What Elena does these days

Well, Elena has been trying to self feed with a spoon and sometimes she seems to know the concept. Others... well, not so well :).

Sometimes she has definite preferences on how she eats certain foods: for example, bananas are to be held by the peal and eaten as an adult eats them :) not as coordinated as an adult but.. can't have it otherwise. 

Aside from that she's started taking independent steps but is not walking quite yet. We're waiting for the day when she'll just take off. I haven't been able to capture her walking skills yet.

Lastly, she's discovered the joy of chocolate. We have a big tin box full of chocolates - the other day she learned how to open it and we caught her in the act of taking chocolates out, sucking on them for a bit, throwing them on the ground and going to the next piece. Luckily she had only gotten through 3 pieces. I am certain she would have gone through the whole box before she stopped on her own.

Booo!

Starting the Halloween festivities at our house. It's so much more exciting this year. Elena is exploring things and with all the decorations, costumes, activities, etc. that surround Halloween it's been splendid!

We had a family Halloween party for all 18 grandkids in the Luke family. The kids decorated pumpkins (Elena got her own, yeah), played Halloween games (Elena just watched them and I played for her candy), and decorated sugar spooky-shaped sugar cookies (Elena and I just ate the cookies; they were so tasty!).

Here's her costume this year :)
In case you're wondering what's with the ladybugs lately: one of Elena's endearing names is bug and there's just not so many bug options out there. Not to mention that ladybug things are not hard to make and there are lots of adorable ladybug themed things. Don't you think it fits her quite well?? :)

September

We skipped updating our blog in the month of September, so the next few posts will be dedicated to catching up.

Luke Family Photos

Kevin's brother Brian was in town from Texas with his wife and kids, so it was time for our family photo. We had not taken one since the year we were married and there have been some additions to the family - we had to update the last picture. Not to mention the last one was awful in my opinion. I love that we got to take these outside.

Left to right: Brian, John, Andrea, Brad, Debbi, Carrie, Kevin, David

Gale Family Photos

My friend Polie Hullinger demonstrated her photography skills yet once more. I wanted to have Elena know that her grandmother was here when she was one because I know she won't remember this special time they had when she grows up. Polie is honestly a fantastic photographer: if you need someone to take your family photos, have her do it. She's affordable, unique in her style, and has an amazing eye for cool shots. 

Let me say also that I love my mother Sonya and my sister Jane! It was so amazing having them here with us! I wish the rest of my family had been here too for these photos. I miss you guys!

Elena's new Likes

Elena likes cleaning:  give her a broom, vacuum (when turned off), duster... anything we use to clean with. At least she thinks she's cleaning :)

Loves pulling on the blinds' strings, so we keep them almost out of reach :)

The queen of funny faces for photos

Standing when we go anywhere. Forget having her just sit in our lap! Gone are those good ole days ...

"Brushing" her own hair if given the chance. She "brushes" her own teeth too but I don't have a picture of that

When we lived at Grandma Mary's we had an awesome wood floor with lots of space to run around. Elena loves that walker/floor combination.