Visiting Baby Elizabeth

I was able to make a quick trip back to Rochester to meet my newest granddaughter, Elizabeth. She is so darling and very, very small. She has blue eyes with lots of beautiful dark hair, especially in the back. She is the best baby and only cries when she is hungry. The cutest part was watching Marc being a new dad! When he was home (which wasn't very often), he wanted to hold and feed her. He even helped give Elizabeth her bath. I am so glad that I was able to see her and to do a little bonding!

Baby Elizabeth Arrived!

Elizabeth London Ellsworth arrived this morning and weighs 6 lbs. 1 oz. and is 21 3/4 inches long. Laura says that she has black wavy hair and dark blue eyes. Marc says that she also knows how to cry really well! Mother, dad and baby are doing great.
What is really interesting is that ALL 4 of our grandgirls were born in Rochester, Minnesota!
Welcome to our family, Elizabeth. Can't wait to meet you! We love you already!

Sunday Suit Day!

All of the boys have new suits that they wear on Sundays - even little Cameron! They were adorable. The baby didn't fuss at all about his tie or coat and is just as big as the other boys!

Pitt Trip!

I took off to spend a couple of days in Pittsburgh. While I was there, the weather was actually warming up, so we took some walks down to "Grandma's Decision". That is a favorite secret spot of Connor, Carson and Grandma. We found it last year on a walk and needed to find a name for our special place. Connor came up with the name! All of us went out to play in the yard one afternoon because the weather was so nice. It was Cameron's first experience with the great outdoors since he had been walking because of the snow and cold weather. He had a great time! He pushed and pulled and rode everything he could fine. He hated to go back inside. It was so cute!

Merry Christmas and After!

For Christmas, Marc and Laura were able to fly in for a couple of days. It was so good to see them. we went to a Sun's game together and enjoyed Christmas afternoon with them and Erik's family. Gary and I were alone Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, so that was very strange for us. I don't think we liked it very much, but didn't have much choice! It was good to have some family over later in the day.

The next day, Gary and I flew to Cleveland to visit with Matthew and Kasey. They showed us a really good time! Matt made us LOTS of good food and then showed us around the town. We opened Christmas presents together. We gave Matt and Kasey some Cutco knives and he gave Kasey one of his demonstrations. It was hilarious. We drove to Pittsburgh to visit the kids there and open presents. The boys loved their new Pottery Barn animal towels.

Afterwards, we drove back up to Cleveland. Kevin came up on New Year's Eve. Jen and the boys drove back to Philadelphia. Matt and Kasey were the perfect hosts with TONS of food, movies, DisneyWorld home videos and entertainment. We drove to Kirtland on Sunday to see the sights. It was freezing, so we didn't stay very long. We went back to Matthew's and he fixed us a wonderful dinner.

Matt and Kasey in Arizona

Matthew and Kasey came to Arizona a couple of weeks after their wedding. They wanted to visit with friends and family, so we had a small Open House for them at the house. It was a whirlwind trip as they were only in town for 3 short days. Kasey's parents also came. We tried to do a little sightseeing, but the temperatures were very high, so we stayed inside most of the time. It was great to see all of them and don't know when they will be back to Arizona!

Simmon's Farm

While we were in Pittsburgh, we had ONE day that it didn't rain, so we took the boys to Simmon's Farm. We took a hayride, picked pumpkins, rode a huge slide, took silly pictures with Halloween cutouts, went through a corn maze, picked Indian corn, picked apples, went to the petting zoo, drank apple cider and just had a great time. There were dozens of apple trees to pick from, but I wanted to find my favorite - honeycrisp. So, Connor went to every tree looking to see if it had honeycrisp apples. He was so disappointed that we didn't find any. He had worked so hard to help grandma! He was rewarded with an extra glass of cider and extra play time in the cornbox (a sandbox with toys, but instead of sand it had hard corn kernels). Thanks anyway, Connor! We still bought some at $2.99 lb. Ouch!