Some pictures

I finally got the pictures from Eliza's baby blessing festivities.  Click here.  Next I'll work on loading the picture Erika took (the formal ones, these are just candids from my camera & Karee's)

Eliza's big day

Eliza was blessed on Sunday. She wore the most gorgeousest dress ever. Oh, funny you should ask, actually I did make it...It is thread crocheted, similar to how doilies are made (real doilies, not fake store-bought ones) and took me about 4 months to complete. Jerel blessed her along with his dad, Dave, Jeff, and our Bishopric. She was wrapped in a white blanket that I bought years ago in Bethlehem (as in where baby Jesus was born). Zay used the same blanket. She was pretty much the darlingest baby ever, and the blessing was beautiful. You can see more pictures here, courtesy of Glimpses by Erika.  [NOTE:  you actually can't see more pictures yet.  I can't find them so once Erika resends them to me I'll post them]

Cousins

Zay had lots of fun having some cousins visit last weekend--13 of them to be exact--because he always had someone to play with. Somewhere during that time one of them taught Isaiah how to use his race track. We bought it for him for Christmas, but he isn't strong enough to push the button that makes it go. One of them figured out a different way to do it and taught Isaiah, so now he can play with it by himself. Of course he still prefers to have someone playing with him, but he loves that he can make the cars zoom all by himself!

Twins (born 8 years apart)

Zay only has one church outfit right now so he wears it every week. Then my nephew Mason showed up and his sweater was almost identical to Zay's! I was so excited by the cute darlingness of it. Jerel decided we needed to change Isaiah's outfit immediately because matching is dorky. One of these days Jerel and I will agree on something...

Please leave a comment to vote for whether this is the cutest thing ever, or dorky.

Grandma Sunny

My paternal grandmother came down for Eliza's blessing. We chose Eliza's middle name--Mae--after her. She moved up to Bremerton (WA, where the rest of my family lives) last year so now we get to see her more often. My great-aunt is moving up there next month and once they're all settled in, Grandma has invited me to stay the night with her. What kind of crazy 80-something-year-old invites two crying babies to stay the night? Grandma said she figures she'll probably get kicked out of her old people housing since they're not so kid-friendly, but she doesn't seem to care. I think when you've lived that long you can sort of do whatever you want!

Grandma is an old pro at hosting big dinners so she jumped right in and helped with the prep. We had homemade enchiladas (including homemade enchilada sauce) and tacos. We tried to get Dave to serve himself before everyone else. See, when I was pregnant with Eliza and Jerel and I were already arguing over names, Dave suggested the name Eliza. Neither of us hated it, so Dave said if we ended up using "his" name then he wanted to be first in line for food at the blessing. But when it came down to it, he let all the kids eat first, so I guess we still owe him a dinner for saving our marriage (naming Isaiah was near disastrous for us).

Family Photo

Here we are on the morning of Eliza's baby blessing. This is the first (and only, so far) picture of the whole family.

Altitude sensitivity

Some people get sick at extreme altitudes. Eliza is sensitive down to a few inches...if you're not standing up with her, she's crying. So you stand, bounce, and she finally falls asleep. You carefully sit down without moving any muscles that are touching her so that she won't know you sat down, but she somehow knows you're comfortable and instantly wakes up screaming. Well my sister in law Ivy was holding her sitting down and it didn't make any sense for her to not be screaming. Then I realized it's because Ivy is 6 feet tall (a whole foot taller than me) so basically when Ivy's sitting down holding Eliza, Eliza is at the same height as when I'm holding her standing up...

Ivy came down with her three boys (Mason & Asher here, and Cooper who was upstairs playing) and she brought my grandma down too. It was fun to see them! The boys are getting so old--9 and 11--but I still remember them as the little preschoolers who stayed the night with me and fell asleep with silly putty in their hands...and it had been such a pretty blanket...