Let It Snow...She's Ready!

Enola got a new snow suit, boots, hat and mittens from her Nana and Papa. We got bundled up to go see the Living Nativity in Waymansville on Friday night. She was happier once we got there and saw the animals and had some cookies.

We woke up Saturday morning to a snow-covered forest. It's beautiful out here!

Her Own Thing

Side note: WHAT? Two posts in one day? A Saturday afternoon to myself is a rare thing!
On with the cute pictures....

Now that Enola has become entirely independent in her mobility, she is also developing independence in her activities. She enjoys helping me with chores and carrying things around the house. Today, she took the contents of the bread drawer into her bedroom and put them in the washing machine. Luckily, I found the bagels and honey wheat before I ran a load of laundry. Her toy camera, on the other hand, was not so lucky:

A few days ago I showed Enola how to cover her Bitty Baby with a blanket and feed her a bottle. After a few minutes of suspicious silence I went to her room to see what mischief she was up to this time. There sat my perfect angel:

Enola has a wonderful library, mostly thanks to you! However, lately she's been bringing me books from the big shelf in the dining room:

Today she also found my old US Synchronized Swimming Rules guide. She was trying out some of the moves! (I promise, I did no posing here...it is all her!)

Her pike:

Her ballet leg:

Yes, the extension needs some work, but if I recall correctly, that was always the criticism I got, too!

Up North

We went north last week to see Grandma Elser and got to visit with lots of family! First we stopped in Lafayette where Nana and Papa were online with Eliza, James and Shel. These bffs miss eachother! Then, it was up to Steph and Elden's where we got to spend time with lots of family! Enola is sometimes shy (with Elden, and men in general) but she attached right to Grandma....All weekend E would walk right up to her for a quick snuggle, and follow her around. :)

The girls in their snuggly pjs. This is one big pile of cute!

We had an ultrasound on Monday. Everything looked really good with no concerns. The below image is a 4-D Realtime picture. The baby was really moving around a lot and never was in a very good position for pictures.

This picture is of the baby's foot.

Check out the link below for a movie of Enola's first experience with processing a deer. She was surprisingly helpful according to her mother.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ck59c3gW0aw

Mums and Punkins

My Punkin with mums

Here are some fun fall shots from a few weeks ago. Enola got a new Bears shirt in time for football season. You can kind of see our nice new landscaping in this picture. It was taken BEFORE the deer started eating my mums.

A "Mum's" Punkin

Dave's design (my execution)...a portrait of Littlest Baby...did not win us any prizes or titles at this year's pumkin carving party. It was pretty close to being size-accurate! Cute or creepy? You pick.

Strawbaby

Enola was a strawberry for Halloween this year. She wore the hat for maybe three minutes at a time. She looked oh-so-cute, but by the time the Harvest Party at church actually started, she was pretty worn out, and this was the closest to a smile we could get. Sadly, I cannot take credit for making this costume.

Give me a hand...

Isn't this amazing and wonderful? Littlest Baby is now 14 weeks along (just finishing up the 1st trimester)...I can't wait to hold those little hands!

(not our baby's hands....this is an image from the Internet)

Miss Enola is growing fast, too! She's walking independently much more often now, and loves to "help" me unload the dishwasher. She gets to visit with little friends at the babysitters, and we read lots of books together at home. She is "talking" more than ever; mostly random babble, but she attemps words here and there. This week she's saying "baby," "bye-bye," and she tried "amen" tonight at dinner (she wanted to pray multiple times throughout the meal...kept folding her hands and expecting me to do the same).

Little Fuzzball

To announce my pregnancy to my students, I did our daily devotional reading from Psalms about being fearfully and wonderfully made, and formed carefully in our mothers' wombs. I also handed each kid a craft fuzz ball (you know the colored ones you glue to stuff?) because they were just the right size - about 1 cm in diameter. We held them in our hands, imagined being so small once, and marveled at the fact that God knew us and cared for us even then....even before then. Then I exaplined to the students that my newest baby was just that size. :)

Well, we went to the doctor a couple weeks ago Thursday, and being about 9 weeks along, our little Fuzzball was about 2 cm big and due on April 6. Everything looks great! We're now at 11 weeks and everything is still going well.

Catching Up

In the next few posts, I'll try to recap our summer. We had some good times! We spent lots of time with family, and we enjoyed the lake almost daily! Enola just kept on growing and was bigger everytime I turned around.

