He's No. 1

So...one year ago on Friday, Jess and I cruised up to Savannah to the birth center, and Elliot entered our lives in the midst of a thunderstorm at 6:22 p.m. It's a year later. He still doesn't have much hair, but he's got a lot more personality. We had a little party for him yesterday, so now we know that he loves chocolate cake and cookies'n'creme ice cream. Shocking, yes, I know. We count ourselves blessed to be the parents of three very interesting children, and on this day we say, "We love you, Elliot!"

Happy Halloween!

We just got back from trick-or-treating, and the kids really hauled in a lot of candy this year. It's probably a good thing that I'm going to see the dentist this week! Annika was going to be a bat, but today she changed her mind and was a fairy. We had a grand plan set up for Sam to be a Bulldog and Elliot to be a Gator in honor of the Georgia-Florida game today, but Sam freaked out. It was also in the mid-70s this evening, so the boys ended up going as Beach Boys, which worked out fine in the end. We also caught up with the same group of girls who were all Disney Princesses last year. This year they were characters from the Wizard of Oz. Pretty great costumes! Oh yeah, Annika carved her first pumpkin this year. Can you guess which one?

Snakes in a Zoo!

So, we went to the Jacksonville Zoo last week, and the animals were all really active. Here's a video of Sam and Annika visiting the python. I think it's the closest they'll come to actually kissing a python, but - hey - they were having a great time!

Summer Wrap-Up

We spent a lot of time at the new community pool in the village this summer. All the kids really loved it, and we're sad that it's closed until Memorial Day now (although the weather is still good enough for swimming on most days). This first picture is the kids' play pool.




This new pool overlooks the ocean. We always enjoyed looking out of the pool at the ocean. One day we even saw about 50 dolphins playing in the sound while we were swimming. How cool is that?



We've got some more pictures to bring your way, but we wanted to get something new up on the blog.

We Have a Crawler!

Well...Elliot has been a bit slower than Sam when it comes to physical things. At nine months, he's finally figured out how to sit up. Sam was crawling at five months. Elliot has finally found his inspiration at nine months old. All it took was the vacuum cleaner, which he LOVES. Who would have thought?

So, NC is Pretty Great

It seems like everyone from St. Simons Island leaves the coast for the North Carolina mountains during the summer. We finally had the chance to head there at the end of July, and now we know why people love it. It's gorgeous (and pretty darn temperate) there.

Our friends from seminary came down and joined us. We spent most of the time wrangling five children, but it was wonderful to catch up with them, to see their kids again, and to just chat about life. We always have a great Texas-sized time with the Sutherluns. And they even got Jess to play games at night, so she has now experienced Settlers of Catan. Here are some pictures from mountaintop experience.

First Day of First Grade

Well...she's not quite all grown up, but she sure felt like it today. Annika went to first grade at Oglethorpe Point Elementary School (Go Ospreys!) today, which was a big first for all of us since we home-schooled her for kindergarten last year. The great news is that she had a marvelous first day, and we had a good first impression of her teacher. I think with Annika in school, we've entered a new phase of parenthood, and I hope it's a good one. Time will tell, but it was a great start to the day.