So fun!

Here's an adorable picture of our Alia enjoying a water fountain. If only we could be so excited about such little things.

Baby Bumbo!!

Here's our little boy in his new Bumbo seat! What a great invention!!! Doesn't he look like a big boy? He sat in this seat for a while this afternoon...and even played with this rattle. I just love that he can sit up and look around. Sometimes his head looks down, but his neck will grow stromger every day. This is the greatest thing...really it is.

Pictures

So, Jason came home today with our camera, so here are a bunch of new pictures.
If you wanna check out our new house, go to:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/trishbacklund/album?.dir=/73bcscd

Enjoy the pictures!

Little Mister

When Elijah sleeps we wrap him in the "Amazing Miracle Blanket". It's a special swaddle wrap that helps babies sleep better. It's been a "miracle"!! And, the other picture is a picture of Elijah that we took just today. He's growing up and out! Thanks, Quayles, for the cute safari outfit.

Big girl bed

Last week we took Alia's side off her crib...so now she has a "big girl bed". We have to lock the door on the bedroom, otherwise she comes running out of the room. Then, when we look at her, she turns around and runs faster back to her bed. It's funny...but not okay. She likes her bed and so far hasn't fallen out. Once we move she'll move into a twin bed-then she'll be an even bigger girl!

Buddies

Alia has become quite the daddy's girl. Here she is feeding her baby while Daddy feeds Elijah. And the other one is of the two of them at Chuck-E-Cheese's playing a video game. They both are pretty cute.

Strong Man

Look at me!! I'm holding my head up!

Lil' Cuties

Here's a fun little picture I thought I'd share with you. :)

Homeowners!??!?!

What?!? Us, homeowners!?
I guess that's what you are when you purchase a home. Crazy!!! We are homeowners! We have taken a couple different opportunities to go up to Visalia to look at homes with our realtor and we are proud to say we are homeowners. Well, escrow won't close until Sept 20th, so I guess it's not real official till then. I don't have pictures right now, Jason took the camera to get some, so I'll post some in the next few days. It's actually a brand new home so it's not completely done. Jason goes to the design center today to pick out the flooring and some other stuff...but it's mostly done. It's 2300 square feet and has 3 bedrooms plus a bonus room. Two bathrooms, a great room/kitchen, and a formal dining room/living room. And, it has a nice size backyard. We're pretty excited, but overwhelmed at the same time. We are hoping to move in mid September-it's just a matter of our flooring being in stock, etc. So, we might be able to go sooner-wouldn't that be great!!
Hoorrah!! We have a home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I never thought it would happen. :)

Colds

Well...we are all sick. Alia picked up a cold somewhere and then was nice enough to pass it on to mommy and daddy, and now little Elijah has it too. Our very first family illness. It's not too much fun, especially since daddy has been gone. I can't wait for him to get back today. Then maybe I can get some good sleep. Here's to germs!!

2 Months

Elijah had his 2 month checkup this week. He's looking real good. His stats:

12 lb 10 oz = 75%
23 inches long = 50%

He's growing much quicker than Alia ever did...will he end up being bigger than she is? We'll have to wait and see. The doctor said that his head control is suberb and that he should be rolling over any time. Our little boy is growing up. :) He also got his first set of shots. Note the little bandaid on his right thigh. He got four shots, so he had four little bandaids on his thighs. He did pretty well-he cried for a bit, but then fell right to sleep. Nothing more than that.
What else is new with him...hmmm...last night he went about 7 hours without eating! Yep, I didn't get up until 4am to feed him. It was wonderful! :) I'm hoping that it will only get longer, but who knows. I cherish the little extra sleep I can get. He is much more interactive-looking around and coo-ing at us. We will talk with him now, not just to him. And when he shoots us his big smile, our hearts just melt. His hair is growing too. And it's still red. Yippee!

Homeward Bound!!

Well...WE HAVE A JOB! Yep...Jason has been offered (and accepted) a full time lead pastor position at Visalia Covenant Church. After a few days of discussing and praying, we decided to go for it! This is pretty exciting for us, since it's been almost 18 months since this whole process started.
We are excited about what is to come, but aren't sure what that will look like right now. The first order of business is to find us a place to live. We are hoping to buy a home...and have looked at a few places in person and online. Pray with us that God provides the perfect home for us.
Here is the website for the church, if you are interested. http://www.vccc.us/Home_Page.html

Our trip

So, this past week we took our first road trip with Elijah. How did it go?? Well...the trip was great..the driving part, not so fun. Elijah decided he HATES driving in the car. Every time he was put in the car (not the infant seat) he started crying-and it quickly escalated to a scream...and lasted a long time.

Anyways...we started our trip by driving to Visalia for two nights. I finally got to see where Jason has been-and even got to be in church with him. We then drove to Sacramento to visit our friends, the Quayles. We stayed with them three nights then headed down to Santa Barbara for 2 days. Ahh...there's nothing like the coast. It was cool and breezy-quite inviting. We visited with good friends there, then headed back to Visalia for a night. Then we headed back to the LBC.
While we had tons of fun, it was good to get back to our beds and our schedules.

Friends

Here we are with our friends, Faye and Jeff Quayle...and their little ones, Jacob (Alia's boyfriend) and Keilani (Elijah's girlfriend). Keilani is about 2 weeks younger than Elijah. It's amazing how quickly two couples can turn into 8 people. We had a good time together. Faye and I went and got a 60 minute full body massage...ahh...how nice. But it sure was hard to not think about the kids and the stresses in our lives. Thanks, Quayles, for a real fun time!

Pony Time

When we were in Sacramento Alia took her first pony ride! She had a blast...and so did Jacob.