Happy Thanksgiving!

It's Thanksgiving already! Boy this year seems to be flying by. We started Elliott's 1st Thanksgiving by watching the Macy's Parade where we believe we spotted Dan's cousin Kayla in her marching band. It's really hard to see anybody when the camera doesn't stay on one person and the uniforms don't make it much easier. We hope she had the time of her life and didn't freeze.

Then we headed to Great-Grandma's house where the gang gets together for lunch. This year was very lean on the family. I guess it was the in-laws year this year. I once saw a quote that said "My family tree has many nuts". I think you can say that about us. We're a bit looney. But that's what makes us fun. Every year we have a tradition at grandma's to play volleyball. Grandma has a large field behind her house where we set up our net. If you think we should be professionals because we play at family get-togethers, then all I can say is Ha Ha Ha. There's do-overs for older people, younger people, and sometimes just cause it was someone's first oops. Boundary lines? What are those? I remember when Grandma and Ken were first married, Ken tried to be so helpful. He went as far as chalk outlining the boundaries for the volleyball "court". Boy, did that cause a ruckus. I think we all enjoy disagreeing whether the ball was in or out. The lines took all the joy out of it. The next time we played, there were no lines, bless Ken's heart. When new blood come to play with us, they seem a bit confused at how we play, but eventually they get over it and realize we're just having fun. Well, we didn't have enough people to play this year. It was really sad.

So, Dono got to play in the leaves and dirt by himself since ours were the only kids that came. At least he had fun. I think maybe he's starting to leave his sissy stage of being afraid of everything like grass, water, pets, etc. One can only hope.

Then we got to travel to Nama and Papa Earl's house to play and have another turkey feast.

We had lots of fun and were very ready for bed when we got home. We love visiting with family especially on the holidays. Those who couldn't join us were greatly missed. So...Alisa & Jake, Amy, Jason, & Aidan, and Vanessa, Stephan, Grant, & Zoe, and other family and friends, Happy Thanksgiving. We hope your day was a great one, we missed you!

He likes it!

Well, Elliott was showing us signs that he wanted to be like the rest of us and eat some real food. Well, if you call rice cereal real food. Have you ever tried it? Yuck. I'm glad more advanced food tastes a lot better. I guess that's why I have trouble with my weight.
Well, we thought we'd document this momentous occasion.

All ready and happy, so far.

Open the hatch, here it comes....mmmmm

Hooray! We still have a smile! Elliott's still happy and he even likes it! Wow, it only gets better from here. Wouldn't that be nice if that's how it worked for everything in life. I guess we should be more grateful for the littlest things in life, then if bigger things come, it'll be icing on the already wonderful cake. Food for thought.

Sock Battle

We went to visit Papa and give him his medicine the other day. Dono loves to take his own shoes and socks off. He's really into this independence stage. Sometimes I love it, other times I wish he would just let me do things cause it's faster. Well this particular day he had on extra long socks. He wouldn't let me help, but that's ok because it was fun watching him roll all over the floor wrestling with his sock. Too bad I can't capture the sound effects on my blog too! By the time he finally got the sock off (a good 5 min. later) he was breathing hard. But boy, that smile on his face showed that he was very proud of himself. Way to go Dono!

I Push Elliott

Dono is such a big helper. He loves to push Elliott in his stroller when we walk to church since it's just around the corner. Elliott loves it too. He'll sit real quiet and even laughs now and then. Last Sunday, I left Elliott in the stroller because the boys were having so much fun while I made some lunch. Dono would wheel him all around the house talking to Elliott about what he saw. The funniest thing was when he saw Moon (our cat). He tried running her over first and then says "Elliott, that's Moon, say 'Hi Moon', Moon, that's Elliott" He repeated that a few times then chased Moon with the stroller. Poor cat.

I think she'll live. She still loves Dono. What a good kitty (good gril as Dono tells her).

Go Away Bugs!!!

