...Everything as loss...FOR GREAT GAIN

Well, here's her first pair of jeans...and absolutely hillariously cute! Funny thing is they're supposed to be capri's. That's even funnier. Yep...this is our new smile! Showing all those chompers! I love it!

She's now 10 weeks old and absolutely loveable! At her 2 month she weighed in at 11.5 lbs and just over 21 inches long! She most deffinetly isn't catching up to Malachi...he weighed that at 4 weeks and was that long at birth!

So it was a great November 5th and 7th for Malachi! On the 5th was his actual birthday and he mostly enjoyed his "Cars" pj's ...and then when Aaron got the 7th off from work we celebrated all day for Malachi...just the four of us. We went to Castaway Cafe, which is Michigan's largest indoor play area for young kids and he loved it. And also got real brave and went up to the top all by himself. Then we opened his gifts and read the new books he got for almost an hour and then he enjoyed his yummy apple cinamon muffin. Yeh...why make a cake when all he needs is a muffin! He loved it! And of course Rachel slept right through it. And here you an almost see the height of this jungle jim climbing area! It's huge and the parents can go in or sit on the couches or tables they have set up right there to watch the kids. More Wheel pals!!!!!! Our little alphabet kid! He can recognize the entire alphabet and 1-10 in numbers, so reading signs in the car is one of his favorit...

Well, when things are new for Malachi he either rejects it completely(what he normally chooses to do)...or he goes at it with all his effort. This video was a few weeks ago but I just love watching him tackle the burrito! And then of course is his halloween costume!! ...and a little extra note..I am sitting here waiting for this video to upload and Malachi saw Rachel sleeping on the floor here and he layed down next to her, kissed her head and said in his own way.."I love you"...which actually sounds like..."I uhhhhv ewww".

Last Sunday morning I made some pancakes...buckwheat pancakes and of course Malachi loves these! He ate 4 of them...not full size...but he also had 1/2 a banana and should have been very full...especially with buckwheat cakes!(he also just eats them plain with nothing added...funny kid) So...Aaron left for work and I had a plate of pancakes cooling on the counter in our gated in kitchen so I could freeze them. I went into our bathroom to finish getting ready and I didn't hear anything from Malachi so of course I got worried. I came out and around the kitchen corner was Malachi....scarfing down pancakes!!! He had taken a toy and moved the plate to where he could reach and had eaten at least two more cakes and was shoveling one down as I firmly told him to go to time out(trying very hard not to laugh). He was covered in crumbs and so was our floor!! MAN...can this kiddo eat??? Yeh...he doesn't get that from mommy. It was absolutely hilarious!

So I just love that she's smiling now. It thrills me when she actually stays awake and smiles! Yep, and most of the time it's with her tongue out. I love it.

We ended up being a day late on carving our pumpkins this year, but nobody in this family really cares about that. We had fun while the kids slept and carved these...well, Aaron did the carving. I cleaned the pumpkins and made baked seeds. So..one is a white pumpkin that was too small to carve so we put the fish symbol as the lid and the other two Aaron put the kids names...hard to get in one photo! It was fun showing Malachi in the dark. He loved it! And this picture of Aaron and Rachel is just cute.

Who doesn't love a good baby smile????? Just had to take a ton of pictures just to get these!

Ok, for Halloween we've never done dress up and so my effort to go cheap was waiting for a good deal. Well...I got one. I got these costumes for 50% off at Old Navy and was so pumped in the store when I put the jacket top on Malachi and it seemed to fit great!(even though it was a size 6-12month...and he fits 24month-2t!!!) So I never bothered to try the entire outfit on him until the day of, and as we're getting ready for our churches huge Trunk-or-Treat here's what I found out...yep...the pants left about 3-4 inches to desire...and the sleeves looked ok if he didn't try to put his hands in the built in gloves! So for the night we went without the monkey pants and just wore our own brown pants. Rachel...well, she actually fit in this enormous, newborn size!!!(yeh right), pumpkin costume. And within about 2 minutes after I put it on her she'd fall asleep...so I had to keep taking it off to keep her awake. But our night was great fun, even though Aaron couldn't g...

So...I have to show everyone what is so absolutely unique about Rachel Eliana. Yep...she loves to sleep. LOVES IT!! It's hilarious. I thought it would be appropriate for me to post this because my sister, Rachel had a great video showing her beautiful girl, Avery, going through her colic screaming moments and I feel absolutely horrible because I can't keep my daughter awake!!! But...I do have a toddler who is a handful of fun. So I take the sleep as an answered prayer! She'll grow out of this soon and my life will move to the next level of fun.

Rachel is finding her voice and her arms and legs just seem to go with the talking. This was a great moment when Malachi was napping and Rachel and I were alone. I love my kids and the precious moments we get together.

Here's a video from our fun trip to the Cider Mill and I hadn't gotten to upload this yet. So enjoy our cute son as he shows you his quirks and fun new words...with snot running down his lovely face:)

Finally she's smiled! Yippee...hard to get the perfect picture but at 6 1/2 weeks we have a beautiful smile. I love it!

This is our fun family adventure to Malachi's and Rachel's first pumpkin patch...and cider mill....and for mom and dad we enjoyed the wine tasting! (the Sparkling Harvest Peach wine and the Concord grape was awesome!) Most of the pictures are of Malachi of course because he can enjoy this the most...later Rachel will join him! Here's our pumpkins!

And here are the funny faces of our kids. Can't help but laugh at how cute they are.

So, in the midst of all this chaos and fun is our little children that want to be like us because we're all they know...that's crazy! It's absolutely the most amazing thing to be a parent and to influence the life of your children. I cannot imagine what else I'd rather be doing than this....well doing this in Colorado would be nice...but that's another soap box. I love these pictures of our children and I pray that we are godly examples for them above teaching them the basics of this life on earth.