Christmas 2010

This year we spent Christmas in the Black Hills with Haune's side of the family.  We had a wonderful time, ate plenty of YUMMY meals, and simply enjoyed spending time with family.  Below are some picture and video updates from the past week.

After dinner entertainment:

Video taken on December 22, 2010 

Loving her new bath tub:

Video taken on December 22, 2010

It's always fun receiving new underwear for Christmas:



Video taken December 23, 2010

(We got a bit excited and decided to open presents early.)

Julia received lots of beautiful gifts, but seemed to be most interested in the tissue paper:

Video taken December 23, 2010

The day before we left, Julia got her first ear infection.  Here's a pic
of our sick little girl.  :(  Since then, antibiotics seem to be working well!

Lots of cuddles from Grandma and Grandpa Hauan

She must have been one good little girl these past 7 months...

Christmas Eve

"I don't think I like this hat, Mom..."

Mrs. Claus and Mrs. Paws

Buddies

"I am much happier without my hat!!!"

We had our first annual Ugly Sweater Christmas party with the Kinzleys. 
Above you'll see the top 3 place winners based on top-secret anonymous voting.

The entire crew (Thanks for the pic, Brendan!)



First Christmas as Mrs. and Mrs.



"Oh Where, oh where have our cameras gone...?

"...Oh where, oh where can they be???"  My apologies for not updating the blog recently, but somehow between my last post and today, we have been unable to locate our camera or video camcorder.  This poses a problem as we are leaving for the Black Hills in a little over three hours from now to celebrate Julia's first Christmas with Haune's side of the family... Hopefully they will both turn up soon.  Very soon.  Until then, here's a picture my friend April fwd'ed me from our recent ChristCare Christmas party.  :)  We have been meeting monthly with these great people from our church for approximately 2 1/2 years now--we are so lucky to have such great friends!

Dubberke Seed's 53rd Annual Seed Day

This past week/weekend, Julia and I traveled to Hubbard to both help mom since coming home from the hospital and to also prepare for Seed Day which is our annual open house for Mom and Dad's seed business.  Dad's been involved in the seed business since he was 12 years old when he helped his Dad, Harold.  This makes 53 years of hosting Seed Day as a family.  As a little girl, I have memories of coloring pictures for the farmers and their wives during the open house.  As an adult, I love going back to help out and visit with everyone. 

Our guests

Seed Day was another excuse to get Julia dressed up in her Christmas outfit.

Great-Grandma Ramona also came from Waverly to help out with Seed Day.

Since we were in town for awhile, my good friend Stephanie Cathcart came up from Des Moines to visit us with her two little guys, Jaxson and Holden.  Steph and I have been friends since birth practically, and now it's fun to watch our little ones interact with each other as well.  This video is of the boys and Julia who is riding Grandpa's "horsie."



Video taken on December 6, 2010 

Quick Review

On Tuesday of this past week our good friend Jordan came to visit us.  We always enjoy seeing him and Julia really appeared to be quite smitten with him as well during supper.  Here's a few pics from the visit as well as a couple others from this week.

Jordan and Julia -- last Tuesday

Jordan and Julia -- 7 months ago



Our Little Helper

Julia helped us put up her first Christmas tree.  She loves to smile at all of the lights and ornaments.

Helping Daddy

The finished product

Enough work... time to play with Zoey



Seven Months Old!

Our Bug is seven months old today!



6 Month Pictures

So I'm a little behind on posting Julia's 6 month pictures... better late than never I guess!  Here's a few of our favorites:



Thanksgiving

This year we spent Thanksgiving with the Kling family who are both family and friends here in Rochester.  The food was fantastic as was the company!  After our Thanksgiving meal we went down to the Rochester Civic Center to peruse the Festival of Trees.  Julia seemed to enjoy taking in all of the lights, sights, and sounds.  Overall, our first Thanksgiving as a family of three was a success.

Julia's first Thanksgiving



 Video taken November 25, 2010

Video taken November 25, 2010

Early Thanksgiving

This past weekend my side of the family celebrated an early Thanksgiving.  Although we were in the hospital visiting Mom for the majority of the weekend, we were thankful for the time to all be together.  Julia got some cuddle time in with Uncle Ryan and between the Hawkeye and Raider games she has watched enough football to last her quite some time.

Uncle Ryan with Julia

Getting the hang of it...

Julia has gotten much better with eating food -- she hardly gags at all these days, and if she does it's still on that blasted rice cereal.  She has nearly perfected peas and beans.

Video taken November 17, 2010



Pictures Please

Here are just a few quick snapshots from the last couple of weeks:

Sporting a new shirt from Grandma Sue

Sporting a new outfit from Grandma Gloria

Sisterly love



We were able to see my favorite band, The Nadas, in concert a couple of weeks ago.
They even gave us a shout-out (well, Rochester, Minnesota that is) during one of their songs. :)



Great-Great Grandma Austina's 100th Birthday Celebration

This past weekend we were able to celebrate Julia's Great-Great Grandma Austina's 100th birthday at her nursing home in Lake Mills, Iowa.  (Grandma Austina is Mark's Grandma on his mother's, Marcella, side of the family.)  Mark and his cousins figured that some of them hadn't seen each other in approximately 20 years.  Needless to say, everyone enjoyed getting caught up with one another... despite the icky weather.

Grandma and Grandpa Hauan

Grandpa's Girl

4 out of 5 Generations.  (We all missed you, Grandma Marcella!  I'm thinking
that the weather you had in New Mexico was better than what we had in Iowa that weekend!)

5/10s of the Hauan Family with Grandma Austina

5 out of 7 of Austina's children