Catchin Up

It's been a long time since I posted anything about the Perkins family, so I figured some of you might like a little catchin up.

Leading up to Halloween, we spend a Saturday afternoon painting and carving pumpkins. Eliana had a fun Halloween..twice. We went to a church "trunk-or-treat" the weekend before. Eliana wanted to be a butterfly, and Luke was an adorable pea-in-a-pod.



Halloween day/night was really warm, so Luke would have been too hot in his outfit. I got him some glow-in-the-dark skeleton jammies to wear instead. On our trick-or-treating mission, our first stop was Oma and Opa's house, then we had a lot of fun trick-or-treating in our neighborhood.


Monday night we celebrated Stu's birthday (Happy Birthday, Stu!!) with our families and friends. Stu's dad had arrived that evening to visit for a few days from Missouri.

Last night I noticed a tooth finally poking through Luke's lower gum. No wonder he hasn't been sleeping lately...

Dinner Conversation

So tonight at dinner, Stu and I are trying to convince Eliana to give green beans another chance. She knows she doesn't get dessert ("bassert" - it's too cute to correct her) unless she finishes her dinner...

Stu: "Eliana, narrow is the path to the cupcakes. No one comes to the cupcakes except through the green beans."

It's making me laugh all over again.

Matthew 7:14; John 14:6 :)

Field Trip!

Eliana went on a field trip with her pre-school class last Thursday, and Luke and I had the pleasure of tagging along. We went to the Hunt Club Farm and had a hay ride, where we saw horses and the great pumpkin, enjoyed the petting farm, played in a huge pile of hay, and picked out a pumpkin. It was a lot of fun. Eliana's favorite part was catching and holding a baby chicken. That was cute! Picture Eliana running around the pen after one particular little chicken, and then not wanting to let it go. Since Thursday, she's been talking about going back to see "her chicken".

Apple Day

Eliana's school had "Apple Day" this past Thursday, and at parents' night about a month ago, I signed up to bring snacks for Apple Day. So Stu dropped Eliana off at school that day (which reminds me...on Eliana's second day of school, she told me I didn't have to walk her into school, I could just drop her off and she'd go in by herself. I wasn't quite ready for that.), and I stayed home and made some apple-strudel muffins and apple slices with peanut butter. Luke and I later went to Ellie's class to bring the snack and participate in "Apple Day." They learned about apple seeds and trees and made apple crafts. It was cute. Eliana loves school, and Zachary is her "best friend at school." (Too bad for Joshua, the only other kid in the class!)

Eliana's 1st Haircut

We waited a long time to cut her beautiful locks, and I'm having pangs of regret! I'm afraid I might have cut off her curls! I've been thinking all summer that it was time for a haircut as i was tired of unwrapping her hair from around her arms and fighting tangles. Long hair is kind of difficult with a very active 3 year old who loves to swim...I'm not sure why I waited until the end of the summer, but after bath-time last night, I decided to give her a trim. The trim turned into a bit more than that, unintentionally, to be honest. I guess it was about five inches.

Luke's 6 months old!

Luke had his 6-month check up yesterday. He's now 19 lbs and 26.5" long. He's supposed to start having "real" food, beginning with rice cereal, but the few times I've tried to feed him, he snaps his mouth shut as soon as the spoon comes near. Either that, or he blows raspberries and sprays the cereal all over me! Gotta love that. Happy half-Birthday, Luke!

Eliana's 1st Day of School!

All went well for both mom and child this morning when I took Eliana to school. No tears! She did climb back in bed this morning (which she never does) and say she was too tired to go to school, but after some encouragement, we got there and it didn't take long at all (about 5 minutes) for her to warm up to her teacher and the classroom and say an excited good-bye to me and Luke. She had a great time and can't wait to go back. In fact, she said it was too short! I took the picture after school, when she was very excited about her class. In her own words: "This morning I thought I didn't like school, but now I really really like school! It was so much fun!!!"

Eliana is in the 3 year old class Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8:25-11:45 at Norfolk Christian's beach campus. We're hoping that they will move her up to the 4 year old class so that the following year she can enter kindergarten. That would be a year earlier than she's supposed to according to the age requirement, and the only way around that (that I've been able to find) is to have her complete a private state-accredited kindergarten, and then she can enter public school without any "age problem". That's our plan. We'll see how it goes!

I love Triple Coupons!

I just got back from Harris Teeter, where they're tripling coupons up to 99 cents through Tuesday. You can use 20 coupons per day. Look at all I got for just $9.89!!

The total was $77.80 before VIC Savings and coupons. I saved $51.27 with coupons! I really shouldn't have so much fun at a grocery store.

A Cousin is Born!!

