Elkington Family Reunion 2010

A couple of weekends ago, Daniel's grandparents Shirley and Ken hosted a fabulous reunion weekend in the wine country for about 22 Elkington's! We had a fabulous time swimming in the pool, hanging out by the campfire, drinking lots of wine and eating some fabulous food. Below are a few pictures of the family enjoying their time!

The picture directly above us is of our grocery shop - we had five carts completely filled to the top in order to feed the family for five days! Pretty chaotic!

Thank you Shirley and Ken for a fabulous time!!!!

My Little 49er!

A couple pictures of Luke trying on his 49er gear! Looks like he is already a fan! At 4 months old, he weighed in at 16 lbs. 13 oz. and measured 26.5 inches long! 85% for weight and 95% for height - where did this kid come from?!

Luke loves the Exersaucer!!

Luke - almost 4 months ... enjoying his exersaucer!

Mia holds Luke

Mia - 2, Luke - 1 month

Mia gives directions to the pink church ...

Please excuse the bed head! Enjoy!

Bad, Bad Blogger

Wow - its been way too long since I last posted. Life with two has been busy and I have a lot to catch up on since I last posted (3 months ago!!). We are now pretty much used to life as a family of four ... can't ever imagine what we did without our little "Duke" who now goes by the nicknames of Lukey, Dukey, Cliffoder, Lukey Loo, Dukester, Cliffidocious and more! Most of these were given by Mia who lovingly calls him "Luke Cliffoder" because she can't quite get the Christopher right.

The past months have been filled with fun - two trips to Tahoe, Luke's Baptism, various summer field trips, family dinners, visitors from Atlanta, and Mia and Luke were able to meet their cousin Anthony for the first time when Daniel's brother Mike and his wife AD brought him up to NorCal for a weekend in late April. Below are some pictures of the cousins meeting for the first time - Anthony is exactly a month older than Luke.

I will update more in separate posts ... have to save some fun for later ;-) Have a great weekend!

Introducing Baby Duke!

On Thursday, March 25th we welcomed Mia's baby brother Luke Christopher Elkington to the world. He weighed 8 lbs 3 oz and measured 20.5 inches long! Big boy! Mia was thrilled about his arrival although shortly after he arrived home she told me he eats too much (which is true - he would nurse all day long if I let him!) In fact, we took him to his 2 week doctor appointment yesterday and he had gained an inch in length making him in the 93 percentile for height and he weighed 8 lbs 9 oz (the doctor was simply hoping he would be back up to his birth weight, which he clearly exceeded)! Below are some pictures of little Luke's first days!

Mia's 2nd Birthday Party (144 photos), by Julia Elkington

I'd like to share my Walgreens Photo Center photos with you. Once you have checked out my photos you can order prints and upload your own photos to share.

My Little Artist

Again, in honor of Mia's 2nd Birthday I am posting some pictures of the last two years ... below are the most recent pictures of her painting a tea set that Ya-Ya got her. How cute does she look with Nina's hat on??

My Baby is Turning 2!!

Its hard to believe that Mia will be two on Saturday, and also hard to believe that in the next couple of weeks we will be welcoming her little brother "Duke" into our world. In honor of Mia's Birthday week, I thought I would post some flashback videos and photos of Mia from the past couple of years. The first video I am posting is of Mia dancing with her buddy Svenja in Germany this past summer - she was about 15 months old (and her dance moves are definitely her dads :-).

Happy Hump Day and enjoy the video!!

Monkeys on the Bed!

The ATL!

Mia, my dad and I just spent a week in Atlanta visiting with friends ... it was a great time and Mia still talks about all her friends in the south (including the many fish and penguins she met at the Atlanta Aquarium). Below are some pictures from our trip to the Aquarium - for those of you who have not been to the GA Aquarium - it is well worth the $20 to get in ... so much better than any aquarium I have been to in California (even though two of its biggest exhibits were closed).

The rest of our time was spent catching up with old friends and playing in the snow (yes, you read that correctly!). The first time Atlanta has received snow in many years happened to be while we were there - and, it also happened to be Mia's first time experiencing snow. Though she was not that excited by it at first, she quickly warmed up to the idea!

Below are some pictures of Mia playing with Catherine, who is my friend Christina's daughter. Christina and I have been friens since 6th grade and it was so much fun watching our girls play together - they had a ball!

We also got to see Jodie with her two girls Caroline and Kate and my friend Tara. Jodie, Tara and I were really good friends in High School. We had such fun catching up and letting the girls play! I wish we all lived closer!

Merry Christmas!!

To all our friends and family, far and near, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Love, The Elkington's

'Tis the Season

Wow - cannot believe my last blog was on Halloween, but this is partially due to the fact that my camera was MIA for the past month and I feel like blog posts just are not as exciting without the pictures. So, I will make an attempt to make up for the missing posts with this one.

Christmas season is upon us and the Elkington Clan has started gearing up. This past weekend the Cooney's and the Elkington's went on their second annual tree cutting expedition to Petaluma. We went to Little Hills Christmas Tree Farm and Mia got to see Santa Claus (although she was not brave enough to sit on his lap) and we cut down our trees. The rule this year was that the tree should not be taller than Ryan ... the Cooney's followed this rule, the Elkington's did not. I think this was mainly due to the fact that Daniel was too hungover to argue with me when I found the tree that I liked. From the picture below, you can see that Daniel was not the only one hurting - Ryan was soaking up his knee injury and had Daniel drive him around the tree farm in the cart.

Today, Mia and I went to Boba's house to decorate a Gingerbread House. Mia had a ball! She LOVED all the candy, icing and sprinkles as you can tell from the pictures below.

Thank you Boba for a great morning and a beautiful Gingerbread House! Sorry we made such a mess :-)

Happy Holidays everybody!