Abby's 2 year photo

After 1-1/2 hours at the Sears Portrait Studio, this is as good as it gets. It was the only photo they took and we said "Done!". I can only handle so much of the mall at one time.

Thanksgiving Holiday

This weekend we celebrated with both of our families and in 3 states. Needless to say we are very thankful for our safe travels and time spent with everyone. We were lucky enough to almost have everyone there for the celebrations as well. It wouldn't be a blog entry without some photos.



Here is Abby and her cousin Caroline playing in the leaves. Caroline lives in Florida so she is used to palm trees and beaches so the cold weather and leaves were fun.

They do look pretty cute and innocent here.












Here is Great Grandma Powers with her newest great grandchild, Ellis. He is only 2 weeks old. Abby is smothering him with kisses right now. She likes the babies.













Here is Great Grandma Powers with Ellis, Abby, and Caroline. Mackenzie was still taking a nap. So that wraps up the 4 current great grand children and #5 is about 11 weeks away. Yes Abby is wearing her cooking apron again. She has a small attachment to it.












After lunch Abby & Caroline, along with Tim, Joe, & Erinn headed out to the farm to check out the pond, which you can see part of in the back ground. Abby and Caroline were quite the pair holding hands and walking through the bean fields.












Next it was on to the shed to check out the tractors. Abby had been talking about them on the whole drive up as we saw some combines and tractors pulling wagons.












Here are the twosome again.














Here we are back in Iowa City. It snowed Saturday night and Abby was pretty excited about going and playing in it. Tim showed her how to make and throw snowballs so that was her mission.














Throwing snow at the dogs.













Poor Buddy got the most snow thrown at him.












All in all it was a very nice long weekend and we got to see everyone, eat way too much, and have a great time.

7 Month Update...
Yes it has been 7 months already. We're in the home stretch. I now go to the doctor every 2 weeks which will help time go by a little quicker, not that it hasn't already with all of our activities lately. Everything is still fine with the baby and my blood pressure. I had my glucose test and PASSED! No, it wasn't the 1 hour test, it was the 3 hour test. Since I have never passed the 1 hour we just went straight to the 3 hour to save a little time and insurance money. So I am very thankful that I passed and it's one less thing to worry about. With as different as this pregnancy has been I expected to fail. All is well, next appointment is December 9th.

Abby's 2nd Birthday Party

This weekend was the over the top celebration of Abby's 2nd birthday. Our theme was The Little Mermaid per Abby's request and we might have gotten a little crazy with the entertainment but the kids loved it. We were hoping for some warmer weather, but even with the snow it didn't slow anyone down. But it wouldn't be a normal weekend without some basement update photos.


Here is a photo of the bathroom. The toilet and sink are now in working order. We still have the mirror, light, cabinet, and trim to install before it's a done deal.













The before photo of the great room prior to our arrivals. We had a little over 30 people down there at one time and had plenty of room.















The cake. Despite a Diet Coke can incident in the truck and a quick run back to Gerbes for some touch up frosting it turned out just fine and we had no leftovers.









Here's the over-the-top part. This bounce house was used at Tim's company picnic and Abby loved it. So we thought it was a great idea to contain 10 kids in and wear them down a little bit. It did manage to snow a little bit too but it didn't slow any of them down. Most of them wanted to take their coats off.









Here is Abby giving it a test run.













Here we are opening some presents. As you can see we had plenty of help and that wasn't all the kids either. Tim was feeling a little bit crowded to say the least and had to ask the kids to scoot back and respect the perimeter.














Here is Abby having some cake with Grandma Schmidt.













Here is Abby telling a story to her friend Ashley.














This is Abby beating Tim and telling him to stop singing "Happy Birthday". Apparently she doesn't like that song all that much.













We had some wrestling with Abby's friend's Carmen and Chloe from daycare.














Chef Abby











The kitchen that Tim and I got for Abby.















Ashley and Zachary climbing up the slide.












Zachary probably wishing Abby could climb a little faster.













The table and chair set that goes with the kitchen from Mommy and Daddy.












And if we didn't have a busy enough weekend on Sunday we went to our friend Julie Monnig's baby shower at Les Bourgeois Winery. They are due with their first baby on December 23rd.




Here is Julie with one of her gifts.














Abby stayed entertained.













Abby, Landon, and Madeliene hanging out at the table. Abby is fixing her hair.














The baby shower was one heck of a party because the kids were worn out. Madeliene is on the left, then Abby, and Landon.










We had a very wonderful weekend and want to thank all of our family and friends for traveling to spend the day with us and for all the wonderful presents that Abby received. We are truly blessed by the people that surround us. She is definitely a lucky girl and will have plenty of new things to play with for the next year and to share when you come back and visit.

Two Years went Too Quickly

Abby at 3 months













Abby's First Birthday
















Abby's 2nd Birthday












Welcome to the newest Powers/DeBlois family member. Jessica and Brett DeBlois welcomed Ellis James DeBlois at 3:49 pm on November 14th, 2008. He weighed 8 lbs even and was 22 inches long.

