susuwatari

We had Michelle from Under Grace Photo come back for Elliott’s three month photos. Michelle amazed me by getting down on the ground and laying down when necessary to get a good shot, all while she was eight months pregnant! That’s dedication! Thanks Michelle for all your hard work, of course the pictures are fantastic. Elliott has such a serious personality but she loves to smile and coo at us. She was fascinated by the camera going “click click” above her head so I was worried that we’d only get pictures of her analyzing the camera. I shouldn’t have worried though because Michelle managed to capture lots of cute smiles! I only managed to narrowed down the 99 pictures Michelle sent us to my top 25 to share with you. It’s hard to cut down when the pictures are all so cute!!

We have the rights to the digital photos so if anyone wants copies of pictures please let me know. I’m happy to send prints!

Elliott has discovered her voice recently. She’s been practicing making noises for awhile but in the past few days she’s been really taking off. She’ll sit and jabber at us for 10 or 15 minutes at a time. I’ve got to say that hearing this little tiny voice combined with her big smiles pretty much destroys me. She is just too cute. Here’s a short video that Wes took on his iPhone last night.

Tonight I took my first horseback lesson in recent years and now I am waddling like John Wayne. I had a lot of fun and felt very relaxed with the instructor and place which is good because I was a disgrace. I am horribly out of shape and I was given a stubborn mule of a horse for my evaluation. Rightfully the horse’s first name was Jack, one can only assume what his last name would be. He decided he a) did not want to move, b) if he was moving he didn’t want to go where I steered him, and c) he didn’t give a damn how much I kicked him he was willing to take it. Now when I was younger and in better shape I could win these challenges because I am more persistent and stubborn than that horse can dream of but sadly I am flabby and elderly (ok maybe not elderly) and just plan got exhausted before I could win this battle. I still tried my feeble little kicks at this point but finally the instructor came at him and told him what’s what and he decided he’d rather not deal with both of us. Let me tell you this whole scene was NOT the pretty picture a hunter horse and rider should be, in fact the whole process was rather disgraceful especially if you add to the fact that I was a bit too tall for the horse and I think my saddle was too small. Just the loveliest of images. Thankfully my evaluator didn’t seem to hold this against me and I did manage to make him canter 3 different times with a couple laps around the arena. I really need to get my leg strength back and work on my seat, though some of my problems I think may have been due to the saddle being too small. I also for some reason have gotten into the habit of moving my hands too much during the canter and must focus on keeping them still during my next lesson. Hopefully I’m not given Jack again though if I am at least I’ll be getting quite a work out. Whomever thinks riding horses isn’t work needs to take a lesson on Jack and that’s all I have to say about THAT.

This past weekend we went down to visit Mom and Dad at their lake house in Alabama. We had a lot of fun visiting and water skiing and Elliott got to go on her first boat ride!

Elliott wore the tiniest life jacket Mom and Dad owned. It was the one they used on Patience when she was 4 weeks old. She wasn’t a huge fan of getting in and out of the life jacket but she didn’t fuss once it was on. She looked like a little Humpty Dumpty sitting on her Grandma. The vibration and noise from the boat engine put her right to sleep!

Here’s Captain Grandpa at the helm:

Patience was able to slalom ski and made sure we took photographic evidence:

I skied for awhile to prove to Dad that I am still capable. (This is a Tenney family required skill.) Now two days later I can finally move my body around again without cringing. But I have my pride!

Wes even got up on skis but I was filming it on our video camera so I only have a picture of him getting back in the boat. We were so proud of him!!

I amused myself on the car ride by taking pictures of Elliott. She has discovered the joy of licking her hands in the past week. She’s not quite coordinated enough to actually suck her fingers yet so she just slobbers all over her hands. The pictures are from my iPhone so they aren’t the best quality but she sure is cute!!

We had a great time! I wish they lived closer so we could visit more often!
~Christina