Four Months Old

 
 
Our little peanut turned four months old on Thursday, November 8.  She is an absolute pleasure to have in the family and we just can't get enough of our little Elaine.

To date she is:

-Talking all the time, she loves to squeal and make raspberry sounds.  You can find her making her voice change volumes.  It is so cute.
-She drools and loves to blow bubbles a lot now too.
-Elaine can roll.  She rolled for the first time, Saturday, November 10.  Pops was visiting too and even got to see it.  We witnessed it two times and were trying to get it on camera, but kept missing it.  It never gets old to see your baby learning to do something for the first time.  Before this, she could be found moving back and forth to the side position.  With this action Elaine can actually turn around completely in a circle without assistance.  After rolling though, Elaine does tend to get stuck on her tummy and needs help rolling back over.  She is getting stronger every day though.
-She continues to love her brother and sister.  They can always make her smile.  Her brother gets a big kick out of saying "Goo goo, gah gah" to her and thinks that is the secret to making her laugh.  However, really it is just her brother's smile that does it every time.
-Elaine is still a great eater and sleeper.  However, with the sleep she has regressed a little and gets up before the rest of the kids these days.  She was spoiling Mommy and Daddy before this so we really can't complain.
-She loves to just lay on her back, kick her legs and hang.  However, she is enjoying chewing on toy at this stage too along with her kicking.

We had Elaine's four month check up on November 19 and she weighed 13 lb. and 15.8 oz.  She is ranking in the 38% on size.  Here height was 2' 11''.  In this area she ranks 60%.  The doctor thought she was looking great and she did excellent when it came to her 3 shots and oral medicine.  She of course cried, but was very brave and stopped when we left the office.  Way to go Elaine!

Elaine is simply amazing and a complete blessing to watch grow and develop.  We love you little darling and Happy Four Months!

2012 Halloween Fun

We had a fantastic Halloween this year with our three kiddos.

The morning started off with a lot of joy. The kids were elated that Halloween day was actually here.  They had been counting the nights (Evan loves to count nights :) ).  This is how they looked Halloween morning.  Evan opted to wear his Woody costume from last year to Preschool, since they had already seen his Spider-man Costume and he would be wearing it that night too.  

Here is Evan at Preschool with some of his classmates and Mrs. Netty, and Ryder and Evie (the siblings).  Ryder was also dressed as Woody, which is hilarious, because at their Preschool Harvest Party both boys were dressed alike as Spider-man too.  Great minds think alike! :)

Evie and Elaine had on regular clothes with Halloween designs in the day time.

We made a Jack-O-Lateran Pizza from Papa Murphy's for dinner too.  It was so much fun, not to mention delicious!  The kids loved it.

After our yummy dinner it was Trick-or-Treating time.  

We had Spiderman, a.k.a. Evan!

Evie as Dora Enchanted Forest Princess.

 

Last, but certainly not least, our little Lainey-bug, a.k.a. Ladybug... 

With wings included. :)

Here are the kids in action at one of our favorite neighbor's houses, Miss. Nilda and her dog Sparkle. 

Miss. Nilda also took a picture of our family that night too.  Thanks Nilda!

After this we continued on our way.  The whole night, Evan kept proclaiming..."This is the BEST Halloween EVER!"  It was adorable.  Evie was having a blast too.  

The neighbors in our community get so into Halloween.  These are some of the extravagant houses we visited this year.  Here our neighbor is showing how this decoration works.

My babies holding hands as they walk to the next house...precious!

Our little darling Elaine riding in the stroller during part of the night.  Most of the time she preferred to be held, however, the stroller came in pretty handy when the big kids got tired out.  Evie was using it between houses and would then jump out to walk to the door to get her candy.  The stroller was also used to hold the buckets of candy when they started to become too heavy. :)

Lastly I leave you with our munchkins, and their final results of the evening in front of our house with their pumpkins.  One of their favorite treats was microwave popcorn! :)

Here is Evie eating her candy, having some popcorn and watching "It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" as we awaited a few additional Trick-or-Treaters at our house.

After our movie, we checked outside to see how the crowds were going and it was raining.  God provided a perfect night for all.  It was as Evan declared..."The BEST Halloween EVER!"

Romance Weekend in South Lake Tahoe

Jim and I got the opportunity to escape for an overnight trip away from the big kids with our Church to Lake Tahoe on the weekend of October 19-20.  It was AWESOME!  We had a spectacular time and couldn't get enough of the beauty of God's creation at the resort where we stayed, Resort at Squaw Creek, Lake Tahoe and the area in general.

This is also where they film the Olympic Zone during the Winter Olympics.  Here are Elaine and I by the country flags.

Here is a picture of our room 

and the beautiful view out the window...breathtaking!

Here are some pictures of the Lake that we got right before we left to come home on Saturday during a walk we took.

Here is our little stole-away, Elaine.   She was such a good girl on the trip.  It was fun to be able to spoil her a little bit as she got our undivided attention. :)

 
Jim and I brought home the kids these huge pine cones that we found on our walk during our trip.  The kids thought they were pretty cool.  However, they were kind of prickly and one little critter did travel home with us and decided to come out and say hi when we gave them to the kids.  The pine cones ended up going outside quickly after that, but not before we could get a quick picture.

A big thank you to Grandma and Grandpa who watched the big kids for us.  They had the best time and so did we!  Thank you, thank you, thank you!  We love you! :)