Christmas 2008

We had such a wonderful Christmas this year! The whole family from my mom's side was here--Nannie and Paw Paw, Auntie and Uncle Pat, Christy, Adam, and Ashley. We did our own Christmas Eve service...performed by the cousins plus Hannah, including a "21st century Nativity!" We got some wonderful family portraits taken together. Adam, Christy, Christy's boyfriend Dustin, and I went snow-tubing at Cascade Mountain. And, of course, everyone got TONS of great presents! For example...I got a Wii, Hannah got a HUGE dollhouse and a bike, and Eli got many many baby toys. But, of course, the best part was everyone getting to be together--sharing stories, laughing (plenty of that!), playing games, reading books, and just BEING together.

Santa Visit

We took the kids to visit Santa yesterday! We went to Hilldale Mall (which, for those of you who don't know, has a FREE Santa--no photographer...just Santa in his chair--you get to take as many pictures as you want...and the mall isn't a crowded one, either--we didn't even have to wait in a line). Hannah got to sit with him by herself first, then both kids together. I hope she told him that she wants a bike!!! ;)

(P.S. if you haven't seen the next post down, you should check it out, too...)

Thankfulness...

I guess that it's during this time of year that you really start to think about how thankful you are for all the special people in your life. I think that sometimes I lose sight of the big picture...I am so incredibly lucky to have two such wonderful little children. My little Hannah, who is the most beautiful, loving, affectionate 5-year-old girl I've ever known. And my little Elijah...the most adorable, cuddly, happy little 5-month-old boy I've ever known. I am so thankful to have these two children. I made this little video to kindof remind myself of that...so I'll never lose sight of it. I hope you enjoy seeing it, too.

Christmas Portraits

We braved the slippery and snowy conditions on Monday afternoon/evening to get our Christmas portraits taken! (of course, if we hadn't, we might have been out of luck because, apparently, they're all booked up through Christmas!) As you'll see, the pictures we got are wonderful!!! We bought MANY pictures of MANY poses, so there are plenty to go around!! :)

Hannah's Birthday Party

Saturday was Hannah's big day! Her 5th birthday party. We had it at the Madison Children's Museum with 13 of her friends!! They all had a wonderful time together. It was a great place for a birthday party--low maintenance on the parents, and tons of running around and fun times for the kids. I didn't realize that Hannah had so many good friends at school, and they all really get along so well together! There is one little boy there who was a little "boyfriend" for Hannah--he never left her alone! He would hug her and practically tackle her when they played! I had heard her talk about him a few times, but never knew how much they really played together! I asked her about him after the party, and she said "I don't know...he just LOVES me!" Very cute. His name is Chayton, and he's the boy you see with her in the pictures. :)

Link to Pictures

This is just a short, quick post. I just wanted to post a link to our pictures from the California trip. So, here it is! http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2484357&l=4b0d5&id=8621722

Hannah's Birthday, Elijah Milestones

Things have been busy lately! Yesterday was Hannah's 5th birthday! I can't believe that she's five already. I think birthdays are as big a deal for parents as they are for kids--I can't believe that I've survived five years!!! LOL She had a wonderful birthday. She got some really fun presents (many princess ones, of course), and got to have cupcakes with pink frosting. (can you say "sugar high," friends?)

Elijah has also reached a couple milestones lately. While we were in California, he learned to blow raspberries...always a fun one. Thanks to that, he does it continuously, which leads to A LOT of drooling. But it is, of course, adorable, just like everything he does. He loves it when you do it back at him, too. Also, yesterday, his first tooth came in. Bottom right. We've been expecting it for a while, because he's been chewing on everything in sight (well, at least everything within reach!) He's also been doing great with eating oatmeal. He's having it for one meal a day now, and he actually eats it now without spitting much out. Once he reaches five months (in just a few days), we can move on to vegetables!! (and fruits, too...but veggies first) It'll be fun to see what he likes!

