New Baby Girl

A week ago on halloween (the day before Eli's birthday), we got a call that there was a little baby girl who had just been born and needed a foster home. Turns out that we have distant relatives who happen to live in the same Denver suburb as we do, and they were trying to find any family who would be willing to care for this baby. Trinity Hope was born on 10/29 at 7 lbs 04 oz and 20" long, and she was placed in our care on Monday 11/2, 2:30pm a day after she was released from the hospital. She is Dale's dad's cousin's granddaughter, or in other words, Dale's second cousin once removed. She has an older sister (14 months old) who has been in the care of her grandparents (Dale's dad's cousin and her husband), and will be adopted by them soon.

Trinity's parents aren't able to care for her right now, but they will be working with the county social workers to try to regain custody of her. If things don't work out, then we may end up adopting her, but we are trying not to think that far ahead right now. For now we are just helping out, taking care of a cute little baby girl. We took her to the doctor this week and the doctor said that she is perfectly healthy. Seems like she cries more than Eli did though. Eli loves having a baby at home. When the caseworker brought her to our house, Eli sat down next to Emily and giggled and played with her - it was pretty cute. Here are some pictures that we took of her this week:








Emily thought the blue hat wasn't fitting - it took us a few days to get some girly clothes. Many thanks to all of the great ward members and friends who brought over tons of clothes and diapers and food! We really appreciated it.


















OK. Now for a bunch of pictures that we never had time to post over the summer.



Emily decided that she and Eli would be a Who for Halloween. Costume designs were partly inspired by the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. She did a pretty good job and everyone thought Eli was the cutest, although he looked a little bit like a little girl with the hairdo and all the makeup Emily put on him.






Before Halloween, Emily had Eli try on a bunch of other halloween costumes.


Emily said that Eli wanted to try on the dresses, but I think every mom likes to play dress-up with their little boys while they're too young to know better. :) (ahem, Dale, then why is he smiling... not a sign of coercion here. He really enjoys dressing up. Hope he doesn't decide to start changing his clothes several times a day too. True, this mom does like to play dress-up with her children. :D)




Finally, a manly costume.




Trick-or-Treating at a neighbor's house.


Dale's parents and Grandma Alta came to visit for a few days at the beginning of October.






Eli loved taking Grandpa's dog (Sly) for a walk. Although it was more like Sly was taking Eli for a walk. Eli would just stand there until Sly decided to start walking and then Sly would pull Eli behind him wherever he wanted to go. If Sly stopped, then Eli would stop and wait patiently for Sly to start walking again.


Eli loves it when Grandpa reads to him.


Like we said before, Eli LOVES pretending to drive.


Over the summer, we went on vacation to visit Emily's parents who recently moved to South Dakota where they grew up. This is a picture of us with Emily's grandparents Bill and Joyce.


Emily's grandparents Norbert and Char.


Grandpa Norbert took us for a ride on their pontoon. Emily had fun being pulled along on a wakeboard.






We thought Eli would enjoy the boat ride, but he insisted on sitting in my lap most of the time. Probably because he didn't understand what was going on and load noises (the boat engine) scare him. Whenever he sees us handling anything with a power cord (drill, wheat grinder, iron, etc.), even if it isn't plugged in, he gets a really worried look on his face and says "All finished? All done?", meaning "You're not going to make any noise, right?", and asks for a hug. Then if we turn it on, he'll start crying and run away. I brought a new belt sander home one day and even though he had never seen a belt sander before, he knew that power cords mean noise, and I thought it was funny that he was scared of it even though he had never seen one and didn't know what it was.


Eli, Grandma Wendy, and great-grandpa Norbert waiting for Emily to fall off the wakeboard.


That vacation included some long car rides. Good thing Eli is good at entertaining himself (and mommy).


While on vacation, we stopped to visit Nick and Tiffany (Dale's brother) in Iowa. They fed us some pretty good food, and we found out that Eli loves corn on the cob.




Eli playing with Nick and Tiffany's kids: Brynli, Ari, and Chance.




Nick caught a fish and Eli gave it a kiss.





(Eli signing "fish")




Eli and Chance playing at the pool.






Eli loves steering wheels. He played with this one for about a half hour before we had to drag him away kicking and screaming.




Lookin' cool.


Eli loves tractors, so we thought he would love a ride on Uncle Nick's riding lawnmower. Turns out that the loud engine scared him and he wanted to get off.

Playing on the dock at Bill and Joyce's lake house. So glad Joyce had some toy cars to distract Eli from the unfamiliar surroundings.


Handing mommy a little flower.


We went for a bike ride a few months ago, and stopped to get something to eat.








Emily and Eli went to the zoo with Teila and RJ and Mylee.


We celebrated our anniversary at a park in Park City. Thanks to Grandma Becky for watching Eli for us!




Emily insisted on playing on the trampoline, even though the line consisted entirely of little kids. The kids kept trying to cut in front of her since they thought she was just standing there to watch.