I don't know where he learned it from, because I've never taught him to do this. But now whenever I get out my camera and want to take a picture of Eli, he says (with a big silly grin)

CHEEEEEEEESE!

Love this little guy.

What's more fun than a barrel of monkeys?

....apparently a fireplace of magnetic animals!


I found these great magnetic books at Costco that have a pocket of animals included, with little magnets inside them. I got it for Sundays during church to keep him busy and quiet. But he's found that the animals stick to all sorts of things around the house -- his folding beach chair frame, the fridge, my filing cabinet, and of course, the fireplace! Too cute.

Eli Update

I can't believe it was over two years ago that this picture was taken. Man, he's getting so big now! Eli is finally being really vocal, repeating what we say and imitating our words. He's curious about new words and loves to tell us what each animal says and loves pointing things out to show us. He's really showing his intelligence and I'm loving it!

Eli loves Dora the Explorer. I seriously think he's got a major crush on her. It's too cute. He's got a little backpack that looks like the one in the show, and she's even got him counting to 15 in Spanish! Yay for Dora. Eli also loves it when Dadda comes home, he bounds to the door to open it and let him in. I love seeing that, as I'm sure Nathan does too. So cute. :)

He's also a big Play Doh fan, as witnessed by the multitude of little dried bits of it in my carpet. Oh well, that's the price I pay for a happy toddler, right? I'll take it! :) He loves being outside, running around and playing in the sand at the park. He always finds a little corner to hide in, where I will find him digging in the dirt or sand. He's definitely all boy!

Here are the big changes! LOL. New banner. I want to thank Keri Schueller for her great template, Amanda Sok for her amazing Ponder Collection, and Thao Cosgrove for her Sisterly Collection Mini that has that beautiful flower in it. Yay for a new look for spring! :)

Oh, and my announcement is probably not what you're thinking. :) I'm not preggers! I just have a cool thing coming up with Scrap Girls that I can't quite tell you about yet, but I'm looking forward to sharing soon. So don't get too excited and start knitting me a baby blanket! :)

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

Hi all! Just wanted to let you know that my blog will be going through some renovations in the near future. So do not be alarmed, I'm working on a different format for it, and it will be cool. Sorry about the dust and debris. It will be gone soon.

Oh, and I also have a fun announcement to make soon as well, so be on the lookout for that!

-L

Down Memory Lane...

Ran across this video today and it totally took me back to when I was a kid! I really loved Doug and I was so excited to see this! :)

Just have to give a shout-out to my dear hubby. Yesterday he did the dishes and even some laundry! What a sweetie he is, and so patient with me while I am in my cave working on layouts. Seriously, I married UP! :)

Also, he got me an early birthday present on Saturday -- a Lego Hogwart's Castle from the Order of the Phoenix! :) Only those who know me well will know how cool of a gift this is. I LOVE Lego's. I have since I was little. And I'm so excited that I got to get this one! It was so much fun to put together. Thanks babe! You're the best. :)






Oh, and Eli really had a fun time trying to 'help' me put the Legos together. Needless to say, most of it was finished while he took his nap yesterday. That's why I love lazy Sundays! :)













This castle came with two extra side parts, one of which was the greenhouse where the Mandrakes were being grown. The detail that goes into making these things is just incredible. Love it!

LEGOLAND!

I feel like a little kid again! :) My good friend Tracy and her husband both have passes to Legoland (our kids are free until they turn 3) and she told me one day that she was going out there. She asked if we had ever considered getting passes, and I told her we wanted to, but weren't sure if we would like it, if it would be worth it, how often we'd go, etc. But she convinced me that we'd love it and she said that we were welcome to go with her and David the next time they went.

So I got home that night and proposed the idea to Nathan. It didn't take too much convincing, as I know Nathan loves Lego's as much as I do and I'm sure he was curious to see how fun the park would be. (I mean, if all else fails, there's a huge Lego store there where you can get great pieces and sets, so that would be worth it! Hahahaha.)

I bought my pass that night online, printed out the ticket, and we went the next day with Tracy and her son David. Let me tell you, we had a BLAST! Eli loved it because there were rides that he could go on, I loved it because it is a fun amusement park with lots of little kid stuff to do, but even a few big kid rides too, so Eli won't grow out of it too fast. So needless to say, I'm so excited that we got passes! Yippee, thanks Mom and Dad Lakey! :)

Okay, so I guess I can't post something fun like that and not show you the pictures! Here are some fun ones from the first day we went and also from today (Nathan and I took Eli Saturday morning). Enjoy! :)


This is Eli absolutely loving these water musical instruments. He loved watching them spit water and wanted to hang out at that fountain all day long. :)

Here is the little monkey at their Mini-land place, he's pointing to something cool, I'm sure. :) The little mini towns are really neat, it's amazing to imagine the work that goes into making those things!

