The Many Adventures of Elijah the Bug

Elijah is a super happy kid. I think his sole purpose in our family is to make everyone happy. Elijah has many nicknames including (but not limited to) "the bug", chub-a-bubba, chubs, Elijah-bug, lijah-bug, Lij (pronounced Lije) bugs-a-boo, bubby, bubba...

Elijah is the funnest, cutest, most easy goin', little guy ever. ( I am shamefully biased) We just adore him! Elijah has not been the quickest kid at speaking (or any other milestone for that matter), but he is starting to say more words everyday. His very first word was Isaac. He didn't just say Isaac, he yelled "ISAAA" Hmmm...I wonder where he got that from? His word for blanket used to sound just like buddy but now it sounds like "badey". He says Mom, Dad, car, sippy and "te to" for "thank you", there are probably a few more that I can't think of right now. He is starting to repeat words he hears alot more also, they are not really part of his vocabulary yet but I'm sure they will be soon. Even though he doesn't speak alot in the traditional sense, he has always been very good at communicating, which I think has contributed to his lack of motivation for speaking.

Here is a little more about our "Bug"---

Likes:
He loves Meg. and as soon as he hears her crying from the monitor after her nap he immediately sets off to go and rescue her. He is so gentle with her and loves to give her hugs. He tries to make her happy by giving her her pacifier, or toys. Sometimes he does make her happy, sometimes...not so much.

Elijah was so funny when I took these photos, I put Meg leaning up against him and was wondering how he would feel about that...he loved feeling like he was holding her! I tried to move her and he did his little "uh,uh" and pat his legs, basically saying--put her back.

He loves Going to Bed He is about the easiest kid ever to put to bed. Today for instance, after lunch he wanted to get down but I wasn't quite finished eating. So I thought I would just get him down so he could go talk to Meg. But he grabbed his sippy cup (of water) and I asked if he wanted to go to bed and so he started heading off to his room laughing with anticipation the whole way. It was so funny. He threw in his sippy cup and I put him in his bed with his blanket and he was happy as a clam. Night time is just as fun and easy.

He loves his Blanket. He has been attached to it since he was a baby and still takes it were ever he goes. I have to distract him and have one of the kids hide it if I want to leave the house without it.

He loves his Daddy. As soon as Eric gets home Elijah wants to be with him. Eric goes to change...Elijah is right behind him, Eric goes to the kitchen...Elijah is right behind him, Eric goes to the bathroom...you get the idea. Sometimes Eric would just walk randomly all over the house to see if Elijah would follow. Sure enough, Elijah was always right behind him. They love to wrestle and rough house and it is so fun to see how much Elijah loves his Dad.

Elijah LOVES his shoes. Funny I know, but he loves them. Before we found a pair of shoes he liked he was totally anti-shoe. He would cry every time I put them on. I was getting a little desperate and then I went to the store and they had the cutest shoes ever. They have a really soft sole, they are more like slippers with a two soft rubber inserts. Anyway, I put them on him and he actually tolerated it. I left his shoes on all day in an effort to get him used to the idea of wearing shoes. After I laid him down for his nap I heard him start crying and of course I went to check on him and he was upset because one of his new shoes had fallen off. I thought it was pretty cute. Ever since we found the right pair of shoes he never wants them off. I take them off to change his diaper as soon as I put his pants back on he immediately sits right down and says "soo" for shoe. I am wondering if he is going to be okay with some real shoes soon because the ones he has now are needing to go to the dumpster or maybe I should bronze them? Just kidding!

These are his beloved shoes that have now been retired. They had a good run!

Luckily we have found a new pair of soft-soled shoes, but they are not made for serious walkers so they are wearing out pretty quickly.

Dislikes:

He doesn't have many, but I would have to say he doesn't like being treated like a toy. Somtimes the kids pick him up just for fun, not such a big fan.

He doesn't like it when Eric and I leave on our weekly date. Thankfully he gets over that pretty quickly.

Not a big fan of Nursery. He is not crying the majority of the time anymore, but I still think it is one of his least favorite parts of the week.

I love this little guy!

