Bath Time!

Here are some pictures from bath time yesterday. Bathtime is probably one of Elijah's favorite activities. After you strip him down, he squeals with delight and runs to the bathroom. It's pretty cute.



CHEESE!!



Peek A Boo!



We're having so much fun!!

Our "little vacation" to the mountains

So...we were supposed to have gone to Long Beach this past weekend and to Disneyland...but, alas, we didn't go. Jason had taken Sunday off so we decided to take a little "mini vacation" to the mountains. After eating breakfast, we packed lunches and piled into the car for our adventure. We were only in the mountains about 2 hours...but the kids seemed to have lots of fun. Enjoy the pictures!

Elijah pressing

Here's Elijah and daddy having fun! It's a fun new form of exercise: Elijah pressing. You can see from the smile on Elijah's face that he's having SOO much fun! :) I think it's kind of funny.
Again, sorry about the lack of sound...perhaps after Christmas I'll have a camera that has sound with the video. Maybe.

Dress up!

One of Alia's favorite things to do is play dress up. She always dresses up like a ballerina princess and dances around. This past week Elijah officially joined the dress up team, as Dr Elijah. I think he looks sooo cute! He might have a real future ahead of him, don't you think?

Alia's first full day

Here's a picture of Alia on her first full day of preschool 2 weeks ago. She is holding her lunch bag that a friend of ours embroidered for us! Thanks a ton Marty! She's so proud of her lunch bag.

Her first day!

Alia started preschool today! She's been so excited about going...and she's still excited about going back! She did great this morning...eating her special breakfast (blueberry coffee cake, scrambled egg, milk) quickly, getting dressed all by herself...and being confident and comfortable when she got to her classroom! Jason and I stayed for a few minutes, then left. She gave me a big hug and went back to the coloring table. Since it was an early day we all went out to a special lunch at McDonalds. She ate ALL her lunch-which she doesn't do often. I asked her what her favorite part of the day was and she told me it was watching the turtles and hamster in her classroom. She's excited about going back on Wednesday!



Alia pointed out her name on the "Smile, God loves you" wall. She found it all by herself!



Here she is by the sign before we went in. My little pre-schooler. sniff sniff


Alia's favorite part of the day-the hampster and turtles.


Each child has their own cubby...today they found name tags inside their cubby.



She found the kitchen/house play area real quick. She also quickly found a phone!

No more babies...

Elijah is growing up fast! His favorite thing to do now is climb on whatever he can! Something new to us, as Alia was never a climber. :) He has mastered climbing up on the stool we have at our kitchen counter. He likes going up there when I'm doing dishes or preparing food...he likes watching. Here's both kids eating a snack of yogurt covered raisins off the counter.
(please excuse Alia's post-nap hair)

Wedding

A few weekends ago we took a trip to San Diego, via Long Beach. We stayed two nights at my parents place, then drove to San Diego to see my college friend, Sarah get married. It was a nice time to be away as a family...and we were blessed to be able to celebrate with Sarah and her husband, Ben! Enjoy the pictures.




Elijah's first trip to the beach (with exception of his trips when he was just born). He loved it! He played with the sand and none of it went into his mouth. Great! :) He also liked walking in the water. He was perfectly content just digging sand with his shovel. Too cute.



Here's my two kiddos playing near a fountain. This was during the break we had between the wedding and the reception.



The little princess and the Queen. :) Alia would be the little princess! Teeheehee. I thought this picture was cute.

She jumped!!

Well...on Tuesday Alia took the big jump! Yep!! After weeks of trying to get her to jump in the pool, she finally did it, all by herself! She was soooo proud, she called me on the way home to tell me about it. And, because she jumped in, she got to go to the Hellp Kitty store and pick something out. Of course, she picked out a small Hello Kitty Castle. (by the way...if you ever want to get something for Alia...ANYTHING in the Hello Kitty/Sanrio store would be great! She loves it in there). So....here's some evidence of this great event. I took this today, on her last day of swim class.

Teeth progress

Here's the progress on Elijah's tooth. Every day it looks like it's come out more.

Elijah's on the move

Since Elijah started walking about a 6 weeks ago, he's really starting to move. He walks all over our house and loves it. It's so cute to see him walking around. Here's a little clip of him walking up and down the hallway.

Teethies!!

Elijah's first teeth are FINALLY coming in! As you can see from the pictures...it's the front two-mostly the front left one right now. It looks pretty painful to me...and from his fussinesss, I think it IS painful. Poor little mister. I'm a bit sad cause his toothless grin is gone...another sign of my "baby" growing up.

