News From the Stork

We found out yesterday that we will be welcoming another little boy into our family next March. We're so excited about this little guy and are looking forward to meeting him.

Numbers

Eliot loves books (when he's in the mood) and he and I have been going to the library once a week for a little song and story group. On our last trip we picked up a book on numbers and Eliot has been having fun learning to say the names of the numbers. Some of them you can't hear as well on the video, but he's particularly good with his pronunciation of two, four, five (as in, 'gimme five!'), eight, and nine. Six has a tricky combination of sounds and comes out sounding more like 'gik', but he's well on his way.

Happy Halloween!

Hope everyone had a fun-filled Halloween this year. Eliot dressed up as a puppy-dog and you can probably tell from the picture that he wasn't super enthusiastic about the floppy ears.

Eliot was quite pleased with our Jack-o-Lantern and enjoyed identifying it's eyes, nose and mouth.

At the ward Halloween party Eliot split his time between running around with the big kids and visiting the snack table.

Some Favorites

Eliot has discovered a love of crayons. He enjoys coloring with them, of course, but sometimes it's enough to simply sort through all of the interesting colors. He takes them out of the box and puts them back in--working on his hand-eye coordination. By the way, since when was there a color called 'Macaroni and Cheese'? I guess it's been a long time since I last saw the inside of a crayon box.

This picture captures two of Eliot's favorite activities: cleaning out the cookie dough bowl, and playing with Daddy. He and Spencer have great fun rough-housing in the evening and it's so fun to hear Eliot's squeals of laughter coming down the hall.

Eliot loves pie and asks for it by name. So far pumpkin, apple, and cherry have all met with his approval.

Apples to Apples

These past few days have been sunny and beautiful so we decided to take advantage of the weather and head out of town today to do some apple picking.

We boarded a tractor-pulled wagon that took us on a scenic little drive down into the orchard. If you zoom in on the photo above you'll see Spencer and Eliot right in the middle of the wagon.

Good times were had by all and that evening we enjoyed a caramel apple pie with our supper. Now I'm dusting off all my apple recipes and looking forward to apple butter, apple cake, apple pancakes, etc. I welcome recipe recommendations :)

Busy Mr. Eliot

When I told Spencer that I was going to put up a blog post this evening he asked me what I was planning to write about. In all honesty, I wasn't planning on writing much. I just wanted to offer up a few samples of the divers activities of a certain little boy (and 'little boy' is really becoming a more appropriate term for him every day) since arriving here in Toronto.

Eliot loves to rough-house, climb and wrestle. And never tires of it.

Eliot enjoyed his first Happy Meal the other day.

He has been getting more use out of our exercise ball than we ever have.

He's been preparing to wow them on the basketball court.

He's been helping Mummy bake.

He maintains an abiding love for balls, cups ("bup") and bowls, and doesn't leave home without them. You just never know when you're going to need a bouncy ball.

He has been getting out to the park almost every day and loves to swing ("sing!").

Looking Back: Eliot's "First" Summer

Now that the dust has settled from our move and I have a little more time on my hands I've decided to blog about some of the things I've appreciated in the past little while but didn't have time to write about. First on the list is this past summer with Eliot.

Though Eliot has already technically lived through a summer (having been born last March), I consider this year to be his first. It was so much fun. Perhaps it was because he was old enough to run around and delight in the great outdoors but too young to heed the siren song of the ice cream truck. Eliot got a real taste of what summer has to offer with Andrew and Sarah Schmidt next door and his 3-year-old cousin, Maddie, in Milwaukee for a visit. Some of his favorite activities included:

• Playing in the sandbox
• Swimming
• Snacking on watermelon
• Pushing a stroller, shopping cart, anything with wheels, around the block and using said vehicle as a receptacle for sticks, leaves, rocks, etc.
• Going for rides in the wagon
• Swinging
• Going down slides
• Learning to say "bubble"
• Visiting Lake Michigan
• Tasting new foods like raspberries and cherry tomatoes
  

Watching Eliot discover the joys of summer has been a delight and I'm looking forward to every new season with their special adventures in store.