We were so pleased with the results, it was tough to pick our favorites. We wanted to just buy them all.
Then we saw the price.
Here are the five we purchased.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
1 Year Photos
This week we received the photos we ordered from Elaina's 1 year photo session. We were fortunate to get a local, on-location photographer to take them. We did the photos at Pullen Park in Raleigh, which is right next to the campus where I work (NC State). And yes... we did see one of my students there (or rather, he saw us).
We were so pleased with the results, it was tough to pick our favorites. We wanted to just buy them all.
Then we saw the price.
Here are the five we purchased.
We were so pleased with the results, it was tough to pick our favorites. We wanted to just buy them all.
Then we saw the price.
Here are the five we purchased.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
Thanksgiving
We were sad to lose my Grandpa a week before Thanksgiving. We traveled to Indiana for the services, and we stayed through the holiday. We had originally planned on hosting Thanksgiving in North Carolina and combining the meal with a birthday celebration for Elaina. It turned out that Elaina got to share her cousin Addison's second birthday party at Grammy's house. The girls were so cute!
On Thanksgiving, we celebrated with my mom's extended family. At some point, Elaina discovered Grammy's glasses.
We couldn't resist the urge for a sibling photo op. Jordan's height really is ridiculous.
When we got home, Elaina decided she wanted to help me unpack. I tried to tell her that we would just be packing up again in a few weeks for Christmas, but she didn't listen!
Tonight, Matt is taking law school final number 2 of 3 for the semester. His last test is tomorrow morning, and he has promised that we can decorate the Christmas tree tomorrow evening. Elaina has been so funny with the decorations. She's allowed to touch if she is "gentle" and she says "pwetty" (pretty). I hope you are enjoying the holiday season!
On Thanksgiving, we celebrated with my mom's extended family. At some point, Elaina discovered Grammy's glasses.
We couldn't resist the urge for a sibling photo op. Jordan's height really is ridiculous.
When we got home, Elaina decided she wanted to help me unpack. I tried to tell her that we would just be packing up again in a few weeks for Christmas, but she didn't listen!
Tonight, Matt is taking law school final number 2 of 3 for the semester. His last test is tomorrow morning, and he has promised that we can decorate the Christmas tree tomorrow evening. Elaina has been so funny with the decorations. She's allowed to touch if she is "gentle" and she says "pwetty" (pretty). I hope you are enjoying the holiday season!
Monday, November 16, 2009
Birthday Fun
Matt and I were able to take off work last week on Elaina's birthday to spend the day with her. We started out the day with a pancake breakfast and presents. Her gift from us was a bright pink chair of her very own. She loves climbing in it and falling out of it. :)
We then headed to the Life and Science Museum. She enjoyed looking at the animals (notice the lemur over her right shoulder) and checking out the gross bugs.
We headed home after the museum, and after a quick nap, it was time for cake! She thoroughly enjoyed rubbing it all over her face.
On Sunday, Elaina had her ladybug party. Our friends from church came to celebrate. Elaina enjoyed another cake and wonderful presents. What a great way to celebrate a first birthday!
On Sunday, Elaina had her ladybug party. Our friends from church came to celebrate. Elaina enjoyed another cake and wonderful presents. What a great way to celebrate a first birthday!
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Monday, November 2, 2009
Laina-Bug
We enjoyed Elaina's first Halloween (her LAST "first" holiday!) by carving pumpkins and roasting pumpkin seeds.
She wasn't too impressed with the gooey pumpkin guts that squished in her hands.
The finished product!
Since she was born, Elaina has always been our "Laina-Bug". We thought it was appropriate for her to go as a lady-bug for her first Halloween. This costume has been worn by a few different lady bugs over the years, and Elaina enjoyed her turn wearing it!
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Orlando in October
(post 2 of 3 catching you up on our adventures in the last three weekends of October... you're welcome.)
After an unusually cold weekend in NC visiting the state fair and a local pumpkin patch, Jim and Sally continued their vacation by heading down to Charleston, SC. Victoria and I headed back to work. It was a short work week though, because we took Friday off to fly down to Orlando where Victoria's brother Jordan lives and where Jim and Sally were meeting us to continue vacationing.
Victoria had worked her Priceline magic and got us very inexpensive rooms at the Gaylord Palms Resort. I'm personally not usually a fan of theme parks, touristy areas, or resort hotels, but that's just because I don't like people (at least not a lot of people). However, any time Victoria wants to go back to any such areas, I'll be all for it as long as it's during an obscure weekend in October.
