Easter Weekend

We had a busy Easter weekend. The weather here finally decided to get nice. I think it was the first nice weekend we have had since the fall. A break from the cold and rain was very welcome. It also made for two great Easter Egg hunts!

On Friday night we decorated eggs. I thought this kit was adorable. It was a lot of work, but the eggs were cute.

On Saturday we went to Wilsonville and participated in an egg hunt there. I'm not sure if we will do it again next year because it is so crowded. They have separate areas based on age. But, in the 1-3 area parents are allowed to help their kids. I think Elliott got a little overwhelmed when it was time to go as he got charged by parents eager to get eggs for their children. He was very happy to get two eggs and a bouncing ball which he had obviously been eyeing beforehand. Elliott is not competitive and doesn't care about getting the most. I'm thankful for that because he was thrilled with what he got.

So happy with his "haul" :)

On Sunday we spent the morning at home and then went to my parents house for Easter dinner. The weather was amazing so we were able to do a great egg hunt in their yard. They hid over 150 eggs for the grandkids to find. There were even eggs that were set out for Holly and Paige to find on their deck. Elliott had the time of his life playing all day with his cousins. He was sobbing when we left because he wanted to continue playing with Cameron. After the initial egg hunt Cameron and Brooke took at least 1/2 the emptied eggs and hid them again. The kids played outside happily for hours.

Holly, up 1.5 hours before Elliott checked our their baskets and founds a few eggs hidden in low places. The Easter Bunny went a little wild, though we used gift cards we had lying around for a lot of it. Next year we'll have to tone it down.

When Elliott finally woke up (past 9am) we were treated to this amazing hair style!

Porter Family picture

And they're off..

I forgot his easter basket, so he used an old trick-or-treating pumpkin.

Holly and Paige raided Cameron's unattended basket. They were quite happy about it.

This is Caleb. Caleb turned 3 at the end of January. This is Caleb riding his bike without training wheels! He's been doing this for at least a month. Not only can he ride, he was riding in circles around the driveway. He tries to pop wheelies, and will do tricks with his feet, including pulling one leg over so that both his legs are on the same side! This kid is amazing!

Holly is 9 months old!

Last week Holly celebrated her 9th month! We got her official weight, 17lb, 3oz. She is in the 23rd percentile for weight and 67th for height. She is just a skinny thing. She has a few rolls, but not anywhere close to Elliott at the same age. We had some really rough nights this past month. Holly decided she was a newborn again and wanted to eat up to 3 times a night! That, along with her being decidedly picky about who can feed her (me) made for some long nights and tired days. Her personality is great though. She is a happy girl who loves to see what everyone else is doing. If you talk to her she will reply back to you in baby babble. She adores Elliott and wants to be doing whatever he is. This has resulted in some trying times, but Elliott is learning to share a bit more, and Holly is learning the word "no".

When Holly is really happy we get this goofy grin:

Trying so hard to get to the Legos

Usually I don't condone blocking things off (other than the stairs) because I would just rather teach my kids what they can and cannot touch. But, this day I allowed Elliott to keep playing in their playroom because he had tons of small toys out from when she was napping. Holly was NOT happy about it.

We decided to have Elliott start preschool next year. It will be 2 days a week for 3 hours. The preschool is a 2 minute drive from our house! Elliott said he was really excited to go there after we took a tour. He loves to listen to stories and to have us read him books and poems. He would be thrilled if we spent an hour each night reading/storytelling.

Elliott and Holly going for a ride on the chair in their bedroom. She is so happy to be playing with Elliott.

On the go

Yes, Holly has turned into a climber. She can now successfully crawl (instead of just dragging herself around) and pull up on things. Usually it's to get at Elliott's Lego's or one of our iPhones. Just outside of her bedroom door is a nightlight. This has been a constant draw for the past month. She's like a moth to the flame and can't keep away from it. But, now she has discovered the stairs - across the hallway from their room. We will have to install the baby gates again.

Holly will do laps around our coffee table. She things it is hysterical.

In other news with Holly, she has been teething. I hope that and a combination of being a bit sick is the reason she has been sleeping so poorly. On Friday night she ate 5 times between 9pm and 5am. Needless to say, I was tired on Saturday morning! Last night she at at midnight and then slept until 7:15am, yay!! She has finally decided that baby food is good. She will happily eat 1/2 a banana in one sitting. She is a big fan of fruits and we are slowly working on vegetables. She has two teeth, you can see them both here.

Elliott started soccer classes this past week. Dan went with him and said that Elliott did pretty well. He listened and participated well, something he had a rough time doing at swimming lessons. Dan took Elliott out for donuts after his class and he was thrilled. Here he is posing for me once they got home.

Elliott doesn't always want to pose nicely for me when I'm taking pictures. Usually he tries to duck his head so that I can't get a good one of his face. Often when I ask him to smile this is what I get.

I decided to let him take some pictures - with the assistance of the tripod. We now have quite a few of his Ninjago legos. It did help him with wanting to pose though. He really wanted me to take these.

Next week is Spring Break and we are excited to play with his Portland cousins. Elliott calls Cameron his "super best friend". Brooke and Grace are only his "best friends". He likes to tell us Monster stories that often involve being at Grandmas house (she has a basement and he was a bit scared of the sewing machine when the lights were off) with Cam, B & G. Dan and are I discussing the possibility of sending him to preschool next year. It seems really early, at age 3. But, I think he would do really well with the structure of it and with learning and trying new things. We'll see what happens there.

