Elliot: 6 Months

I will catch up.  I will catch up.  I will catch up.  At least I can now say that I have too many pics of my kid to sort through and post...  A much better problem than the first few months where I had few to none!  That said, many of the pics are from my phone and/or unedited, so just show me some grace.  I think he's gorgeous enough to dazzle anyway. ;)

I took advantage of some natural light in our living room a couple of months ago.  How can anyone resist those gray-blue eyes?


Love his little smiles:



I snagged these pictures on the floor of the kitchen while Oliver and Momma Joy made cookies.  The pout:

The query:

The smile:
And the laugh:

And, while Momma Joy was here (yes, she visited in September... no, I will not feel guilty about my tardiness), we bought a little bath seat for him.  He LOVED it:


I tried to get a picture of the boys together in the bath, but first one smiled:

Then the other.  Go figure.

We got a shot of his first meal of rice cereal:

And his little mustache while eating sweet potatoes at the park:

The most fun we've been having lately is "dancing in Mommy office" to "the Holy song" (which, by the way, is "The Earth is Yours" by Gungor - totally recommend it... until your two-year-old asks to play it on repeat for hours on end. literally.).  It is Oliver's favorite.  More pics from his dancing to come later... In the meantime, here's a taste of Elliot's entertainment during those sessions.  Watching Oliver:

Dancing himself:


And laughing with big brother:


Oh. my. heart.

Two more happy bath pics, just because I can't resist!


I'm telling you, happiest, sweetest, most precious baby EVER!!

Our Favorite Pastime...

Lately (in case you can't tell from the blog), our favorite place has been the zoo.  This time, though, we went first the first time alone.  Without any friends or dad.  It was... different.  Let's just say that Oliver got fixated on some strange things.

Like the elephant statue:

Where we stood for 20 minutes while he finished my bottle of water and asked me to take pictures:

Elliot, thankfully, stayed happy chewing on Sophie:

We also hung out in the huts of the African Forest exhibit.  Where they have no animals...

At least we enjoyed some quality time with the chimps:

The highlight, though, was brushing the dirt in the petting zoo.  Yes, the dirt.

Elliot wasn't quite sure what to make of the goats:

I did manage one little pic of me and the boys...  Some day I might actually get a quality picture of the three of us. ;)

Twinkies

You know how in movies, when people get amnesia, they sometimes go months before they figure out who they are?  Living new lives as new people?  Until finally one of their loved ones spots them walking down the street or whatever? Well, (God forbid this ever happen! but let's just imagine for a moment...) it's nice to know that if such a thing were to happen to either of my boys, their chances of being "discovered" by someone who knows them are radically higher than most, since anyone who knows ANY of my brothers would immediately be able to recognize them as related.

See what I mean?  How cute are they?

Best part of this story, though?  Just after I took these pictures, Elliot threw up all over Rhys' head...

Running in torrents down his face and beard.  Priceless.

And yes, by the way, that is my brother Rhys returned (safely!) from his army tours.  We are so thankful that he's home. :)

The Pun'kin Patch

At last... It's December, so, naturally, I'm finally catching up on posts from two months ago.  Oh, well... better late than never!  We really had so much fun at the pumpkin patch at St. Luke's - totally recommend it.  Oliver actually mentioned it today on our walk when we heard church bells.  He said, "Like St. Luca's at the punkin patch!"  Anyway...

Oliver was in awe when we first arrived:

And, not surprisingly, he immediately wanted to sit on the pumpkins (which the posted signs expressly forbade):


He pointed out his favorites to Casey:

And even agreed to pose next to his brother.  Of course, I either caught Elliot smiling:

OR Oliver:

But this is the closest I got to them both:

That's not to say that I didn't get some great pictures, though.  Does anyone else think of the Target lady when they see this?

And how about that tongue?

And I definitely think Elliot looks like he just bit into a fresh jalapeño here:

I love the moment when Oliver decided to check out... arm rest and all:

So I settled for some pics of Elliot (who was just starting to sit up... but with pumpkins propped all around, I wasn't too worried!).  Check out these priceless faces:

I even coerced the boys into some pics with mom, though I can't say they were super successful:

So, naturally, I resorted to tickling:

But Elliot was done by then:

He was much happier in Casey's arms walking around:

Oliver took a rest:


And eventually was ready to pull our load to the car:

SO SO fun.  Definitely planning to return next year!