California

We had such an awesome trip to California! So much to tell, but I'll try to keep it kindof short so you don't look at this post and say "yeah right...I'm not reading that!" ;) We went to Disneyland and California Adventures. Highlights were: Hannah got to have lunch with the princesses, Elijah got to meet Mickey Mouse, Hannah rode her first "thrill rides" and loved them, and we got to see the parks (and characters) all decorated for Christmas. It was wonderful. We also got to celebrate Thanksgiving with GG (that's what we call my grandma--short for great grandma) and all of dad's cousins in Laguna Beach. That was really great, too...but too short. :) Oh...and Elijah had his first airplane ride! He did surprisingly well--not much fussing at all! There were four plane rides in all since we had to change planes in Minneapolis--one was about 45 minutes long, and the other about 4 hours long. And we survived!! ;) It was a great trip, but we are glad to be home. Now, we're getting the house decorated for Christmas (we put up Christmas lights yesterday and are getting trees today) and we're getting ready for Hannah's 5th birthday (!!), which is tomorrow. :)

I Found My Feet!

In just the last couple days, Eli found his little feet. :) It was really cute...it started off with him just really staring at them and being kindof amazed--like he was thinking something like "wow! what are those and where did they come from?!?!" And not much later, he was grabbing at them. I guess it won't be long before they go to his mouth...ewwww.... ;)

The "Little Man" Playing and Chewing

Hannah and I were about to have our dinner tonight, and she was playing with Elijah in his Exersaucer, so I decided to take some pictures first. When looking back at the pictures, I realized that he's really starting to look like a little person!! It's so amazing how fast he grows up! He also has been really into chewing lately. And chewing ANYTHING. His hands, my hands, shirts, blankets, burp pads, and, of course, toys. You can see the two little bumps where his bottom two teeth will eventually come in, so I guess the chewing probably feels good there. He has one teether that's oval...we call it his football. :) His Exersaucer has a blue elephant that's meant to be a teether, and he LOVES it. I have to clean up the pool of drool he leaves behind! Anyway, he's just doing great! We're super excited about our trip to California on Saturday! We're going to spend the week with Grandma in Los Angeles, and we'll be going to Disneyland and California Adventures (including a lunch with the Disney princesses for Hannah and me--already reserved and NOT cheap!); plus going to Thanksgiving dinner with Dad's whole family. And, of course, after we get back, it'll be Hannah's 5th birthday!! WOW!!!

Elijah's First Cereal!

Big milestone today!! Elijah tried his first solid food! He had some rice cereal, and he did pretty well considering it was his first time! He spit a lot of it out, but he didn't resist it too much, either. Hannah loved getting to help!! We all enjoyed being together for his first time eating "real food." :)

Elijah's 4-month Appointment

Elijah went to the doctor for his 4-month appointment today. As always, everything is wonderful! He's growing wonderfully...he now weighs 15 pounds; 13 ounces (70th percentile) and is 24 3/4 inches long (49th percentile). The nurse was so amused by him--he was standing on my lap while she was asking me all the typical questions, and the whole time he was just looking at her and smiling off and on...it was VERY cute. I found out that we can now start him on solid foods--rice cereal at first, then oatmeal, then "real" foods at 5 months (like Gerber veggies, fruits, etc.) Then, at 6 months Cheerios!!! :) Hannah is so excited that we can start solids because now she can be involved in feeding--FINALLY something she can really be involved in!! Pictures of THAT to follow soon--and I'm sure they'll be adorable!! Of course no baby's doctor visit is complete without a few shots. Eli got the same 3 shots as last time, and will get them again at 6 months. Apparently the side effects are a little worse the 2nd time around, which is obvious to me because he's been really fussy and really sleepy all day. Poor little guy. I don't think I've seen him smile once since the doctor's appointment. I'll hope for a better day tomorrow. By the way, we've been really enjoying some beautiful weather here! It's been in the 70's, and it's November!!! I can't believe it!!! Unfortunately, the honeymoon is about to come to an end...tomorrow's the last warm day. It'll be highs in the 40's by the end of the week. We're trying to soak up all the warm we can get!!

Happy Halloween!!

