Olympics

Elli counting to 4, preparing for her dive.

All the kids cheering because they just won the race.

Andrew showing the girls how to put a horse through the obstacles.

We had the Raymond kids, Andrew, Lily and Caroline over one morning and decided to host the olympic games. We had a running race, a horse race, the balance beam, water balloon shotput, floor exercises, diving, long jump, soccer, and the marathon. The kids had a great time and we all were worn out by the end. Baby Caroline (8months) sat and smiled us all on to victory!

Norris Lake Trip #2

Elli, "I have an idea. How about ice cream guys?"

Just like old times growing up. We played king of the float. Of course, the one big difference was the little girl in the boat saying, "Don't do that guys. Come on. Hurry up. Get in the boat. AnnaBelle is sad." Anything to get us to stop playing so loudly:)

We took a boat trip to Matt's dad's house about a 1/2 hour away from Gary's place on the lake. Elli got really tired on the way back and told me she wanted to go night night. So she asked me to wrap her in a blanket. How sweet. I actually got to hold her while she slept for 30 mintues!

Elli wanted to help daddy pack. She said everything was "really heavy" and "very hard." She managed to pack her toys, her life vest and her baby's stroller. Brent had already put in his golf clubs. So I am thankful the rest of the necessities made it in. If left up to Brent and Elli, our trip may have turned out a bit differently:)

Fountain and Timid Girl

Elli likes the fountain at The Greene, an outdoor shopping complex. However, she is a little timid at first. She likes to step back and watch the other kids for a while, laughing and squealing along with them even though she is not playing. She does get in though especially when there are friends with her.

Popsicles

Elli is really into popsicles these days. She asks for them almost as much as she asks for gum. What a cuite. Anyway, she has started to take after me in so many ways that she has to be naked to eat them so she doesn't get her clothes dirty. Wait...let me state this in another way. I do not eat popsicles naked but I don't like to get my clothes dirty:) Also, she doesn't understand the whole concept of eating the popsicle and then drinking the juice from the bag so I have to put it in a bowl. Crazy girl. She has had some serious meltdowns over that. The top picture is just for pure laughs!

Panties, Gum, and telephones

Okay, this last week has been a good one. I will get pictures up soon, but here are some cute stories.
Panties-Elli is potty trained. She started with panties on Sunday last week and hasn't looked back!
Gum- Elli now chews gum without swallowing it and even prefers gum to any other snack I can offer most times.
Telephones- While I was taking a shower today, Elli was downstairs watching Elmo. I heard the phone ring but thought they would leave a message. About 5 minutes later, Elli comes upstairs as I was getting out of the shower and says, "mommy, Aunt Heather is talking." That's right. Elli answered the phone and had a 5 minute conversation with her Aunt Heather. Heather then asked Elli to put her mommy on the phone so she came up to find me. What a big girl we have at our house now:)

New Computer

We lost the hard drive on our computer so we had to get a new one. We got a little lax about backing up files. So, if any of you have pitcures of us that you could send by e-mail from Feb-July, we would greatly appreciate it. Leah, I know you have video from Elli's birthday that I need!!!! Maybe you can make a cd for me? I would like to create a computer file of these months for easy use when I make DVDs. Thank you all.

Photographer

Elli loves to take pictures. Here is a self portrait. She also gets so excited to "see Elli" after we take pictures. Hopefully she gets the hang of it one day:)

Fergi at the Vet

We took our little Malteese Fergi to the vet yesterday to get her heart worm medicine. They needed to do a blood test first though since it had been a while. Elli was doing great until she saw the needle in Fergi's led. She then started crying and saying, "That's my doggie." "Fergi no sick." "I hold her." "Stop it." "Nooooooo." I was so sad too because Fergi was shaking like a leaf and Elli was crying very loudly that Fergi had this needle in her leg. I believe this is the first display of emotion from Elli at seeing someone else hurting. Who knows, she may surprise us all and go into medicine! (likely story Lori)

Dayton Dragons

Brent, dad, mom, Leah, Matt all having the time of our lives:) Actually we really did have a fun time. The tickets were free to us from a friend, but the first set of tickets was accidentally thrown away, presumably by me though I have no recollection. Our friend was gracious though and got another set of tickets. Pheww!

