26

Yesterday was my Birthday! It was a really fun one too! We started out the day by not sharing the bed with Elliot till 6:30am, when lately it's been more like 2 or 3 am due to some teething. I felt so rested, which was good b/c we had to get up earlyish to go running :) It was a color run and awesome. We had a babysitter for the kids and Julie and Michael came too. After the run/color festivities, we walked home and had a KFC picnic and ate ice cream cake. It was delicious! Then I got a little nap. :)  I also got to go to my favorite fabric store in town, Porters, and found some sweet deals on fabric. Gotta love finding fabric for 1.88/yd! After dinner we went swimming and since Libby wore a life jacket, I actually got to swim without holding a child which felt so good compared to just walking around. Finished the day with finishing up a huge project/etsy order! Productive and fun day!

Pre run picture

Julie and Michael. I don't know if I would've been as cool as Julie and done it 8 months pregnant! Go Julie!

After the run, but before the big color festivities

Ditto. I didn't get any final pics, but we were much more colorful

Elliot's war paint. He was so confused as to why we looked so weird when we got home. He kept doing double takes

Libby really wanted some color on her face

Brave girl ready to jump in

Elliot and his ball obsession



Yay for swimming! We go at least 2x a week I think

Libby swimming all by herself

4th of July

We started out the day by attending the Rexburg 4th of July Parade! Libby enjoyed catching candy with the other kids near us. She was pretty fascinated with the gymnasts and really mostly wanted candy. Elliot liked all the horses that came by. He sure loves animals right now. We didn't make it to the end of the parade b/c we were too hot, so we walked home and put Elliot down for his nap. We went to Julie's house for dinner and then to the Idaho Falls Chucker's game (baseball). We didn't make it to the end of that either b/c the kids were all a little restless. It was still fun though. We drove home and let Libby stay up to watch the fireworks which go off right across the street from our apartment.

showing off her pretty nails

My 4th of July jello dessert

Chuckers game

Libby hanging on something...what a surprise

Elliot LOVES balls.

Ward Campout

We braved our first camping trip with 2 kids. It turned out pretty fun. (Late night of course, but still fun)

Libby is some kind of butterfly whisperer. She seriously caught at least 3 butterflies and held them in her hand (without killing them too!) She was pretty happy when the "Bushup" (bishop) found this pink butterfly net for her to use.

Elliot and his buddy Kenneth were trying to break into the bishop's trailer for a long time

I'm sad we didn't get a pic from the outside, but this is our gigantic tent. It literally says "vacation home" on the bag and fits a million people (okay probably 10 comfortably, which is still a lot for a tent) And it's tall enough to stand up in. My mom got it for us last Christmas and wanted to last us forever. The kids particularly liked this little storage/play area.

Hmm...where's Libby?

Peek-a-boo!

There was a zip line swing we all enjoyed going on

Kinda squishy with the 3 of us...

Elliot was obsessed with getting water. He wouldn't touch the homemade rootbeer though, which just meant more for us. Yum.

In the morning after he climbed in bed with Richard

The boys got to sleep in....Libby and I were up at 6 am :(

We camped near these windmills. There were a couple on the property.

A bunch of windmills on the drive home.

They were so tired, it wasn't too long after we got in the car that they looked like this

and this :)  Yay for naps!

Life as seen on my phone

Now that I have Richard's fancy phone, I can take decent pictures and they automatically sync with my google account, making it so much easier to get them saved to the computer and put on blogs. I'll have to do a few more posts soon to add some more cute pics, but here's a bunch of what we've been up to lately.

Sibling Love! They were being so sweet together a few days ago. Elliot is actually starting to stand up for his sister. A boy was trying to push Libby at the playground and Elliot ran up and starting yelling "NO, NO, NO!" and was waving his arms in a scolding way. It was pretty adorable.

Set up the toddler bed yesterday. Elliot had fun pretending to sleep on it and jumped on it. He slept on it last night for the first time.

We are potty training Elliot. These are the best undies I've ever seen. He's so cute! I need to make him a cape for sure.

Sitting on the pot! haha!

Bum crack

I don't think you fit in the castle buddy....

Libby loves to pic flowers. Especially "fuzzy flowers". Lately when we go to the park, she wanders off to pick dandelions instead of play on the play ground 

Throwing sticks and rocks into the canal is a new favorite thing for the kids.

Elliot especially loves it. Sometimes I'm afraid he's gonna jump right in. He screamed all the way home one night because he was so mad we had to leave.

She brought me a bouquet.

Slides

Making a wish on the dandelion

Libby's picture of a dancing snowman/person wearing a smiley face shirt and has shoes (which she thought was very important)

This kid took over our bed a few mornings ago.

Old enough for Nursery

It's hard to believe this guy is 1 1/2 already! He still seems like a baby to me even though he is walking and saying a few words. He is so funny and happy and such a joy to our family.

Elliot's stats:
Height: 31in (15%)
Weight: 23 lbs (14%)
Head: 19in (64%)

I kept thinking he was a big guy since he has all these tiny friends, guess he is pretty tiny too. Very proportionate height/weight though, with a big head.

Such a big boy!

What Elliot's up to these days
Elliot will drive cars around on the floor, can stack up 4+ blocks, dances a lot, and loves to throw balls. He also LOVES t.v. (a little too much), he knows that the wii remote will turn on netflix and if he can't get it to work, he brings it to me and yells at me. Poor kid has had to watch a lot of princess movies and angelina ballerina, thanks to Libby, he doesn't seem to mind, but he definitely likes Thomas the train or Curious George better if he gets the chance to watch them. He has also hit the tantrum stage and will throw himself on the ground when he is angry and cover his face and cry. It's pretty entertaining most the time...he is still a pretty happy kid most the time and gets along with other kids pretty well. He does really well in nursery. He loves animals, especially this hideous stray cat that hangs around our apartment complex. He follows it around meowing at it, which is pretty darn cute and funny.

Getting a picture of him these days is hard. He is far to busy to stop and pose and it seems like most turn out blurry.

Elliot's words at 18 months: 
shoe
bye bye
pee pee
knock knock
bottle (bobble)
mama
dada
go
kitty
meow
(fish noise)
doggy
quack
ball
cracker
nose
up
night night
boo
peek (as in peekaboo)
no
bath (ba bat)
(growl)
woof (he will only do it occasionally)
play (playground)
Flower

He's adding more words all the time and is getting better at imitating words. It's so much fun.