We had such a fun Halloween! Hannah dressed up as Snow White (no surprise that she was a princess, right?), and Elijah was a pea pod. :) On Thursday night, we went trick-or-treating at "Attic Angels," which is a retirement home where Mom volunteers. The residents there were wonderful. They were so nice, and, of course, they loved seeing all the kids. They especially loved Elijah and his costume! Even all the other kids there kept coming over and saying how cute he was! (I hope Hannah wasn't TOO jealous--people did say how cute she was, too.) :) They had a really nice, big room set up with a pile of hay and pumpkins where we could sit and take pictures--we got a great one of Hannah and Eli. :) On Friday, Hannah and I designed our pumpkins together and I carved them (with direction from her, of course) :) I was really pleased with how they turned out--I was quite impressed with myself (one even had earrings!)--and with Hannah's and my creative skills! Friday night, we took pictures of Hannah and Elijah in their costumes, and then I took Hannah trick-or-treating. This is a great neighborhood for it--lots of kids, lots of houses, lots of decorations...it was great! She was a little hesitant at first about going to the doors, but it didn't take long before I would start walking to the door with her and she'd say "I can do it by myself" and leave me standing at the sidewalk. LOL She had a lot of stamina, and she got a lot of candy (a couple houses even gave out whole candy bars!) It was a great Halloween! Time for some sugar highs!!!

Portraits of Elijah

Well, here they are, everyone! The portraits of Elijah! There are more than these, but these are the only ones that are really decent. Don't you just LOVE the pouty face? That will for sure be in the scrapbook!! I have been saying all along that I want a picture of that adorable pouty face, but it's so hard to capture it, but the awesome photographer got it! The others are great, too. We ordered some of each except for one (and I think the one we didn't order is the up close tummy one, but I put it up here because it's still really cute.) Enjoy!

Piano Recital and the Frozen Parade

Sunday was such a busy day!!! We went to church in the morning. Then, it was time for Hannah's piano recital at 2:00! The kids all went dressed up in their Halloween costumes, and their teacher, Miss Joanna, dressed up, too! She was a flight attendant, and the whole theme for the recital was being on a flight. VERY cute--she gave instructions at the beginning like "you may experience sensations such as butterflies in the stomach or nausea..." It was fun. Hannah was the second to perform and she did such a great job! She played three songs, "Raindrops," "Call of the Drum," and "Ants Go Marching." She just mainly plays a couple notes as rhythm and Miss Joanna plays the melodies. :) But she's learning quickly! And then she sat through the whole rest of the recital (about an hour)--I was really impressed that she behaved so well through all that--it's a lot to sit through--I even caught Mom checking her watch! LOL

After the recital, it was time to go home to get ready for the neighborhood Halloween parade. There had been a lot of speculation about whether or not it would happen on the scheduled date because of the weather, but it went on as planned. Probably not a great idea. It ended up being about 40 degrees with winds at 20-30 miles per hour. Mom took Hannah on the shortened parade (Dad had left just after the recital for a trip), and, since I had to feed Eli, I had planned to meet them at the end with him in costume for the party part. But, once Eli and I got there, I knew that I wasn't about to get the little guy out of the car--it had started to snow flurry and there were huge gusts of wind and I was thinking NO WAY!!! So I just picked up Mom and Hannah and we drove home. Luckily, weather for Halloween is supposed to be MUCH nicer!! :) And Hannah did enjoy the parade--she got to play on the playground with her friend, Kylie.

The Pumpkin Farm

Mom, Hannah, Elijah, and I went to Eugster's Pumpkin Farm today! Even though we about froze to death (it was in the upper 40s and very windy!), we had a wonderful time! Hannah had fun going through the "Spooky Scary Silo" (it was a silo that was dark on the inside except for some glow-in-the-dark creatures lit with blacklights and some fun music such as the theme from Scooby Doo and Purple People Eater--it was made for kids her age). There was a teepee made from corn stalks that was probably the warmest place around--Mom and Elijah spent a lot of time in there. Hannah and I went on a hayride out to the pumpkin patch to pick out our two pumpkins--one is orange and one is green and orange. They also had lots of animals--some to look at and some to pet. Hannah got to hold a really cute kitten and petted some goats. We also saw a cow, a pig, some sheep, and some geese, who really amused me when they tried to attack us! Luckily, they were behind a fence. They were running at the fence, honking at us, sticking their heads and necks through the fence, and one even almost bit me when I wasn't paying attention--and I wasn't even close to the fence! About scared me to death! We got some small gourds to put in a basket on our countertop, some apples, some tomatoes, some kettle corn, and Mom wanted her and Dad to try a "cow pie." Have fun, guys. (I think it's chocolate, pecans, and caramel?) Anyway, it was really fun. Well, I don't know that Eli would agree...he slept and felt cold for most of the time. Maybe next year he'll enjoy it more! :)