Eliea's First Birthday!

Sept. 18th came & went already! zip!

We spent the special day in Kansas City with my folks, who made her a PINK cake & decorated the high-chair, gave presents & a funny hat, and we all sang to her. She had the sweetest smile as we sang- something in her eyes told me she knew it was a special day just for her.

ere is her first experience of cake:
and I have been waiting for her to be able to wear this shirt!

Thanks to Nana, Poppa, cuzaunt Emmy & her sweet daddy for a great time.

She is walking now, with confidence, and taking on the task of learning to go down the stairs. (up is easy)

She is a lot of fun!

hope you all are having fun too!

Time Flies

We had a great summer this year, getting lots of traveling in to visit family.

First in Indiana, we ate lots of corn at Eric's sister & parent's cabins on Dewart Lake. We were lucky enough to have Nana & Poppa (my mom & dad) come to be a part of this gathering too!

Here is Eliea & her cousins Mateo & Elena, in the serious business of shucking corn.

(and then of course eating it too)

had a boat ride....

Then a visit to the big windy city of Chicago- the aquarium & the lakefront was a great way to spend the afternoon!

Then we visited another cabin on a lake in Wisconsin, with my Aunt Jan & Uncle Ron, again with Nana & Poppa!

Played in water, did some waters-skiing (the adults), canoed, played on the beach, went for walks, and then sat quietly by the lake at sunset (again, the adults!).

Hope everyone else had a great summer too! xoxooxxooxoxoxoxox

Catching up

I have some reporting to do for May & June it seems, seeing as though it's already July! Summer always seems to fly by to quickly...
Let's see: in late May we visited family in North Carolina. This included the Mills side of the family- we got to see both Lance & his beautiful family, during which we were lucky enough to also visit with Burt, Sally & Shake!
Then in Chapel Hill, we saw Roger & Christina as well, and it was great to hear Christina's stories from her recent adventures!


And then we visited Laura's brother & sister in law, where Eliea had her first pool experience, which she loved!










In June Eliea joined us for her first camping experience, when we went to Telluride for the bluegrass festival. Here are a few of my favorite photos from that trip, although there are so many to choose from!

It rained on the 4th of July, so we didn't go anywhere to show Eliea her first fireworks, that will have to happen another time. I will be sure though to keep more up to date for the rest of the summer! Hope everyone out there is enjoying their summer too.
cheers!

April 2009

We have noticed that every time the grandparents, either side, come to visit, Eliea is doing something new during their stay, or directly after they leave! Such a wonderful influence to have on the next generation. Less than a week after Sylvia & Dale visited, Eliea decided it was time to pull herself up to standing!
Looking forward to the next visit...


We also got another blast of winter storm before finally heading
into some warmer days. The snow was so high that we couldn't open doors and Eric decided to take advantage of it, and brought out his snow board! This shot was taken out the dining room window as he was boarding down the backyard.
He wondered why he hadn't tried it before now!

Here's just a bonus picture of Eliea, just 'cuz she's cute...

get ready, get set, GO!

Eliea is on the move! Surprising her Dr. even, she can now sit up, crawl, and has already gotten herself to her feet, but kept her hands on the floor... it's only a matter of time...
Here is a very cute pose she does when she's taking a break from crawling.

And here's a funny little face she's discovered, by sucking in her bottom lip...
She's so much fun!


It's snowing like crazy up here in the mountains, again this
weekend ontop of a couple of feet we got last week....
Here's photo of our deck the first time it snowed last week-
March is always our snowy month.
Spring should be around the corner!

Firsts

The first airplane ride for the little one, and she did just fine. We flew Denver straight into Des Moines. We had to get de-iced in Denver before flying out, and that made us all a little fussy, but otherwise Elie just slept!
Here we are with family members.

Eliea the Magnificant

Eliea is now easily turning over- front to back, back to front! I think it even surprised her as well. She's getting to be a big girl- 5 months on Feb. 18th.

Elie is working on her fourth month now, with strong legs that like to stand. Here she is in a door-frame bouncy chair, which she enjoys.

We'd like to thank deeply our wonderful friends / extended family, Don & Kathy Cobb, who were our very first babysitters! We finally had our first night out (dinner & a show) with Steve & Taylor, while Don & Kathy watched the kids.
Hope they had fun too!

Thank you to my friends who nudge me to post more here. The latest photos & news of Eliea- she is now 3 months old already! Smiling and coo-ing, grabbing things & sleeping through the night once in a while! :) Still no hair yet... working on it!
She enjoyed her first Christmas, here are some photos of that.