What an Imagination!

Elliana Joy has quite an imagination. She has a set of Bible story felts and loves to sit and put the pieces on her felt board. The cross scene is the most fascinating to her. She likes to talk about how Jesus "has lots of blood." We pray that at an early age Elliana will come to understand exactly what that blood means.

Making Bread - the easy way!

Ellie loves to help in the kitchen. One of our favorite things to do it make bread dough in the breadmaker, then bake it in the oven. It works out great that way - saves a lot of work, too!

All Dressed Up for Church

These are a few pictures we took one Sunday morning before church.

Visiting a Chicken Farm!

While we've been looking for a church and visiting around, we've really made some wonderful new friends! We were invited to Brian, Rebekah, and Tori's house for dinner and to see their chicken farm - what fun we had!! I was so excited to get to see behind the scenes of a commercial farm - I always thought I would love to do something like that. Seeing all the work that a farm involves, we've decided that we don't think commercial farming would be so much fun. Maybe one day we'll have some land, chickens, cows, goats... Until then, I'm perfectly content not having 100,000 or more little chicks to take care of!!

A Little Dirt Won't Hurt!

Dirt... Sand... Rocks... describe Elliana's favorite toys right now! She is perfectly content to sit and dig and pick up interesting rocks. She's also developing quite an interest in insects. She was digging in the dirt the other day and pulled up a worm. She brought it to me - in two pieces!! She had a wiggly side in both hands and said "Mama, look... I broke this bug!"

Flying Kites!

On Mother's Day afternoon we enjoyed a family get together on Chris' side of the family. Ellie enjoyed playing with Hannah and everyone had a great time flying kites.



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Storytime at the Library!

Elliana LOVES to go to storytime. She askes to go every morning, so we count the days until it is storytime day. Here are some pictures from storytime.

I'm Ready to Eat, Mama!

What a big eater we have... Elliana is always ready to eat! Her new sentence is "I'm hungry - I want something ("somepin") to eat, please."

Creative Discovery Museum

We enjoyed a fun day at the Creative Discovery Museum with our friends Emily, Carey, and Camey! Elliana especially liked playing in the water and playing store with Camey. We are excited that we have a year's membership (thanks to mom and dad) and can go anytime we want! :)

Helping in the Kitchen!

We love our new Shaklee Basic H Cleaner. In attempt to get rid of the chemicals in our home, we have started buying Shaklee all natural cleaners. Ellie even likes helping Mama clean with them. It's nice to know that they are so safe and natural that even Ellie can "help" Mama clean with them!

Elliana's 2nd Birthday Party!

Elliana is now a two-year-old! We can't believe how fast these two years have gone by. We had a little party for Ellie at the Pumpkin Patch Playground and had such a fun, memorable time. We've been hearing "Happy Birthday to Ellie" ever since! :) Here are some shots from the party.

Downtown Day with Mimi

We had a fun day with Mimi downtown a few weeks ago. We enjoyed going to Coolidge Park and riding the Carousel. We also went to the new Greenlife Grocery to pick up a few things. Ellie thought the carts there were the greatest!

Backyard Picnic

We have really enjoyed the yard at our new house. Ellie loves to have picnics, so brought our lunch to the backyard one day. Being outside is one of Ellie's most favorite things. On rainy days she'll look out the window and sing "Rain, rain, go away, little Ellie wants to play."

Tinkertoy Fun

Ellie has discovered how much fun Tinkertoys can be! We played with them on the front steps for almost an hour one day. Unortunately, she also thought it was fun to push the tinkertoy sticks into the dirt... I think Tinkertoys will have to be an inside toy from now on!

Lots and Lots of Bubbles!

Chris set up the bubble machine on the deck and we couldn't believe the bubble wonderland that we created! Daddy and Momma had just as much fun as Elliana!

Fishing Trip!

In March, Chris and his dad went out on the boat to fish. Ellie went for a ride with them and had a blast!

Easter Egg Hunt and SonRise Program

Ellie loved finding Easter Eggs at the family get together we had today. In the picture, Aunt Leslie and Katie are helping Ellie hunt for eggs. I didn't get many pictures - or many good ones I should say! We had a great time. We also enjoyed going to the SonRise Resurrection Pageant at the Collegedale Adventist Church this morning. It was so neat to walk through the streets of Jerusalem and feel like you were actually there. This was so perfect for Ellie to see as we have been going through the Family Life Resurrection Eggs with her the past few weeks. She loved the part where Jesus came in on the donkey and she could wave her palm branch and say "Hosanna." The rest of the time she kept yelling out, "Let's go see Jesus, let's go see Him!" They did an incredible job with the resurrection scene - we were very impressed. This will probably be something we'll want to do every year.

Feeding the Goats

Can you tell one of our favorite pastimes is feeding the goats next door!! Aren't they cute??

Resurrection Eggs

We have really enjoyed going through the Resurrection Eggs from Family Life. We started these about two weeks ago, and have finished the last egg (representing the empty tomb) last night. We are so excited about all that Elliana has learned by doing these eggs. She loves it and each evening says, "I ready to do eggs!". She knows to go to the couch and waits on us whether we're ready or not!! What a blessing it is to be able to teach our daughter about God's Word! We're going to Sonrise tomorrow - which is an Easter walk-thru drama, and will post pictures about that.

Yummy, Yummy!

Sometimes I think Ellie is the bottomless pit!! She must be going through a growth spurt. This particular afternoon she ate a whole peeled apple (down to the seeds!), and a whole banana... I can barely eat a whole banana in one sitting!! We are so thankful that she is a good eater - there are very few things that this girl won't eat. What a blessing!