Holly - 8 months

Holly was making noise in her crib this morning so I went in to check on her, and she was standing up.  This is the first time she has fully pulled herself up.  We'll have to drop the crib so she doesn't try to get out.  She's also doing better at crawling on her knees, but still would rather army crawl.  She really wants to walk and will straighten her legs and start walking when you try to set her down to sit.  

Holly is eating solid foods much better now.  She really likes being fed oatmeal and the frozen fruit purees Wendy made last summer.  She also is good at hand-feeding with Mum-Mums (rice biscuit things) and these puffs that look like cereal that dissolve in her mouth.  I'll have to ask Wendy for a weight update, because I think she usually weighs her each month for the blog.

 

Elliott is still very much into Mario, but has also become obsessed with Ninjago.  Ninjago is a type of lego where you put the lego figures onto tops and they spin into each other to battle.  Kai is his favorite Ninjago character:
 

 

Elliott is currently in his second round of swimming lessons and will be starting soccer in a week.  Elliott has gone to two Timbers games with me so far this season, and he likes them for about 1/2 the time he is there.  The other half I let him play Game Boy, eat Reese's Pieces or play around at my feet.  Holly actually fell asleep at the home opener right during a Kris Boyd goal celebration.  If you know how loud it gets after a goal, that should be impossible.

 

Elliott knows what dreaming is now and has talked to me about it a few times.  He has apparently had bad dreams and funny dreams.  He told me that when I tell him stories at night he can picture them on the ceiling like a dream.  I thought that was pretty neat.  He also really likes Shel Silverstein's poems, so poems after books has been added to his nighttime routine.

 

Kitchen Before and After

In other news around here, we decided to do a small renovation to our kitchen. It was fine before, but oh so nice now!! We had possibly the cheapest cabinets ever with shiny laminate on them. It showed every finger print and is impossible to look clean for longer than 5 minutes. The counter top was a light blue/grey laminate, it just looked dated. Over the years that we have lived here we have replaced the fridge and dishwasher. We had moved our microwave to a counter behind our kitchen, which wasn't convenient because we then had a cord going across a doorway to get to a plug to actually use it. Normally that wouldn't be a big deal, but we microwave bottles probably 5-6 times a day. Well, our tax return came in and somehow Dan decided it was go time to upgrade!!

Here are some before pictures:

Also, the painted area behind the stove was terrible looking. I had taken a magic eraser to it to clean off grease from cooking. I have disliked the pendant lights since we moved into the house. But, they worked. There used to be 3, one broke so we've lived with 2 for a while now. The pendant on the right stopped working recently, so now we are down to one.

We tore down all the upper cabinets and replaced them with something similar from Ikea. Since we decided not to replace the lower cabinets we didn't want two very different door styles. Here is Dan surveying his removal skills.

Dan is installing new upper cabinets.

My Dad came over on the weekend to help us with the electrical work for the new microwave!! It is so nice to know people who can do these things for us, rather than having to hire someone.

Yay, new microwave!!

We had a new granite tile counter installed as well as a tile back splash. We decided to go with mini-slab granite tiles, they are 26" deep and 18" wide. I was going to do a nice white subway tile back splash with a glass tile accent. But, I was obsessing with these penny round tiles. I love them! Dan told me to go with the penny rounds and I'm happy that I listened to him. We also got a new faucet (our 3rd in 5 years!) and new sink. We are planning to paint the lower cabinets and replace the handles to match the round pulls on the uppers and the bin pull on the top drawer (pictured below). I still need to choose a new pendant light and I need to finish replacing the faceplates on the outlets.

If you are reading this and you live in the Portland area we can recommend a great guy to install tile for you...

Excuse us, we've been sick

Please excuse our absence, we have been sick over here. I never got around to Holly's 7 month post because it feels like we have been sick for about a month! Both Elliott and Holly have been trading a cold back and forth. They have both had a terrible hacking cough. Which has meant too many nights with poor sleep from the kids. Thankfully, we have turned a corner and everyone is staring to sleep better and is more healthy.

Holly is 7 months old, going on 8 very shortly. We weighed her at just after 7 months and she was 15 lbs. Recently though I got her at 16 lbs! She is finally gaining some weight and has a few more rolls to prove it. Holly isn't crawling on her hands and knees just yet, though she is experimenting with it. We often see her up on her hands and knees, rocking around. Then she will fall to her tummy and army crawl to whatever has caught her eye. She isn't content to just sit and play with toys I place in front of her anymore. She wants to be doing whatever Elliott is doing...which causes some drama from Elliott.

Teething is in full swing around here. She particularly loves the wii-mote.

I'm so please to report that Elliott has gone an entire month without sucking his thumb!! Dan and I are really proud of him. This also means he is much less attached to his blanket. He is still doing swimming lessons, but we haven't had a ton of progress. He went under one day - for about 5 seconds - and now he is really nervous at lessons. I need to take him more often to open swim to show him that it isn't scary. Elliott tends to be pretty cautious about new things. It took him a long time to feel comfortable getting on Amy's trampoline, he would cry if I tried. Finally one day he decided it was alright and now he's happy to jump with the boys. I think he will be the same with swimming.

Elliott is WAY too into Mario (from Nintendo). It has become a major obsession. We have to play Mario all the time - mostly outside of the Wii (meaning role playing because I won't let him play video games all the time). His boy cousins are in the same obsessive phase right now. Dan showed him the Mario TV show from the 80's (remember that?) and he loves it.

Here are pictures taken from this past month:

Valentines Day:

(yes, that is a heart on Holly's bum)

We stayed late playing at Aunt Sarah's house one night. Elliott went home in Grace's old PJ's. He didn't want to take them off the next day.