Dear Elijah,

Happy Belated 4th birthday! Time is really flying here. You were your baby sister’s age when we moved to Texas and here you are, now your older brother’s age at that same event. You really spice life up and you know what you want. Such a ball of energy, yet when you are doing something you like, you can really focus. Two good traits, I say.

Still a tall boy clocking at 42-43 inches. I’m good at tracking your height due to going to SeaWorld often. I love having someone to ride with now! Not sure of your weight but you probably slimmed some due to your main diet being cereal. We try to get you to eat more but you request cereal 3-5 times a day. You also have to look at the back of the box when you eat too. You don’t let me forget! You can still be particular, but sometimes it is easier just to let you eat what you want, have the color you want, or wear what you want.

Reading your last letter, I said I was determined to say that you are potty-trained. Well, bud, you did it!! Earlier this year I attempted and after two months of no real changes I threw in the towel. Your Grandma Kartchner, the angel that she is, said she would take over while Mommy and Daddy went on vacation and within a week, you were trained. I don’t know what she did but it seemed to do the trick and I’m forever grateful to Chicken Grandma. Just so you know, she loved that time with you and cherished that one on one. You are lucky to have people that love you so much, including your grandparents!

Something I found out about you is that you love puzzles! Joey never seemed to have the patience for them, but you can just sit there and work it out. It started with your map puzzle I got you last Christmas, then you moved onto Joey’s shark puzzle, then we just started doing a lot of puzzles together. You also can sit and build with Legos or play with your Paw Patrol toys for a long time. You also love to watch TV. Your favorite shows include Paw Patrol (surprise), Dora, Umi Zoomi, and Little Baby Bum. You and Joey play fairly well, but you do get on each other’s nerves. You also prefer Eden being out of your way, which is really hard now that she is mobile and curious. But overall you do care about your family. You call me your best friend still, and I just adore that!

This past fall we attempted to put you in a Mother’s Day Out program, similar to preschool, but we ended up pulling you out. You didn’t like it mainly due to the fact that they made you have nap/quiet time.  We figured we would only keep going if you loved it, but alas that was not the case. Something you do love is your speech therapy! We started in the summer in hopes to understand you better and we definitely do now. Your therapist is now working on your “L” sound as her main goal and you love the exercises you get to do, like liking Nutella off the back of your teeth. I once asked you what your favorite place in the world was, and you replied “speech!” We tried a sport at the beginning of the year and that was… well. I’m going to wait to put you into something that you show interest in. You really enjoy using potty language and poop jokes, and you can also bust a move! You are a real hoot, that's for sure.

Here’s to being four! I’m glad that I got to see you blossom into the fun-loving, smart little boy that you are. I’m excited to see the new things you will learn in this year to come. You have many people rooting for you, Eli! Never forget that!

Love, Mama

Thanksgiving 2019

Happy Post Thanksgiving (now that it's a week until Christmas). For this Thanksgiving, I was planning on being lame and eating Thanksgiving dinner at the Hospital. Sam's co-residents got together a previous weekend to have a dinner of their own. I wanted to go as well but our kids got bad colds. Sounded like a grand time, but since I wasn't there, I couldn't really tell ya.

Well, Sam suggested going to Albuquerque because he had most of the week off due to the Holiday. Don't have to convince me! We loaded the car after his last appointment on Tuesday and drove into Albuquerque around midnight. We stayed at Sam's parents' new house and it is mighty nice. It is currently on its way to getting even nicer as they decided to redo the kitchen. At first I was a little sad that they were moving because I had a lot of memories of their old house (we got engaged there, we first held hands there, our reception was in the backyard, etc) but Jessica and her family moved in so it's nice it will stay in the family!

Eden just loves babies! Kinda interesting to see that after having two boys.

 EPIC SNOW STORM! So glad we left the night before this happened! This is in the parking lot of a restaurant we went to.

The boys loved the new house and its furniture. Good thing we don't live around here to wear out that furniture, eh heh.

Both boys spending quality time with Grandma on Thanksgiving morning.

 Then we had to go play in the snow! South Texans don't get very many opportunities.

Do you want to build a snowman?

Eli called him Fritzy and the name stuck for this guy.

Joey lasted the longest. He says he wants to live in Antarctica when he grows up.

We had the Kartchner Thanksgiving at the Prestwich home (Mike and Judy were very kind to let us use their house). We took a Kartchner family photo and it didn't turn out bad. We just missed Zach and his family. I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with family. Realized I should have taken way more photos. Whoops.

In true New Mexico fashion the snow melted the next day. But I did spot a road runner!

Sam found this picture on Facebook. I guess one of his friends spotted Fritzy and took a picture of him. What a coincidence! He was pretty much gone the next day. RIP Fritzy.

Other things that happened on this trip:

• Sam's parents got a pool table with the house. We got to play a lot of pool.
• I surprised my siblings. Our van was the giveaway but it was still fun to see their faces!
• We had breakfast at Wecks and ate probably the hottest green chile. You know it was hot if Sam had to scrape it off his burrito!
• We had our Kartchner dinner at Texas Roadhouse. My mom was really happy we came since some will be gone for Christmas. This way all of us could be here.
• We got to see Jessica's cute "new" house! I'm glad it worked out for them to buy Sam's parents' old house! The schools are great and there is a lot more space for the kids so that's nice.
• We also got to eat steak with them on Thanksgiving. I'm glad we got to spend time with them because they will be gone for Christmas too!
• We probably got Sam's family sick. We were on the tail end of our sicknesses when we came to Albuquerque, but I guess we were still contagious. I feel really bad about it still. It's no fun being sick at the busiest time of year!

We will be making the same trek soon for Christmas! Hopefully we'll get to do more and see more people!

PS. This is Kiley if you can't tell ;)

Halloween 2019

There are a lot of pictures here, so I think I will let the captions do the talking for our Halloween this year!

Joey wanted to be a praying mantis this year and they don't sell those costumes.
I did a makeshift costume and it worked out well! I convinced Eli to be a bee
and I bought Eden's costume at a second-hand store.

Went to Sea World for their Trick-or-Treating event. This is the hay maze.

My heart!

We decided to check out the Haunted Section of Sea World as a date.
It was too busy to see the Haunted Houses but it was fun to be there with just us.

We decided to decorate cookies. Sadly, we were in the middle of stomach bugs when we started this activity.

 Joey had a character book parade. To keep his costume,
we found this cute book from the library, My Fun Summer, by P. Mantis.

We also enjoyed Story Time and Trick-or-Treating at the library.

Joey's school had a Trunk-or-Treat and Dance.
Forgot to take a pic of our Trunk, but here is the costume contest.

Trick or Treating at Target.

The church where Eli goes to MDO had a Fall Festival. It had a bouncy castle!

Joey and Eli going on a hay ride with me. Forgot to get a pic of the horse! 

Face painting!

There was also carnival games, a dunking booth,
and a guy that came with a lot of wild local animals.

At our ward Trunk-or-Treat. We made our trunk a garden and you can't tell, but I have butterfly wings to match our kids.

Pumpkin decorating time!

Eli wanted a silly face.

Sam made an eye.

"Eden" had a pretty face. Her pumpkin was tricky to carve. 

Joey wanted-you guessed it-a praying mantis.
I free-handed the drawing on the pumpkin and Sam carved it.

Halloween night I started getting the kids in their costumes. I dressed Eli first, and when I was helping the others the doorbell rang. Thinking it was Trick-or-Treaters, I opened the door to find our neighbor with Eli. Yep, Eli was too excited and left without us noticing to go trick-or-treating. Luckily our neighbors were kind to bring him back. That kid!