Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday to an amazing wife, mother, and woman. Hope it's your best year yet!

We love you Elizabeth/Mommy!

Love, Jeff, Eliana, and Soon-to-be-born Baby Boy

Birthday Celebration

On Saturday we celebrated my birthday a few days early, since -- being three days out from our due date -- it is very possible that I could be in labor on my actual birthday. :) Jeff and Eliana planned a fun day for me. After a delicious breakfast made by Jeff, we headed out to OSU to visit Mirror Lake on campus and had Eliana feed ducks for the first time:


We then headed to the North Market, where I, Eliana & Baby Boy enjoyed Indian food and Jeff had pizza.
Lunch was topped off by some delicious cupcakes.

Other highlights of the day included watching some of my favorite tv and taking a nap -- a rare treat during this pregnancy! :) Thank you, Ellie and Jeff for a wonderful pre-birthday!

A Special Person

We feel very blessed to have Katae watch Eliana in our home a few days a week while I am at OSU. Eliana adores Katae and they do all sorts of fun activities together. For example, Katae took Eliana to a butterfly garden a few weeks ago, and now any time Eliana sees a butterfly or picture of a butterfly she says "Katae!" and smiles. :) Katae will be taking a break for a few weeks to visit her family in Thailand and for us to acclimate to life with baby boy, but we are excited to see her again late in September.

Picnic in the Park

One of our favorite things about our location in Columbus is that we're across the street from a beautiful park. One day last week, we had a family picnic as part of Eliana's Father's Day gift to Jeff.

On the menu: turkey/bacon/avocado club sandwiches, fruit salad, tomato/basil/mozzarella salad.

Our family enjoying our picnic

Miss Eliana enjoying her sandwich

Two Weeks

Baby Boy's due date is August 31, so only 2 weeks to go!

"Baby Stella," currently keeping the swing warm for Baby Boy Jones.

New Dress

Eliana wore this new dress to church a couple weeks ago, and we couldn't resist taking pictures, especially because she looks so cute in pigtails!

Our Little Mountaineer

Eliana's Mamaw teaches at Appalachian State University in North Carolina, and she recently bought Eliana an ASU Mountaineer dress.

The Apple Incident

We usually have Eliana's high chair at the dining room table, but occasionally we put it on our kitchen counter. A few days ago, while eating her snack, Eliana decided she would reach down to a bowl of apples and help herself to one!

Even though she had never eaten an apple whole before, she dove right in and started eating it without any problems:

Can you tell she was proud of herself?

Getting Ready

Baby Boy's due date is 3 weeks from tomorrow, so we are spending lots of time getting the house ready. One big project we just finished was redoing the nursery. Eliana and her brother will share the room, so we added a toddler bed and made some design alterations:

We attempted a panorama 360 picture of the whole room. It's not perfect, but it gives an idea of what the room looks like. The white square above the crib is covering Baby Boy's name, which matches the lettering of "Eliana" above her toddler bed.

Ohio State Fair

On Wednesday, we went to the Ohio State Fair with some friends. It was Eliana's first time to any kind of big fair, and all of our first time to a state fair.

Not surprisingly, one of Eliana's favorite things at the fair were the animals. Eliana enjoyed seeing sheep, rabbits, cows, and feeding goats at the petting zoo.

Of course, another highlight of the fair was the food. Jeff enjoyed a deep-fried Snickers bar, and Elizabeth and Eliana shared an ice cream cone.

Five

Five years ago today was a very special day for us:

The Slide

Eliana just recently began going down the "tornado slide" at the playground by herself. Ever since, she continues to go down again and again.

Here's a video of her sliding. The voice you'll hear cheering her on is Eliana's Mamaw Thompson.