A Christmas Note

As 2010 is coming to a close it is time for me to pen (type) another Christmas letter. We have had a wonderful, blessed year that has brought many changes for our family.
In February, Jess was promoted to a "team lead" position. That means that he is the direct supervisor for 12 or so individuals under him working alongside another team lead who manages the other 12 employees that make up their supervisor's team. Jess has really stepped up to the plate in this position and is constantly working to make his team and Nelnet more efficient. His most recent work accomplishment was winning the gingerbread house building contest in his department. He's humble about winning blaming it on the lack of competition, but it was his stellar baking and icing skills that really set his apart.

Jess has also been busy enduring/enjoying (I always mix those up) several athletic events. Jess finished two half-marathons this year and earned medals in two of his athletic conquests. We are so proud of him for persevering through each race and continuing to train for the next one. He is already looking ahead to competing in the Omaha olympic distance triathlon among other races next year. Most importantly, Jess has been able to train for all of these events mostly over his lunch hour saving the majority of his weekends and evenings to spend with Jack and me.

Jack is a constant whirlwind of activity and joy. There is not a single day where we are not aching from laughter at some of the things he says. He's turned into a true little boy and there is not one bit of toddler left in him. This year he transitioned into two different classrooms. We were very sad to move on from Kayla and Amy since they helped make Jack's school such an important part of our lives, but it was time for Jack to go to what he still calls "the big kid room."

After spending the summer in the big kid room, Jack moved upstairs to a room with seven little boys and NO girls, except for the teacher. We have loved this transition and have become really good friends with Jack's teacher Liz. I regularly spend a half an hour in Jack's room when I come to pick him up because I just chat with Liz and the friends while they finish their snacks.

Jack has also started gymnastics once a week. It has been so much fun to watch Jack develop his skills each week. Almost always, his favorite activity is the trampoline and I don't blame him. I would love to get to do that portion of the lessons as well.

This year also brought about several changes for me. In May I graduated law school. I'm not sure where the three years that included the birth of Jack, all of my legal learning, and the beginning of a wonderful working relationship went, but I couldn't have been any happier in May...except for the looming bar exam. I took the bar exam in July and found out in September that I had passed!! I am a licensed attorney in the state of Iowa anxiously awaiting (checking my mailbox every day) admission to the state of Nebraska on motion.

I quit my clerking position to study for the bar and while I was studying I found myself unemployed and pregnant. Fear not, my clerking position opened up for the semester (thanks to my cousin/replacement Zach) and Joy has since decided to hire me as an associate. I cannot believe my good fortune to be employed in this market as several of my classmates are still searching for positions. I'm also so excited to stay on in our office as I enjoy everyone there and really like the work I'm doing.

We were sad to say goodbye to Blackie last spring but have had fun welcoming Roxie into our family. Often we forget that she's a puppy and then realize that she's a really good dog for a puppy. We were also sad to see several close friends move away this summer. They each are following wonderful opportunities, but it has been sad to have them so far away.

As we enter 2011, we are anxiously awaiting the arrival of our new little addition to our family. We couldn't be happier about this change to our family although it once again thrusts us to the edge of the unknown. We hope that in the new year God grants us as many blessings and as much joy as he has this year. We also pray that these blessings and joy are with you all as well during the holiday season and throughout the year.

Merry Christmas!

Love,
Abby, Jess, and Jack

Forget"fall"

Here's a brief overview of what I didn't blog about this fall...

Jack has enjoyed having his new bunk beds...however, he sometimes isn't ready to go to sleep when we put him down. There have been a couple nights where I have found him asleep on his floor. This night he barricaded himself into his room with all of his board books.
He also likes to pretend he's doing yard work like daddy... sorry, Jess does wear clothes to mow the lawn.

We made a few trips home in the fall to hunt. Here is Jack looking at a pheasant. Over Thanksgiving the guys (and Steph) bought and "planted" pheasants to shoot. They said it was a lot of fun to have that many birds to shoot.

Roxie is a real dog now, and a pretty good hunter I'm told, especially for having no experience and no training. I do know that she is always thrilled when she gets to go.

Jack enjoys making little beds for himself in boxes and baskets. He had a particularly successful creation in a basket of towels. Roxie likes to bug him whenever he does this.

We were in Holdrege over Halloween weekend for pheasant hunting. Before we left town, Jack wanted to walk to Osborn's to show them his costume. And boy did he walk...

Jack has also been into copying me. This night he and I did some work on our computers together.

Birthdays X 3

We came to Holdrege to celebrate Jack's birthday. I think Jess had some other reason for coming but that escapes me now...perhaps I have become a lousy blogger. When we arrived Friday evening Mom came over to visit so Jack had both Grandmas reading to him.
Grandpa got tired of reading books; really I think he could not contain his excitement and decided that Jack had to have his big present from them that evening. It is a pretty awesome present. Rod picked out this three wheeler Schwinn. Jack was instantly in love. He wanted to ride it home to Mom and Dad's so we compromised that we'd take it there and he could ride it back to Osborn's in the morning.

He did a lot of riding that day as we rigged it up so he could carry his popcorn from "the berry farm" back to Osborn's. He was just thrilled to be riding the trike anywhere.
Phyllis ordered Jack a Mickey Mouse cake as we had just returned from Disney World. He was really tickled to get to have cake and ice cream. Mom, Dad, Jim, and Melba came over and helped us celebrate with Jack.

