The Bathroom is Done!

We finished our bathroom a couple of weeks ago and I wanted to show the fruits of our labors. The first two pictures are of the bathroom before we remodeled and the last two are of the new bathroom. We are really glad that it is done and we think that it turned out well.

He Walks

Eli started walking over Thanksgiving and I was finally able to catch him walking. He is so cute walking and I can hardly believe it how big he is getting! We are so glad that he started to walk before our trip to Idaho for Christmas so that he will be able to walk some and we won't have to carry him everywhere.

What We've Been Up to

It has been a full month with lots going on. The most exciting thing for Eli was that he got to celebrate his 1st birthday. Michael got home early the day before his birthday and we celebrated with a dinner out, cake, and presents. Eli really enjoyed his cake. I wanted to post a video of him enjoying the cake but I wasn't able to. On his actual birthday, we had a little party with some of the little kids in our ward. That was a lot of fun too.


This is Eli the morning of his birthday. I got him a onesie that said Baby's First Birthday.


My Visiting Teachers were kind enough to bring Eli a balloon and present. This is him laughing while playing with the balloon. He loved watching it bounce up and down on the ceiling when he pulled on it.
Eli with his birthday present. We hauled this back with us all the way from the Toy's R Us in Time's Square.

Eli reading with his Daddy. Sometimes he will grab a book and bring it to him to read to him. He has really started to notice when Michael leaves in the morning and he evens waves bye-bye to him.

I just love this picture of Eli and Michael. You can tell we have been busy...Michael looks kind of tired, huh?

Michael and I are working on remodeling our bathroom. We have learned a lot about remodeling that we didn't know. It has been kind of tough living without a complete bathroom. Hopefully it will be done in not too much longer.

Michael is in the middle of a research project with one of his professors from UConn. He is also working on applying to graduate schools for next Fall. He is applying at University of Akron and University of Connecticut. So a lot of his free time is spent working on these projects.

I keep busy chasing Eli around. He isn't walking yet but he can crawl really fast and he gets into things. He is a very curious little boy. I got released as the Cub Scout Leader and I am now working as a Visiting Teaching Supervisor in Relief Society. I love reading and watching back episodes of Roswell.

Anyway, we are all enjoying the fun fall weather minus the huge amounts of leaves that are accumulating in our yard that will need to be raked. Happy Fall!

Trip to New York

We took a short trip to New York City this last week. It was definitely exciting and we all enjoyed ourselves most of the time (except for the harrowing trip home). None of us had ever been there so everything was new to us. I (Michael) thought we did pretty well and didn't try to cram too much into our trip. We ended up seeing some of Central Park, Times Square, and Ellis Island and The Statue of Liberty in 3 days. It is cool being so close to a lot of different places in New England.

Here are some of our favorite pictures and much more pictures in a short slideshow of the trip made on my phone. Hope you enjoy!

At Central Park Zoo:

Me and Eli's silly picture taken on the ferry to Ellis Island:

Slideshow:

A few of Eli's Favorite Things

Eli is really starting to get into everything now. I ended up making a cabinet in the kitchen for him to play in since he is so curious. It sure helps me to get dinner made. =) As you can tell, he really loves it and that is one of his favorite things right now. He loves exploring the cabinet. Michael even caught him inside it today trying to grab things in the cabinet next to it. I wish the people who built our house would have separated the cabinets!

Eli also loves his toys and toybox. He pushes it around the room and enjoys throwing all of the toys out on the floor. He has also discovered his book shelf and loves to pull all of the books off.

Eli loves to read books. He also loves to pull out pages and rip off covers. I guess a love of books has to start somewhere.

More Fun Pictures

Eli is so photogenic and I couldn't help but throw in a few more cute photos of him. Well, as long as you can catch when he isn't moving too fast, you can get a good picture.

Eli and I at Diversity Day at Michael's work. My hair is in an African head wrap.

A fun get-together with friends. Eli loved watching the other kids there.

I guess he's not quite ready for BYU yet!

Isn't that a cheesy grin!? He looks so silly when he grins like that!

Lots of Fun

We have had some fun adventures this summer with Eli. I thought pictures would probably tell the stories best...so enjoy!

Blueberry picking. The entire time Eli kept trying to steal berries from us. He loves them!

Eli watching the chickens at the blueberry picking farm. When we rolled him over there, they all came up and surrounded him.

Such a happy boy!

Riding in his new jogging stroller

Eli with our friend Eric. We go on walks on Saturdays with Eric, Jeanie and Ashley (friends from Michael's MFT program).

Eli at the Children's Book Barn in Niantic, CT.

Eli enjoying ice cream for the first time. He devoured this sugar cone in just a few minutes. It was a hit!

Eli is crawling everywhere now. This is him peaking out of his bedroom.

The family. He looks so different from us with the blond hair and blue eyes.

What a cute boy! He is such a happy kid. We are grateful to have him in our home. He will be 11 months old tomorrow! I can't believe it's been almost a year since he came along.

He's on the Move

Well, Eli is on the move now. It seems like overnight he figured it out. He loves to crawl under the desk and try to get all the trash can and cords. He also loves to pull books off of the book shelves. We are certainly challenged trying to anticipate his curiosity in baby-proofing. He is definitely a curious little guy!

Time Marches On

I figured it was time for some more pictures of Eli. He changes so quickly! He is really working hard to crawl now and he is getting pretty close to doing it too! Since my last post he has gotten more adept at eating finger foods and now enjoys raisins, peas (sometimes - he is also known to drop them on the floor when I am not looking), and blueberries. Progress! He has 6 teeth now too. The ones on the top finally popped through, thank goodness.

