Pictures & Updates!

I realized that I haven't posted anything about our family in awhile, especially pictures! Here are some updates, starting with the youngest and working our way up.

*Eleanor is now almost 14 months old. She's still not walking which completely surprises us. Noah was running by this point. She wants to hold on to one of our fingers wherever she walks, but as soon as we try to slip it away, she stands for a moment and then drops herself to the ground in a controlled manner. She could totally walk on her own but she is stubborn. Her vocabulary is expanding. It seems like every day we're adding in a new word, although the untrained/non-parent ear probably couldn't understand any of them. A few are: mama, dada, hi, night (those are the most understandable) and then we have: "dah" -dog, "cuh" - cup, "deen" - drink, "deen-dee" - binky as the other most commonly used. She attempts just about every word we prompt her with. She also is doing animal sounds and we love when she does the elephant because she's just so darn cute with her hand raised in the air. She also likes to "rooooorm" Noah's toy cars and airplane around. She maintains a spit-fire diva attitude that we are learning how to parent. Any suggestions for this personality would be much appreciated!

*Noah is our steady constant. He just rolls through life with a flexibility that we are so thankful for. His first year of preschool is done (sniff, sniff) and he is missing it and his friends (and we still have 3 months to go before it starts again!) I found a bike for him at a garage sale about a month ago. It's a "big boy" bike with training wheels and he could spend all day on it. A couple nights ago we took a family bike ride after dinner and he went three miles! No complaints. I'm thinking he could tackle Mackinac Island...well, maybe not yet. He is not the type to want to sit down and color or draw, but he loves "find the hidden objects" pictures and I'm surprised with how good he is at them. My parents bought him a subscription to Highlights for Christmas and he thinks he is way cool when his very own magazine comes in the mail. He is still all about dinosaurs and things that move and music.

*Tim and I are having a fantastic year. We were talking the other night about how we feel like we'll be ending 2009 as different people than we started based on changes we've made in our lives. Besides the growth in our spiritual lives, we both have started exercising. For the past month we have had a consistent pattern down. I run 3 mornings a week before he leaves for work and then he runs 3 other mornings before he leaves and we take Sundays off, or leave them for family walks or bike rides. Tim told me, "I love that we work out together now...but not together." I said I completely understood and felt the same way. I have no desire to run next to him, actually, I don't think I could run fast enough to be next to him but I love that we have something similar that we are doing that we can talk about and discuss. Oddly, both of us exercising has been really good for our marriage. I have also been being cautious about how many calories I eat in a day and have been keeping a food journal. I know, it sounds kind of extreme, but oh, wow, I was shocked to see how much junk I was eating and how many calories I was consuming. I got online to find out how many calories I should be eating for my weight, height, age, etc. and try to stay within that amount now. I am already feeling much better, have more energy and sleep like a rock at night.

We planted our first real garden and are already seeing veggies and flowers popping up. Outside of the garden, in random places in the backyard, we planted pumpkins, melons, strawberry plants, and a few shoots of raspberries from my aunt. We were probably a bit ambitious with the many things we planted, but we're excited to see what comes up!

We have an upcoming trip to the Chicago area to visit Tim's brother Randy and his wife, Deidra, and their family. On our way home we'll be stopping to visit our college friends, Jack and Kelly and their kids. We're looking forward to some time with family and friends and getting away for a little bit.

Oh! Some very good news: my dad goes back to work on Monday. Praise God!

And that is our family in a nutshell update.

These are a couple pictures I finally transferred from my phone over to our computer. They're from February, when Ellie had her surgery to put tubes in her ears. Can you believe the little hospital gown?

This was our first dinner on the deck. The table was given to us by my parents after they bought a new one, but they didn't have the chairs for some reason. We just drag out the dining room chairs when we want to eat outside - no problem!

Tim removing the dead tree (we're really sad it was dead since in our minds it would have been pretty.)

To put our garden where it would get the most amount of sun it needed, we had to dig up a bush that was sitting there. Tim put it where the weeping cherry had been and it looks great now!

Tim's baby - I mean, garden.

Ellie wore her first real pigtails to church on Sunday. I know they pretty much look like two posts coming out of the sides of her head, but we're working with what we have here.

Boxes can be such fun. Noah takes driving his "car" quite seriously, while people need to watch out for Ellie on the road. Their "house" is in the background.

We went to the Muskegon Farmers Market last Saturday and then followed with a quick (and chilly!) trip to the playground at Pier Marquette. Noah kept saying, "The sun is closing my eyes!"

We have been baking a lot around here. Well, not so much Tim, but me and my "helper", Noah. Here is some dough for our Hearty Whole Wheat bread. It made 2 loaves and was delicious. There is something about kneading dough that is soothing for me.

And while Tim handles the reins of the garden project, mine is our bedroom. We haven't done a thing with it since we moved in a year ago and this summer I am slowly making changes (as time and finances allow) to make it a bit more of a bedroom for us. Here is the first "before."

And here is the first "after" - first as in this is the only thing I've done so far. I really wanted to lighten the room up for summer so I thought I would make my own duvet cover and pillow slipcovers to save money. While looking for different fabrics and topsheets to construct a duvet cover, I ended up finding a Tommy Hilfiger duvet cover for $1.99!! It's the perfect neutral color so I can change up accents often. I then found the fabric on a great sale at Field's Fabrics the same day and made up my slipcovers. So the bed has been re-done for a total of $11.00 and I have leftover fabric. My mom asked me during a phone call to describe the pattern of the pillows and I told her it was what you would find on the lanai of a retired Florida couple...but I LOVE it.