We're Back

After being away for a month (yes a MONTH) we are back in PA and trying to settle in. Unpacking, doing a million loads of laundry, going to doctor appointments and so on.....
I will post more pictures of our vacation

My Sweet Family!!!!
Click on this one to see it larger.

It actually came out well with the timer although the two youngest aren't looking...
but thats ok, they didn't know where to look!

Catching Up... This Is Going To Be A Long One!

Well we had Thanksgiving this year early in October with all of Josh's brothers and their families and his parents. Then we celebrated Thanksgiving Day with just his parents at their house. It was SO relaxing and yummy! We had a great day together as a family. We set up our Christmas decorations the weekend before so that we could do it as a family and the kids and I could enjoy them for a few days before we left. The Saturday after Thanksgiving, my parents (Mimi & Poppi) came from NY to pick Will, Abby, and me up to take us down to NC with them. We made it down in exactly 12 hours with all of our stops. The kids slept only 1 hour of that trip but neither cried even one time. It was a really great trip down considering. I think Poppi prayed extra hard since he can't stand to hear kids cry.

While we have been down here Josh has been working extra and hunting! He shot this 10 point buck in PA last weekend! Good job babe!!!! So I will have some venison to cook up again this year :)! I really do like it actually.

Will was SO excited to hear that daddy got a deer because every time Josh would go hunting while we were home we would pray that he would get a deer and everytime he would come home with one Will was dissappointed.

My man and his deer.
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Since we have been in NC .......

*My hair has gone from this -

TO THIS......

About 7 to 8 inches taken off.....

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* We have had LOTS and LOTS of fun play time with Christy's children (Eli, Lilly, & Zac)

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* We went to the Billy Graham Library

This was a neat place. Decorated inside and out for Christmas. The huge wreaths and lights all around were beautiful. The live nativity with a camel, donkey, sheep, and goats was fun to see as well. Inside the HUGE Christmas tree was decorate SO nice, there was a huge gingerbread house, and tons of things to look at in their store.

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* And of course we get sick when we are away!

Abby has had a nasty cold for a few weeks now that has just settled in and not wanted to leave her. Will has a slight cold, but nothing major. Abby is now on antibiotics and a nebulizer (breathing treatment). I am just thankful we caught it before it got worse and praying these medications will get rid of it all quickly. It hasn't slowed her down at all though.

Here she is with her mask for the breathing treatment. It takes about 15 minutes and she never wants to sit still for even 5 mins, but she is getting used to it.

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* The kids and I have been on the go down here. Visiting friends, visiting Mimi at school, going to stores that we usually don't get to go to, going to Christy's house. It has been so nice to be here with my family and I am thankful my wonderful husband allowed us to go away for such a long time. We miss you!!!!

Mowing in the Snow

OK - well, it was just flurries.... and you can hardly see them in these pictures - but I promise it was "flurrying" a lot. Abby got this little lawn mower for her birthday and Will thinks its real. He kept asking to go out and mow the grass... so even though it was cold and dusting snow... I let him go out. He didn't last long, but he seemed like he was proud of his work :)!

Family Party

Here are pictures from Abby's family birthday celebration. Her cousins (Aiden & Annie), Aunt/Uncle (Jason & Kate) and Grandparents (Nana & Pappa) came over for Josh's homemade pizza and a cookie-cake.

The sweet birthday Girl

I think she wanted the entire cookie to herself :)

Will helped her open some present... but Abby was actually into opening them and playing with them. I remember Will's first birthday he could really care less about all of the presents and just wanted to play with the paper.

Sitting on the baby doll nana got her.

She was about the same size as the big bag that her present came in.

She just recently had her one year well visit and she is still my little peanut.

She weighed 17 1/2 pounds (5th percentile for her age) and was 30 1/2 inches long (80th percentile for her age). She is tall and thin. Everything else checked out great although she just had her first ear infection. Her second upper tooth came in and she really looks like a pumpkin - they are EXTREMELY far apart - but I'm not too surprised since Josh and I both had braces for that very reason.

11-9-2008

November 9th, 2007 my sweet little Abby girl was born. I can't believe a year has already come and gone. I remember last year anticipating her birth and awaiting our "tiny" baby as the doctors were saying. Well she wasn't super tiny then (6 lbs. 12 oz), but she is tiny now. I will find out next week what she weighs at the doctor's, but I don't think its going to be a lot. She is petite in every way other than her personality. She is on the go all the time. She started walking at 10 1/2 months and is now practically running. She loves to dance (which consists of major squats or twirling around in circles with one hand held straight up until she is dizzy). She loves to climb, throw things out of drawers, wrestle with her brother, eat goldfish, throw her food off her highchair, and hug her teddies and blanket. She is a mama's girl and cries when I leave her sight, although when daddy walks in the door from work her face lights up and she runs to him. She finally has her first tooth. Her upper left one broke through about two weeks ago. That doesn't stop her from eating what she wants though. She has eaten meat and our table food from the get-go (never liked baby food) - but I don't blame her. She is such a blessing to our family! Thank you Lord for my "Abby Sweetie."

