The State Fair & She's Standing up!

who do you think did a better impression? haha

We spent one Friday at the State Fair in Dallas. It was expensive, but lots of fun! This life-size poster lady was in one of the expo centers. We aren't sure what she was advertising. Toby walked through a children's farm, where he was a pro, of course. This is him riding a tractor to go feed the cows.

Well little sister has now learned to pull herself up! Elliana suprises us almost daily with her giggles, crawling and now standing. She is now 18.5 lbs! She is getting chubbier while Toby is growing taller and thinner.

i love dressing elliana in bright pink!

and one more cute picture of Toby!

more road trip pictures

eating lunch with Grandpa after visiting his farm

Elliana taking a bubble bath in the sink at Camp Barnabas

eating a quick lunch with Jon and his friends in Arkadelphia (we are sorry that we couldn't hang out longer, Toby was just too sick at the time)

playing with Nana

Elliana crawling on the grass outside of HGM

ROAD TRIP

we went on our first family road trip last week!

eating with Marty, Ben, & Aubree at a restaurant in OK. this was the first time for all of them to meet our kids!

shopping at the Galleria in Dallas

Camp Barnabas

Toby is sitting on the giant pepper in front of Central Market

we traveled to Oklahoma for a few days then we visited Camp Barnabas in MO and lastly we went to Arkansas. We were able to see the Smithers, some old camp friends, David's brother Jon, and our friend Marty who just finished boot camp at HGM. We traveled with Ben, one of David's best friends and he was a groomsman at our wedding, and his fiance Aubree, for most of the trip. We had a good time seeing all of these fun people! The hard part was that half way through the trip Toby got really sick and he is still recovering now a week later.

Things that we learned from family vacation 2007:

* we really like starbucks coffee

* attach the pacifier to Elli's shirt so that we dont have to look for it over and over again

* watch out for the cheese on the frito pie at "Okie Burgers" restaurant

* expect many chigger bites after visiting "Barn Again"

* don't take the scenic route in Arkansas unless you want to throw up from the winding hills

* when ordering pizza delivery from a friend's house, make sure you give them the correct address and not the address to the dentist's office

* it is possible for all four of us to sleep peacefully in one room, in fact it's possible for 8 people to sleep peacefully in a 3 bedroom home! :)

* stephanie thinks the "tacos" from Jack in the Box aren't even real food, yet David Smithers thinks they are "awesome"

* don't tell a delirious Toby that "daddy pooped" unless you want him to repeat that phrase over and over and over again

* now we've realized that we need to plan a vacation after our "family vacation" especially if one of the kids is sick! :)

pretty elliana pics

elliana is trying to crawl!

she is our little inchworm right now. if you give her enough time she can swim around the whole room! it is so fun watching her learn & grow. we can't remember life before she was with us. oh, she is such a joy!

she smiles constantly, she rolls around and grabs whatever is in front of her and then she tries to chew on it of course, and every once in awhile when she is in a silly mood she giggles out loud!

toby's summertime fun!

as you can see our little Toby is growing up! we have had so much fun this summer playing around the farm. these are all pictures of his favorite things...getting on the tractor, pushing his toy cars, swinging, watching movies & eating popcorn with daddy, picking flowers, throwing the ball and pushing the tricycle.

Toby also helped David milk the goats once recently. he loved it! he talked about goats and milk for the next few days.

we read somewhere that you can double little boys' height at age 2 and that will equal how tall they are as an adult. well, we measured toby and he is 3 ft now, which means he will be a 6 foot tall man!

everyday Toby tries to say new words. we are understanding his gibberish a little bit better. he is also just starting to put two words together, like, "big truck" My favorite is when he tries to speak an entire sentence to me like, "mama, baby, nuk" for when he finds Elliana's nuk.

steph's birthday

thank you friends for celebrating my birthday with me! i was a little overwhelmed that 30 people showed up to eat with us at Gratzianos. thank you for the sweet notes, i really felt loved.

elliana and I had similar skirts that night! it's so fun having a baby girl!

look at all these babies!

reunion 2007

this last weekend we got together with our old homegroup friends for three nights of fun in BCS. we really enjoyed it! we laughed, talked, ate good food and admired all of the babies. they are such a special group of people. we always leave feeling loved and encouraged. steph lee took these pictures of our toby & elliana. aren't they precious?!

Happy Birthday David!

David is now 26 years old! His fellow farmers sang to him this morning and tonight we are going out to eat and then playing games. Pray with us that this next year of his life will be full of hope, peace & joy! The Lord has been so good to us up until now, and we know that He will continue to be faithful & full of grace.

sleep

last night both of our babies slept all night, and in the same room! woohoo! elliana has been sleeping all night for about a week now. so last night we dared to put her in her crib in toby's room and she did great! they didn't wake each other up!

not working

ok, i've tried twice now to post some funny pictures but each time it didn't work. maybe tomorrow on his actual birthday i can get some pics up

birthday fun

In honor of David's birthday tomorrow, I decided to post some fun pictures of him. :)

our kiddos

...blogging is fun

well, it seems that 95% of our friends have blogs. and the Lee's finally crossed over...so we decided that it was time for us as well. :)