This is Tracy and David, our friends who invited us to go with them. I'm so glad we have good friends close by us that we can hang out with! Yay friends! :)

This is Eli's crazy happy face. Don't ask me, I don't know what he was so crazy happy about. :)

Here's me and the King. No explanation needed.


Okay, this is my favorite photo of the entire day. Look at the terror in his face!! BWAHAHAHAHA! Okay, I probably shouldn't laugh at my own child, but this just took me by complete surprise. He enjoyed all of the other rides just fine, going up and down and round and round. But then we got into this airplane ride that did a diagonal dip, and he just wasn't sure about that one. Love this priceless photo, and will definitely be showing it at his wedding, LOL! :)

More Oz Pics

Okay, here are some day 2 pictures from the trip. This is the big day. This is the day that Chris proposed to Sarah! But more on that later... :)

Here is beautiful Bondi Beach. We woke up early on Sunday morning so that we could go out here and see the beach.











Chris and Sarah and real outdoor peeps and so they wanted to go running on this trail that goes along the coastline. It really was spectacular. And since Nathan and I weren't dressed for exercise, we walked the trail. This was supposed to be the big scene of the proposal, as Chris had pulled us aside the day before and told me to have my camera handy for when he was going to pop the question. So we were waiting all morning for it, but it ended up raining. A lot. So Chris had to nix the idea of proposing that morning and told us later that he would try it at Manly Beach instead. And even though it was raining, it was still really beautiful out there. Okay, enough talky, more pictures!

Here's a shot back to where we were when we first got there. This was after we had been walking along the trail for a while. It was so peaceful because it was early enough that there weren't that many people there yet. Really a cool experience to get to be there with Nathan and just enjoy each other's company without worrying that Eli is going to run out into the ocean any minute. :)


More pretty scenes of Bondi Beach. Interestingly enough, the little blue tarp thing that you can see on the rocks is someone's makeshift home. It was very strange, we walked by and could see lots of different tarps and pots (presumably to collect rainwater) and other various things. And the weird part is that it's on this enormous cliff that looked pretty precarious. But hey, if you're going to be homeless, it might as well be on the coast of the prettiest beach around, right?

Here I am, all wet and rained-on, trying to pretend I'm having the time of my life! :) The whole time I was worried that we wouldn't be there when Chris asked Sarah, in case it stopped raining enough for him to do it. But luckily it didn't and he didn't, so we were okay. :) I just really didn't want to miss the photo opportunity, to tell ya the truth!



Here you can see more of the trail where we walked. Okay, I guess it's not so much a trail as it is a path. But you get the idea.













Here's another of me pretending to be excited about being in the rain and trying not to freak out thinking that my camera's going to get ruined! I have to say, Nathan does take his fair share of good photos. :) I'm very proud of him!


After we ate breakfast at a cool little cafe by Bondi Beach, we went to do some more touring. Nathan and I found ourselves on this path that led to the Botanical Gardens (which we never actually saw) and I saw this amazing tree that I just had to photograph. I love this picture. We actually spent a long while just sitting there under the tree, enjoying the wonderful breeze that came our way. That was seriously one of my favorite moments of the trip, just sitting under a really cool tree, soaking up the peace and quiet. That's the moment I want to go back to when I'm up to my elbows in dishes and laundry. So that's another reason why I love this photo.




Another view of the Sydney Opera House. This one is from the ferry that we were on, taking us over to Manly Beach, the second beach we saw that day. This is the one where Chris actually proposed, which was cool. But more on that later. :)

I really like this view of the Opera House. You get the shape of the roof at an interesting angle but you also get a lot of the great harbor as well. Did you know that the roof itself is not a solid white material, it's made up of millions of tiny ceramic tiles? I had no idea until I saw it in person. And the tiles are not all white, they have a pattern of white and off-white so that when the sun is shining directly on the roof it doesn't blind people. :) I'm glad they thought of that.

And here's the sign that welcomed us to the Manly Wharf. If you know Nathan at all, then you know that our afternoon was filled with 'manly' jokes. Seriously, left and right, everywhere I turned, he was joking about the 'manliness' and how I wasn't 'manly' enough to be there. Funny up to a point. :) But I just couldn't resist snapping a shot of this Manly Wharf.




Ah, what do you know, it's the manly man himself! :) I actually really like this picture of him, and not just because I took it and I like to admire my own work. (hahaha, just kidding) I like how he's actually smiling in this photo! Sometimes it's hard to get him to do a real smile and not the cheestastic one he usually does. But this one turned out great.





And here's the happy couple at dinner, later that night. (Their engagement pics will be in another post.) We ate at this place called Ribs and Rumps, which was pretty good. I ordered the wrong thing, but everyone else had good ribs and Nathan had a great steak. The food all came out on wooden planks, which was kinda fun. :) I know, little pleasures make me happy.



