Illinios in October

We ventured off to Illinois at the end of October to visit family and friends.  Here are a few pictures of our fun:

 The Girls--June is 7 weeks older than Elena and Linaya is 7 weeks younger.

 The whole gang: Bram, June, Elena, Linaya

 The kids were so cute together.

 Adrienne put together a slew of activities for the kids including Monster Mash dancing, pin the mouth on the Jack-o-lantern, Bozo buckets, hot potato (not a kid favorite) and a black cat pinata.  Above the kids are digging for candy after the pinata was ripped apart (it was a tough pinata).

 Kailah and Elena helping Papa with pancakes in the morning, yum!

 After a hearty breakfast, we went to the garage for pumpkin carving!

 Grandma and Papa watching the kids scrape out the pumpkins...great entertainment!

 Tracing out the pattern.

 Help from Grandma

 Elena means business...and to think later she had a knife not just a safety knife.

 Everybody busy with their pumpkins.

 "Wonder if this pumpkin tastes good?"  So of course she licked it and liked it.

 The finished results!

 Don't they look sweet?

 Ah, that's better.

 Swinging, an all time favorite at Grandma and Papa's house.

 A little baseball in the field out back.

 Loving time with Great Grandparents!

 The Rainbow Witch--costume designed entirely by Elena.  She wouldn't wear the cape or the witch hat..she has her own perspective on life already :)

 The mummified baseball player....

 and countess vampire....everyone was a bit somber getting started.  The weather was cold!

 Elena cheered up with fruit juice, thanks Grandma!

 Grandma, Papa and Elena

 Cyrus, Elena and Kailah...so sweet..

...and wacky fun!

We love everyone, had a great stay and look forward to visiting again next year!

3-1/2 Year Update

Today Elena turned 3-1/2.  She's growing up so quickly!

Elena is a very independent child.  She knows what she wants and she likes to do things on her schedule.  Today she made some Halloween art...complete with her name.  See the scribble under her name?  She made a mistake, scribbled it out and started over.  She does have some perfectionist tendencies, wonder where she got that from ;)

Recently we had a teacher-parent conference (standard school protocol).  Her teacher highlighted Elena shares with friends...she even initiates sharing and comforting friends.  She is also a strong communicator and has a hard time following instructions especially when she needs to sit at circle time.  None of this is news to us.  Elena is a great kid, loves her family and friends, loves to eat and loves to be physically active.

For the record, Elena is now 42" tall and 42 pounds.  Comparing to her 3 year check up six months ago, she has grown like a week...a whopping 3 inches and 3 pounds!  Wowsers!!

Go Aztecs!

Elena's school is run by SDSU and every year the kids are invited to go on the field before a game.  This is our first year participating.  An Aztec game isn't the same as watching Illinois or Arizona State but we had a nice time.

 There was a bit of walking and waiting but Elena didn't mind while on Daddy's shoulders.

 Checking out the players on the field warming up.

 A few of the kids in Elena's school.  How big is Elena you ask?  Well, she's among the tallest in the photo and she is 3.5 standing with 4-5 year old kids.  Notice the players in the background?  The are touching one knee to the field, taking a step to touch the other knee to the field.  What a warm up!

 Fascinated with the warm up.

Elena and Carl were distracted by the touchdown and fireworks!

To the Farm!

Today we visited a family run farm in Jamul.

 Emma's family invited us along on their farm tour and we had a blast!

 First encounter of horse scat!

 Learning how to let a horse smell you...gently put a fist out and let them come to you.

 Checking out the piggies!

 Milking a goat.  Let me tell you, it's much more difficult than one would think.

 Feeding the chickens and ducks.  Carl and Elena loved it!

When we were done with lunch, we fed our scraps to the hogs.  Yum!!

JDRF w/ Allen Trammel, Padres Game

 Today we went to a JDRF event Pop organizes nearly every year for new families impacted by type 1 diabetes...a Padres game.  Every year it is a little different and this year everyone was able to go in during batting practice to meet Alan Trammell.

 Elena was shy but you can just see her peeking around Carl's backside.

 Alan, Pop, Jim

 Game time!

 Enjoying the game with Lorraine and Pop

 and our signature style...reach and snap a family photo :)

Elena had a great time...she even had some ice cream!