I'm Paying It Forward!

I picked up this little game from Corinnea. Here are the rules: I will make a little something for the first three people who comment on this post. I will have 365 days to do it in. If you would like to play you must have a blog and post your Pay it Foward on your blog to keep the fun going.

And, while I have your attention, I thought I would show you these:

Our First Pumpkin

It's our 5th Halloween together, but this is our first pumpkin. It's pretty ridiculous, actually. The cat was supposed to have more detail around the face, but Bran didn't draw it in, and I forgot to do it before I started carving. Still, I think it turned out pretty well.

While we were working on gutting the pumpkin, Elora had her supper and a nap.


Then she and her daddy went upstairs to hang out while I did the actual carving. They came back down when it was time to do the eyes, and Brandon got out his drill. I wouldn't have thought to do it that way, and I have to admit that while Elora entertained herself on the floor

and Brandon went at the pumpkin with a power tool, I hovered over him until I could be sure that he wasn't going to destroy 3 hours worth of carving with that power tool. Once I was satisfied that it wasn't going to be demolished, I started taking pictures again. I'd say it turned out pretty well! I like our pumpkin. :)

Backtracking

This is something that I did ages ago...last winter, I think. I finished the embroidery, but I never did anything else with it, and I never posted it. I'd originally thought to make it into a little bag, but now I think I might frame it.

Also, I finally uploaded my pictures from when I was babysitting for Jennifer. Here are a few:

Ava was all about Elora for the first few days. She kept wanting to play with her, and was always bringing toys to share. We had to keep a sharp eye to make sure that Ava didn't share something that could hurt Elora, or be hurt by her. It was the sweetest thing!

Elora, for her part, didn't seem to mind hanging out at Jennifer's. She was her usual smiley self. I think she rather liked being around the other kids. Oh, she's definitely going to need siblings! But not just yet.

Ava was walking around in just the one boot...

The girls were all playing on the couch. When Elora grabbed a handful of Emily's hair, Emily just laughed and said "Look, she grabbed my hair!" Of course, this is the same child who, on this same day, informed me that I have pretzels on my butt. (If you've ever seen the tattoo on my back, this will make perfect sense. :)

Coat Pegs and Sweet Potatoes

We went to the commissary yesterday, and got some baby foods for Elora to try (she's 6 months old now, you know, but where did the time go?). We started with sweet potatoes. She had half the jar at lunch time, and I mixed the other half with her oatmeal at dinner time.

She loved them! I know I need to wait a few days between new foods, but I'm anxious to see what she thinks of the other things we got for her. She 'll just have to keep enjoying the sweet potatoes until we're sure that the sweet potatoes like her. :)

Oatmeal Face!

We started giving Elora oatmeal a few weeks ago. This is from one of her first oatmeal experiences:

For the most part, she does pretty well with it, but sometimes, she'll grab the spoon and pull all of the oatmeal off. And sometimes, after she does that, she rubs her face. This is from a few days ago:

And this is from yesterday:

We wiped her face off when she was done, of course, but I still found it caked on her cheeks, in her eye brows, in her ears, and in her eyelashes! But it all came off at bath time. :)

I have to!

Thanks to cuteoverload.com, I stumbled into these:

and I just had to post them. I had to! (Especially for you, Kelly!) It turns out there is a whole website devoted to animals with lightsabers. It's called animalswithlightsabers.com . Genius, right?

Catching Up

This is what has been happening in my world for the last 3 weeks:

Elora can roll over. (See my new header pic.)

My in laws came to visit, and we spent lots of time together as a family:


We went downtown, and among other things, ate at Oschen Wili's (Thank you Corinnea, for the recommendation!):


We went to Strasbourg:

We went to Lichtenstein Castle:



And, we went to Zurich:




I took hundreds of pictures! I've spent the past 2 days weeding out the bad ones, tweaking the good ones, and posting the best --there are still a ton-- to my photobucket. Oh, and doing 2 weeks worth of laundry.