Happy Birthday Neena

Neena's Graduation Video

Chad was able to borrow a nice camera to film Neena's graduation :) It made it such a great video! We are so blessed!

Neena's Graduation from Chad Elliott on Vimeo.

Mother's Day, Dedication, Gymnastics

Got lots of pictures for you and dang if I can't figure out how to turn them for you : (

Nevertheless, there are some cute ones. Here's my big boy sleeping happily in the bouncy seat.

He's such a happy baby. I told Chad we can go ahead & get "fixed" but I would still be hoping that we can be one of the 3 in 1,000 that still conceive, lol. I'm sure if I had no reason to NOT want to get pregnant, I would probably feel more sure than I do with good reason to be done. Just a part of life, huh? So here's Isaac in his frog towel :o) He loves baths.

This is a sleeping pic in his bed. I keep the extra paci's in there & always a few receiving blankets. I use the blankets to keep his head straight & to "burrito" him in when his hands & legs get to flailing & keep him from sleeping. So peaceful.

Happy Mother's Day to me. Check out the last line; it reads, "My mom is funny when she toots." Thanks, Neena. Thanks for sharing. And, really, the face says it all here. Sigh; that's my girl!

Oh, how I love her!

And I love my Mommy :o) Even when we have no make-up on, first thing in the morning!

Neena & MiMi! They are suckers for one another.

Neena's BFF at church: Zoe. Their Daddy's names: Chad & Thad. Both worship leaders at the church. Hahaha ; )

More mom-daughter love on Mother's Day :) This is my sis-in-law, Laila, & her mom, Linda. We got to hang out on Mother's Day & Laila even got ME roses for M's Day, too! She's a freak about giving; it's ridiculous. We love her for it & think Allen is quite a lucky guy! (He'll be coming home SOON, too! Woo Hoo! Pray his homecoming goes as smoothly as possible so it happens as QUICKLY as possible!!!)

M's Day pics of me & mine w/make-up. (Much better.)

This smile just goes on & on!

OK, here's an action shot of Neena at her gymnastics performance. I love the gym she goes to; if you live in Holly Springs or close by, I recommend it!

So, we may have gotten a little distracted in between her performances....

Proud girl :) Proud family, too. She did soo good! When all the other kids her age did their solo "ta-da" performance b/f receiving their trophies, they did forward somersaults; not my Neena. A perfect cartwheel! OK, maybe a perfect start with an adorable finish sprawled across the floor, but perfect in our eyes, of course!!

Baby dedication! Pastor Gary had just told someone to come help Chad's mom w/the camera, so we were all looking at her for this picture, lol. He likes to rag her & I can't blame him; she's adorable & she gives it right back to him.

Happy Dedication Day, Baby Isaac!!! We are so thankful God has blessed us with such sweet babies to love. We acknowledge that they are HIS, not ours, & that we are responsible to lead Godly lives as examples for them. It's overwhelming when I stop to think about it.

Baptism day, also; here's a few shots from the view from our seats. Uncle Brian (Chad's bro) in the sunglasses, bottom left).

You can catch a peek of Gege, Cousin Amber, & Isaac in the corner of this one ;)

Neena w/her cousin Rhiannon, who is TWO years younger than her, almost to the day. Nope, I never would've guessed it, either! Aren't they CUTE?!?!

One last thing: a video of Isaac at Neena's gymnastics performance. We DID get her on video, too, but it's on the video camera--not the digi-camera ;)

A Tribute to Aunt Kayla

I found these & just had to post. Neena is sharing some chocolate mousse with Kay but what you can't really see from the video (but you hear us talking about) is that for every Neena-bite, the spoon is full. For every Kayla-bite it has basically nothing on it. And Neena is saying (yelling) "Ahhhh" to get Kayla to open her mouth.



And I couldn't decide between the two videos I took, so here's the other...

I had to post one more video...

We pulled out the videos last night, trying to find a "fat" picture of CHAD when I was pregnant the first times. We could NOT find one. (If I ever do, I'll show you.) So there are lots of favorites. Apparently the video file version in our new digi-camera is not supported on here =( but I've got plenty of old ones to choose from for now!! If you know how to put on a video in .mov format, I would love some help; thanks!

About this video: she is feeding her "Bunny Bear." I am doing the amazing sound effects. We call him Bunny Bear b/c normally he has a bunny pj outfit on. She has been in love with her Bunny bears we have 3 of them almost her entire life now. =)

In case you're wondering what happened to those overalls...

This was from October 2006. Almost two years ago! It feels like it was an eternity ago in so many ways. I love my girl!!!!

