This week. . .

This little guy will start preschool!  I think.  Eli was diagnosed with a Sensory Processing Disorder this year, which qualified him for free preschool through the state.  It's an amazing preschool, taught by a certified teacher, has an aide in the classroom, no more than 14 students and every week a physical, occupational, speech and developmental therapist come in and work in the classroom with the kids.  Eli goes in tomorrow to meet with the students while I fill out all the forms and once all the paperwork goes through, he will officially start.  It will probably be next week actually.  He only has 4-5 weeks this year before school ends, but he is so social I think that this will be really good for him.  It's 4 days a week, from 12-2:30 and the bus for preschool students only comes directly to our front door to pick him up.  I can't believe he'll be riding the bus.  It makes him seem like such a big boy and not my little man! 

Here are my favorite shots Dodi got of Eli.  I love the pictures with the balloons.  

Isabelle - 14 months

This little girl can't get a bad picture.  I know I am biased, but she is sooooo cute!  She is all smiles and laughs.  Although lately she has started to show us a little bit of attitude, giving a good howl when we take too long to get her her food.  She just looks you straight in the face, wrinkles her nose and gives you her angry face and a shout.  It's pretty funny actually.

She spent the entire time in the orange grove trying to eat these oranges, but I guess if I was getting 2 molars and 2 teeth all at the same time, I would probably be trying to bite on everything too.

I love those eyes.

I really wanted to get a picture of her "scrunchy" face.  When she really gets laughing she wrinkles her nose and it is the cutest thing ever.

This is the little outfit I made for Isabelle last week.

Amazing Pictures of our Kids

While my sister was visiting, I took advantage of her fantastic photography skills and had her take pictures of the kids. Since there were so many great pictures, I'm actually breaking this blog post into 3 posts - pictures of them together and individually.  Ya, that is how hard it is for me to decide on just a few pictures to post. I'm having an even harder time deciding on which ones to print because I am getting frames and  making a wall of pictures of the family.  But here are my 3 favorites of the 2 kids together.  There is a more pictures of Isabelle than Eli, being that Eli has mastered a trick that Isabelle has not - walking.  Or should I say, running?  Or should I say, running away from the photographer?  But we still managed to get some great pictures of him, despite his ability to run fast and get into the M&M's behind my back and eat about 1 pound worth and get covered in M&M candy coating (thank you photoshop).  We found this orange orchard to take pictures in and I loved all the shots we got there.

2nd Annual Girls Visit

This April Dodi came up to visit for the second year.  I'm calling it our annual sister's week, hoping it will convince her to keep coming every year.  We are short on visitors here.  Dodi was only here for a short visit - 4 days, but we squeezed in lots of stuff.  We got to eat at my favorite places, do some shopping, Dodi got her sun time in by the pool and even went into the pool!  None of us Arizonans will get into the water when it's only 80 degrees, but Dodi is a tough Oregonian, so she thought the weather was great for swimming.  I asked if anyone else from the apt. complex came while she was there - she said yes, someone came and got into the hot tub.  Ya, it's got to be 100+ for us to get into a pool. 

Dodi is a photographer (you can see her site here) and we've never had a chance for her to take pictures of the kids, so I put her to work for her room and board (her fabulous room - an air mattress in Eli's room that got a hole in it the day she came.  Every night we'd blow it up and it would slowly deflate throughout the night, and in the morning she'd be sleeping on the floor!).  She took great pictures of the kids and I'll be posting those soon.  We will go home sometime this summer to visit and I already let her know that for my birthday, I want family pictures, so this summer she's going to do family pictures for us!

 My Guys

 Joe's Farm Grill - we live close to one of the restaurants featured in the Food Networks Diners, Drive In's and Dive's.  The food is wonderful.  Here's a picture of my breakfast.

Next year we're trying to plan a longer stay and maybe the whole Holm family will come up.  Dodi thinks we can even convince mom and dad to come, but I'll have to see that to believe it.  They are not fans of Arizona.  We're thinking about the Grand Canyon, which neither of us have been too before.  We'll see, we've got a year to plan!

Sewing with Candice

A year ago my friend Candice helped me put the sewing machine Isaac got me for Mothers Day 2 years ago and started teaching me how to sew again (again because I took 4-H sewing, but I couldn't even remember how to start my machine).  We've done pretty good at working on projects.  Candice likes using up her sewing scraps and making cute outfits for her granddaughters who are Isabelle's age.  I love seeing Izzy wear a cute little outfit I made for her. Here's the first project we've worked on since Christmas.

 The back is going to have a ruffled diaper cover, but I haven't made it yet.  I LOVE summer outfits!