Friday, December 2, 2011

Picture Update

As if the pictures from Elliott's birthday and Thanksgiving weren't enough, here are a few more for the Grandma's out there reading this.

Elliott as a firefighter. Everyday he is wearing these goggles with either his firehat or another explorer hat.

Holly, modeling her new cloth diapers.

Elliott and Holly, holding hands.

Hanging out together

Elliott and Dan, playing Nintendo

Playing in her gym. She loves to bounce and goes wild in here!

Entertaining Holly with legos

Elliott working on his shape puzzles from Auntie Lauren. Mine is in the foreground next to Holly :)



Thanksgiving Weekend 2011

We had a marathon Thanksgiving this year. We spent most of the day on Thursday at home, relaxing....sort of. Dan brought his amazing spinach salad to dinner, so he made that. I made pumpkin pie and bon bons! So, we baked and cooked, but none of it was too hard. That evening we spent Thanksgiving with my family. All the cousins had a great time, thanks to Dan who played with them so much!


Elliott, looking grown up:



"The Boys"

I just love this one of Cameron and Brooke!

Thursday morning we got the news that Dan's sister, Lauren, was in labor. Her due date was the day after Thanksgiving. Little Cora arrived right on time, 3:45am! All 8lb, 15 oz of her!!! We were thinking of Lauren constantly on Thursday and were glad to get the texts early in the morning on Friday with the exciting news. So, we hopped in our car and drove to Seattle to visit our newest niece. Unfortunately, the only picture I have of Lauren and Cora isn't good, sorry Lauren.

Auntie Jade with Cora:

Porters checking out Cora:

Holly and Cora. It's the angle, Holly is bigger than Cora!

Holly hanging out on Auntie Lauren's bed:

Happy Birthday, Elliott!!

We took a blog break. I had a few moments where I thought, "hey, I should probably update that blog", but then I didn't. Elliott and Holly were both sick for an entire week in November and we didn't do much of anything.

Elliott turned 3 years old on the 3rd of November. When did that little monkey get so big! He is doing great! I'm pleased to announce that after a very long time we can finally say that Elliott is nearly potty trained! We started and stopped a few times over the past year, but finally had a lot of success in the past few months. Everything is a gun to him or a sword. He likes to play Dan's old Game Boy advanced, specifically Zelda. He'll wander around and tell me that he "sworded" a bad guy.

Elliott on his birthday. He would not cooperate for pictures that morning.

Elliott and Holly before the party.

We had a pirate themed birthday party for him on his birthday and were happy to celebrate with cousins.




We did a pin the treasure on the map game. Somehow, all the kids landed on the same spot. Weird. No one said that it was really easy to see out of the bottom side of the mask. The prizes for that game was swords. The kids loved them!! I think Dan and Jake did, too.





Happy Birthday, Elli-Bug!

Monday, October 31, 2011

Halloween

Elliott was Captain Jack Sparrow for Halloween this year. We found this ridiculous wig and Dan just had to buy it. My mom pitched in and made the little red sash, otherwise we had all the clothes. We went to Multnomah Village today to trick-or-treat and I heard a lot of comments about his costume. Unfortunately, it was had to get him to hold still to take any good pictures.

Holly was a Polar Bear. Thankfully I just stocked up on 3-6 month clothes from my sister and found her outfit in Sarah's bins.











October, where did you go?

Where did this month go? I'm not sure what we have been doing all month, but it certainly got away from me.

Earlier in the month I went to the pumpkin patch with Amy, Caleb and Cameron as well as some girls from a "Mom's Group" I attend on Tuesdays. We got to see a lot of different animals, pick out pumpkins and eat donuts!









In mid-October we drove to Seattle for a baby shower. Dan's sister, Lauren, is expecting her first baby. We are so excited to have a cousin on the Porter side of the family. I brought my camera, but only managed to attempt some family pictures. I think Dan and I look pretty good. The kids, on the other hand....not so great. We'll try again soon.


Holly is a really good baby. I'm not sure if it is because she is #2 and things just seem easier. Or, maybe she is just easier than Elliott was. She is sleeping from about 8 or 9pm until 5am, when she will get up to eat and then go back to sleep until about 8am. Looking back, Elliott had a very similar schedule. We are lucky to have such good sleepers! Holly doesn't mind being on her stomach at all. She will happily play and kick her feet for a few minutes, or until she is tired of holding up her head. In the past week I think she has started some early teething (not expecting teeth any time soon). She will attack some of her toys, or your hand, whichever is closets to her.





Elliott sharing his blanket with Holly and pretending to be asleep. She loves it!



Elliott is his usual self. He is very into playing with Lego's and little cars. It is a daily occurrence that Elliott will dump all his lego's on the floor. We have been trying to teach him how to them pick them up at the end of each day. If he helps enough he can earn a dime! I love that a dime is so worth it to him. He has a very tough streak. He likes to "sword" and "gun" people. He will turn 3 this week!



Making slime on Halloween:




Helping carve pumpkins with Dan:

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Roly Poly Holly

On Tuesday Holly rolled over for the first time! We even managed to get it on film, amazing! After looking through iPhoto I found that Elliott rolled just shy of his 4 month Birthday. Yay, Holly! Here is a quick video of her roll:



We weighed her on Monday and found that she weighs approx. 11 lbs 3 oz. She is so much smaller than Elliott was at her age. He was 15 lbs, I think. You can look here to compare the two of them. I think Holly looks so similar to Elliott, just a bit more dainty. Holly, like Elliott, got her first real cold right around 3 months. It lasted a little over a week and her voice is still a little scratchy. She has been sleeping really well, usually heading to bed around 8 or 9 pm and sleeping until about 5am to eat, then heading back to bed. No complaints from me!

Elliott continues to amaze me with the things he says. I really need to start writing them down, because he is too funny. Our friend, Tyson, was cleaning house and brought over a huge bowl full of legos for Elliott to have. It is a bunch of space sets from the 80's and Elliott is over the moon. They are pretty much the only thing he plays with right now. He does really well with Holly. Some days he pays her a lot of attention and others it's like he doesn't even know she is there. But, when he does play with her, it is very sweet.

Here are some recent pictures of the two of them.

I think Elliott said to me, "This is Mr. Wubab....I don't want hold Holly...I like Lego's"


Holly is full of smiles now, she is so sweet.




Playdoh is serious business.

(btw, I even allowed Elliott to mix colors - big deal for me!)

Elliott also takes his Pumpkin flavored milk quite seriously.


Sleep deprivation?