These pictures are actually from Abby and Mike's wedding back in October, but I was just looking through some of our old pictures and ran across these.  I thought Eliana's mohawk hair was too cute not to share.

I didn't really take any pictures over Thanksgiving otherwise I would post some for you.  My picture taking has declined greatly as Eliana is getting older.  I used to take about twenty of her a day, just sitting in her bouncy seat or smiling at me.  Now I don't even take that many in a week.  That's probably a bad sign for any future children we have. 

We had several celebrations for Thanksgiving.  It started out with my sister Abby coming to visit the weekend before Thanksgiving.  Mike was out hunting so she decided to spend the weekend with us instead.  We had a mini Thanksgiving feast with my brother Michael and his fiance Melissa, Abby, and the three of us.  I have hosted a meal like this once before, but I didn't make the turkey.  So this was the first time I made all of Thanksgiving - from turkey to pumpkin pie.  I think things went pretty well after a small hitch to start out with.  Abby brought us a frozen turkey that she was giving at work.  I had read my cookbook on making a turkey and planned on just thawing it in cold water.  That shouldn't take too long, right?  Wrong!  Somehow I misread the directions and thought it took 30 minutes to thaw a turkey.  It actually takes 30 minutes PER POUND!  So a 13lb turkey is now going to take me about 6 hours to thaw instead of 30 minutes.  I hopped on the internet and felt a little reassured when I read this from TLC Cooking: "Each year, thousands of Americans attempt to cook their first Thanksgiving turkey. These same people quickly realize it takes a heck of a lot more work to thaw out a frozen turkey than they might have initially planned."  Luckily that website also told me that you can thaw a turkey pretty darn quick in your microwave if it is big enough. 
Into the microwave our turkey went, and an hour and a half later, the bird was ready to cook!  I might have had a little panic right there at the end of the meal prep when everything was finishing up at the same time.  However my family quickly came to the rescue and helped me put everything on the table.  For my first time completely making the meal, I'd say it went pretty well.  Plus we all had fun just hanging out.  It was so nice having my sister come to visit. 

Originally on Thanksgiving David was supposed to work, but one of the interns he is working with offered to trade him days.  So David actually had the day off.  We made a quick trip to Indianapolis to spend the day with his family.  We had a great time seeing everyone and getting to spend a little time relaxing.  Eliana played on the swing set and jungle gym in the park behind David's parents house.  She laughed so much when her Aunt Rhonda and I pretended that she was  knocking into us from the swing.  David's dad always makes the best turkey so we enjoyed a delicious meal.  Then back to Columbus we came.  It was an unexpected day off and a wonderful blessing to get to spend it with those we love. 

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday too.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Meal Time

Although this picture is really about the broccoli in her hand, I did want to make sure you notice her amazing eyelashes!

"So what has Eliana been eating lately?" I am sure that question has been on your mind.  Well she is eating more and more things every day.  She loves all her baby food jar purees.  She would probably eat ten jars a day if I feed them to her.  My homemade purees, however, she is not such a fan.  I have found some ways to get her to eat them though.  She didn't like the mashed sweet potatoes that I made, but loved them when I mixed it with plain yogurt (even though I thought that tasted pretty strange).  And one of Eliana's favorite breakfasts is "Eggs Florentine."  I make her scrambled eggs with pureed spinach and she loves it!.  But now that she has some teeth and is getting older, I have been moving past purees into more solid food.  Eliana loves things that she can hold and munch on.  She has been eating carrot sticks, apple slices, and steamed broccoli.  She likes hummus, avocados, cottage cheese, and shredded chicken.  She is developing quite a diverse palette.  Her latest talent, which quite surprised me, is drinking from a cup.  Eliana has always been interested in drinking from my glass when I get a cup of water.  So I tried letting her have a cup of her own, and she did great!  She actually drank better from that than she does her sippy cup.  She can hold it and sip from it without any help!  But she is prone to spills.  Oh well, that's what bibs are for.

And now, for your viewing pleasure... check out Eliana dancing to some music while David feeds her!  She loves music and loves to dance!  This was so funny.  She was eating dinner when a song came on with a loud beat.  She would stop eating, bob up and down for a bit, and then stop for another bite.  Then she would dance again.  She thought it was hilarious when we started dancing too.

10 months old!

