We got SNOW!!

On Saturday, January 30th, our area saw more snow around here than in the last twenty years. Since D.C.'s 30+ inches a few days ago, our 9 doesn't seem like much, but it was still quite a beautiful and exciting sight. Eliana, especially, had lots of fun, although we weren't really prepared with proper snow-gear, so her bouts out in the snow didn't last long. But they were frequent.


A blast from my past growing up in NJ: Snow Cream! Snow, milk, sugar and vanilla. Or another nice variety: snow, milk, sugar, rum extract, and coconut. :)


It was really nice having a cozy day snowed-in. We enjoyed a fire and ended the day roasting marshmellows and making s'mores.

The following day, Uncle Jason had more luck building a snow man with Ellie than we did. Thanks, Uncle J! Schools closed the Monday & Tuesday and had a delayed opening on Wednesday. I only had to work Thursday that week!

Eliana's 4!

She's been four since late November, but I've gotten so bad about blogging that I'm a couple of months late...sorry, Ellie. I did want to reflect a little on Eliana and her four years. She is a talkative, social, energetic girl, who only runs out of steam when we force her to go to bed. This has been her first year in school, and she absolutely loves pre-school. She also loves being a big sister. Luke's her little "Choey Boy" (no idea how she came up with that name), and she's excited that mommy has another baby in her tummy! One sign of Eliana's maturing over this year is that she understands that this baby could be a boy or a girl (and is okay with that), and as much as she wants a sister, we don't know what God is going to give us (those are her words!).
Here's a fun little look back at Eliana from birth to now...

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.