predicament

very often when i have to wake eli up, i find him sleeping in an unusual and often uncomfortable-looking position. the most memorable to date was one arm and one leg hanging out while he was asleep on his belly, but this morning takes the cake...

his poor legs had been lodged for a while based on the marks on his skin, but we heard not a peep.

three

our beautiful girl is 3.

her giggles make our hearts smile...

walking

as cute as this video is, i'm a little sad that eli is almost officially a toddler.

sorry it's out of focus, but you get the picture :)

audience

yesterday's highlight:
watching daddy mow.

mr. belly

most of eli's decisions involve the status of his belly.

he likes it to be full.even on the move...


and my favorite:

farewell

honda #3 is a goner.

i cleaned her up and sold her to a nice family that didn't mind that the odometer didn't work...

honda #4 is in the garage!! it's gently used, yet 13 years newer so definitely a step up.

we lived with one car for a crazy, insane week.

thank the Lord for honda #4.

garden update #2

our first attempt at growing tomatoes and green peppers from seeds didn't work.
.
at all.
.
sad.
.
we did not give up.
.
here's our second try:

it's growing!! yay!!!

can you see the green leaves?

they are there.

believe me!

party perspective

i can't resist...

it's the evening after eli's first birthday party and i thought it would be fun to check out the pictures taken at the party (katie was in charge of the camera!). then my eye hit ava's camera and i remembered small hands playing with it quite a bit during the party and i was intrigued to see what i'd find.

a little over 200 pictures were taken, spread out pretty evenly for the duration of the party.

every chair (empty) in the house got a portrait.

a quarter of the pictures are below the neck.

everyone at the party got their picture taken...in one way or another.

pretty impressive if you ask me. and also funny...

birthday boy!!

inchworm cupcakes!

festive shot, i thought!

birthday sister!

generous gifts!

birthday mema!

birthday gram!

birthday photographer! (thanks kate, though i haven't looked at them yet, i know they are great!)birthday grammy!

there is an unsurprising gap here when everyone was busy eating cupcakes. eli ate his ENTIRE cupcake with very little mess since he doesn't like to waste any food!
birthday photographer #1 (madeline)

birthday photographer #2 (connor) (self portrait?!)birthday photographer #3 (caroline)

who got that expression from....

birthday bubby!

what a memory!!

mr. hammock is 1

we knew having kids was going to be an adventure, but not until this little guy did we realize how fast, exciting, loud, snuggly, drooly and joyful that would be (all in the same minute)!!

last year, right before eli was born, i was a little worried about how i'd share my love between two children. i needn't have worried because eli is proof that our hearts are capable of expanding beyond measure. a miracle to experience!!

.

happy birthday, mr. hammock!!

perfectly packable

to the tune of melting snow, ava and i made our snow family this morning. really, i made them while ava ate snow and climbed the tree....

then we made up a game called "splatting," which is basically making a snowball and tossing it onto the driveway where it would "splat" into a firecracker.

.

of course we had hot chocolate to warm up...

and if we weren't entirely ready for spring before, we are definitely ready now that we had perfect snowman-making conditions this winter.

.

bring it on!!

garden update #1

sun? check.
water? check.

any sign of life?
nope. zilch.

i haven't given up hope, of course...