We are thrilled to share that our baby passed its sonogram with flying colors today!  Everything looks perfect so far.

We are also excited to share with you that it’s a….

David ordered Chinese take-out for himself at the office earlier this week.  Because I am pregnant and he doesn’t want to argue with me about food he loves me and wants to make me happy in every way, he said “ok” when I begged to eat dinner at a Chinese buffet….that same night.

But that’s beside the point….

When I picked David up at work that evening he had to run back inside to grab the fortune he received with his meal.  We both agreed that it was true…but then again, can’t all fortunes that come from fortune cookies be applied and made true to the recipient’s life in one way or another?

We picked his truck up at the shop and made our way to another Chinese restaurant across town dinner.   After dinner the waitress brought 3 fortune cookies with our bill.  Elliott chose one, I chose one, and David took the left-over one.

Imagine our surprise when he read his.  Different cookie, red ink, same message.

I’m not familiar with the randomness of fortune cookie fortunes, how many different cliche’ messages are printed and stuffed into a particular brand of cookie, or what the odds are of this happening again.  But, I still think it was awesome.  And the food was pretty good, too!

We are exactly one week away from finding out if Elliott will have a baby brother or a baby sister….what do you think?

Here is our obligitory “snow picture” from the infamous day of snow that we had in Texas last week.  Elliott refused to bundle up any more than this so our play time in the snow lasted a mere 60 seconds before he complained that it was too cold and that he wanted to go back inside. I got to say “I told you so” and now I’m sure he will always listen to me when I give him wardrobe advice (wink, wink).  Amazingly enough it snowed great big snowflakes for several hours and we had fun admiring it from inside our cozy house!

The space between the back door and the storm door: otherwise known as Elliott’s “white office”. Where does he come up with this stuff??

Elliott has finally started to sing…all the time! He sings, uninhibitedly, at home, in stores, in the car, and just about everywhere we go these days. I love it! Some of his favorites are the ABC song, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Old MacDonald, and Jingle Bells.

Here is a quick video of him singing his little heart out! (Sorry about the green leprechaun mouth…we were having Lucky Charms for breakfast!)

Winter has finally arrived in Texas, making me want to stay home in my pajamas all day, drink hot chocolate, and play with my favorite two-year-old!  This week Elliott and I took a few days to relax at home and simply just be together.

We built an awesome fort in the playroom.  Well, actually it was more of a tunnel, but it was still awesome.

Elliott dubbed it the “triangle tunnel”.  See?

When we were done with the tunnel we pulled out the sofa bed and had a pillow fight!  Elliott loves this game…he laughs hysterically when he’s hit with a pillow!  Silly boy.

We expended a lot of energy pillow-fighting so it was time for a healthy snack!  Popcorn…

…and egg nog!

We ate our snack and sipped our egg nog while we watched Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on the pull-out sofa bed.

The movie inspired us to make our very own Rudolph!

We both took a nap in the afternoon…we were still in our pj’s! Then it was on to more playing!  Why can’t every day be this much fun?

Before we moved David and I wrote out a list of all of the things that we really wanted to have in a new house.  Although we loved living in a historic home it just didn’t have a lot of the “creature comforts” that I found myself longing for with a new baby in the house; things like closets and a great backyard for a toddler to explore; things like a garage and enough bedrooms for a growing family.  Another feature high on my priority list was a space for Elliott to sprawl out and play!

When we walked into our new house for the first time I immediately fell in love with the layout.  The house was perfect for us and lived up to all of our expectations on the list of “must haves”…including the perfect room for a playroom!

The previous owners used this room as a den, but I immediately began envisioning it as Elliott’s playroom…a place where nothing is off-limits; a place where we could create, imagine, roughhouse, build, make music and explore!

It took us a few months to finish out all of the details, but the playroom is the first room in our new house that we can officially call “done”!

It is located off the foyer just as you come inside the front door.  I love that it’s close to the living room and the kitchen so that I can be near Elliott when he’s playing even if I’m trying to get things done in the other room.

We got this sleeper-sofa on Craig’s List a few years ago for our den and we love having it in the playroom now!   We eventually want to add some french doors to the entryway making it even more private and a place where guests can stay if needed.

Elliott has his own pint-sized table for 4 in the corner!  We spend a lot of time here creating art and playing with play-dough.

The frames on the wall house Elliott’s art and can be changed out easily to display his latest masterpieces!

Most of Elliott’s books are in his room, but I put a few in a basket next to the tent in the corner with the idea that he could take a book inside and read by himself.  He hasn’t used the tent for that purpose yet, but I would still love to create some sort of a “book nook” for him eventually.

We found these toy shelves at IKEA.  I love the versatility they offer for storing books, toys, puzzles, and craft supplies!

One of my favorite things about the playroom is this colorful art collage!  It was super easy to make and I think it is so festive!  I also LOVE the giant window that lets in tons of natural light and gives us a great view of our front yard.

There you have it!  We love, love, love our new playroom!  Come on over and play with us any time!

A few weeks ago Elliott entertained himself by loading all of his little people and animals into a wagon and toting them from room to room where he would unload them, line them, up, and then reload them into the wagon.  He did this several times before David noticed that there was a pattern (I probably never would have noticed).  Would you call this organization or segregation?

This Halloween was monumental in that Elliott actually “got it”.  I guess you could say “third time’s a charm!”.   Several weeks before the big day I rummaged through his closet and determined that we could probably turn him into a funky clown or Bob the Builder without having to spend a lot of extra money on his costume.  There was not a doubt in his mind that he wanted to be “Bob the Builder” when asked to choose between the two.  We talked about Halloween for weeks before and he perfected his sweetest ”trick-or-treat” that was to be his ticket to lots and lots of candy goodness!  He was so excited.  I chose not to do a “trial run” with his costume fearing that the overalls and hat would not go over well the first time, much less a second time. 

The day finally arrived!  David was assigned the daunting task of trying to get Elliott to wear his costume.   A few tears were shed, but in the end, the reminder of  candy waiting to be eaten was a force too strong to reckon with.  We won the battle and Elliott walked out of the house as the cutest little Bob the Builder I’ve ever seen!

The rest of the trick-or-treaters in our group were adorable!  We were accompanied by superman (aka: Will), Kate as the cutest little chick-a-dee you’ve ever seen, Nadia as a dragon, Eli represented Home Depot in his orange builder outfit while Elliott stayed loyal to Lowe’s, Elijah the spider (who refused to wear his batman costume), and John Arthur the cowboy.  Keeping with tradition we kicked off our annual Treats for Tots party in our old neighborhood.  My mother-in-law still lives there and was kind enough to loan us her house for a few minutes.

Elliott and Kate shared a wagon this year!

All of the kids got the hang of it quickly! 

We chatted with some of the best neighbors ever! (We miss them so much)

 I just had to include this photo because of the scary guy headed right for Elliott.  I didn’t even notice him at the time but when I went to edit the photo to make it lighter I saw him!  Yikes!

After we’d done all the trick-or-treating we could handle we headed back to Nonnie’s house where she was hosting a grown-up party of her own.  Elliott and David dove right into the veggie tray sitting on the table.  Crazy cats!  All of that candy loot and they choose broccoli!  This picture was not staged…Elliott actually took a break from the bag of Skittles he was eating to munch on some broccoli!  I wish I could take credit for his good eating habits, but this is just one more way that he is exactly like his daddy.

And just for fun…here are a few pictures from the Halloweens of the past!

2008

2007