So much has changed...

So I haven't posted in a long long time. Yes, I am still alive, we have just been a little swamped. Lots has happened since last september. Number one: I had a baby. Blog, meet Donovan.

He is the most beautiful, sweet, amazing man in the world. He was born last November and almost 7 months old. :)

Don't have time for much more right now. Maybe after Tuesday I will update more regularly.

Love,Elizabeth

More recent things...

Now, much hasn't been happening in our family this past month, but I still thought I woudl share a few pictures. This was taken nearly a month ago, Lorelei is reading a book to her daddy.

I must apologize becasue our digital camera has broken. The flash no longer works (no idea why) so all of our indoor pictures come out very dark and sometimes blurry. :(

These two shots are ones I took just two days ago. I can not believe how much my little girl has grown in a year and a half! Every morning she picks out what she wants to wear that day (here it is a valentines day tshirt) and tehn she tells me how many ponies to put in her hair (0, 1 or 2).

As you can guess, this was a 2 ponies day. She took my keys after we locked up the house. Then she headed to Grandmas for breakfast:

Do not interrupt her morning Elmo dvd or she will be a very upset little girl. Mommy only gets a slight wave as she walks out the door.

Don't tell Lori (it's a surprise!) but Mommay and Daddy bought tickets to take her to Sesame Street Live in November. We can not wait to see her face when she gets to see Elmo in person.

Lorelei is now saying about 10 words. (Mama, Dada, No, Papa, Don (yes, we taught her to say her little brother's name!), this, dog, cat, I can't remember some of them, and of course, Elmo.) I still can't get over that she onlys says about 10 words and one of them is Elmo. Hehehe. We also started working on Don after we found out we were having a boy. At first if we asked her to say her brother's name she would just blow a raspberry at you, but now she says "Don" and points to mommy's belly all by herself. :) She also knows what I would guess is at least 30 words in sign language (we try to learn one or two new ones each week). This week we have learned peaches and grapes (her two favorite foods - at least right this second!).

As I have been unproductive most of this afternoon, I am going to get back to work now. I will try and update again soon, but no promises!

<3,ZZ

Lion Country Safari

There is a "theme" park just down the road from our house. It is very different from most theme parks because it is a drive-thru safari. I get free admission there for my spouse and children, so Bryan and I decided to take advantage of this opportunity to take Lorelei for a day. In late July we headed over to see if she would have as much fun as we thought she would. When we got to the park the woman selling tickets told us that she could sit in my lap and not in her car seat since the speed limit is like 2 miles an hour. I pulled her up to the front seat and we made our way into the park.

Lorelei decided early on that she should be the driver. (She only sat like this for a minute, then it was back to Mommy!) The lionesses were right next to the road, so we could see them up close. The Lions were all sleeping out in the middle of the field; too far for Lori to get a good view.

Here she is trying to see some animals on the other side of the path.

And then it's "Ohh Mommy look! Elephants!". On of the neatest parts was how close we got to the rhinos. They were only feet from our car:

Once we finished the drive, we headed into the park to go on some rides. Lorelei went on a carousel for the first time and fell in love. She must have rode it 6 times. Each turn she would alternate between Mommy and Daddy riding with her. Luckily the park was nearly empty when we were visiting so she never had to get off. First with Mommy:

And then with Daddy (Daddy took her on an animal that went up and down!):
Possibly my favorite part of the park is the Giraffe feeding area. We bought some cookies for them and let Lori feed the Giraffes. She was afraid of their tongues, so she wouldn't feed them herself, but she would giggle up a storm as she made Daddy feed them the special cookies.
As Lorelei befriended these Giraffes she decided to have a nice conversation with them. She crouched on the deck, stuck her face through the rails and was babbling to the giraffe. If he walked away to get a cookie from another person she would start shrieking at him to come back (which amazingly he did!). He would also bend down to look at her through the fence. It was so much fun to watch I could have stayed there all day.
After the giraffes we went to the splash park where Daddy and Lorelei went running through the water features. She was having so much fun she didn't want to leave. Alas, eventually Mommy gets tired of sitting in the sun and Daddy can't run anymore, so we had to move on.
We finished up the day by sharing an ice cream and then we headed for home. I think that our little girl very much enjoyed herself and we will be going back again soon!

<3,ZZ

So much going on...

I decided to update because it has been a long time and I realized my posts are getting more and more pathetic as I only really post pictures (if even). I am going to give you one pic I came across today that I thought was really cute and dates all the way back to April. This was taken at the boardwalk along Lake Worth Beach when Grandma Oslund and Aunt Tori came to visit Lorelei for Spring Break:

My little princess was marching along in her own little world, not caring about anything around her.

