Isadora's progress

Even though this post is about Dora, I thought I would throw in a photo of Eli--he has outgrown his jammies! Look how his belly hangs out! He has my shoes on the wrong feet too... Haha.

Here is a video of Dora holding her bottle--she did it for like 5 minutes! Eli didn't hold his on his own until well after a year--so lazy! :-)

Belated Father's Day Post

WOW, Whitney is about the best father ever. :-) He cooks, he cleans, he works hard, he's smart, he doctors the whole family, he is DASHING and so kind and patient. So, for Father's Day, we sent him away on a Boy Scout High Adventure. And as a tiny surprise, I made him a quilt out of t-shirts. Here's a photo of it.

WE LOVE YOU DAD! (aka, Hubby!) Also, Whitney and I love our dads, too. They don't really read the blog, but maybe our moms can pass the message along. :-)

Trip to Oregon

I am sure many of you out here on the East Coast are dying to know my secret...how did I get my two babies adjusted to the three hour time difference between Hershey, PA and Grants Pass, Oregon in ONE DAY!? I am SUPER MOM... That must be the answer. Well, I am willing to share my SECRET formula.

First, there is some of this.



Then a bit of this:

And then a few hours and a delayed, cancelled and then another delayed flight later (with two more 5 hour layovers and some rerouting to go), you throw in a little of this...

And Voila!! Your kids adjust to the new time zone!! That's right. With two kids under two, we flew three flights, and instead of 9 hours of total travel time, we managed to be in transit for 22 hours!!! WOW we had some tired kids. Eli's not a very good traveller, so we had meltdowns like the one we captured a few minutes of about, oh once an hour. This one lasted about 45 minutes, but one of them on the flight to San Francisco (a 4 hour flight after we spent 4 hours in Chicago) lasted two hours. I am pretty sure every single person on that flight would put me up for worst mother of the year. Or all time.

On second thought, I think I would pass on this particular formula to adjust to the time change. Maybe next time we will have our good friend Nate (an anesthesiologist) whip up something to knock them out cold. That's legal, right?

We eventually made it, and Whit's dad and mom drove down to spend Father's Day with us. We had a great time. These shots were taken at a lodge on the river (we were staying right on the Rogue River) and this lodge also has a fabulous restaurant called the Taprock Grill. Seriously, I sat outside and had GREAT crabcakes for $16! Eli loved the landscaping (with these waterfalls and tons of local artist animal sculptures.)

Right on the other side of the river is a park called Riverside Park. It's a GREAT park, with ducks, (obviously) and LOTS of play slides, forts, etc. It also had this old tractor area which Hugh found neat.

It was kinda windy, but Isadora had fun anyway!

The next day we went to the park with a new friend of mine there (our realtor's husband is a dentist and the dentist he just hired a year ago is mormon and this is his wife--small world.) Anyhow, she showed us the volunteer (or All Sports) park. She is about the nicest person in the world! She came and picked us up, showed us around and made us lunch! The park we went to has a great riverwalk that Eli is on here... not sure how Whit got this photo! It also has a huge play area or two.

Here I am with Dora, talking to my new pal Joy. Her second is named Tian and he's just 18 months or so older than Eli.

Eli loved this slide, and it loved him back! Check out his hair!

Whit's parents babysat while we went to dinner. Fun with grandma wore Dora out!

She woke up shortly after we returned and was all smiles as usual.

Prophets...

Here's a quick video--my mom brought Eli a prophets book he loves--he can point at every prophet! Well, every one I can name; my face at the end was because I don't know who that is in the bottom right--Samuel I think!

And here is one more video--my brother Clint served his mission in France and he will be here for Eli's second birthday in a few weeks. Eli is ready for Uncle Clint's visit and his birthday. Check this out!!

Isadora is 4 months old!!

Wow, two days ago Dora turned 4 months old and with the Hershey park trip, and my mom in town I forgot to post any photos. Here are a few of her at 4 months.

(She's my little angel... even though she still gets up about 4 times a night and takes no naps! The rice cereal isn't helping yet...) Oh and YES, Eli is holding M&Ms because I had to bribe him with them to get him to take photos! Yikes.

Also, as a side note, look at Whit's leg!! He went as a leader on the Boy Scout's High Adventure Trip (which included a 10 mile hike and 60 mile bike ride...) and THIS is what happened to his leg and ankle from a rock flying into it or something. It looks awful, doesn't it!?

Hershey Park with Lerdle-luh and Eli's Fake Bday

Whitney says this post is WAY TOO LONG. So, ye faint of heart, please do not attempt to read it! :-) There were just a lot of photos that I liked, and I am blogging to make my blog into a book, so this is more for me.