Michael and I keep busy with work and church callings. Thankfully I have a break from cub scouts this month especially since Michael is the "acting" Elder's Quorum President right now. We are enjoying the summer and trying to keep cool. It has been really hot here this summer and amazingly very dry. Last summer we nearly drowned!

Happy 4th of July to everyone!

He loves those fingers of his, especially his thumb
He loves to play and especially enjoys emptying his toy box and taking off his bib (the instant I put it on him).

I love these overalls - SO cute!

All of us - It isn't easy to manuever us all in and hold the camera =)

Eli loves to eat. I think this is prior to a meal. Otherwise he would look much messier!!

Bananas and Stats

I have been struggling to get Eli to try new finger foods. He just doesn't want to try them. He mostly just enjoys dropping them off the side of his tray. He really just likes Cheerios. Well, the Dr. suggested trying just giving him a hunk of banana and he loved it. He had a ton of fun mashing and playing with it and much to my excitement eating it! It was fun to watch, but not to clean up.

He had his 9 month checkup this week too. He checked out nicely and everything seems to be great. He is 20 lb 4 oz (43rd percentile) and 27 3/4 in tall (35th percentile). He is getting really heavy to lug around.

What a big boy!

It has taken awhile to get a few good pictures of Eli! I have a harder time getting pictures because he doesn't hold still much and the lights on the camera cause him to make weird faces. He is getting so big and changing so much every day. He now has 4 teeth and is starting pick up food on his own. He also loves to suck his thumb and sleep on his tummy. The instant you place him in his crib, he is rolling over to his tummy. He is starting to recognize words like smile, clap, and toes. He can even clap some! I think he is weighing in now at upwards of 20 pounds!

What a cute little guy!

Our friends Eric, Jeanne, and Ashley - we went on a walk with them over Memorial Day weekend

Sucking his thumb

Isn't this sweater awesome!? A friend at our church made it for him.

Building his nest - we just put him on the floor now so that he will actually reach for things =)

Beautiful Surprises

Since we moved to our new house in August, pretty much all of the perennial flowers had already bloomed that were already planted in the yard. I have been kind of waiting to see what all happens to come up and bloom out this spring just to see what all I want to keep and what I want to get rid of. I have been surprised to find that there are some very beautiful flowers in the yard. I am not sure what all of them are, but they are beautiful. In addition to these, we also had tulips and daffodils already. Enjoy!

Blessings

I have been thinking a lot about the many blessings that I have lately. I started a gratitude journal of sorts about a year and half ago. It is amazing how much that has helped me to get through the craziness of the past year and a half. I know that it has truly helped me to see Heavenly Father at work in my life.

The past week has been pretty rough. We have been very busy and Michael and I have seen very little of each other. We don't get a ton of time together in a normal week, but this it seems like one of us was gone every evening. There were a few times when I caught a glimpse what it might be like to be a single parent. I am SO grateful for Michael! It would be immensely more difficult without him. Sometimes even just knowing that he is supporting me even when he is gone helps me to get through the craziness of life.

Eli has been working on getting some teeth as of late and he has been pretty cranky. He for sure has one cut through and we think he is working on two more. He has also been much more squirmy. In the mornings when we go in to get him up from bed, he has been found in all sorts of positions from on his tummy, turned the oposite way, and perpendicular to the normal lay of his bed. He is sitting up really well too. All of the sudden he has really become fond of sucking his thumb too.

Family is such a blessing! I am grateful to be able to be Eli's mom and to be in my little family.

Time Flies

By way of update, I will just mention a few things that are going on for each of us.

Michael is pretty busy with his job and doesn't get home most nights until 6 or 7. He also just got called into the Elder's Quorum Presidency in our ward. He is the 1st counselor. We were not expecting that! When the Stake President calls on a Friday night and says he wants to talk to your husband, you know something is up. But, I was not expecting that. He is also the Assistant Ward Organist and the Institute teacher in our ward. We are hoping that he will be released from something!

I am doing well. It is starting to be more fun to stay home with Eli because he is so fun to play with. He can play peek-a-boo and he laughs and smiles a lot. It could be the hardest day ever and he smiles at me and everything is all the sudden so much better. I am the Cub Scout Den Leader in our ward and we recently had our Blue & Gold Banquet. It was a relief that have that done. There is always so much to do for that. I was proud of the boys for all of their hard work, though. I really enjoy working with them. I am also starting to get back into shape. It isn't easy to find time to go for a run, but I am slowly working it in. I hope to do a 5K or maybe a 10K by the end of the summer.

Eli is as silly as ever! He sits up really well now. He loves to sit on his blanket and play with his toys. Although, he may not learn to crawl any time soon because if a toy gets away from him, he has figured out that he can grab the blanket and pull it toward him to get the toy. =) He also likes to gather the blanket all around him and his toys and make a kind of nest. He is a joy to watch as he learns and figures things out.

Hope all is well with everyone out there! At least I think that there are people out there reading this blog. I hope that I am not just talking to myself. Happy Mother's Day and Happy Sunday!

Adventures

We have gone on some fun adventures lately with Eli and he has proven to be a pretty good traveler. My parents came for a visit a couple of weeks ago and we went on a couple of trips with them. We have also been really enjoying the good weather of late and went to the park yesterday. Here are some pictures of our adventures (in no particular order):

This week we went to Bicentennial Pond with some friends

Yesterday we went to the park and Eli loved the swings

Eli and Daddy at the park

Eli and Grandpa at America's Stonehenge

On a walk with Mommy and Daddy

The whole gang on a hike at Oak Grove Nature Center

Michael and Eli enjoying hiking

Eli and Daddy getting ready to go on our hike