Since we moved into our new place we have found 4 black widows outside and 2 scorpions inside. WAAAAAAY too many for me to be comfy. That's only the few that we've been able to spot. So we had an exterminator come and spray inside and out and we've bought black lights to see the darn scorpions at night (since the spray is not guaranteed to kill the little hard shelled critters). Thank goodness the cool weather is coming. That will help them to go away. I'm still a little scared to let Dono go outside on our back porch to play since a black widow might be lurking about (ya I'm a little paranoid, can you tell?) So Dan had the fun task this week of sweeping all the webs away and trimming the little trees so that it will be a little safer.

Boy am I queen of not nice pictures today. But at least this picture shows that I'm not the only crazy one. I think Dan's hands and face were the only skin to be found.

We're crossing our fingers that we won't find any more poisonous critters. Boy do I hate bugs!

Happy Birthday Vanessa!

Happy 25th Birthday Nessa!

You're a quarter of a century old!! Wow, you're all grown up. We miss you so much and wish you didn't live so far. As seen in this LOVELY picture (sorry, I couldn't find any that looked appealing, if you want to see better ones, look at the Moody's blog and maybe Nessa will update it once in a while (hint, hint)) Vanessa is talking on the phone. I think that's where she's been since she was 12. Now that we're both stay at home moms, chances are we're talking to eachother or to mom or our sweeties.

I think she's turned Donovan into a phone junkie. Just kidding. This is Dono having fun talking to Nessa on her birthday. He loves to talk to her and Grant on the phone.

I love Nessa so much. We've gotten to be really close as friends since we moved out of the Elliott homestead. The thing I think I miss most is singing at the top of our lungs to our song "My Maria". I don't know how that became our song, but I think it's because one day we were driving in Herman (our whale of a car) and started singing it loud. It was lots of fun. Can't do that much anymore with precious little ears in the same car. Vanessa is always such a generous person that would do anything for you if she could. She is such a social butterfly, something that Alisa and I never really could do. I think I was always jealous with how many good friends she always had. So instead of being envious, I join her group of friends and try to be outgoing when I can. She also has two wonderful kids. Though she struggles sometimes, she's a really great mom. I learn so much from her even though she's my little sister. I'm glad we get to talk to each other almost every day and we even get to work together, which is lots of fun. It gives me more reasons to admire what a great woman she is. Have a wonderful birthday sis!

Good Eats

Just recently, Elliott has found a new friend. His toes. He will spit out his pacifier just so he can suck on his succulent toes. Wow, I wonder if we were all this flexible.

Welcome Kaitlyn!

On Nov. 5th Kaitlyn Hale was born. She was 7 lbs. 14 oz. and 20 in. long. She is such a cutie. Her parents Spencer and Rebecca are good friends of ours. They lived in the same complex as us since they got married. Dan and I even knew Spencer from our college days. Their older daughter Rachel is Donovan's friend as well. Now Elliott can have a playmate as well. We're so happy that everything went well and that Kaitlyn has joined her family at last! Congratulations!

Happy Halloween!

We love Halloween! It was so fun to have two boys to dress up this year. I usually try to make new costumes each year to make it more fun. Dan doesn't usually join in my scheming, but this year I at least got him to partner up with me. We ended up being Salt & Pepper (I'll include that picture if I can get it from my friend Whitney who took the picture.) I really didn't have a lot of time to make costumes this year with Elliott joining our family this summer and all. I figured he could recycle the costumes I previously made for Dono. That left Donovan's costume. We weren't sure what he was going to be. We thought we would have to break down and buy his first non-homemade outfit. While we had this dilemma, Nama and Papa Earl were visiting Florida for Aidan's 1st birthday. They said they saw the cutest costume and wanted to get it for Donovan. That solved our problem. He was going to be Mickey Mouse.

And what a cute Mickey he was!

Now we had to make sure Elliott fit into the skunk outfit I made 2 years ago. I was a little scared because Elliott is so much taller and a little older than Dono was for his 1st Halloween. When we dressed him up it not only fit perfect, it reminded us of when Dono wore it and how much they look alike.

Elliott (4 mos) --top

Donovan (2 mos)--bottom

We enjoyed our party called a "Trunk or Treat" by bringing our cars to our church parking lot with other church members or friends to have a safe trick-or treat experience going car to car where we knew the candy wouldn't be tainted and the kids could have fun. We had a great time.