Duluth! and other developments...

We took a little girls only road trip last weekend to visit our friends in Duluth. Myself, Ellie, Lindsey, Allie, and Jen all drove together in my car.

Eloise ready to roll.


It was a very packed ride, and we were there for less than 24 hours!! Lindsey and I had grand plans to have the little ones napping for most of the ride but of course they didn't do as we hoped (imagine that!). Luckily we had Jen "the entertainer" wedged between two car seats in the back. I'm so glad she was back there! At one point she was giving both girls a bottle at the same time. We made the trip safely and were able to hang out with Kate and Hendy. We also got to see our friend Sara who is expecting her third baby this fall! Confession, we didn't even leave the house. That was okay though, we had a lot of catching up to do, babies sleeping at random intervals, and Kate was the most gracious host.

Here are all the kiddos playing (Ellie 8.5 months, Allie & Hendy about 7 months)



Allison and mommy reading a book


And the cutest bath time ever...trying to get all three babies to look up at the same time was ridiculous. The funnier photo would have been of the three moms putting on a circus act to try and achieve this.

Best I got, Allie is smiling at least!

What a scene!


And for some crazy reason that makes zero sense (mommy-brain?) we took a photo the morning we left instead of when we arrived and were a bit ummm, more fresh faced? But oh well, here we are, moms, babies, and Jen :)


Eloise is continuing to change at an astounding rate. The last few weeks she's gone from creeping to semi-crawling (she goes back and forth a few times on her hands and knees and then slumps to her stomach), moving from laying down back to sitting up, and now pulling up to standing on her own. Just tonight I put her down for bed and 45 minutes later she STILL wasn't asleep. I had to take a photo of this:

It's the first time she's pulled herself up to standing in her crib! (it's a little blurry because I used my phone and was trying to not disrupt bedtime TOO much) I have a feeling that now instead of walking in to her sitting up in her crib, she will be standing up. I'm still not over the fact that she's not laying down in her crib after naps and now she's standing?!

Eloise is also using her pointer finger a lot. It's kind of funny. She points to our faces, points to her food, points to Parker, and then ever so gently touches the object with her pointer finger before grabbing what ever it might be with her hand. We really think she is about to pop some teeth too. The drooling has become intense and it looks like you can see a little white in her gums. She has also been waking up crying and not in need of really anything but soothed with biting on a finger! Hopefully these teeth come out soon so she can get some rest (and by she I mean me).

We decided to finally change our dark and serious dining room walls to something a little more bright and refreshing. This had been our plan right when we moved in but seeing as I was slightly pregnant at the time (only about 9 months) and we had a lot of other organizing to do (get a baby room together), the painting was put off.

Before-I forgot to get a real before with all of the furniture in:



After-Ta-dah!



And this...this...hole.


That continues to get bigger.

I'll talk more about this later.

It only took Eloise 2 hours of standing to fall asleep...will she be standing tomorrow morning? Or worse, sometime in the middle of the night?!