The next group of pictures I have relate to my last post (all the way back in July!). We went to Wisconsin for the annual Wilson family Grandpa's birthday reunion. Bryan and I took Lorelei strawberry picking. Luckily, we made it there in time for the last day of you-pick-em season. We didn't care about what strawberries we got (which was lucky because ours were quite pathetic), we just wanted Lori to have a good time. As you will see in these shots, she did. At first she was hesitant to pick the berries, but after watching mommy do a couple she decided she would try. She was doing awesome at filling our basket until she realized these things were edible. Then seh started to pick them, take one bite, and then put it in the basket. Bryan and I had so much fun watching her.She decided to share some with Daddy:
Another picture from this trip:

I made my dad take us to a farm so Lorelei could see some animals. She knows all about cows from her books, but watching her squeal when she saw the baby calf was priceless. (The big cows frightened her a little) These babies kept mooing at her and she thought it was sooo funny. As you can see, she also brought "Dolly" to see the cows. Dolly goes everywhere we do.

And my final picture from this trip is this one:

Lorelei sat in her stroller as we lined up along Walworth Ave to watch the 4th of July parade with all the Wilson cousins. Lorelei is number 8 of the Great-Grandchildren in the Wilson family and Bryan and I are expecting number 10 in November. She had lots of friends to play with! She also enjoyed watching the parade, catching the bead necklaces that were being tossed, eating the bag of cookies and drinking the carton of milk that one of the floats decided to give to each child. Overall, I would say the trip was a success!

I have a lot more to update, but I am going to start a new post to keep things a little better grouped.

<3,ZZ

4th of July...

So I was a slacker and did not take pictures on 4th of July, but I managed to get a few from other people.
Here are my favorites...

Lorelei adores her Daddy

and she can be a mommy's girl too!

Summer is here!

So Summer has hit South Florida. We are coping (and not so well I might add) with the horrible hot and sticky weather and the three o'clock torrential downpours everyday. Earlier this week God gave Lorelei her very own pool as our backyard flooded. We are now just keeping our fingers crossed and praying very hard that there are no hurricanes (I know, I'm not supposed to say that word!) this season.

Last weekend was Lori's last gymnastics class for the Spring and then I went ahead and signed her up through the summer. She has so much fun and gets so excited, I can not help but want her to keep going. Here are some pictures Catherine took for us:

Lorelei is a monkey bar queen.

She holds on to the rings and swings until her little arms can not hold on anymore.

Once she falls and lands on the mat she jumps up and points to the monkey bar again. She grunts at you until you put her back up there.

And I'm so proud of her, there are no tears when she falls!

At her very first class she learned forward rolls.

Now she is big enough to practice her rolls on a balance beam. This one is very close to the ground so she doesn't fall off.

She is so little still I have to help her flip her bootie. She can't kick over yet.

She has gotten very good at staying on the "big girl" balance beam. She will only walk about halfway across before she quits though.

This is a "Mommy and Me" class, but half the kids have both their mom and dad there, a quarter have just daddy and a quarter just mommy. So, usually, Bryan and I both take her to gymnastics. Here Bryan is trying to hold onto her as she waits her turn for the big trampoline. Patience is not a virtue my child has learned yet, so it is hard to hold onto her squirming body.

Once her name is called she runs to the middle to practice jumping. She can not get off the ground yet, but she bounces her bootie and tries really hard. Here she is bouncing!

We are excited about our trip in the next couple of weeks up to Wisconsin for the fourth of July and Great-Grandpa's birthday. I can't wait to see everyone and to meet Kim's newest little one!

Happy 1st Birthday and Happy Easter!

I will start with a quick recap of Lorelei's first birthday party that we had almost 3 weeks ago (it was actually on the 28th - her first birthday!). It was a great party with lots of people, even more food, and even more presents. I had told people not to get her gifts because she is already so spoiled, but no one listened to me.

She lasted through the first three presents, but then was uninterested in opening any more. It took me, Aunt Michelle and Aunt Tabby a solid 15 to 20 minutes to open the rest with all of us going at once.

She was not as big of a fan of the birthday cake. She ate a little bit of ice cream and then wanted to get down and play.

Her favorite part of the day was a balloon from Aunt Tabby. She carried it all around the house with her and would not let go. Mommy had to pry it out of her hands.

Then this past weekend we celebrated Easter by going to our churches Sunrise Service on the beach. Then we had Easter Dinner with Grandma and Grandpa Kelley and Great Uncle Dewayne (Glenn's brother).

I hope everyone had a Happy Easter!