He'll have an easy birthday to remember :)

Slenker Wedding Weekend

This weekend we celebrated the wedding of our friends Tamica Rice and Jeremy Slenker. If was a very lovely ceremony and reception at the Elks Lodge in Columbia, MO. The fall colors were everywhere in the hall and the flowers and decorations were extremely beautiful. We had a good time hanging out with the "Columbians" and celebrating this marriage.

Here is a picture of Jeremy and Tamica during the ceremony. We were pretty far away from the podium site as it was more important for our group to be placed by the bar. We could see and hear everything just fine, just a long shot for the camera.


Here is Abby doing the Cha-Cha slide. She had the stomping and hopping down, it was quite a site. You can also get a better view of Tamica's dress. It was very elegant, Abby followed her around pretty much all night, I think she liked the dress as well.

Abby and Tim having a dance. This was getting closer to the end of the night. A little while later Abby came up to me and said "done" so we headed home to crash.

It wouldn't be a normal week if we didn't get something done with the basement.....



Here is a photo as the carpet installers are putting in the carpet on Friday. The carpet pad is on the stairs and the actual carpet is on the landing at the bottom. We'll have more photos of that to come in the next couple of days. It looks great and we're happy with how it turned out.
Here is a before photo. Tim and I were putting up trim until about 10:30 on Thursday night to get it all done for the installation on Friday morning. That part went pretty smoothly actually. There was a little bit of clean up with all the dust, etc. from this whole process but we're very happy with how it turned out.

Here is the new downstairs guest bedroom. You can see the paint color better with the contrasting white doors and trim. The drop ceiling is pretty much white as well. We'll be working on getting the lighting up this week prior to the party on Saturday and our house guests.Here is the downstairs hallway. Please note the lovely stair skirt on the left that Tim spent too many hours working on and developed a colorful vocabulary when discussing the skills of our original contractor. After some modifications it was successfully installed and the carpet installers were impressed with it as well and it looks great so we're all happy.

It was a very nice weekend to spend time with our friends and celebrate the Slenker's. The Slenker's and Rice's were both very gracious hosts and we had a wonderful time at the wedding. This week will be busy for us as well with preparing for Abby's party on Saturday, more house guests, and as much basement work as we can fit in. We hope to have a working bathroom and complete bedroom when it's all said and done.

Can't end the email without a shout out to the Hawkeyes and their win this Saturday over Penn State. If anything they helped out Mizzou a little bit in the standings. It's typical Iowa football though, they can have a mediocre season and then come out and beat a top ranked team. It was a good day to be in Iowa City.

Halloween Weekend

This past weekend was pretty busy, as usual for our family. We put a lot of activities into a few days. My parents came down from Iowa to visit Thursday - Saturday so they got to have some fun Abby time.


Here is a picture of Grandma Papke helping Abby put together her Mr. Potato Head pumpkin. It was a little more difficult to get the pieces in than we originally thought. Abby is already wearing part of her duck costume and it was only 3 pm.
Still working on the face.
Here's the finished product. Abby's is the pirate and mine is the traditional carving. She wasn't too excited about helping me clean out the pumpkin, it was "yucky".
Here is the duck ready to go with her bucket. She had enough of the picture taking as was ready to go.
Heading off to Barb and Frank's house, our first stop for the evening.

Here Abby is checking out her "loot". She actually hasn't eaten any of it yet, just likes to inventory it. She likes to hand it out and then get it back in her bucket.
The duck got a little too hot in her outfit so here is how she finished up the rest of the night. She would run to the door to check out the kids in their costumes, but some were just a little too scary and she would run right back.
The next evening Tim had a bachelor party with our friend Jeremy who is getting married next weekend to Tamica. So the men went to the comedy club and all the ladies who were on kid duty went to Bonker's so the kids could run around. Here is a picture of Abby playing "Whack a Mole", but with sharks. I think she was more entertained by the lights and music. We played this game quite a bit. She actually did hit the sharks all on her own. She was quite proud of herself.

Still whacking.....probably for the 10th time that night.
Here Abby is trying to show Landon how it's done. He was more content to just hit the one on the corner with his hand.

We also made some good progress with the basement as well. Tim took a few days off last week to be there for the ceiling installation. My Dad helped Tim get the tile cut and laid out for the bathroom and entryway, and it was grouted last night. We also got the larger rooms painted with their final coat after the ceiling was put in. Our doors and trim were delivered on Friday so we have most everything in the house, we just need to put it up prior to the carpet installation on Friday. We'll have more pictures to share when we get a little farther. Things are a little cluttered trying to get everything done in a short period of time. It should be a exhausting week for Tim and I but then it will all be done.

6 Month Update - I had my 6 month appointment on Thursday and everything is still moving along normally. The baby was moving a lot so we would hear the heartbeat a little bit and then have to chase it again. Next month is the glucose test so that should be fun.