friends and family this year.

Winter Wonderland

Here are some pictures we took around the outside of the new house after the first good snow storm. We have pretty much had snow on the ground the entire month.




Snow covered pines. We love having mature trees in our yard. Even in the winter, there are little critters running through our yard collecting food and such. It is fun to watch.


This is the spiral staircase that leads down from the covered deck.

After all that cold, it is wonderful to take a nice Sunday afternoon nap. Jim caught LeAnna and both cats snoozing away.

Prodigy

okay, maybe not exactly a musical genius, but he does love to play the piano. He will try to play the same note you just played, but that's about as musical as it gets.


Making sure he doesn't fall off the bench.


We had to share with you Boston's latest nap spot. We have two Christmas trees this year, one real and one fake. This is the fake one in the living room, and there are no decorations on it.... well, almost none. I came downstairs one morning and this is where Boston was sleeping.


Later he actually moved up one rung on the tree. We thought it was really funny. Anybody have a good way to remove cat hair from an artificial tree?

Picking a Christmas Tree

We have a family tradition of going to a tree farm and picking out the perfect tree to have cut down. This being Austin's first Christmas, it was his first experience with "Santa's Woods". It is a really neat place with Santa Claus, reindeer, hayrack rides, clydesdale horses, hot chocolate... the works. Of course we chose a very cold day to go (high of 10). So we're not sure that Austin enjoyed himself.


Here we are heading out to the tree farm on the hayrack ride.


Needless to say, the cold inspired to choose quickly. It actually looks pretty nice in our family room. Not decorated yet.


Poor guy, daddy's trying to keep him warm.


Ah, they had a nice fire for us to enjoy and warm up a bit.


Here we are back in the lodge warming up. Good times. We think Austin will enjoy it more next year.

More Rooms

The Family Room



This is our fireplace in the family room. It is a 2-sided fireplace that doubles as a fireplace in the kitchen. This is the second room we have officially painted and put together.


The ugly flowery window coverings that were left by the previous owners have been removed. We plan to put in curtains to match the pillows on the couch. The doors you see in the back of the room lead out to the covered deck.


This has become one of Boston's favorite napping spots.

The Playroom



This is basically a HUGE bedroom that we have put all of Austin's toys and videos in for him to play. Obviously we've done nothing else to it. We would like to eventually have the walls painted with a really cute kids landscape, or dinosaurs or something like that. But, that is a bit down the line.


Here he is playing with the toys! See the desk in the backround? We picked that up at a garage sale and refinished it. We're pretty proud of it. We can thank Jim's vision for that.


The Nintendo Room


There is a funky, sort-of, finished room off the main basement area. Jim claimed it as a display room for his Nintendo collection, and a place for him to play the games. As you can see, Austin is more than willing to join in.


Here he is trying to get daddy's controller. His nose is a little red from a cold.



He actually sat in the bean bag content for quite a while. See what video games do to you kids? Doesn't he look spacey.



Of course, Boston found a place to sleep to be part of the action!





On a more serious note. Today has been a difficult day for us here in Omaha. It is one thing to hear about a shooting, it is another to hear about one in your neighborhood at a place where you could have been innocently shopping for Christmas gifts. Today we are counting our blessings that our loved ones are alive and well. No matter what our current stressors are, there are always things to remind us of our blessings.

Moving!

You will notice it has been awhile since our last post. That is partly due to the fact that we have now officially moved! We are nearly completely settled in the new house. Just a few odds and ends left... mostly cleaning out the garage. We are very excited to decorate our new home and feel like we have tons of space!

The cats share a last look out the window of the old house.

Kesa and Kassie ham it up for Halloween

On moving day we tipped up the king size mattress to take apart the head board and frame. Boston and Brady decided it would be a great idea to climb up the mattress. Here they are inches from the ceiling.

It took some work to get them back down.

This is our new dining room. The first completed room in the new house. It was also the first room we painted. Most of the house needs to be painted... big project!

Here is the other angle.

We'll keep you updated on our progress. Austin is doing great in the new house. He sleeps extremely well and even sleeps in an hour later from time to time. He loves to climb the stairs. He moves pretty quickly. Now all we have to do is teach him how to come back down!

Random, but adorable pictures

Austin with his Grandma (Mama). I LOVE this picture. Unfortunately, I didn't have the red-eye lens on, but if you ignore the red eyes, it is adorable!