Oh, and I forgot to tell you the most terrifying part of the day. So we walked around Manly Beach after Chris had proposed and we ended up on this path that went all the way around the coast, kind of similar to the one at Bondi Beach. So we're going through this forested part of the path and all of a sudden Chris is like, "Oh my gosh, look up!" So I look up, and this is what I see above my head. I seriously almost flipped out and ran away. There are spiders like this everywhere in the trees where we went. And not just on this trail, I mean everywhere. At the zoo where we went they were all over the place. And spiders really do freak me out, I hate the thought of having something crawling on me. Nathan can attest that I have been worried more than once about swallowing spiders in my sleep. I must just be gullible when it comes to creepy crawly things. So anyways, I had to take a picture because there were like twelve spiders in this one web, and it was right above my head. Not cool, man, not cool.

More Australia photos!

Hello all my blog readers! (Hahaha, all 2 of you...Hi Mom!)

Just thought I'd update with some more photos from Oz. I've had a chance to edit through some of the mass and have whittled them down....a little. :) So enjoy!

This one is from our first morning in Sydney. We went down to the Circular Quay (pronounced "key") and had breakfast at this little cafe. It's just like Italy in the way that they don't automatically give you water when you eat out. I always think that's such a weird thing, but I suppose that's just because I'm so used to it here in America. :) I'm a spoiled water drinker. I think it also has to do with the fact that they are in a really big drought, although it rained about 4 out of the 8 days we were there. Oh well, whatev. :)

This one is the view from the table where we were eating. You could look right out onto the harbor and see the Harbor Bridge. People actually pay a ton of money to go do the Harbor Bridge walk, where you get to climb to the top of the bridge and see Sydney. I would have done it, except they don't let you take your own camera because 'they don't want you to drop it on anyone below on the bridge'. If you ask me, it's really so that they can sell you the pictures that they have taken from up there. I think I could do better. :) But again, whatev. :) I saw the harbor enough from the ground, thank you very much.

Here is another picture from inside the Sydney Opera House, on the tour that we took. It's the symphony hall. It really was amazing to sit inside that room and just imagine the acoustics that they have set up in there for the best possible sound. Our tour guide was telling us about the other hall that we didn't get to see, which is the Opera hall, and how they are wanting to update and refurbish that one, but the cost of that would be in the $200 million dollar range. Yeah, I said two hundred million. Sounds like they need to find a cheaper contractor if you ask me, LOL! :) But then again, what do I know about acoustics and sound? Not much, that's right. What I loved about this place was the huge pipe organ behind the stage. Our tour guide was telling us about this organ, how when it was built it was the largest mechanical organ in the world. And what's even cooler is that behind the front 'show' pipes, there are actually ten thousand more that can be played. How crazy is that?! Anyway, I thought that was pretty cool. :)



Here is a shot of the cool architecture that is inside the Opera House. I was surprised to find that it had so much of an industrial feel, with lots of exposed concrete, wood and metal. The architect who designed it felt just as strong about this inside details as he did about the outside details. That's cool to me.





Here is some more of the cool architecture inside. Even just the staircase is neat. :) I get a kick out of that kind of thing.




After the Opera House, we walked over to Darling Harbor to meet up with Chris and Sarah. Sarah works with Nathan and she brought her boyfriend Chris with her on this trip. We met up with them at a museum and toured around it. Then when we went outside, at the harbor was this cool fountain that had all these kids playing in it. It's summer time there, since the seasons are opposite of us, so it wasn't cold at all, although it did rain. I thought the design of this fountain was pretty cool. And the kids were having such a great time in it too. :) Too cute.

Here are Chris and Sarah. We had a really fun time hanging out with them. I was glad to have people to talk with and do things with. Not that I don't love being with Nathan, it was just good to have a change of pace every once in a while. They actually got engaged on this trip, but I'll tell you more about that later... :) They certainly do make a cute couple!





And here's the man of my dreams! :) We were hanging out in front of this other cool fountain down by Darling Harbor. I'm sure Nathan was really sick of me taking his picture on this trip. I think by the end, if I had asked him, "How excited are you to be in Australia?" behind the camera one more time, I wouldn't have liked the response. :) Heehee, that's the best and worst part about being the one behind the camera - you're not in a lot of the pictures! That can work to my advantage when I look like crap, but it also is not so fun when I go to find photographic evidence that I was, indeed, down under. :) But I've been getting better at asking Nathan to take my picture, and he definitely likes to use my camera. I don't blame him, LOL. So that's why there are more pictures of me. Mostly because I want to show my kids in the future that I really did exist! :)

On that note, here is the photographic evidence that I was there! :) Man, I really don't have any lips. I should work on that. :)

And I'll end here, but be on the watch for more pictures to come. These were all basically from the first day! Hey, you can't blame me, I just like to take lots and lots of pictures! Just be glad that I pared them down before I posted, LOL.