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!

Happy 1st Birthday!

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!

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.

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...

State Fair & Punkin Pickin

The last three weeks of October have been fun-filled. For two of the weekends we got to visit with Victoria's family, and this weekend has brought Halloween festivities. Since we're behind on blogging, I'll just catch you up on the first weekend for now.

Jim and Sally came to visit two weekends ago en route to Charleston, SC and then on to Orlando. Normally, Victoria and I are lucky to have one activity planned for a weekend with family. That weekend we had three: parade of homes, NC State Fair, and a trip to a local pumpkin patch.

Here's Grammy Sally carrying Elaina around the State Fair on Saturday.

The weather was perfect for walking around outside with thousands of our closest friends. We enjoyed a funnel cake but refrained from trying the latest innovations in fair foods (e.g., fried butter, chocolate-covered bacon, etc.). Jim entered a number of drawings trying to win a lawn mower and a car and even entered a shooting competition to try and win a frozen turkey.

One of the highlights of the fair was getting to pose with a local celebrity. Barrelmonster has made national headlines this past semester thanks to an NC State student with a creative understanding of which laws don't apply to him.


On Sunday, we went to the early service at church (very unlike us) and then headed 45 minutes Northeast to Hillridge Farms to take a hay ride and pick out our pumpkins.




More Fall fun to come soon!

our little coyote

We finally made time to take Elaina's 11 month pictures. We thought it was appropriate to take her picture on the floors she helped us install last weekend. She is getting so big! She now says "hi", "I love you", and "uh-oh". My parents were visiting us this weekend, and my dad always manages to gain control of the tv remote and turn it to the hunting channel. (No, I didn't know such a channel existed either.) At one point, the hunters were hunting coyote and making a high pitched noise to call the coyote. Next thing we knew, Elaina was making a high pitched noise that sounded exactly like the coyote call. I think this was a proud moment for my dad.

Eleven Months

That's right! We're one month away from Elaina's first birthday. That is SO hard to believe! She is getting so big. She is starting to pull up and let go with both hands- standing completely on her own! She is now scaling steps like a pro. She has also started imitating us: holding a cell phone up to her ear, pulling Matt's glasses off and holding them up to her face, laying our socks on her feet, putting headphone ear buds in her ears, etc. This weekend we installed Pergo floors in our entry, and she would take her toys and bang them on the floor as we were pounding the floor into place. I think she enjoyed testing the floor's durability.

No pictures this time, but I hope to post some soon! Happy Fall!