Birthday weekend

Ben and I celebrated our 29th and 31st birthdays this past weekend. (Ben's comment after we discussed the fact that this was the last year of my 20's: "Aaahhhh.... I remember my 20's. The good old days.")

On Friday night, we went to dinner at the Lakeside Bistro where they serve French Vietnamese food and have live jazz musicians on the weekends. The food was soooooo good and the music was fabulous as well. We had a really nice time.

On Saturday, we had an easygoing morning while Ben was at work. I even folded some laundry. Yes, on my birthday. ;) When it was time for Ben to get off work, I loaded up a picnic and we went to pick him up. We had a nice little picnic lunch...






 .... and then we walked around a little Japanese garden not too far from Ben's office. It was actually bigger than we expected, and so pretty. All the flowers were in bloom. It was easy to forget that we were in the middle of the city.

 

Looking at the turtle (which I couldn't get a picture of).






 It's hard to see, but Evan and Asher are on the bridge.


After we got home and had naps, we tried out the new Xbox and Kinect that Ben got for his birthday. (Yes, we still have boxes in the living room.)

 



You can also see the super cute new camera bag that I got for my birthday in that last picture. :) After we got the kiddos in bed, Ben and I watched a Redbox movie. We didn't have cake until Sunday when the missionaries came over for dinner.

It was a great birthday weekend! Here's to another great year! :)

(P.S. Can I just say how much I miss my camera?? It's in the shop right now and I've been using the point and shoot camera and it's so frustrating! lol)

Evan's snapshots

I mentioned that Evan got a camera for his birthday this year. He has been quite the little photographer ever since then.



The other day, I put all his pictures onto my computer so we could look at them and I thought it would be fun to post a few here on the blog. The quality is not great, of course, but I love seeing everyday things from his perspective.

 







He even took a picture of me taking a picture. :)

 (And the resulting shot from my camera.)

 Maybe we have another photographer in the family? ;)

11 Months Old

Ellie is 11 months old today! She is looking so grown up to me lately. Her features are becoming less baby-ish and more toddler-ish. (*sniff*)



She is so much fun right now. She walks around the house all serious and business-like, carrying random things around like she knows what to do with them.

She has a little fake laugh that she does all the time now. If other people are laughing, she does, too.



Ellie LOVES her daddy. She squeals with delight when he gets home and runs right over to him. She'll shove you away if you try to hug daddy wen it's her turn (little stinker).



She is FINALLY starting to enjoy her baths. She splashes like crazy and makes a huge mess, but I'll take that over screaming and crying!



Although Ellie's motor skills have been somewhat advanced, she's taking her time in the verbal department. She has only started using words in the past week or so and she only says two words so far: "more" ("ma") when she wants food (we are encouraging her to use this word more regularly because it's better than the screaming that she uses otherwise!) and "Uh-oh". She can say "mama" and "dada" as well as a lot of other sounds, but doesn't use any of them as words that actually refer to anything yet. She can also say "moo" for a cow and is trying to master the noise for pig, but hasn't quite got it yet. (She's cute when she tries, though.)



She LOVES her brothers, and they love her. It's so fun to watch them interact. She and Asher are buddies during the day and it's so fun to hear them off giggling together somewhere.



Ellie brings such a fun element into our home with her spunky personality. I can't believe that in one month from today, she'll be one!

Somebody discovered the dishwasher

I think every baby develops a love for the dishwasher at some point. All three of mine have, anyway. Ellie has been quite interested lately. In fact, I pretty much have to do the dishes when she's in bed now. She's just a little too "helpful".
(She also frequently wiggles out of her pants. She's so skinny, they won't stay up.)





She's so proud of herself. :)

The Small Stuff | Weeks 18 19 & 20

"Birthday" pictures

Back in March, I took the boys out for pictures. They were meant to be birthday pictures, but I never got them edited until now! Oops! Better late than never, though, right?

I can't believe how grown up these two are looking lately. Such handsome boys. :)