Elli wanted to touch all the balls at the entrance to the park. She did a great job during the game with only a few mishaps. 1. She continually bumped the man in front of us. Thankfully he too had kids with him and seemed to understand. 2. She swiped a peanut from the man behind us while I was holding her. He laughed and said that was a first for him too. 3. She dropped her sippy cup on the head of the man in front of us while dancing to the peanut butter jelly song (which I sang at dinner before we left). He seemed to understand since he also had a young one with him. However, that cup was heavy and he may have needed some tylenol on top of all the apologies! Other than that, a great time was had by all:) By the way, the dragons lost by 1.

Our trip to Michigan

Elli wearing Daddy's sweater from when he was little and of course eating a cookie!

The gang walking down the road to see fireworks at the neighbor's house.

Elli and Aunt Jenna in the wheat fields watching uncle Kyle launch another rocket. They went really high in the sky. Good engineering Kyle.

For July 4th weekend we went to Brent's family's house in Michigan. Elli was very excited to see her Nana and Grandpa as well as her Uncles and Aunts. She loved the trampoline, horses (at the farm down the road), swimming, and just playing. She also loved the fireworksas they went "up in sky and boom!" We truly had a great visit.

8 years!

On July 1st Brent and I celebrated our 8th anniversary. I cannot believe it has been that long, but it really has. We ate at McCormick and Schmicks which was absolutely delicious and then we went to a movie. It was a nice date night. Happy Anniversary, Brent.

Elli can read?

I know Elli is the smartest little girl I have ever known (every parent must think that about their children, right?), however she blew me away tonight! We were reading one of her favorite books called, The Stray Dog, (don't worry he gets a good family in the end) and Elli started saying the words with me. I could start a sentence and she would finish the rest of the words. Now, she has been doing this with a few words for a while like the end of a sentence, but she seems to know the whole book! I was quite impressed. She even told me to go back to a page because I forgot to finish reading it! Elli is 26 months old and just the sweetest little girl ever. More pictures to come once I get them loaded.

Whale Pool

Aunt Heather got Elli a whale pool for her birthday and we inflated it this week. Elli was, of course, "scared of big fish." She did play in the pool but refuses to go near the tail. If one of her toys goes near it she cries for me to get it from the big fish. Such a funny little personality!

New table

This is our first meal at our new table. We are finally rid of my parent's 1974 chrome table and padded chairs. It has been replaced by this lovely oak dining table and chairs. Yeah!

Too Many, so enjoy the pictures with small captions!

The jail at Boon Shoft museum. Can we keep them there? (Lilly, Andrew, Caleb, Elli)

150 year old alligator turtle. Not very attractive, but quite impressieve.

One of the 4 fox(es) we have living in the field/wood behind us. Fun to watch and very pretty.

Upon returning from Norris Lake, Elli got a very bad cold. She was so sick as you can see in this picture. She wanted to eat lunch, but would cry everytime she sat down.

Elli gets very messy eating cake and we didn't want to ruin Gary's carpet, so Elli "eatin cake naked!"

The girls in front of Gary's condo in TN for Heather's birthday weekend!

"I scared little boat. I want Gonga" Elli was less than impressed with her ride on the "little boat" aka jet ski this past weekend. She wanted to ride in the big boat with her gonga. (Gonga is her grandma:) She did however have a great time playing in the pool, running around, wearing her life vest, riding in the boat and swimming in the lake. In fact we all had a great time.

How many dogs will eat their breakfast one piece at a time from a 2 year old?

We LOVED seeing the Clewetts though our visit was way too short. The kids have grown so much and are taking on such fun personalities. It was fun seeing them interact with each other. We miss you guys and wish you lived closer. (Aubrey, Caitin, Reagan, Elli, Riley)

Elli is not quite into dress up yet. She will put on a few things here and there, but how could I pass on this Snow White dress at Good Will? $1.99! She wanted me to take her picture in this pretty dress. She even told me "Thank you Mommy" whne I bought it. However, it has yet to be put on since:)

Strawberry Day

Elli, Gonga (my mom), Aunt Megan and I all went to the strawberry fields to pick strawberries for jelly. We had a good time. Elli kept asking, "where's my bucket?" She would put it down to help pick, or squish, then get a drink, then have no idea where her bucket of 4 strawberries went! We all had a good time. We ended up with lots of jelly, so we'll be spreading the wealth.