Eliana and her bear posed for some more pictures last week.  She is wearing her new fleece, which I think makes her look old - like a toddler and not a baby anymore.  Can you believe how much she has changed since she was first born?  It has been fast ten months.  According to my bathroom scale, she now weighs 20lbs which is between the 50th and 75th percentile for her age.  She is crawling all of the place, pulling up on the coffee table and bathroom tub, and is impossible to put diapers on.  She also loves to pull her socks off and then chew on her feet.  And best of all she loves giving hugs. 

Mike and Abby's Wedding in the Virgin Islands

The view from our hotel balcony on St. Thomas, US Virgin Island.

Eliana's ready for the beach!  She wanted to bring her rubber duckie to the pool.

There were tons of iguanas on the island!

The beautiful bride and me

Hanging out in the shade at the pool.  She really liked swimming in the pool and chasing balls.

Worn out after a day at the pool.

David, Chad,Sarah, and Mike playing a game of basketball in the pool.

View of the sunrise from my hotel room.  As the mother of a 9 month old, I was blessed to be able to watch the sunrise just about every morning we were in the Virgin Islands.  Thanks Eliana!

St. John US Virgin Island - David along with some others took a day trip to this other island.  He said it was beautiful!

St. John's

Mike's parents enjoying a Dirty Monkey.

Beautiful Beach on St. John's.  David went snorkeling here.

St. John's

Back at the resort, David, Rebecca, Rebecca's boyfriend Ben, and I all went snorkeling.  Abby actually took this picture from my hotel room balcony.  See all the coral?!

Eliana wanted to stay up late and party with us at the Caribbean Luau on Thursday night. 

Love!  Eliana napping on Daddy.

Getting ready for the wedding.

I was Abby's Matron of Honor.  Although Abby and Mike got married at Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral, they did have a reception on Meghan's Bay beach.  We watched the sun set from the beach.  What a wonderful way to celebrate an amazing couple!

Gorgeous!  Abby had a lovely wedding dress which was made by the same designer as my wedding dress!

Rebecca, Abby, Me, and my Mom

Back at the resort - Mike and Abby's first dance.

My dad and Abby during the father daughter dance.  Abby is wear Grandpa's hat (Retzner family tradition).

My dad wore Chucks for the wedding!

And finally, on our way home.  Eliana did okay on the plane ride to the islands, but she was a crazy ball of energy on the way home.  Luckily for our five hour flight there was an extra seat for her.  Otherwise she hung out in our arms, climbing all over us, laughing, crying, and talking.

Finally, here are some of my pictures from our trip to the Virgin Islands for my sister Abby's wedding.  She was such a beautiful bride, and she and Mike looked so happy.  We stayed at an all inclusive resort and had a grand party for four days prior to the wedding.  Eliana survived her first plane ride and did surprising well with the trip.  She even mostly slept through the night, but she did get up pretty early most mornings.  It was a wonderful vacation and a great, great celebration!  Congrats to my big sis and her new hubby!

Happy Halloween!

I didn't make Eliana a Halloween costume, so I just put her owl hat on for when she greeted the trick-or-treaters at the door.

Looking super cute in her new blue sweater.

Crawling!

And she's off!

Then she came back to say hello.

Wednesday we had our first experience with Halloween and trick-or-treating.  Before this year I have always lived in an apartment and didn't have any kids stop by.  But our neighbors this year said to expect lots of kids so I was really excited.  I dressed up as Minnie Mouse and put Eliana's owl hat on her.  And I had the best bag of goodies -- Halloween tattoos and glow-in-the-dark vampire fangs.  As a person in the medical field trying to promote healthy living, I just felt it wasn't right to hand out candy to kids when they would already have a bag full of sugary treats.  So much to David's dismay, I insisted that we hand out non-candy treats.  He was just hoping our house didn't get egged.  I thought I was prepared.  I had 144 tattoos and fangs.  But half an hour into trick-or-treating, we were completely out!  The kids actually seemed excited about the fangs.  The tattoos, however, were not as popular.  I did have one sweet little boy when I showed him my basket, say, "I want candy."  I am guessing he was about two or three.  And I said "Well I have tattoos instead.  Would you like this pumpkin?"  He replied "What do I do with it?"  So I told him to put in his bag.  His mom then made him say thank you. :)
But soon we ran out of both treats, so sadly I ended up sending David to the store to buy some candy.  I hated handing it out, but I think the kids liked it.  They just didn't know what joy they had missed out on... Maybe next year we can hand out raisins or carrots haha. 

The last four pictures are unrelated to Halloween, but I did want to show off how cute Eliana is looking these days!