Third times a....

Swimming. Who's new to swimming? Eli. He has mixed feelings about it. Here are some blurry photos of his initial reaction to the not so warm water....

OMG this is freezing!

Wait! Mom always makes my bath water nice and toasty!

We did have a nice time after this though. Eli warmed up to the idea and must have gotten a little used to the water, because he tolerated it for about a half an hour more. Eli and I hung out in the shallow part and I danced around with him singing swishy swashy songs....then he got mad eventually and I cuddled him in a towel and he fell asleep immediately. 

First swimming experience?  Check. 

In other news...Eli is a bit...well....portly. 

We LOVE it. I LOVE him and everything about him...even his well-fedness. See below for details...

I clearly adore taking low quality pictures of him all day long. He loves it too. (Not.) I like to get in a not joke whenever possible. 

Well, guess what else? Third times a.....

THUMBSUCKER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That last one is a little creepy, but you get the idea. He's always trying to find his thumb, and most of the time he gets it. And when it moves away from it's spot, he gets very angry. Wonder how long it'll take him to figure out that he controls the whole deal?

Well, there's the Eli update. We love him. The girls adore him. He smiles like a goon at Steve. We couldn't be happier. 

Pretty pretty PC

Fall is beautiful....and my favorite.

And these are my favorite girls. Of course, these pics are from last year. But there will be new ones soon. And they'll probably contain a small baby too. Yippee! 

Happy Fall

My favorite place

"How long will these people try to make me smile for photos?" - Eli

And now I realize my sunglasses are too big for my face.

Mom & me and the back of Eli's head

Can we try to get Eli's face? I'll move over, you move in, and.....we tried.

Eli's "new" highchair, without the pad.

Eli is suspicious of the number of photos I've taken that are exactly the same.

Eli and I ventured out on a special mid-week trip to Iowa City to see family. I stayed with my mom at her place, she took half a day off, and we visited my favorite place in the world, Wilson's orchard outside of Iowa City.

I truly wished the rest of my little family could've been there to enjoy the day, but since it wasn't possible, my mom bought the girls & Eli little Wilson's orchard t-shirts. And for Steve? A bundle of frozen apple turnovers. The orchard is famous for them, served hot with Heyn's ice cream on top (a local favorite).

We've had lots of great memories at Wilson's. It's more beautiful than any place I've ever seen, and it's right here in Iowa! It's funny how sometimes we miss how truly beautiful things are around us, right here where we live. The leaves are changing, the colors are astounding. On my drive up, I'd arrive at the top of a hill overlooking a valley and little gasp, "Wow." under my breath, outloud...because I just couldn't help it. What a beautiful place.

Mom and I had a wonderful time sitting on a blanket overlooking the valley of the orchard, eating hot apple turnovers and watching Eli smile. Made me remember the year before when we took these:

All fuzzy inside

Like I mentioned in my last post, we've been doing some middle of the week camping. We've had some good moments, like this one:

It was night time and we were all getting ready for bed. Olivia was laying up in the loft on the camper bed next to Eli. Eli was sucking on his paci, staring at her face as she sang him lullabies. He was starting to doze. I climbed up to the camper loft to lay down next to them. Olivia said,

"Mom? Isn't he the best baby in the world?!"

Me: "Yes," I said. "He is clearly the best."

Olivia: "I just feel so fuzzy inside. I feel like I could just explode!"

Me: "That's because you love him. It makes you feel happy doesn't it?"

Olivia: "I don't know why but I'm starting to cry!"

Me: Speechless.

I love my babies, and apparently, Olivia gets it too. :)

Isn't love grand?