School Pictures

Gabe-3rd Grade, Isaac-2nd Grade, Emma-Kindergarten

Meg 5 months old!

Monday Meg was Officially 5 months old, and I finally got around to feeding Meg cereal for the first time. I usually wait as long as possible but the doctor recommended I start (actually he recommended I start a few weeks ago but....)

She was less than thrilled at her first attempt. But I am sure she will love it soon enough!

Meg is a very good baby (even though I am still waking up with her at night.) Her smile takes up her whole face and melts your heart! She is quite squirmy and will roll and roll until she is blocked by a wall or something and then gets upset that she is stuck. What a cutie.

Picking Pumpkins

The Tuttles invited some families from the ward over to pick pumpkins for Family Home Evening. They have a great pumpkin patch and all the kids got to pick out their favorite...

Elijah looked so cute checking out the pumpkins. He wanted them all!

Gabe got a really big one, and Isaac got a dark green one, good picks guys!

I think Emma's was my favorite. She picked out a white one because it looks like a ghost she said. In the bottom left picture you can see her mouth in an "oh" shape. She is making the "OOOHH" sound for the ghost pumpkin. She was really happy with her pumpkin.

It was so nice of them to have everyone over and the kids loved it. We even got to pick a little one out for Meg!

On Saturday between the sessions of conference, we found out that the Hales (some friends of ours that moved away) were in town for the weekend visiting family. They invited us to come and get some pumpkins from their parents garden too. The kids and Eric picked a whole bunch at the Hales. Then we got some more on Monday, so this is what our front porch looks like.

The only ones from our garden are the ones I circled in the lower left corner. Those 3 pumpkins represent our entire pumpkin harvest from about 4 or 5 plants, not a good year for pumpkins at our house. They don't even look like normal pumpkins. We are lucky we have such generous friends!!

Flowers from our Garden

On Sunday we made a few arrangments from the flowers in our garden. The kids had a great time picking the flowers and really wanted a picture. Emma Likes the dalias that are white and have dark purple. You can't really see one in this photo. Isaac's favorite was the red flower in the middle of the third vase from the left. It has narrow petals so it looks a little crazy.

We watched conference and I tried to learn how to french braid. Emma is sporting my 5th attempt.

Quick trip to Utah and Lake Powell

The last weekend in September we got to go through the temple with my two youngest siblings who are going on missions. Our entire family was able to attend. It was a very memorable day. We won't have another opportunity to ALL be in the temple together for over 2 years. What a great day!

For Christmas last year my parents invited all the adult members of our family to go to Lake Powell and said they would rent a houseboat. We had originally decided that we weren't going to go. But we kind of arranged Jess and Jon's temple day to coordinate with the dates for Lake Powell. So since we were already going to be in the general area anyway we decided to go ahead and go to Lake Powell as well. Everyone went to Lake Powell except Jacki and Brian, they have a 3 week old and didn't feel like they could make it.

Eric and I left all the kids except for Meg with a sitter and flew in Thursday night really late. We met Jed and Jamie (who had just flown in from Las Vegas) at the airport and rented a car. Then we got up Friday and went to the 10a session. We enjoyed Cafe Rio take out (YUMMY) and then drove with Jed and Jamie in the rental car down to Page, AZ. We rented the houseboat on Saturday morning and stayed until Monday afternoon. (Every one else stayed until Wednesday.) Then we drove to Las Vegas, where we caught a flight home and Jed and Jamie dropped off the rental car and picked up their real car. Quite a bit of planning and coordinating for this trip but it all worked out.



The only pictures we managed to take were of us leaving but we really did have a great trip!

Gabe--the Bear

We had our pack meeting and Gabe got his Wolf Badge and is now offically in the bear den! He should have gotten it in August, but that pack meeting fell on the first day of school so it was cancelled. So he got it at the September pack meeting. He earned his Wolf, one gold arrow point, 5 silver arrow points and the conservation award.

WAY TO GO GABE!

The boys played buddy games going along with the theme for the month. They have their middle hands tied together and they have to work together to wrap the box. It was pretty fun to watch.