Then it was time for presents.

Jack really enjoyed opening his presents at Grandma and Grandpa's.

We had presents saved for Jack's actual birthday which was on a Monday. He took luau cupcakes and spider cupcakes to school to share with his friends. When Jess got home from work we let Jack open his presents.
Jack chose Noodles & Co. for his birthday dinner. He also wanted to sit outside. Fortunately the weather was much nicer this year for his birthday as it was snowing on his birthday the year before. Jack also started gymnastics that evening so it was a special treat for his birthday to get to go play somewhere cool.
When we were done with gymnastics we came home and had cupcakes that were leftover from school. It was fun to celebrate just the three of us.

Jack's actual birthday was followed by what we call "the practice birthday." We had a party for Jack, Anna, and Cori in November since their birthdays are all within a month or so from each other. The party was the weekend before Cori's birthday and she told mom that this was just her practice birthday because her real birthday was on Tuesday.

Here are the best shots from my camera when we tried to get one of the three kids together...perhaps Christie or Steph were more successful.

We had a really fun time with everyone but the Barwick boys (not because they are not fun, they were not here). After the party Bill, Chris, and the biggest Butz girls went to the Husker game while we all had a Husker party at home.

Jack was really excited to get a cowboy set. Uncle Bill knew just what a little boy needs.

Jack was quite lucky to have three special birthday celebrations and to have so many people who care for him. We can't believe that he's three already!

Each kid had their own Eileen's cookie in a different flavor.

As I mentioned above, I've become a bad blogger. I blame this on my status as a law school graduate. I spent SO much time on my computer with fast internet access that the only impediment to blogging was uploading the pictures to my computer. Now I don't seem to be better at uploading pictures to my computer (I'm quite positive I'm worse at uploading them, and remembering to take them for that matter) and now that I'm not looking for a distraction during class I don't seem to take the time to upload them at home. I want to be a good blogger again, hopefully I will be.

Pumpkins

We had a couple really fun visits to the pumpkin patch this year. On our first trip, Jess and I picked Jack up from school and headed out for the end of the afternoon. That was the perfect time to go to the patch too, there was no crowd at all.

Jack was like a maniac jumping off the hay bales; I did not know he could fly.

Jack somehow managed to trick Jess into pushing him around on these tricycle things too.

This was the only cut-out that Jack wanted to have his picture in.

This was the only one Jess really wanted his picture in ;)

Jack had the most fun showing us how strong he was and how much he could lift.

The best part of going at the end of the day was that there was no wait for the 40ft. slide. At one point I even sat at the bottom and Jack just ran back up the hill to Jess. (I hear that on weekends the kids have to wait like five minutes for each trip down the slide).

Jack and I had a second trip to the pumpkin patch with the daycare. It was a lot of fun to get to experience the pumpkin patch again and to see him interact with his friends. I also get along with his teacher really well so it was fun to get to hang out with her too.

We had lots of pumpkins from the "berry farm" in Holdrege. Jess enjoyed carving them, and I enjoyed roasting the seeds. I did not enjoy having to pick the seeds out of the pumpkin guts though. Once again, Jack seemed to think that clothes are not necessary for carving pumpkins.

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Roxie did not really care about the pumpkin carving but came around often to see what was up. She's a real dog now, and a pretty good one at that. She has taken to sleeping under our bed at night which is weird, but not too bad otherwise.

Apple Farm

We have been really excited about going to the Arbor Day Farm this year, however it took us a while to actually make it there. Every week we thought, maybe we'll go this weekend, but we just kept finding other things to do (Jess has been VERY busy getting rooms ready so the baby can have a room when he arrives).
It was fun to see what had changed from last year, this tunnel was one noticeable difference.

Jack's ability to actually do most of the hike was another improvement from last year. We remembered being mislead by the description of the trail last year and thought that it would be manageable to take the stroller on the trail; we were wrong. This year, we did not need a stroller and Jack did not need carried so it was really fun to explore.

Jack was tired when he got to the top of the biggest hill and took a rest on a bench... I too needed a rest because I had to carry a kid the whole time, but it certainly was easy to take "donut" (this is what Jack calls the baby right now) with us on the hike this year. Hopefully he'll be easy to carry on our trip next year too.

We took our turn being the three little bears.

We then rode out to the "preservation orchard" to pick our apples.

Jack had a bird's eye view for the apple picking. It was the most fun snack I've ever had. You pick an apple, taste it, enjoy it or throw it under the tree.

Several of the trees are marked so you know what kind of apple you are getting. Lady Sweet was our favorite or at least tied for favorite. They tasted very similar to a red delicious, but were much firmer than one. They were also this gorgeous green painted with red. YUM!

It was amazing to see all the apples that had fallen from the trees. I tried to capture the row of Jonathans, but did not do it justice.

Jack also enjoyed getting into the tree and picking some apples.

We finished our trip to the apple farm with a stop at the nature classroom so Jack could do some digging. It was a great day to visit, much busier than our trip last year, but we weren't overrun by other people. Our apples are gone, so we're already looking forward to next year.