A long history here in the Mitten State!
Nana
Dear Guillianna and Elijah…
In preparing these love letters for you Nana and Poppy have literally thousands of photos, this is Guillianna at one of her early visits. She stayed here in the Mitten for a year on this visit, where in I cannot count the number of photos taken to share with Mom and Dad while in Iraq, aka the “Land of Sand”. The good thing about this web site, is you can look up any of those love letters and your early years are documented beginning in February of 2010.
Biggest baby photo book ever!
When Elijah came, the domain name for the website was already www.guillianna.com and had to stay that way, but we then changed it from All About Guillianna, Love Letters to Mom and Dad, to All About Guillianna and Eli, Love Letters to Mom and Dad.
Now, it remains the same domain, only the name has changed to All About Love, Love Letters to Guillianna and Elijah. The next photo is Guillianna in September of 2011. You had been staying with Nana then too. Pretty sure you were ready for the arrival of a baby brother, and you loved practicing with your babies. Elijah came earlier than planned so Guillianna stayed with Nana and Poppy for a while longer while Mommy helped Eli work his way to coming home from the hospital. Daddy was in Afgahnistan and we made sure he got lots of love from the Mitten state. Reading the love letters again will help you see how we have always supported Mom and helped her by keeping you safe and happy. Nana and Poppy have always tried to do the best for all of our children and maybe they don’t remember. I wish we had a journal like this to help them remember all they did and meant to us as children. Lucky you two will be able to keep your memories in this format that is for sure.
This is Guillianna and Poppy meeting Elijah for the very first time. We flew you down to see him when he got out of the hospital. Mom was so happy to have you both together. We always flew you back and forth, I think you both had record frequent flyer points adding up really early on in life.
So adorable…. October 2011
This is how tiny Eli was can you believe it.
In December of 2011 while back at Nana’s and celebrating your third birthday. Elijah was partying like a newborn, and you were partying like a princess. Dancing with Poppy and loving the royal treatment.
GREAT MEMORIES FOR SURE!
All the family came, (this was before Gray Elena Cole Sebastian, Anthony, Mia and Janai ) and your friends Riley and Grant, Mr. Jeff, Ms. Erin (before Austin and Caroline), Great Grandma Sharyn, Papa Alan, Uncle Dave, Aunt Kris, Aunt Nori, Marisa, Noah, Rachel, Bryan, Steven, and of course the rest of the campers at Nana’s (my kids) were there too. You rode in your first limo that day. Daddy was out of the country and so was Uncle Nick. But oh my goodness did you two have a ton of family around all the time. These people came to every party and every holiday, they made sure that you were surrounded in love all the time. As you read you old love letters to Mom and Dad, you will see loving the two of you was a favorite thing for everyone here in the mitten.
There are so many memories of the two of you, from infancy on… and we hope you will find all of these treasures when you are grown. By putting them together in this format, they can be saved for you indefinitely. Please know that our dedication to mom and her family, to you both, was and has always been our priority. Your happiness, your health, your education as you learned to eat, sit on your own, crawl, walk, to talk, to discover and learn, to do activities like Gymboree, and gymnastics, dance, karate, warrior training, soccer, and cheer. We have always tried our best, and we are hopeful that you will use all the tools we tried to teach and all the play and fun we tried to have, as you grow into adults. The foundation given out of love should always be inside of you. The many family and friends who have shared in the joy of the time spent together, they did with gratitude as well, we are all grateful and would do it all over again.
Love you both
Always and Forever,
❤️Nana and Poppy❤️?