Christmas Photo Shoot

My friend Annie from church is a wonderful photographer. She did our Christmas photo shoot this year. (Not that we had one in prior years, but this year we did!)

I think the photos were great. In fact, I am so happy with them I am just posting them all on my blog, in two installments! :-) (I only got 28 of 100 or so proofs, so you don't have THAT many to look at.)

I have a lot of trouble capturing good shots of Eli but she did great, I think!

Incidentally, I only have 3 pounds to go until I have lost down to my goal weight. :-) ALMOST THERE!




Eli and his dad have been doing this new thing--Eli climbs up his dad step by step and then stands on his shoulders. It's pretty funny, but Eli is always asking me to do it. I do NOT do that.

Train Clothes

Most of you who know me are aware that I am a little (okay a lot) loyal to Gymboree. My kids don't really wear anything from any other stores.

Eli usually doesn't care much what he wears. We go there a lot but he has never expressed an opinion on the clothes in the store. Well, last time he went, he was obsessed with the new line they had. Trains. I waited (of course) until it went 40% off, and I got him several things. Here he is from yesterday, proudly wearing his choo choo train clothes. I love them too!

Of course, not long after he put the new clothes on, we had an accident and he spilled milk all over them. Just before that took place, here he is with a chocolate milk moustache. It's actually more of a moustache and goatee. Cute!

Here he is (just minutes later) in new clothes. I went to take a shot of Dora (who just got a whole batch of new bows that are larger for her bigger 8 month old head) and Eli had to run and jump in the photo, too. You can't really see what they are holding. Dora has one of Dad's stethoscopes and Eli has Emma's scarves. She is using them to learn to juggle. Eli already knows how. He throws them all in the air at the same time and yells with glee! (Then says "Me juggle.")

Playing Well

Alright, I will admit I am hideously biased, but isn't my daughter the cutest thing ever!? I thought I would update everyone on Eli (and by extension, Dora.) Isadora LOVES her brother. She adores him. He has not been quite so consistently fond of her.

Lately I have been really working with him on the propaganda. Your middle name is Jesse. You are named after my best friend, my brother Jesse. He loved me an awful lot; I loved him a lot, too. We would have done anything for each other. YOU should do anything for your sister Isadora, who loves YOU a lot, just like I loved my brother. You should love her, too. And so on.

Usually when Eli gets upset with her (for being near his toys, or sometimes just attracting attention), he shows it pushing her. We have also been working on repeating, never never push the baby. Never never push the baby. Never never NEVER push the baby. This morning, before Dora was even awake, he looked at me and said, "Eli never push baby."

That's right, kiddo, never push the baby. He has been really nice to her a lot, bringing her toys, giving her kisses. Here are some photos of Dora, and also at the bottom, some of him joining IN with Dora on the photo shoot (and kissing her) instead of getting mad and pushing her over. We are making progress!!

You can see her top teeth in this one:

She's looking at Eli here. She loves that kid.

He came to sit by her when he saw me taking her photo.

He runs up to her laughing a lot now, and really gets in her face, to get her to laugh too. It's really cute, but hard to catch on camera.

Here's the kiss.

My happy (now extremely squirmy and active) little bean!

I thought it fitting her shirt says "Little Sister." She is moving into 12-18 months now, though it's still pretty darn big on her.

Progress

I just wanted to give myself a quick pat on the back. I bought two pair of 3/4 jeans at Aeropostale last night--because they fit! Wahoo! I only have 6 more pounds to go! Weight Watchers is working--slow and steady wins the race.

Bridget

Middletown Hummelstown Railroad

Yesterday, on Halloween, Whit called in some favors to get off work early and go with me and the kids to the take a ride on the Middletown Hummelstown Railroad pumpkin patch express. We had a fun time (until we left, at which point Eli kind of lost it. This is pretty common for him--we get punished for doing something nice. We are hoping he outgrows this phase soon.)

Here's Eli on the train. He was so excited and kept saying "choo choo". On a side note, it was 70 degrees yesterday! WOW!



Whit, as always, was a Super Dad. Here is our Pumpkin patch admittance ticket.

Several people stopped to tell Dora she really WAS so cute it was scary.

Here we are trying to get a shot of both kiddies.

Eli staked out several pumpkins as his own!

We attempted a few times to get both kids and a parent. Shortly after this it started to rain, though, so that halted our attempts.

I liked this front display the best.

I was trying to get just Dora but Eli saw and wanted in on the action.

We had a great time on the train. Hope you all had a great Halloween, too.

(On the way home, we were trying to get Eli to wash his hands with a wipe. This is what he did with it instead.)

Trick or Treating!

Here in Hershey, they assign different days to different townships to Halloween itself isn't so crazy. Also, kids can trick or treat several times if you want, since they can go to various neighboring townships.

It was Eli's first time trick or treating. We didn't take him last year because we figured he didn't need the candy.

He is a monkey and Dora's a butterfly. Aren't they cute!?


Dora was just the cutest butterfly ever!

Here are the kiddies--we walked to our favorite block in the neighborhood and just did one block. We love the tree lined block of Areba before it hits 322.

Dora kept grabbing Eli so I gave her some mardi-gras beads to play with. Then Eli wanted some. You do what you can, right?

Here's Eli's first house!! He wasn't really sure what he was doing. He tried to go inside about 3 times. He hasn't ever been over somewhere and had them answer the door and not go in! Anyhow, he couldn't say Trick or Treat, but he would say Happy Halloween. Once he got the drill down, he would say happy Halloween, and then say PLEASE. HA. He knew he was begging.

Cute little bugger, right?

Here he is with Dad.

Dora was happy just to be along for the ride. A lot of people tried to give her candy! I told them she wasn't ready yet.

About halfway through Nana showed up, so she took a family shot.

Here's my monkey! Everyone thought he was supposed to be Curious George. We should have done Whit as the Man in the Yellow Hat!!

This shot proves Nana was there-in her 4 inch spike heels from work! Once she arrived, Eli assigned her pumpkin carrying duty. It has gotten pretty heavy! That kid got a lot of loot from one block!

We had a great time. I think Eli will want to go again tonight. Ha. Only in Hershey can you go over and over.

Dora's Kisses

Now that Isadora stands and takes steps, crawls around and babbles all the time, I think Eli is finally seeing her as a real person. He was desperate to hold her on his lap the other day. Pretty cute, right? Dora was happy as a clam to be held, and as you can tell Eli was proud as punch.







She is such a happy baby. I like this shot of her blue blue eyes.

She has just started to laugh at everything in the last week. She will laugh and laugh and laugh. It's so cute!!

AND she hasn't given me one, but she kisses Whitney over and over and over. She sure loves her dad. I'll admit it--I am a little jealous!

Here's a video I got of Eli and Dora playing. They haven't ever played together before, so I tried to document it. Of course, when mom shows up, it changes the dynamic and Eli started to try and get my attention, but it was so funny how much fun he was having making her laugh.