*A Sneak Peek Josh and Valerie's Wedding*

Yesterday my beautiful sister got married! It was a small and simple ceremony, but absolutely beautiful. It was at a restaurant in Stillwater. The lift bridge was in the background and we watched the town light up with Christmas lights. The banquet room we were in had stunning views of the Mississippi River.

Congrats to Val and Josh- may the rest of your lives be filled with gratitude that you are in it together.

"If you live to be one hundred, I want to live one hundred minus one day, so that I never have to live without you" -Winnie the Pooh

*A Visit To Santa*

This year has been so much fun in terms of Santa and Christmas. Hunter is getting the concept of what Santa is and what he does. We went this past weekend to visit Santa in Eau Claire. We waited for an hour and a half! I must say though, thinking back on it... all of the children in line were well behaved... this Santa guy has a lot of power! Hunter and I watched Santa for a good 1/2 hour seeing kid after kid. Santa even waved at Hunter! When it came to their turn, Santa let Hunter know that he knew that he wanted a fire truck for Christmas. Hunter sat on his lap just fine and wasn't too scared like he has been in the past. Abby wasn't quite convinced, but she didn't cry and we even got some smiles out of her (which doesn't take much anyway!). Before Hunter got down, Santa asked if Hunter wanted a hug and Hunter told him yes, so they hugged. It was very cute. Although it was a long wait, we had a fantastic 3 minutes with the big guy, so it was a good day.

*Hunter's Video From Santa*

Now this is a cute video!!!! I captured Hunter's email video that he got from Santa. It was the cutest darn thing to see. Enjoy!

*Walking Proof*

So this video was a long time in the making! Getting the right shot was hard work. There was just so much that seemed to stand in the way. Such as:

• Abby seemed to always walk more when she was just wearing a diaper, and I just won't put a video of her without being fully clothed on the internet
• It is hard to be the one who she is walking to and being the one holding the camera, or vice versa being the one who is holding her and holding the camera before she goes
• After a few walks her legs still get tired and she has to crawl for a while- so the camera goes away and then she will start walking again when the camera isn't nearby
• She will walk a few steps and then fall towards her goal most of the time so it doesn't look like anything but falling... and I wanted to show how good she really is at this!

But I still can't believe that my daughter is 9 months old and walking! Holy cow we have a long road ahead of us I'm thinking!

*Surgery*

Up until today, we have been happy to report that Tucker does not mess with Hunter's stuffed animals. Lately we have been catching him pushing around 'Jakey-Jakey' but nothing too bad.

But, again, that was until today. We went to fleet farm to get a license for Jake. Upon arrival of home Jake found that 'Rawr' Hunter's stuffed animal lion, had his arm nearly amputated from a vicious Boston Terrier. We immediately went into survival mode (insert joke). I let Hunter know we would do surgery. Hunter consoled Rawr until I was prepared. Here is our journey:

The before pictures of Rawr. Hunter was hugging him and telling him it would be ok. 

     


  Dr. Verdon ready to go in for surgery.

Hunter held Rawr's foot and told me it was so Rawr wasn't scared.
The end results. A large scar, but hopefully this one will hold.

A successful surgery!

*Happy 9 Months Abigail!*

Happy 9 Months old Abigail! Wow has time flown by… I can remember being pregnant with her and here we are 18 months after I found out she would be coming into the world and she is now such her own little person.
I didn’t update on 8 months because she was in the middle of some transitions and so there wasn’t much to report at the time (I think that is the reason why…). But boy I have lots to report at 9 months! I was going to do this blog a few days early because I had some cute photos from this past weekend, but I decided to wait because I knew she was going to be doing some amazing things here coming up. I was right too! Two days ago she took her first ‘real’ steps at home. She was coerced into it though, so I’m still waiting for her to do it all on her own… or dreading it. She has also started really teething on her top teeth. They are SO close to coming through! We can see the white under her pink little gums. I hope that for her sake they come through and aren’t too painful! I don’t remember Hunter’s teeth being that big, but I suppose they were.
Her personality is just too funny. She LOVES to keep up with her brother. Tonight he was running circles around her back and forth and screaming, and oh boy you should have seen her! I’ve never seen a baby crawl so darn fast just to keep up! She was screaming right along with him and oh was she giggling! It was adorable. She loves to giggle. She is drawn to anything that is fun, loud, and plays music. She loves to dance, wiggle and jiggle.
Here is what she is doing:
- She plays “SO BIG!!!” and puts her hands up high in the air!
- She plays patty cake and claps her hands (she also claps when you say YAY ABBY!)
- She loves socks, loves to chew on them, suck on them, and most of all, NOT when you are wearing them (which is great!)
- She can say dada, papa, mama (yay!), baba, nana, and lots of other a-a sounds
- She eats stage 3 baby food and some table food with her fingers
- She can walk along the furniture great, crawl all over the place, get out of anywhere, and into anything
- She is not as much of a cuddler as her brother is- she would rather be doing something
- Excitement excites her, she just loves to have a reason to smile and laugh… and sometimes she doesn’t have a reason to smile or laugh and does anyway.. which ends up making us laugh too!