Meeting More of the Family

We have not traveled just a ton since Elijah was born. It's a little more complicated with two kiddos and between that and moving, it took us a while to make it up to Marion. But a couple of weeks ago, when we dropped Ben off before our anniversary trip, we had fun introducing Mr. Elijah to his great grandma Hilliman and his Aunt Cathy and second cousin Jackson.

 Smiling at Great Grandma

 Not his first time meeting Aunt Connie, but the first pictures I have to post. I left my small camera at a friends house back in March and I still need to get it. :-)

 Hanging out with Jackson

Snuggling with Aunt Cathy

From Four Wheels to Two

A few months ago, Ben started talking about riding his bike with no training wheels. We got him his bike last summer for his birthday and about a week later, I started having morning sickness. Since we were in an apartment without the best places for bike riding without me there, he didn't get as much practice as I would have liked. So, when we moved to our house, he spent a lot of time riding his bike up and down the driveway and on the sidewalk. I still wasn't sure he was ready for no training wheels, but he was insistent, so I took them off and we gave it a try. Our first attempt was on grass, but he did so well, I let him go right to the road in front of our house. I got him started and after a few times of having difficulty balancing, he got the feel for it and took off. He's so grown up!

The First Roll Over

We have been so busy these past few months with moving and settling, and of course, caring for two little boys instead of just one, that I feel like I have not done a good job of keeping track of Elijah's firsts. First laugh was for my sister Rachel on May 5th. His laughter is still pretty rare, but he's doing it more and more.

Another first for him was rolling over. Elijah hates tummy time and is usually pretty upset within a minute or two of being put on his tummy. But on May 26th, he was in a pretty good mood, so I put him down and grabbed the camera. I was so glad I had it, because he rolled from his tummy to his back.

Of course, mean mommy that I am, I put him back on his tummy after he rolled over and I caught this sweet face.

Graduation

Ben had such a great year at school this year. He learned a lot and made a lot of friends. We were all sad to see the year come to an end. Since he will be in Kindergarten next year, his school had a little graduation ceremony for all the pre-K kids. They sang some of the songs they had learned, recited Bible verses, and of course, received their diplomas. We are so proud of our big boy!

 "Oh be careful little eyes what you see..."

 Ben reciting his Bible verse with his classmates

 Getting his diploma from Miss Michelle

 Hugging Miss Cynthia

 His class

Chicago

A few years ago, we decided that for our tenth anniversary, we wanted to go to Hawaii. We've been saving ever since. But then God had an amazing surprise for us in the baby department and since I am currently a nursing mom, we decided to postpone Hawaii until we can go just the two of us. But we still wanted to get away. So Matt's parents were kind enough to let Ben stay with them for a few days and we spent a long weekend in Chicago. We shopped, relaxed, ate lots of good food, and spent an afternoon downtown. Traveling with a three month old is always interesting, but we felt refreshed despite the constraints of a nursing schedule.

 Elijah spent quite a bit of time in our Kozy carrier while we walked.

 Taking our own picture at Millennium Park.

 Dipping Elijah's toes in the water at the fountain in Millennium Park

 Stopping for photos in front of some beautiful rose bushes

 While we were walking to the restaurant we ate at for dinner, we saw this beach and I just had to stop and get Elijah's (and my) feet in the sand.

I bought this hat while we were shopping. I just couldn't resist! :-)

Ten Years

Ten years ago, on June 1, 2002, I said "I do" to the boy I was in love with. Ten years has made that love grow stronger and deeper and I feel so blessed to have Matt as my husband. 

Ten years ago, I sealed up my wedding dress and half jokingly said I would put it on at our ten year anniversary. So I got it out and put it on, just to see if it still fit. It was fun to see Ben's face light up and to tell him about wearing this dress when I married his daddy.

April

How is it possible that April is already over?!? We had a super busy month! 

To start things off, we attended an egg hunt with the mom's group I'm a part of. There were over two thousand eggs scattered across the grass. Ben had a great time collecting them and I was just thankful that a lot of them had stickers, erasers, and pennies inside of them instead of all being filled with candy. 

 We spent Easter with my family. The weeks leading up to Easter were busy ones, so Easter outfits were not even a consideration until the night before. My sister gave us this super cute button down onesie and dress pants set for Elijah and Ben happened to have a hand-me-down suit jacket in his closet. Matt and I, well, I decided that Easter is definitely not about dressing up. :-) I meant to get a family picture, but I forgot, so you just get the boys.

Ben and I had a little fun project and made cupcakes to take to my parents house for Easter. They are little birds nests with tinted coconut for grass, jelly beans, and of course, peeps.

 My college roommate gave us this adorable "My First Easter" outfit, and it was really too cold for him to wear it, but I had to get a picture anyway. Unfortunately, none of my pictures turned out very well, but he still looks like a little cutie!

 The weekend after Easter, Matt's parents, his sister and her two girls, and his brother and sister-in-law came for a visit. Ben enjoyed getting to play with his cousins and everyone enjoyed getting to see and meet Elijah.

 We like to pack things in, so that same weekend, my Aunt Vicki came for a visit as well. We spent the weekend going back and forth between our house and my parents' house, but it was so fun to see everyone!

Hanging out with Uncle Don and Aunt Chrissy

  

Emma and Addison loving on Elijah

Elijah just being his cute little self

 The weekend after we had lots of family in town, we moved! Talk about crazy times! We are loving our new house and after a week and a half we are finally finding some sense of normalcy and organization. Still lots to be done, but we can function. A couple nights after we moved in, I turned all the lights off and looked up to see the moon shining through the foyer windows. It just looked so pretty that I had to take a picture. So please excuse the randomness.

 Mr Ben is very much into Lego building these days. He loves to make helicopters, planes, cars and trucks and his imagination is amazing.

 Family picture in front of our new house.

 I got a new lens for my camera for my birthday and I've been playing with it a lot. I have SO much to learn about picture taking, but I'm having lots of fun photographing my little sweeties.

So that about sums up the month of April at our house. Other noteworthy events: Ben took an accidental brick to the head and got a major haircut so we could butterfly bandage the wound, I said good-bye to thirty and the wonderful year that it was and now I'm officially IN my thirties, and Elijah is growing like a weed and is a little over 13lbs now.