We are so excited to introduce Eliana and Luke's first cousin, Baylee Jolynn Perkins born to Stu's brother Dan and his wife Amy. Baylee was born August 10th around 2:45am in the same room Luke was born, and weighed the same as Eliana--8lbs 6oz.

A New Friend is Born!

Welcome to the world, Josiah Michael! Josiah was born this morning to my good friend from college, Melissa, and her husband Mike. I commented while we were visiting with them that it's amazing how much babies change in just five months. Doesn't seem that long ago at all that Luke was Josiah's size, and really, it wasn't! Luke is only five months older, almost to the day, so we expect them to be good buddies!

Cow Appreciation Day

Free meal today at Chic-fil-A if you come dressed as a cow! It was fun...

Harborfest

We spent the fourth of July in downtown Norfolk enjoying Harborfest. We got down there early in the day, around 11am, and conveniently parked in Stu's work-day parking space, just a block from Waterside. Getting down there early was a good idea because no one else was there yet. :) Stu's office acted as a "home base" and was a great place to return to when the crowds got to be too much or we just needed a little down-time. Nauticus opened earlier than the festival, so we started out there and enjoyed walking around the museum for a couple of hours. Admission was only $4/adult with kids free, and you could come and go through out the day. We came back a couple of times to see different movies they were showing in the theater. Harborfest was a lot of fun, and not terribly crowded (during the day, anyway. It did get crazy closer to the fireworks). There were some fun acts to watch, and Eliana loved her little mermaid hat from Ryan-the-balloon-guy. It was a great fireworks display. How do you know you have good "seats" for the fireworks? You get showered in ash. Yup, we really did. Luke was great-didn't cry once, and actually fell asleep during the finale! We didn't get home until about 11pm and the kids were so good the whole time. We really had a great family day!

Luke's 1st Swim!

He loved it! All smiles! It's fun how buoyant little babies are; you hardly have to hold them up. I commented on that to Ellie, and said, "I wonder what Luke would do if I let go." Eliana FREAKED OUT! It was so funny. I hadn't actually let go, just mentioned the idea, and Ellie started screaming and crying, "No! No! Don't let go of Luke!!!" She's apparently a protective big sister. It was very sweet. Don't tell Stu, but I did later let go...Luke didn't mind. :)

Photo Shoot

I've always taken Eliana to JC Penny's portrait studio to have her picture taken, and every time, I say it'll be the last...they're always running late, the photographer often made very little effort, they don't take many pictures, the proofs on the computer are blurry and small, and you have to wait a long time to get your pictures. I kept going back because it's so cheap. But after a few recommendations, I've finally branched out and took the family to Portrait Innovations. We were the first appointment of the day, so they were ready when we were, the photographer was great, and if we wanted to spend very little money, we could have gotten plenty of pictures (one pose) for $9.95. They don't have any sitting fees, which is another plus, especially when you're bringing the whole family. This was our first family photo shoot since Eliana was Luke's age, so of course I couldn't go with just one pose! I now have more pictures then I know what to do with! Besides tons of pictures, another advantage to buying more than just the special package is they throw in the CD of all the pictures free. The CD is low resolution, so you really can't print any bigger than 4x6 yourself, but you have to have that CD if you want them to make more prints in the future. I think our pics came out so great! The pics of Luke in the last post are from our shoot, and here's some more... If you have a Portrait Innovations near you, I'd definitely recommend them.

Four Months Old

Luke had his four month check up today. Weighed in at 16lbs 4oz, 25 inches long, and doing great! It's hard to believe he's four months old already. And today he rolled over for the first time!

Mary and Joseph

The other day Eliana's walking around the house with her blanket around her head, and when asked what she was doing responds with:

"I'm pretending I'm Mary, and Joseph is somewhere in the house."

Eight Years!

Stuart and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary last week by taking a nice little get-a-way to a beautiful bed-and-breakfast in northern Virginia. L'Auberge Provencale is a French Country Inn in the Shenandoah Valley with a nationally acclaimed restaurant. We very much enjoyed our stay and dining and it was especially nice to get a way sans kids! (Thanks Oma (my mom)!!)


On our way home, we stopped in Fredricksburg to visit our Alma mater, have lunch at our old favorite, the Country Store, and of course stop by Carl's for an ice cream cone. We saw lots of changes at Mary Washington since we were last there. The most obvious of which is a bell tower in George Washington Circle. They have also redone Lee Hall, including a new, much fancier, bookstore. It's such a beautiful campus, and it was fun to reminisce.

Luke's 1st Trip to the Beach!

Eliana, Luke, and I enjoyed a great day at the beach with our good friends the Morgans. Maddie and Eliana are very close in age, as are Ami and Luke. It's so much fun spending time with friends!