So...I have not updated the blog in a loooong time. That sort of seems to be a theme around here.

We are officially in our new house with access to our desktop which means that I can download pictures whenever I want. Now the tricky part will be to actually sit down, get on the blog, and share pictures.

But today is a big day! My little guy turned one today. Zeke was our surprise baby, but I have never been more thankful for a surprise! I have thoroughly enjoyed having a little one around again.

He seriously melts me. 

About 1 month ago, Zeke discovered meat. And let me just say that he absolutely loves it. In fact, every time we eat it, he devours it, as in eats more than all of us. We have therefore decided to nickname him "meat". I know, I know it is such a sweet, baby nickname, no? I think one day he will thank us for it.
We decided that since he has such a deep fondness for meat, we should introduce him to steak. So for his birthday dinner, he got steak. And let me tell you what, he took it down!
He ate at least 10 helpings this size. He is quite serious about food.

And we finished it off with a little "Happy Birthday to You" and cupcakes. Again, he loved it. Food is just his thing.
I love this progression of facial expressions. In the third picture it is like he is anticipating the yumminess of what is about to happen.

As he finished up, we gave Taylor and Noah their cupcakes. Do you see his face of anger? How dare they eat cupcakes and not share?

Zeke has been such a blessing to our family. Taylor and Noah absolutely adore him (a little too much at times) and I cannot imagine life without him. He is always smiling, cries when you leave the room loves to be around people, and is a laid back little guy. Happy first birthday to Zeke!

Tay turns 5!

It is unbelievable to me that I have a 5 year old. Taylor is beautiful and brilliant. She is such an amazing little girl. She loves well, is always ready to help and has such a kind heart. She has a joy of life and is completely a people person.

Yesterday we were able to celebrate Taylor with all things sweet. If you know our girl, she has quite the sweet tooth (the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree if you know what I'm sayin'). We don't eat lots of sweets around here, but yesterday we did not hold back. She was giddy with excitement all day!

Taylor's Ice Cream Shoppe

The birthday girl

Ice Cream Bar

Cousins :)

We went to a friend's birthday party a few years ago and played this game. It was hilarious! I am all about making people do embarrassing things, so here ya go. The goal is to eat the donut without using your hands. First the kids, then the dads.

I know there are a lot of dad pictures, but I just can't help it. They each make me laugh out loud for different reasons.
Here you can see my brother pushing Mark out of the way (cheater). 

Wonderful facial expressions. 

These are just amazing.

 Friends!

And to top off the crazy sugar filled children, a candy filled pinata!

My beautiful birthday girl!

go go Thomas

Is anyone else signing the Thomas the Train theme song? I sure am. This past weekend Thomas came to Nashville! Noah has been a Thomas fan for a while so we decided to take him out for a little train fun. Of course when Tay overheard that we were going, she had come too. No issues with that...Christmas presents for both the kids!
It's one of those things that I am glad we did, but will never do again.

Later that afternoon, we had birthday fun with the Blairs to celebrate their oldest girl (and my niece), Addie, turning 6! There were games, water, and cake involved so of course the kids had fun.
The object of the first game was to stomp other kids balloons to try to pop them. Noah was NOT happy when his burst.And I promise that we do feed him. He is just really skinny. I blame that on his dad.

4 years

My baby girl turned 4 today.  

Taylor, you are beautiful, smart, kind, and witty. You have a memory like an elephant. You love to sing, dance, and put on a show. If I don’t hear you, I can normally find you reading, painting, or coloring. You are such a little mommy, always taking care of your baby dolls and helping with Noah. Every night, you love telling daddy all about your day while he lies in bed with you. Your imagination never ceases to amaze me. You can have a 20 minute conversation using crayons.

Last May, Taylor’s cousin had a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. Since then, she has been asking to go there for her birthday. And last night that is exactly what we did. We ate, gamed it up, and chased Noah around.

However, I think Chuck E. gave me some sort of food poisoning, so he is sort of on my bad side right now.

But it was fun while it lasted. 

Happy birthday sweet girl!

my baby turned 2

What? My baby turned 2? How do these things happen?

Noah is the MOST fun kiddo to have around. Everything is a party to him and he laughs ALL THE TIME! I really hope that he never loses his love for life because it is absolutely contagious!

(as I write this Mark is giving the kids baths and all I hear is Noah’s chuckle :))

Noah gives me a run for my money everyday, but I would not change it for the world. 95% of the words that come out of his mouth on any given day are truck, tractor, and choo choo.

LOVE THIS KID.

For his special day, I made him what I thought was his favorite meal, mac-n-cheese. The kid never eats, so who knows what he really likes.

Dinner time at the Elliott household normally goes something like this for Noah; we give him his food, he plays with it for a while, he pretends to eat it only to spit it back out, he proceeds to throw it, and then it ends up on the floor. We are working on it.

Nice Noah, nice. 

He managed to eat only the icing on his cupcake, although this was to be expected. 

I love the middle picture...we were singing him happy birthday and his patience level was wearing out.

Happy 2^nd Birthday Noah Bear!

One Less Weekend

Most of you know this past weekend was a pretty big one for us. We had a huge benefit concert and silent auction fundraiser for our adoption.

I also planned a little somethin’ somethin’ for Mark on the side. Mark turned the BIG 30 earlier this month, so on Friday we had a little surprise party for him. Nothing too big, his parents came in from Ohio and my family came over. I have a hard time keeping anything from him, so I was pretty impressed with myself for keeping this a secret for the past 5 months. 

Tay sort of got in to one of the cookies...according to her "I just needed to taste it".

Before I give an overview of the concert…let me take you back. Over the past few weeks, Mark and I began to become discouraged about the benefit concert and silent auction. We kept talking to people who were not going to be able to make it the event. It felt like we were getting one blow after another. We both got to a pretty low place. But it took us getting there to remember the real reason we were putting on this benefit. It was not to fill up an auditorium or have an event that looked good. It was to raise money to bring our baby home and glorify God in the process. Once we came to a place where we remembered that, our expectations changed, and we were able to see all of the great things that God had already done to make this benefit a success.

The benefit was great! We don’t have the final numbers yet, but we raised around $6,000!!! Praise the Lord! We could not have pulled it off without the help and support from friends and family. We are SO appreciative of all who volunteered their time and energy to help us pull this off.  We were overwhelmed with the support we felt. LOVE you guys!

 

The bands were amazing! 

Happy Birthday Sweet Girl!

Taylor turned 3 today. I cannot believe another year has past. Taylor has grown so much in the past year. She talks much more, interacts with other children on a different level, has “friends” who she love to see, and is such a pleasure to be around.

Today we celebrated Taylor with some close friends and family. Taylor requested a “pink princess party” and that is exactly what she got.

Rock n Roll Birthday Bash

Today was our neighbor's 3rd birthday party. His mama went ALL out. There was tons of food, a puppeteer, and a band!

Born to rock! Tay was the only one on the dance floor. She did not mind, just got her groove on.

Noah is all partied out.

Noah just being Noah...

I am just trying some new things with Blogger.  I thought this was the perfect picture to make BIG! We did not get many good pictures of Noah and his cake, so hopefully I can find something else to post about in the near future :)