sola gracia

Mom and Abigail

Originally uploaded by josephs2877.

A healthy Abigail Joy Swenson was born March 18th 2005 at 6pm. She weighed in at 7lbs and a total of 20 inches long. Kelly and I are exciting to have this miraculous gift in our lives. More pictures coming soon. Thank you for all your prayers and support.

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Originally uploaded by josephs2877.

Isaac has taken to crawling through anything that he can get through. This is part of his new found freedom in mobility. His walking is taking off and he is really excited about being able to get to mom and dad’s room quickly.

Hello family and friends! Well, one five more weeks until the new baby is here! So, since Joe and I can’t agree on names, I’ve put together a list of “possibles”. Please look through the list and give your vote for a girl and boy name! *No, we don’t know the sex of the baby, but the ultrasound tech does*
Boys Names:
Thomas
Stephen
Samuel
Nathaniel
Jordan
James
Daniel
Andrew
Alexander

Girls Names:
Savannah
Sage
Rebecca
Lydia
Jorah
Heather
Haziel
Hannah
Esther
Chloe
Abigail

Well, well, well…looks like we’ve all survived another Christmas Holiday. And I’m wondering if it was unnecessarily stressful for any of you? My hope would be that it was not, but knowing the way family and friends and food run at this time of year, I’m going to keep you all in my prayers for a speedy recovery from it all. I would hope that you purchased all your gifts with cash, so as not to rack up any debt. But, knowing how our Christmas shopping went I’m sure you and I both will be thinking of Uncle Jimmy and his new sweater with every monthly payment to “Rip-off” credit card company. So, chin up! Maybe this next year we’ll all learn our lessons and actually start setting aside money each month to build up a nice little pot for Christmas shopping for 2005! Haha! Let me know if it works for any of you!

What a wonderful Christmas!! I ate too many cookies and spent too much time on the computer. I was broke so I had to make a website for my sister and her boyfriend as a present. The result was a quirky magnetic fridge poetry thing that remembers where people put the words. You can download the source code here.

http://josephandkelly.com/uploads/magnetboard.zip

The positioning code isn’t as accurate as I’d like it to be and if someone figures this out let me know. For some reason the position of a word when released is different than the position used when placing the word (top-right corner?). Anyways , a super big thanks to Gus Mueller who gave me the green light to extend his random fonting and Mike Hall for his genius drag-and-drop code.

Well, Christmas has once again crept up on us and we are, once again, unprepared! We are thrilled to have the convenience of the internet that we might be able to more easily communicate with you, are friends and family! So, for all of you, an update on our lives in the last year.

It’s a Boy!!
Kelly gave birth to a baby boy, Isaac Ryan Swenson on March 10th! He was a healthy 7lbs 8oz and we were grateful for a short labor. He lived happily with us in Missoula until our next major life changing event. Now Isaac is rolling around and crawling up on anything he can get his hands on. He is a joy and such a blessing that we decided not to wait and have another one. We are expecting another bundle and blessing this coming March!

More School For Some Less School For Others
Nilla started Kindergarten this fall and is excited about all the new friends she is meeting and all the fun things she is learning at school. She also recently celebrated her sixth birthday with her friends from school. As Nilla began school Joe finished his degree this spring in Missoula. After five years, two majors, and three different schools he crossed the finish line and graduated from University of Montana-Missoula in the Spring with a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science!

What Moves Us
We moved our little family up to the Flathead valley in the Summer and began the pursuit of work. Joe got to try his hand at manual labor doing work with a great local landscaping company.
Kelly and Isaac went to Sidney, MT for a few months in the Fall and Kelly was able to start up on a treatment for the Rheumatoid Arthritis. Joe just started a new job doing software development for a company in the Whitefish area and is pleased to say he thoroughly enjoys it! We moved the family into a small apartment in Kalispell and have done well cluttering it up with our “necessary” junk!

Thanks
As this year comes to a close, we would like to thank you all; friend, family, foe alike for your courage in continuing to be a part of our spontaneous lives! May this new year find you well cared for and happy in the current state that this life God has granted us finds you in! Our advice for all this Season, find a fire to warm your hinnie, decorate a nice Christmas piney, and spend your time with the one’s who love you, or those who can at least tolerate you with a smile on their face!

Click here for the The Year In Photos