Our summer began with a couple busy weeks at home. We had a fun Youth outing and VBS. After that, Enola and I headed to PA to see my mom through her last few days of school. Enola got to bond with the PA fam:
The Adamses gave her an early birthday gift of a baby doll. Enola knew what to do right away; she immediately hugged, kissed and patted her baby (sure there was some prompting, but it didn't take much). I believe in intuition! E also learned to climb a step at Gma and Gpa's house because we don't have ANY at home. It is now one of her favorite pasttimes.

This brings us to July. More on that later.

Guess What!?

That's right, Enola will have a little sibling in (we're estimating) early April!!! We are so excited:)
Sorry about the lack of posts this summer. Maybe we'll have a more regular routine during the school year and this blog will be a part of it!

Love to all!

P.S. We have to give Tammy props for the t-shirt...THANKS TAM! It was in the hand-me-down box from her girls (I remember Emma wearing it...did Evia, too?). As soon as I found it, I put it away hoping I would get to use it!

Happy Father's Day

To all our favorite Dads!Please notice the stylin' tie Enola made for her daddy. He was agreat sport and wore it to church today!

WE LOVE YOU!!!!

Little Big Girl

Enola seems to be growing up so fast these past few weeks. Maybe its just because I'm now out of school and with her 100% of the time. It's been great. Here she is getting ready to crawl over and check out the camera:She's making this face often now...not really sure what that's all about. I could swear I heard her whistle once, though!

Enola now has two teeth (on the bottom). I've been trying really hard to get a picture of them which has only resulted in a lot of close-ups of her adorable face. I don't know how, but she's managing to hide them with her tongue here:

Eventually she got tired of the camera up in her face. When she gave me this look I decided to stop. Wouldn't you?

She likes standing at her wagon, unloading the toys, and them picking them up to put them back in again. I realize that from these pictures, it kind of looks like we're hermits. We do go outside, really, it's just that the camera stays home. You should come join us on the dock sometime!

Kissin' Cousins

We spent Memorial Day weekend at the Lake with the fam. Thanks Mom and Dad for making the trip out. Enola and Bode shared a little pool on the dock: It was reminiscent of the previous generation of lake goers:

(Whit on the left, Erin on the right) Enola and Bode enjoyed eachother's company (mostly). There was tickling:

There was poking:

There were snacks:

And there was LOTS of LOVE!

Tubes

Because she had been having recurring ear infections, the doctor recommened that Enola have tubes put in her ears. He found that she had fluid trapped behind her ear (it has bacteria in it), and as long as that was there she would keep getting reinfected. Rather than continue to shoot her up with antibiotics, we took her in Monday morning for the very quick (5-10 minute) surgery. It went great. She was SCREAMIN' mad when she woke up from the anesthesia, but after she nappped on the way home, she seemed to be back to her normal cheerful self. She's had a great day today, and we hope this surgery will have its lasting intended good!

No teeth yet!

We got all dolled up for a wedding Saturday night. Enola bobbed along to the music on the dance floor with me and finally crashed in a friend's arms at around 9:30. A few people have told me how drastically tubes seemed to affect their kids' hearing. Dave and I wondered if that meant E would no longer be able to tune out the blaring music and sleep through wedding receptions (as she has a habit of doing).

We're Five!

This weekend Dave and I celebrated our fifth anniversary! I got a gift certificate to the Indiana State Park Lodges from Verna for Christmas which we used Friday at the Canyoun Inn at McCormick's Creek State Park (just west of Bloomington). On the way we stopped in B-ton to have dinner at Yogi's. It was delicious. The Inn was beautiful:
The rooms were very cozy with rustic log furniture. Now, we would normally camp out in a tent, but thunderstorms were threatening, and this was especially easy and relaxing:
While hotel-like, the Inn had a great rustic lodge feel, complete with coon-skin caps! Enola almost wore one long enough for a picture:
Saturday morning we took a hike on the trails at the State Park. It was a beautiful day, and the trails there were very nice. The hike we took ended at a pretty waterfall!
Enola got her nap in:Spending time hiking through the forest was a great way to spend our fifth anniversary - it's something we've loved to do together since even before we were married. We're so excited to continue enjoying God's beautiful creation with our children as our family grows (except that the kid in the pack is only going to get heavier!)