Playing at Grandpa & Grandma's

We love spending time together at grandma and grandpa's house. The kids always have so much fun, and this time we were lucky enough to have Marnie here. They drove down from Oregon for Great Grandpa's 90th birthday party. Here are just a few snapshots of the kids.

Ben was very proud of his sand box creation. He worked on it nearly the whole time we were together. Ben belongs to my oldest sister Kim, he is her second to the youngest.

Starting at the top is Clara, then Taylor is on the top right. Ian is on the bottom right, and Elli is on the bottom left. Elli was born August 22nd, Taylor was born October 11th, Clara was born November 11th, and Ian was born December 20. As you can see Elli is still the smallest of the crew, the oldest, but the smallest. (Elli's due date was December 17th.)

Here is Bradley with a couple of his cousins. Clara's big brother Noah is in the middle. He belongs to Marianne. Isaac is on the right, and he is Marnie's oldest.
The girls love being together. Kristen used to be quite out numbered with the cousins in Utah, but now she has Elli and Clara. Unfortunately they aren't very close in age, so it's nice when Marnie comes. Kristen is on the left, she is Kim's 3rd. Elise is Marnie's 2nd.

This is darling little Paige. She is Marnie's 3rd. She is sooo cute!!

Here are the babies all lined up on birth order. Elli is small, but she's not that far behind Clara in size. The 2 boys have both the girls beat by quite a bit. It was fun to finally meet Ian. We were sure sad to see them go back to Oregon. But we look forward to another visit in August.

Just a quick update on Elli:
We had Elli's follow up clinic with several specialists last month and they were all very pleased with her progress. They were especially impressed with her health. They couldn't believe she hadn't needed to go back to the hospital, which we found out is very common for premature babies. Up to that point she had never even had a runny nose. She did catch a very mild cold a couple of weeks later, but it didn't bother her much at all. She still has a fairly weak appetite, but that is improving slowly. She is a tiny bit behind developmentally as well, but so far there is nothing too alarming. The only thing she isn't doing well is coming up onto her arms when she is on her tummy. We have been given exercises to help strengthen her arms.

She is up to 11 lbs. 9 oz. now, and is about 25". She is small, but very happy. She laughs, but it's almost silent because of her vocal chord. It's very cute to watch her laugh. We enjoy her so much! She really is a delight!!