TA-DA!

The bushes are in!

And we LOVE it!

Happy Birthday, Geoff!

This past weekend we celebrated Geoff's birthday.  On Friday, we had the missionaries over to enjoy some homemade pizza and later we went to Dairy Queen so Geoff could get a cookie dough brownie blizzard he has been drooling over for quite a while.

On his actual birthday we had some friends over, the Schmidts, to join us for dinner: Chicken Al Alba.  It's one of Geoff's all time favorite dishes--chicken dredged in flour, topped with mushrooms, ham, and cheese.  For dessert he requested homemade chocolate pudding and chocolate cookies.  We definitely got our chocolate fill that night!

We sure love you, Geoff!  The girls adore you and are so blessed to have you as their father.  I still can't believe I'm so lucky to have you as my eternal companion.  You are an amazing provider, joke-teller, root-digger, digital-interfacer, and bug squisher.  Thanks for being the best part of our lives!

Pre-School Has Begun!

Hylie started preschool today!  It's a nice cozy class of one with Eliana and I helping Hylie learn the ropes!  

I'm looking forward to watching Hylie grow!

Home Improvements

This summer we had huge plans to give our landscaping a face-lift.  Those plans took a back-seat when Geoff was job-searching, but now that he's back in business, we've been putting in a lot of blood, sweat, time, and money into our yard!

I don't have a ton of 'before' pics because it's been a slow and gradual process, but here's what we've been up to:

This is the area between our garage and fence.  It used to be just a big weed pit, but we pulled all the weeds, shaped the ground, covered it with weed block, and finally with rock.

The yard area to the left of our house was another weed infestation.  We also had a huge forsythia tree that needed to be tamed.  So I chopped down the forsythia, dug out the weeds, cleared a path, and then added some rock in the back.

You can sort of see the left side yard with the huge forsythia in these pictures

I'm hoping to find some nice ground cover for the areas on either side of the path

View from the back yard

Geoff has been doing some serious tree removal.  Thankfully, the missionaries from our church have come over a few times to join in on the fun!  Eventually we'll have a tall fence to replace all the mangy trees Geoff has taken out!

This is the only picture I could find of the trees in our back yard...

The missionaries taking out the trees (and some much-needed breaks!)

Home improvements don't usually take place without Dad!  When he was here, he fixed the gas leak in our car and did masonry work for our kitchen window.

 I absolutely love how it turned out!  Thanks, Dad!

Our front yard is finally ready for some bushes and flowers!

Eliana 9 Months

Eliana celebrated 9 months at the beginning of September!  Right now she's a major "Momma's girl".  When Grandma and Grandpa Nelson were here for their visit, if I wasn't the one holding her, she would typically fuss--but Grandma and Grandpa figured out that if she was outside on a walk, she was a little more agreeable.

Right now, Eliana is showing no interest in crawling, but continues to like playing with anything that's not a toy, unless it's Hylie's toy!  She also refuses to wear any hair bows.  :(

She's been a stinker about naps and tries to get through the day without any--but by the end of the day she's pretty exhausted (and grumpy) so she'll easily go down for the night and sleep ALL NIGHT LONG!  Sometimes a no-nap day can be pretty long and exhausting, but I'll take it if I get to sleep the night through!

Apparently, those fingers are still pretty tasty!

Eliana has been a little quirky with eating, lately.  For a while the only food she would eat was Sweet Potato and Turkey.  She even rejected the yummy foods like pear and banana!  Then, we couldn't feed her anything unless she had some puffs on her tray to self-feed.  But now, she has a much broader palate and is getting into a more regular dining routine.

When she started self-feeding, she would typically pick up the food with her left hand, grab it with her right, and then use her left hand to push her right hand up to her mouth.  Ha ha!  I was never able to get the entire scenario on video, but this one is pretty close:

Eliana is our sweet little snuggler, who enjoys being entertained by Hylie, and being held as much as possible!

Hylie's Playdoh Party

For Hylie's birthday, she requested a Playdoh Party, so while Mom, Dad, and Janna were in town, we had Hylie's friends over for some fun!

The kids came over for some pizza, playdoh fun, and cupcake decorating! 

Showing off their "Playdoh Monsters"

Mom was a HUGE help with the party--she helped with the set-up, cupcakes, placemats, pizza, and tended to Eliana while I was running around!

Lexi decided it was more fun to drink her sprinkles instead of decorating with them! 

 We knew Hylie LOVED playdoh, but we didn't know until we threw this party how MUCH Hylie actually LOVED this stuff--as you can see, all the kids were in cupcake mode, but Hylie was still in the zone and most of the time I don't even know she knew anyone else was at our house, she was so focused on her playdoh!

 Eventually, Hylie looked up and saw everyone with some dessert, so she finally put down the playdoh to have a treat!

Hylie had helped me put the "Monster Kits" together for each of the kids, but at the party, she was so involved with all the playdoh toys, she didn't take the time to make her monster--we were able to squeeze that in a few days later!

The party was a smashing success...until the next day.  In preparation for the party, I had made homemade playdoh and after the second batch I realized I had only used 1/4 of a teaspoon of salt when it called for 1/4 of a CUP.  You guessed it, the playdoh with less salt grew some fuzz and I had to call all the moms to tell them to throw out their moldy playdoh!  Ugh!  Ha ha!

Mom, Dad, and Janna's September Visit

We were so grateful for the time Mom, Dad, and Janna took to come out for the first week of September.

We had a lot of fun being together and while they were here, we took the time to visit Lamb's Farm north of Chicago.

Hylie was a little hesitant of the animals at first, but thankfully they had brushes for the kids to use.

It wasn't long before she ditched the brush... 

and got REALLY friendly with everyone! 

Grandma and Eliana hanging out on a hog. 

 It took a while to convince Hylie to join the picture, but by the time she did, Eliana had had enough!

 Eliana sneaking in a drink on a super hot day!

Geoff's New Job

On June 3rd of this summer, Geoff was laid off from Forsythe.  It was a humbling blow, but Geoff didn't waste any time in looking at what opportunities were out there.  Within a week of job searching, Geoff started interviewing but didn't find a good match until late July.

On August 17th Geoff started his new job with Sentinel Technologies Inc.  He is a Solution Architect (a promotion!) for the company and has already impressed them with his skills and expertise!

We are grateful for all we learned during this experience.  Geoff had a lot of supportive friends who reached out to him with opportunities and advice and he also took this time to learn about new skills, products, and positions.  Our time of unemployment was quite brief, and for this we are grateful.  We look forward to learning more as Geoff continues with this new company and new opportunities.

Geoff on his first day of work--isn't he so handsome?  Thanks, Mom and Dad Nelson, for the new tie and socks to celebrate this achievement!