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...

Mr. Popular

You know those people who make friends everywhere they go?  I've heard of them, but never been one myself, probably because I generally find it annoying when people talk to me...Anyway, Theresa, my mom, and two of Theresa's kids came to visit last week and we went to Out of This World Pizza to get some energy out.  (The kids' energy, we were already out).  There is this huge play structure and Zay likes to climb up it and then go down the slide.  But he's about 2 feet too short to do it on his own, which means mom has to haul him all the way up and then slide down with him.  Repeat 27 times. 

So we were playing and this little boy, probably 8 years old or so (seen at right in blue shirt) came up and was talking to him.  Then he started following us, in a friendly non-creepy sort of way.  The HE started hauling Zay up the play structure and sliding down with him.  After a few times I let them go without me.  Then the boys' friends came over and told him they were going to play somewhere else and he said to them "Oh, I can't come.  I'm with Isaiah."  So all his friends stayed and they ALL hauled Zay up the play structure and down the slide.  The slide had three humps and they would even make sure they stopped just before the last hump and let Zay do that one alone, which he absolutely loved, and which had absolutely never occured to his boring mom.  Zay tends to like playing with kids, especially older ones, and mom tends to like it when other people do the hauling of the children, so it worked out great.  Later on the boys had gone to do something else and then they kept coming over to me to find out where Isaiah was so they could play with him again.  So thank you, mom of stranger boy, for raising such a nice son who helped my son have a fun day!