Smiles!

This whole blogging thing is not quite as easy to keep up with as I had imagined.  Seems like by the time we get kids in bed, lunch packed, laundry sorted, then Mike is on the computer for the night and I’m ready to pass out.  Life happens, I guess.  In the meantime, though, Eli’s been growing and changing tons.  Last time I weighed him he was over 15 lbs!  Not only does he smile tons, he’s a big talker, too.  Looks like we’ll have two chatterboxes on our hands.  Here he is giving us big smiles because two of his favorite things are going on simultaneously:  bath time and naked time.

Elena is way excited for Halloween.  She’s going to be a cheetah this year.  We’ve already done some really fun Halloween stuff.  I took her to Conner Prairie one evening for the Headless Horsemen, something I remember doing as a kid.  We took the hayride while it was still light out, otherwise it would have scared the bajeezus out of her.  Even in the daytime he can be a little creepy.  Mike took her to a "Feast With the Witches" at the Children’s Museum last week.  They have a fabulous haunted house every year, with special friendly hours where they leave the lights on.  And of course we made it to the pumpkin patch.  And other than Elena almost knocking her front teeth out in a see-saw accident, a good time was had by all.

Elena had fall break last week, so we took the opportunity to finally drive up to Fort Wayne to visit my niece, Danielle, and her girls.  It’s about a 2 hour trip, so I thought it would be a good trip to see how Eli does in the car.  Good news for my Tennessee friends – he did great!  I think before too long I’ll be ready to attempt a trip with both kids down south.   Danielle has two girls.  Kiersten is about to be 4 in a few days.  Elena and Kiersten are more like sisters than cousins – they love each other one minute and the next minute they’re ready to tear each other to pieces.  Olivia just turned 6 months old.  Everytime we  get Olivia and Eli together, they can’t stop touching each other!  At one point she was sucking on his fingers and he was just happy as a clam.  We’re gonna have to keep an eye on those two.   They are both big babies, so here they are in all their hugeness:

Happy Halloween everyone!