Here are some pictures of her first year!

Mommy loves you Abby! I pray the Lord will shine upon you and make you into a sweet loving little girl who grows into a women of God with uncompromising faith.

My little Animals

This year for halloween Will was a dragon (since he loves to watch the show dragon tales) and Abby was an elephant (since her favorite word to say is elephant)! just kidding, Abby wore this adorable hand me down costume from her cousin Lilly. Both kids were sick so we didn't stay out long. It was such a beautiful fall night here and not too cold!

Sweet little Elephant of mine!

We had a happy and nice dragon. He was refered to by others as an alligator and a dinosaur.
However, he did have wings.

You can tell Josh is excited about going out.

Will was so quite all night. He just stared at all the other costumes.

Will with his cousins Aiden the pirate and Annie the princess.

This is on the way home. I can't believe I gave this to her, but she was so grouchy and crying pretty loud. It only worked for a couple of minutes.

AMAZING

So this is a picture of our sweet baby at 12 weeks. I was absolutely amazed when I saw how clear the hands, feet, legs and face were when I saw this. I haven't seen one this clear this early yet. Sorry for the way these turned out. I don't have a scanner and so I tried my best to get them as clear as we see them at home, but it doesn't work that well. The heartbeat was great and he/she was moving all around. It makes all the morning (all-day) sickness and extreme exhaustion so worth it. Thank you Lord for this gift of life!

Will loves looking at these pictures and he has decided to call the baby
"Thomas the tank engine Gehman"
(don't know if thats in the running...)

For the record: Josh says this baby already looks like him!!! ;)

Fall Festival Cuteness

This picture was taken by someone from my church at the fall festival and I just received it a few days ago and had to share it. I absolutely love the look on their faces and the quick cowboy get-up. Happy Fall, although its winter weather up here.

Homemade Play-Dough

I found this recipe for homemade play-dough a while ago and have been wanting to try it for Will. He loves to play with play-dough, but all of ours has been dried out for a while now. So I finally decided to give it a try and I'm so glad I did. It made a good amount of it and its so easy to work with. It is a little greasy - so we should probably have something underneath when we play with it, but for now its giving my table a nice "shine" as Josh says.

Will made a ramp with Josh for his monster truck. He doesn't let this truck out of his sight!!!

Josh likes to play with it also :). He made this dinosaur which puts to shame all the things I make when I play with Will.

Here is the recipe:

Mix together in bowl:
2 1/2 cups flour
1 Tablespoon alum (found in the spice section)
In a saucepan on the stove stir the following ingredients together. Bring to a boil.
2 cups water
1/2 cup salt
3 Tablespoons vegetable oil
food coloring (if making the whole batch the same color, otherwise knead individual colors in at the end)

Once mixture is boiling, add

2 -1/2 cups flour
1 Tablespoons alum

Cook over low to medium heat stirring constantly until dough comes away from the edges of the pan and it becomes very hard to stir. Remove from heat and let cool slightly(until you are able to knead the dough).

Knead until smooth and elastic. Store in an airtight container.

I put the food coloring all together because I didn't know what it would look like trying to do it at the end..... just so ya know.

She got a Pony ...

for her first birthday! Mimi got Abby her first horse! This play horse is so much fun for both kids. Abby got this as an early birthday present from my mom while she was still in town. Will wanted to ride it and play with it right away and had to be held back so Abby could see it. She really loves it. She plays with a lot of Will's tractors and cars, so its nice to see her enjoy a "girly" toy.

Will pushes her around the house and she loves it. This way, they are both happy! The horse has a button on the side that you can push to make music and Abby laughs every time she pushes it because she gets a kick out of doing it herself. Too cute!

Thanks again Mimi!

PUNKINS

Mimi (my mom) flew in Tuesday night and Wednesday was fore casted to be the warmest and most sunny day, so we decided to go to get the kids some pumpkins.
Will and Abby enjoyed themselves more than I thought they would. Will ran from pumpkin to pumpkin looking for the "perfect" one to take home. And of course, I had
them pose for a few pictures.

I didn't realize at first that there was a boy and girl pumpkin, and Will's cutest shot was in the one with the bow - oh well!

It looks like he is telling her something very interesting.

My little sweet punkins!

What a look on that face. I think he is getting ready to tackle me or something.
I had to feed them crackers on the way home to keep them awake and
then we all had naps!! :) We were so excited Mimi was in town!!!