8 months old!

Hannah has been a joy in our life and we continue to love her more and more each day. She is so much fun and full of energy right now. She can't even sit still long enough for us to get a diaper on her after bath time. Joe continues to condition her for the WNBA as she is still super tall and she is now just shy of 16 pounds 12 oz. the other day when I weighed her. She is crawling all around and eating new things each day. She is even starting to pull herself up on things in attempts to stand. One of my favorite things is picking her up at daycare. She spots me and then squeals a little and proceeds to crawl right up to my feet and put her arms up. It is so great. She is in the second room, Crawler City, and enjoying it. They made little hearts with their hand prints on them the other day for Valentine's Day. Joe thinks that Hannah is looking more and more like him each day. I still think she looks a lot like me regardless.

In other news, Hannah and I are very proud of daddy for matching for his Urology Residency at the University of Minnesota. The grandparents are especially excited about Hannah coming home, I don't know if they realize Joe and I are coming back as well. This means that I am looking for a new job and we have already started the house hunt. We'll keep you posted on our progress, but for now we're excited to come home!

Happy 8 month Birthday Hannah! We love you!

Happy New Year's!

We had a fantastic new year's in Montana. It was great to spend more time with family. Hannah was an angel on the plane rides and she even showed off some of her new skills. We watched the Gopher-Cyclone football game and had Chinese over at my Great-Grandparents' house. Joe and I enjoyed some time skiing while Grandma Karen had some daycare time with Hannah. Hannah even crawled on all fours for the first time (Jan 2) when mom and dad were away! She also began saying 'mama' which was of course a delight for me :). Hannah continues to grow and learn new skills each day (including sitting up on her own today at daycare - Jan 7). She still has not mastered sleeping through the night, but I'm sure she will get there soon (she has to right?). Meanwhile we are introducing her to new foods each day and I am hopeful that I will get some time to make her some meals from scratch. Here are some pictures from our trip.

Checking out Great Aunt Carol's classroom

Opening a present at Aunt Carol and Uncle Doug's

Go Gophers!Swimming at the hotel poolAunt Jessie and HannahEating dinner at Great-Grandma and Grandpa'sUncle Bob and HannahCrazy Great Uncle BrentSkiing at Red Lodge, MT
Grandma Daycare!
I loved Uncle Bryan's Blackberry!
Crawling!
Enjoying the hot tub after 2 days of skiing

Christmas

We had a great Christmas this year. We have had a year full of great blessings and are very excited for what the new year will bring. Joe is done interviewing! What a relief after 13 interviews across the Midwest and man am I happy to have a husband back! He submitted his rank list and we are excited to find out on January 25th where we will be for his urology residency. I believe that everything will work out the way it is supposed to and hopefully that means I will find a job wherever we end up (cross your fingers).

This year for Christmas we came back to Minnesota. I was lucky enough to take Wednesday off and so we headed up on Tuesday night ahead of the snow and ice! Thank goodness! Hannah slept the entire way up and has been an angel the entire weekend. She still isn't sleeping completely through the night, but it has been hard for me to try any of the sleep 'techniques' because it has been just me a lot while Joe has been interviewing and it is way easier to wake up and nurse her than try to let her cry it out, etc. We have been a little slow on the solid foods thing and are just starting to really introduce baby food as part of Hannah's normal diet. Hannah enjoyed scooting around all over the place and playing with her new toys. Thanks to the Grandparents for spoiling her rotten! She thoroughly enjoyed her rocking horse, million blinking lights and playing song toys, and as of recently the teething toys. Joe and I enjoyed an afternoon out while the grandparents watched Hannah, it was sure nice to be childless for just a couple hours and enjoy each other.

I have a short work week again next week as I took more vacation while we go out and do some skiing in Red Lodge and visit relatives out in Montana. We're excited for Hannah's second plane ride and to see more relatives!

Here are the pictures from our Christmas week:

Denver Visit

Joe had an interview Friday at the University of Colorado hospital and so Hannah and I decided to tag along and it also worked out that Grandma and Grandpa Zabell were also able to come along. We stayed with Joe's aunt, Jean and Maryann and had a great time! Hannah got to spend some quality time with her great-grandma Dorothy as well. We went to the Flatirons mall (where Hannah saw Santa), out to eat at Bonefish Grill, walked around Estes Park, and spent some fun time just hanging out and playing. Hannah was a great traveler and was sure loved by all throughout the whole trip. Here is a collage of some candids from the trip:

Visiting Santa

Hannah visited Santa while daddy went to his interview in Denver. More to come soon...

Hannah Chatter

Here's a cute video of Hannah telling a story about her weekend...

Weekend Fun

Friday Joe had his Nebraska interview and today he flies out to Milwaukee from Minneapolis for his Milwaukee interview tomorrow. Yesterday Hannah and I went and met Joe in Des Moines for the night. We did a little shopping, dinner, swimming, and just having fun as a family. Hannah was a little freaked out in the pool because there were a whole bunch of boys playing football stirring up the water. Hannah discovered she can put her feet in her mouth just today, so that was pretty amusing for us! She did great in our travels and slept most the way. Here are some pictures from our weekend.