Playin' Around

We've been playing outside a lot in our little fill up pool. Both the kids love to splash around in it. We can put our climber slide into it also so they can slide down into the water. Lots of fun playing outside.



In the evenings, after dinner, all four of us gather on the floor in our living room and have family time. We tickle each other, play peek-a-boo, and just laugh together. Here's Elijah and I enjoying some good laughing.



My friend Faye and her 2 kids came to visit for a couple of days. We had lots of fun together...the kids love each other. On Thursday we went out to the Chandler's pool for our church playgroup. Here are all of the big kids looking into a hole "looking for the bugs".



Here's daddy and the kids. They really like climbing on him. :)

Poor Grampadad

So, last Thursday my dad had a bit of a stumble. While working in the garden in Oregon (probably picking weeds!) he fell backwards and hurt his arm. They immediately went to the ER and had quite the afternoon visiting a few DRs. It turns out he dislocated both bones, and fractured one, too. He goes back on Friday to find out if he'll have to have surgery to place a pin in his arm. Poor Grampa Jim. Pray for him...and his little arm! We love you, dad!! And...there will be more weeds to dig through when you are all done with this! teehee

Swim Class

The past two weeks we've been taking Alia and Elijah to swim class at a local high school pool. Elijah is a tadpole and Alia is a ducky. They both have enjoyed being in the water-Alia a little more than Elijah. Elijah just holds onto me...there's not much kicking going on, or arm usage...just hanging out with mom in the pool. Alia has become more and more comfortable in the water, but she still won't jump into dad's arms without holding onto his hands. We have two more days left, so we'll see. If she does jump in on her own we'll be taking a trip to the Hello Kitty store! :) Since both Jason and I are in the pool, I can't get any pictures in the water...here's a picture of both our cuties warming up after class.

Day trip to the mountains

Last weekend was the church's annual camping trip. Instead of camping the whole weekend, our family just went up for the day on Saturday. Alia was looking forward to "camping" and had a good time taking little walks and playing with her friend, Evan. Elijah, well...since he's walking he got quite dirty. He ended up just sitting in the dirt and dumping dirt on his head. Then he rubbed his eyes...and the dirt and drool mixed...and then you get the picture below! He was such a mess. After the picture was taken we took him to the faucet to wash his face. He ended up spending most of the rest of the day in his stroller. We had a good day in the mountains!

Elijah's walking!

While we were in Minnesota Elijah took his first steps! He took one in the morning, then two more a few hours later...then just started to walk around. It was crazy how quickly he figured it out! Now, a week later, he is walking all around our house! He still does his silly crawl when he wants to get somewhere fast...but he's trying out the walking thing more and more. He's a cutie pie. I have noticed that he has to feel comfortable in a place before he'll walk. When we got home it took him a while to walk (he wasn't in the familiar hotel room), then on Sunday at church he wouldn't really walk...but once he got home, he was walking all over. Enjoy this cute video...it was the best we could do.

Our Trip

Little Mister looking at the big planes.








We spent the last week in Minnesota, visiting for my cousin's wedding. The whole family was there and it was so much fun to be together. We frequented the Mall of America (there's so much for the kids to do and be entertained by!), visited with family and friends, and celebrated Alia's birthday. And...Elijah STARTED WALKING! Yep...he took his first steps on June 16th, and it's been uphill ever since. I'm still trying to get a good video on my camera. I'll try to get one tomorrow. For Alia's birthday (the 17th) we had dinner at the Rainforest Cafe with my family. I ordered a Backyardigans birthday cake-and she was thrilled! We opened a few presents too. Earlier in the day she got to make a bear at the Build A Bear store. Of course, she chose the pinkest animal she could find. She put pajamas on her and named her Snoozy. It's pretty cute. We had a great time away...but it was good to get home, back in our own beds.

Here are the big girls at my cousin's wedding. They were given little bags with a princess coloring book and glitter crayons-perfect idea! The girls spent lots of time coloring and playing with the stickers inside. Then, the music came on and they danced the night away.

Our friends from seminary (who now live in South Dakota) came to Minnesota for a Dr Appt...and so we got to spend a day with them! It was so great to see them, and their new additions to their family. Them, us, and my brothers family all went to the zoo and spend the day. There were 6 parents and 8 kids! Yikes!!! We had a good time. Here's a picture of all the kiddos...Elijah is in the way back, probably trying to crawl away.

We spent some time at LegoLand, in the Mall of America. Here's Avery and Alia playing away. They loved to play at the Lego tables.

Here's Elijah getting his turn at the Lego tables, too!

Alia and Mommy on the Carousel.

Daddy being silly with Elijah at lunch.