The resort was huge and empty (think Jack Nicholson in The Shining) so we had the family pool (one of two pools... didn't I mention it was a resort?) all to ourselves.
Elaina loved getting to splash around in the shallow waters with Mommy, Daddy, and Uncle Jordan beached beside her.
On Saturday we took on the Animal Kingdom (one of Disney's 432 theme parks in the greater Orlando area). Elaina started out her first trip to Disneyworld by screaming and thrashing about in her stroller with sunscreen burning in her eyes. Poor thing. Jim and Victoria pointed out that there's no crying allowed in the happiest place on earth.
Eventually, Elaina calmed down and took a needed nap that survived a very bouncy ride around in a safari-mobile as we explored the African plains (at least Disney's version). We even saw a lion and a lioness lounging atop a rocky outcropping. I had to fight the urge to run up there next to the big cats and hold Elaina out over the edge for all the other animals to bow down to (think Simba...).
Since it was Disney, there was a fair amount of fake mixed in with the real (turns out lions are not native to Orlando). The most impressive of the fake was the tree in the background of the image below. It's called the tree of life and has all sorts of animals carved all over it.
The picture below is from the previous weekend... apparently we didn't get any photos of Papaw Jim in Orlando, but we wanted to include him in the post about the trip (especially since he was kind enough to drive us back to NC in record time so that I could make it to my evening classes on Monday).
One more October update post coming soon...
After an unusually cold weekend in NC visiting the state fair and a local pumpkin patch, Jim and Sally continued their vacation by heading down to Charleston, SC. Victoria and I headed back to work. It was a short work week though, because we took Friday off to fly down to Orlando where Victoria's brother Jordan lives and where Jim and Sally were meeting us to continue vacationing.
Victoria had worked her Priceline magic and got us very inexpensive rooms at the Gaylord Palms Resort. I'm personally not usually a fan of theme parks, touristy areas, or resort hotels, but that's just because I don't like people (at least not a lot of people). However, any time Victoria wants to go back to any such areas, I'll be all for it as long as it's during an obscure weekend in October.
The resort was huge and empty (think Jack Nicholson in The Shining) so we had the family pool (one of two pools... didn't I mention it was a resort?) all to ourselves.
Elaina loved getting to splash around in the shallow waters with Mommy, Daddy, and Uncle Jordan beached beside her.
On Saturday we took on the Animal Kingdom (one of Disney's 432 theme parks in the greater Orlando area). Elaina started out her first trip to Disneyworld by screaming and thrashing about in her stroller with sunscreen burning in her eyes. Poor thing. Jim and Victoria pointed out that there's no crying allowed in the happiest place on earth.Eventually, Elaina calmed down and took a needed nap that survived a very bouncy ride around in a safari-mobile as we explored the African plains (at least Disney's version). We even saw a lion and a lioness lounging atop a rocky outcropping. I had to fight the urge to run up there next to the big cats and hold Elaina out over the edge for all the other animals to bow down to (think Simba...).
Since it was Disney, there was a fair amount of fake mixed in with the real (turns out lions are not native to Orlando). The most impressive of the fake was the tree in the background of the image below. It's called the tree of life and has all sorts of animals carved all over it.
Elaina got to meet Minnie Mouse and Donald Duck in person. She wasn't too scared of Donald because he sounded like Papaw Jim. In the picture here, though, she seems concerned about the whereabouts of this duck's pants.
Being the well-oiled machine it is, Disneyworld ends each day with a parade giving folks a chance to see any of the characters they hadn't met yet, hear some upbeat music, and realize it's probably time to head on out.
Elaina loved watching the parading characters and different vehicles passing by. A number of the cast members came over to wave and smile at their newest little fan. Elaina got a lot of practice waving during that parade. Uncle Jordan snapped the photo below of Elaina waving at the parade with Safari Mickey in the background waving back.
We enjoyed getting to visit with Jordan and he enjoyed getting to see his youngest niece again (she'd changed quite a bit since he last saw her in December).
The picture below is from the previous weekend... apparently we didn't get any photos of Papaw Jim in Orlando, but we wanted to include him in the post about the trip (especially since he was kind enough to drive us back to NC in record time so that I could make it to my evening classes on Monday).
One more October update post coming soon...