The Piano Player

Elli enjoys playing the piano. She also enjoys being naked. What a combo!

Water-Water table

We got Elli a sand and water table for her birthday. But, you know me. Sand would be way too messy! So it is a water-water table and she loves it. We recently put it under her play set where she is partially shaded from the sun while she splashes about with all her cool sand toys:) When she gets wet though, she says, "Uh oh mommy. Wet. Close off!" I love this little naked girl.

Holp a Hangle

Some friends of ours across the street are moving to Michigan and said we could have their play set. Elli is very excited about the new swing and slide. She was climbing up to go down the slide when she looked at me and said, "uh oh mommy. I need to holp a hangle." I too was confused until she reached up to grab the handle. Apparently, she was saying "hold the handle!"

New Truck

That's right. We are the proud three way owners of a 1987 Ford pick up truck. It is big, noisy, and lots of fun. We used it for the first time to take lawn equipment over to the rental property. Elli loves it too.

Pichure mommy

Elli told me she needed a "pichure mommy" because she was wearing a pretty dress. She even asked for a bow for the occasion. She is pretty, but I hope I am not creating a monster who needs a picture every time we put her in a pretty dress:)

It's Broken Mommy

Elli is really coming along in the potty training department. She wears pull ups now during the days and she does pretty good at keeping them dry. I haven't changed a poopy diaper in a long time. The other day I was tired of waiting for her to go poopy, (after 15 mintues it gets a little tiring!) so I told her if she went poopy she could have some of mommy's gum. (she gets a tiny piece and then swallows, 7 years later:) Anyway, she tries to push, then asks me to push, then tries some more. (oh to be a fly on the wall of these adventures!) Finally, she leaned forward, patted her bottom and said, "It's broken mommy!"

Myrtle Beach

We had the best time on vacation. Elli was a blast in the water and pretty fun on the sand too. She had some classic statements. Here are some to keep you laughing.
1. A truck released its air break and Elli says, "Uh Oh Mommy. Truck tooted!"
2. Since we all slept in the same room, I didn't sleep as well as the other two. Elli woke up to Brent's snoring one morning at 5:00am. When I asked what it sounded like when daddy snores, Elli said,"Hooooooonk!"
3. We went for a walk down by the boats one evening. An older gentlemen saw Elli and said to her, "Hi, sweet girl." Elli replied, "Yeah!"
We love our little girl:)


Family picture at Spring Brooke Gardens.

Elli looking at the fish at the aquarium. She said she was scared when the sharks came up to the glass!

Elli riding the carousel(sp?) with daddy. She was kicking and squealing from the car when she saw the "horsies going fast!" But was of course straight faced while riding. Classic Elli!

Elli helped daddy build a big princess sand castle. She did however tell me that she was yucky and I needed to help her wipe off the sand.

Aunt Heather bought Elli this float for her birthday. She, as you can see, was "scared" of it and ran away from the pool when we put it in:)

We couldn't wait to walk on the beach, so we headed over the first night. We put Elli down in the sand only to hear and watch her scream for about a minute. Then, she was better when we got her in the water. She changed her mind and decided sand was okay.

Aunt Jenna's Graduation

Aunt Jenna, Brent's sister, graduated from Cedarville University on May 3rd with her nursing degree. Elli was very excited to see her after looking for her in the crowds of people. It was a special time with family and celebrating her hard work. Congrats Jenna!

Sweetest Sound

I now think I know the sweetest sound ever. Elli sings all by herself now. She began singing a while back, but only with us. On vacation, she started singing along with the Old MacDonald Had a Farm Baby Einstein dvd. It was so sweet to hear the little "eieiooooo." She will also sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star", "My All in All", Sesame Street Theme Song, our special good night song, and a few others. Her voice is so soft and little I cannot help but tear up sometimes.

ABC's

Elli is now saying her ABC's to a certain extent. She is very cute when she does it. About half of them are recognizable, the rest just go along with the song:) This morning though she began saying them for me and this is what she said, " a b c d e f g h 9 10!" How funny is that:)

Just Because

These are some pictures just because she is cute in her new birthday clothes and new toys!