Hats off to MiMi

I am beginning to experience the preliminary symptoms of pregnancy. Exciting but also embarrassing. I went to my friend's house the other day, a friend of SEVEN years and could NOT remember her mom's name. A name that also happens to be MY mom's middle name. Luckily my friend is pregnant too, so she's experiencing much of the same thing.
I was on the way to Curves the other day & drove right past it. By three miles. I was already running late, so I might as well have just not gone. I go before Chad leaves for work so that I don't have to arrange childcare, so I'm always rushing as it is. I was only there for 15 minutes but spent 35 minutes driving. sigh.
I'm not sleeping well. I can lay in bed & feel my whole body move with my extra-human-strength heartbeats. I now set the temperature to two degrees cooler than normal. The upside to that is when I'm "big" it'll be winter. Neena & Chad better get ready to bundle up.
I'm hungry =) And I get to eat a lot. And food tastes sooo good. Trying to avoid sugar; I have good days & bad days. I don't want an extra big baby, extra pounds, or extra stretch marks. I'm pretty determined. I want to deliver naturally this time, so I gotta be in really good shape.

Mom was in town this week :) A shout out to her for all the cleaning/organizing/child care that she provided whilst I worked on the computer for a new short-term job I've got & rested. I did help a little. But I have to be honest & give her all the credit. Here's a cute pic of her taking her make-up off with Neena copying her & playing right along.
Pretty cute, huh? MiMi also took us shopping & out to eat. You're the best, Mom!!

Getting Started

So, yeah; I'm finally going to try to do this. I often think about how things that occur in our lives would sound if it were blogged about but never get the courage to start one. I guess I feel that there's a lot of pressure to produce interesting reading material & I'm not sure I can create that at all times. But at any rate, hopefully I can just enjoy having a record of things I would forget if not written down somewhere.

I found out last Saturday I'm PREGNANT!! WooHoo! And on our second month of "trying" too. Although I'm sure Chad wouldn't have minded it taking a little longer. And because I'm just this vain, I took a "before" picture of my stomach so that I won't forget what it looked like.

I'm also now wearing all my favorite clothes in case it's my last time ever to fit in them. Seriously, there's a lot at stake, here! You would understand if you saw what happened to me after nursing Neena. Wish I had taken a pic of those. But I'm feeling good. I'm not sleeping much...which is why I'm here at 6am; I don't remember not sleeping well until I was so big comfort was not an option with Neena. I think it's mostly because I've got so much on my mind. So much to research & learn about.

Which reminds me, if any of you have babies & use disposable diapers, you should really check out this website. Watch the video on how diapers decompose & it will really make you want to consider other options. I'm definitely adding them to my new baby wish list. =)

Neena is very excited about her new baby in my tummy. She's ready for him to be here. And by him, I definitely mean that I want a boy. Healthy boy while I'm asking but I'll take whatever I get happily. I'll probably go deeper into that at some point but I'll leave it at that for now.

And while I'm here, I think I'll show you pics from vacation. We went with my parents (MiMi & Papa), my brother & his sweet wife Laila. It was bitter-sweet as my brother left to begin his training for Iraq 2 days after we left...but we had a great time.


Neena, Mom, & I got up early every morning & had coffee on the balcony. Neena is convinced she should have coffee every morning now. But I love how she's standing here. Since then we have begun to successfully nix the pull-ups. She's getting so big!








Sorry Laila...I really shouldn't do this but this picture makes me so happy! Laila was the first to notice the pit shadows & called herself Amazon Woman; I couldn't figure out why until she told me. We laughed & laughed. I don't know why I insist on snapping the picture when someone is totally not ready; most of the time it doesn't work out but when you get this many smiles, it's totally worth it.






Here's a pic of Neena & me at the zoo. Well, zoo might be an overstatement. But we were happy with our choice to spend an afternoon there. Neena is quite the busy-body and we felt that we needed to give the rest of the campers a chance to rest. And rest they did. We didn't get out much on vacation; well, away from the condo, that is. We played Wii Fit, swam in the warm, indoor pool (Neena's decision; we'd rather have been in the sun outdoors), & walked the beach.







Speaking of Wii fun, here's a pic of Dad doing the ski slopes. I kid you not, he did better than most of us. He was too cute.







Here's another pic from the zoo. Snow cone. If you can call it that. More like Kool Aid on ice.





Well, it's time for me to go to Curves. I'm doing a 30-day fitness trial for a national fitness study. Started it 4 days before I found out I was pregnant. It doesn't say anywhere that you can't participate if you're pregnant. So I don't think I'll tell them. Working out makes me feel great; I'll just leave them confused as to why my fitness has weakened over the 30 days. Ha!