Trick or Treat!

Well, Elaine bravely wore her bumble bee costume here on the eve of Halloween!   Here in Des Moines the trick-or-treaters come out tonight so Eric and I have our bowl of candy ready to go and I'm ready to pass out candy in my "costume".  No telling if Elaine will be awake long enough tonight to see any of it, but we managed to have our mini photo shoot while she was happy and awake!

BZZZ!

Alivia Grefe's 1st birthday party!

Miss Alivia Grefe turned 1 this weekend and Elaine attended her first birthday party!  Leslie and Brian hosted a pumpkin themed gathering on Saturday, and we all wore orange!

Here is Elaine before we left the house wearing pumpkin head to toe - literally!

Here is Elaine with the guest of honor dressed as a pumpkin princess!  I'll give you one guess who made the dress - DANA!

Here is Alivia having her first bite of cake!  It was DELICIOUS - petit fours from the Bake Shoppe.

Here are Eric and Jay with their girls on the back deck!  Quinn's outfit was to die for!

Here are proud mama Leslie and proud Poppa Brian with their little pumpkin!

And here is a photo of us dressed in our orange at the party!

This is my favorite photo of the night - Grandma Dana with both Alivia and Elaine.  She has that magic touch!  What a great party!!

Sitting in the Bumbo!

Elaine has started sitting in the Bumbo chair!  It is amazing how fast she's growing.  We have been getting out new toys and devices like crazy and you just never know what is going to get a good happy squeal out of her!  Today we saw lots of drool, lots of putting her hands into her mouth, and she could actually grasp some of the toys we gave her!  Her happy personality is really coming to life and we laugh at the funny things she does every day!  The toy of the day is the Whoozit!  Enjoy!

Saturday Morning Smiles

As wonderful as it's been to travel and see family, we have been long overdue for a relaxing morning at home with our precious Elaine.  You become so grateful for every smile, every coo, every laugh when your time during the week is limited to the one hour she's happy when she gets home before she totally conks out for the night.  Anyways, here is a taste of our pj time in the morning. 

First Visit to Peoria

Well, despite a cold plaguing both mommy and Elaine, we visited Peoria for the first time for some very important introductions!  First Elaine met my grandma and grandpa Frost!  My grandma just happened to be wearing the exact same color outfit as Elaine, which I thought was great.  My grandpa wasn't able to hold her but I think he enjoyed our visit just the same.

This smile on her great grandma's face says it all.

Then we went to Andrew and Missy's for a birthday party/chili cook-off.  Missy arranged for her sister Courtney, who does photography, to take pictures of all the cousins and my sister Julie picked out the girls' matching outfits.  Here is pose 1, just a candid from my camera - Courtney's will be way better!

Here is my favorite fall pose - here we have Connor, Lauren, Elaine, Adam, and Caleb!  Melt my heart!  You should have seen all the parents jumping around squealing and clapping  to get the kids attention.  It was hilarious.  I think I have a video of it somewhere.

And of course here is Elaine meeting her Uncle Andrew for the first time.  It's funny to watch your self-proclaimed redneck hard-nosed brother melt like a popsicle on the 4th of July over your itty-bitty baby girl.  Needless to say, I could have cried watching how gentle he was with her and the little sounds he made.

And here is Aunt Missy with Elaine!  She's always had that special touch with babies so no surprise Elaine loved her!  Only person I forgot to take a picture of Elaine meeting was my cousin Shannon, but luckily Thanksgiving is right around the corner and we'll see them all again! 

Aunt Amy and Uncle Dan's Wedding

Eric's sister is now officially Amy O'Connell!  Amy and Dan tied the knot over the weekend during what was picture perfect fall weather with the leaves starting to change as their backdrop.  We got to spend a few extra nights enjoying the festivities and out of town family we don't get to see too often.

Here is Elaine in her special shirt that Grandma Julie had made for all of us. I think there is a group photo somewhere out there but for now this is one you can actually read Elaine's!

Here we are at the rehearsal!  We got the memo that purple was the wedding color!!

This is the only photo where you can kind of see the outfit - trust me it was ruffle-tastic!

And here is the wedding day - we have finished getting ready just waiting to emerge from the dressing area to get Amy down the aisle!  I was a bridesmaid and Eric was a groomsman - first time we've ever both been in a wedding party at the same time, very fun!

This is my favorite photo that I took of the happy couple, I can only imagine how gorgeous the photographer's photos will turn out!!

And somehow I only managed to get this ONE picture of Elaine in the absolutely adorable dress Amy found.  She got so much attention - everyone went nuts over it!

Here is the baby lineup.  From the left, we have Caleb (6 months), Myla (2 yrs old), Reese (9 months), Islee (10 months), and Elaine (2 months).  Missing one cousin's baby, but the group is still growing!  Lots of baby sounds at this ceremony and reception - gotta love it!

Here is daddy cuddling Elaine in bed the morning after the big day!  We all enjoyed sleeping until almost 9:00am - I guess we were all pooped!

Here is a fun pyramid from the gift opening on Sunday - apparently this is an O'Connell tradition, and it was fun watching them try to recruit people to do this.  Eric is on the bottom row, along with the groom, and Amy is on the top!  Nice work guys!

And of course we had to bust out the fun bib for the gift opening on Sunday!  It was a wonderful weekend and we are so blessed to have Dan join the family and get to catch up with all the rest of the family!