In this picture Austin is celebrating the victory of the Red Sox in the World Series! We are hoping to have a similar picture of him in Patriot garb in early February..... check Mark and Jana's blog for the special celebration that took place following the Patriots win over the Colts last Sunday! It's good stuff and there's a super cute picture of Jim and Austin.


That's our happy boy. Especially when it's time to eat!


This is the natural habitat for the cats. Believe it or not, Brady will lay in the sink when the water is on! Their life is going to be seriously uprooted in another week when we move them to an entirely new house. I don't think they will appreciate it at first.

Halloween

So, this year for Halloween, we represented your local cook-out! It all began with the ketchup and mustard, but then we found the greatest little hotdog costume for Austin... cute!


Daddy had to work Halloween night, so this is us at Mark's house.


The whole clan, dressed and ready to go!

Nebraska City

Every year we take a trip down to Nebraska City. We love to go to the apple orchards and get some home grown stuff. This year we picked up an apple pie, and of course.... cider donuts. We also make it a point to visit the crazy lady at Pumpkin Ridge where we get some cheap pumpkins. Austin had a great time!


He got his first driving lesson at Union Orchard.


Unfortunately this year, we did not get to see the crazy lady. Instead, we were helped by the crazy lady's crazy husband! A true testament to the sanctity of marriage. Austin was able to pick up his very own pumpkin (and mom and dad got to pick theirs out as well!)


Austin adores cats, but ours won't let him touch them. At Pumpkin Ridge he found this very friendly cat who was nice enough to allow Austin to pet him. As you can see, Austin is laughing his head off.


For some reason Austin has begun to smile with his tongue out. We think this pumpkin is as big as him!

This is at the Arbor Day Lodge. Apparently we were unable to get a picture where we were both looking at the camera!

We were grateful later that evening that Austin is still so young. Unfortunately, that night our lovely neighborhood teenagers smashed all 3 of our pumpkins in the street (taking out our landscaping light with them). We are just glad that Austin didn't wake up in the morning and want to see his first pumpkin. But, nasty teenagers aside, we had a great time!

Nintendo Nerds

So, Jim is really into this Nintendo collecting now. And he's trying to involve Austin as much as possible. As you can see, Austin doesn't mind. He quite likes the controllers (especially when we are trying to play a game)


Good times for everyone.


This picture was meant to be an inventory picture on a purchase Jim made, but Austin crawled into it. I love this picture because it shows off Austin's little New England Patriots jersey and the little icons on the butt.

Vala's Pumpkin Patch

Last Wednesday, Austin and LeAnna went to Vala's pumpkin patch. Unfortunately, Jim was working so he was unable to join us. Instead, they went with Mark and his family. Austin enjoyed watching the other kids, but he became pretty tired. We discovered the next day that he was getting his first tooth!


Whenever one of the kids is being difficult, Jana says they are up for sale. So, with a teething baby, and a demanding toddler, we thought this picture was appropriate. This is Austin with his cousin Kaleb (or is it Kaden?) I can't tell.


Jana took Austin for a little ride in one of the cars. I don't know how he felt about it, but immediately after he started crying and went to sleep.

Unfortunately, I didn't take many pictures. But, Jana got a really cute one of the three little boys, check out eisenbartthepirates blog to see if she's posted it (hint hint)

The Marathon

LeAnna got it in her head that a great way to lose some baby weight would be to train and run a half-marathon. Jim, being the excellent support that he is, decided to join her in the effort. Well, despite some very poor training, and neither of us losing much baby weight, we completed the half-marathon!

We had sort of a rocky start in that we actually arrived late for the race and still needed to pick up our packets. So, by the time we crossed the starting line, everyone else was long gone. We couldn't even tell which direction we were supposed to go! But, pretty quickly we started passing some walkers and SLOW runners. (LeAnna runs pretty slow to begin with, so it's hard to catch up to anybody when you start 15 minutes behind them).


As you can see here, Jim is looking great. This is about mile 6 or 7.


In roughly the same place, LeAnna looks pretty good too. At least we're both smiling. Little do we know that there is a killer hill just down the course from this point. But, what goes up, must come down.... and down the hill was pretty fun.


Here we are after finishing the race. 13.1 miles! We did not finish quickly by any means. In fact, the first and second place FULL marathon winners finished before us, but we still feel pretty good about getting it done!