My mom has been in town for the last week and we chose the perfect day to go to Hershey Park yesterday!! It was 66 degrees! (Perfect for someone who hates the heat, like me.) Eli had a great time and Dora was an angel, as usual. Poor Eli has his two year molars coming in, so life's been tough for him lately. This wore him out so much he is still asleep this am (it's 7:15 am now!)

Here are some of my favorites from the park. Eli and my mom went on a lot of rides, and to his glee, Nana was there too (my sister Emma). Here is my mom and Eli on the first ride of the day--the train. That pained look is his fake smile--it's what you get when you ask for a smile!


Here's Eli on the carousel. My mom and Whit sent Emma and I over to the Comet (roller coaster) while they took Eli on a few more little rides--the carousel was one of them.

Eli asked (again--he went on this with my dad, too) to go on the Flying Falcon. I was shocked. Look at it!

It goes up really high and is really fast, but he went on it with Dada and Nana!

Here's a shot of them up in the sky. You can sort of see Whit's head in the top left corner, too.

The ZooAmerica entrance had an owl on display today. It's the smallest owl in PA. Isn't it cute? Eli was really excited and kept saying "Whoo, Whoo"

The Antique car ride is one of only a few in the park where you can take an infant, but Dora and I stayed behind because she was sleeping! Here's the gang in the antique car. They let Eli drive!?

I love all the little Hershey characters. We posed here with the kiss. This is also my evidence that I WAS there. The person taking the photos rarely makes it into any! As a side note, I am down to 145--15 pounds to go (which means I am halfway there).

This is our favorite hangout at the park. There's a nice fountain outside the cars arena, by the Kissing tower. I thought these snapshots of Emma and Eli show how much he loves his Auntie Em.

On Eli's favorite ride, the Coal Cracker (a 4/5 on the "rough" scale--he's a tough kid!) the ride attendant had a little basketball. Apparently someone had left it on the ride. Eli pointed at it and said "Ball" and the guy gave it to him. He was delighted... Here he is playing with it.

I got this by accident, but it was too funny a shot not to include! Whoops!

When Eli gets hurt now he wants me to kiss it (whatever was hurt). Here he hurt his hand and was bringing it for a kiss.

Whit does this funny dance to make Eli laugh. You can sort of see what he's doing here--look how happy Eli is!

Dora was a happy camper. My mom held her while we went on the Dry Gulch Railroad. (Another one of the few infants can go on).

Eli moved over to sit between Emma and I after this photo.

As soon as he moved, he put his little hand on her leg. I thought it was so cute, I snapped a shot of it.

Here he is on the kiddo Scrambler. Having a fun time...

Another Happy Girl Dora shot.

Just my pathetic attempt to be artsy... I really like how this one came out, though.

When we left the park, we stopped at Giant for some Chinese food and a cake for Eli's not-birthday. My mom and dad had some presents my mom wanted to see him open (since they won't be here in a month when he turns two for real...) Among them were some new books and Blues Clues DVDs we will use for our trip out to Oregon this weekend... And a new Eli sized armchair. He was pretty excited and opened his own presents for the first time ever.

Here he is in his chair, thanking Grandma.

Here's the little cake I picked up for the occasion. He blew out his own candle!

As much as he liked his chair, he liked the box more! Weird kid!

Happy non-birthday Eli! And thanks for coming Lerdle-luh!! We will miss you when you leave today!!

Lerdle visits and First Rice Cereal

My mom (lerdluh) came to visit this week. Eli still insists we call her lerdluh... It sounds much nicer out loud than it looks! She came in Wednesday night and leaves this Wednesday--her trip is almost over already!! We have had a great time.

I took these photos of my mom and Dora the other day, and I think they came out pretty cute. Sorry she's a little "scantily clad"... she kept pulling her dress down!! I guess they learn early? Ha. Anyhow, look how blue her eyes are!!

Today we went to church, and then we went to the park to let Eli get out some of his Post-Church-I-Didn't-Get-A-Nap-Wiggles. It worked really well, actually. Auntie Em (my sister Emma) came with us and so Eli was in hog heaven. Lerdluh, Nana, and Mom and Dad! If we could have left Dora at home, it would have been his perfect afternoon! Whitney watched Dora the whole time.

Eli got in the handicap swing because the kiddie swing was broken...

Eli's favorite person... NANA!

Here he is swinging with my mom.

ZOOOM! You can see his leg kinda caught the slide on the way down, which made us crash. This resulted in my mom saying I stink at "sliding."

When we got back home, I fed Dora her first rice cereal. Eli basically just smeared his around and made faces many, many months ago when he first had it. Dora made faces, too, but she ate it all... then I mixed up more and she ate that, too! I have high hopes she will sleep through the night now!! Look how happy she was!