Congratulations to Our New Neighbors -- Uncle Jason and Ms. Andrea!

Uncle Jason and Ms. Andrea have finally moved into their new home! It's been a long wait, about six months, but the owners have finally (almost) finished all the work and Jason and a crew of family and friends moved them in the other day while Andrea was at work. It was a really sweet surprise and it went off without a hitch. I don't think I've ever seen Andrea smile so wide -- she was positively glowing. An extra perk to the whole thing, is that they now live in our subdivision. It'll be nice to have them so close. We stopped by about a half an hour after Andrea had arrived and stayed for a little while to help them celebrate.

Eli came in and made himself at home playing on their bedroom floor with his new Elmo CD player and dominoes. He's really good at playing independently now, which bodes well for our new addition in May.


Eli tries to pet and has a stand off with one of their babies -- Otto.



Andrea and her mom in her new kitchen.

Catching Up On Christmas: Christmas Day

As is our tradition, we spent early Christmas morning with just the three of us, opening presents. Here's the spread that Eli saw when he woke up on Christmas morning. *Note: Santa took Daddy's advice and got most of his presents at the thrift store, therefore, 90% of these gifts from Santa were VERY inexpensive.


As you can see, Eli needed no help in identifying his chocolate kisses stocking stuffer from Santa.


We purchased our main gift for Eli off of EBay this year with the help of Eli's great aunts: Aunt Sally, Aunt Lucy and Aunt Lora (thanks!). We got him several Duplo sets: mostly Bob the Builder and a few Winnie the Pooh sets. As you can see in this picture there's some fun to be had with an EBay gift like that -- multiple Bobs. I figure it will come in handy for "toddler sharing" at our house.


Here Muck helps read one of Eli's new books.


"Ahhh"-- what Eli said when he unwrapped the wipes box. He knew what it was, and wasn't sure why we were giving it to him for Christmas. Fortunately, for him one of his Duplo sets was hiding inside.


Then, after opening our presents together, we headed over to BaBo and Grammie's house to open presents with them, Aunt Seana and Uncle Brian. Grammie was saying that this is probably the last Christmas that we actually have to encourage him to open presents. He enjoyed it, and he is definitely enjoying all his new toys, but he was more interested in playing with one or two toys at a time. It actually worked out well for the rest of us, he was usually occupied with a new toy while the rest of us opened our presents.

Here's Eli talking to BaBo about his Elmo Dominoes, a favorite present of the morning.


He seems to have opened most of his presents on Daddy or Uncle Brian's lap.



Here he's demonstrating his ability to multi-task.


And, finally sharing a smile with Mommy.


We went home, got some much needed rest, then headed back to Grammie's house for a delicious Christmas dinner with Grammie, BaBo, Aunt Seana, Uncle Brian, Dendi, BaPa, and the Summervilles. As you can see from the pictures, Eli was not in much of a photo mood, but we did get a few posed group shots. In fact, I think Eli was pretty tuckered out from the festivities in general.



We made it an early night for two reasons: Eli was done and Eli had a run in with Uncle Brian's very sweet dog Lyric. Unfortunately, about eight months ago, a neighborhood dog escaped it's fence and ended Eli's good relationship with dogs. She was a medium sized dog and she came running from across the street. Before I could get to Eli, she had her paws up on his shoulders and she was barking in his face. Even though she didn't mean any harm -- I think she was just excited, Eli was not impressed. Then, a few days later, she escaped her fence again while we were playing in the backyard. Eli was playing in his play house, she ran over, jumped up on the door and barked at him in his house. He was trapped inside. In both instances, she didn't hurt him, she's just hyper, but it changed his attitude towards dogs completely.

So, on Christmas, Uncle Brian brought his dog, Lyric down from Atlanta. She usually stays out on the back deck when Eli's over, but it started to rain, so Brian brought her inside and put her in the laundry room. Eli had seen her in there, but I think in all the excitement he forgot. After dinner, Eli and BaBo were playing a variation of hide and seek with the sliding dining room door while the rest of us were playing Apples to Apples (a great game) in the adjoining living room. Eli shut BaBo in the dining room, ran down the hall to hide in his second favorite room, the laundry room. We all heard a terrifying guttural scream coming from down the hall. Scott and I got up and ran to Eli -- I don't actually remember the trip there, I think I was preparing myself for all the awful scenes that might be awaiting me. The first second that I saw Eli I didn't even remember that Lyric had been in the laundry room, and I couldn't figure out why he was standing in a corner screaming.
We pieced together later (from Eli's own account) that Lyric had not touched him, licked him or even sniffed him. Eli said she pushed past him so that she could go find Uncle Brian. He said he loves Lyric when she's outside. But, after a day of excitement and over stimulation we decided to head home.

Catching Up On Christmas: Christmas Eve

I'm way behind! I have so much great blog material, but I've just been occupied with all of the holiday festivities and recovering. Yesterday, I finally started feeling like myself. It turns out it was bronchitis, which makes a lot of sense, and makes me feel better. It explains the flare up, they put me on antibiotics and steroids (which make you gain weight -- oh well).

So, back to Christmas Eve. We spent Christmas Eve with the Moores at our house. In the past, we've done it at their house, but this year I'm having an especially hard time breathing at their house, so we decided to play it safe and do it here instead. We had a really nice time, and we are all incredibly spoiled rotten, especially Eli.

Here are Dendi and Eli in the sea of presents:


Andrea, Jason and BaPa with their presents--



Eli with two of his favorites of the night. His Elmo CD player, that came with four "CD's" that he can open, close and play all by himself. And, his Thomas Duplo trains that he can use with his train set he already has.




The requisite pictures in front of the tree. *Note -- We broke down and bought an artificial tree after putting the live one outside so I could breathe. Eli was really sad to see it go, and was a little slow to warm up to the fake tree. But, all's fine now, and it was definitely nice to have some sort of tree for the festivities.




These are our fairly sad attempts at family photos for the evening, which was why we took a picture without Eli in front of the tree.



We started the evening early, and so we were done by 7:30, which was really nice. Eli definitely enjoyed Christmas this year, but it's still a lot of excitement and stimulation for a two-year old. So, the wind down time was much appreciated. Here's a few pictures of the tree that night and a few of Eli and Daddy relaxing and reading one of his new Elmo books.

ABC Scrabble and Bye Bye Live Trees

Eli continues to love playing with the Scrabble board and letters. It's at the top of his toy rotation with his Duplos, puzzles, books, alphabet stamps and toy trains. He likes to dump them all out and place them one at a time carefully on the board. The other day the game mutated a little. On his own accord, he decided he wanted to do the whole alphabet, first he found all the A's, then all the B's, etc. It actually turned into a good game, because Scott and I were worried with all the playing we'd lost some of the letters. But, with the help of the chart on the side of the board, we are now ensuring on a daily basis that we have all nine A's, all two B's, two C's etc. In these pictures you can see how serious his expression is when he's concentrating, his interesting letter arrangement (he starts from the bottom of the board and works his way left to right -- keep in mind the picture of the board was taken upside down) and how Kodi likes to help. I had to pet her and love her the whole time so she didn't sit on the board or the letters.







And, now for last night's health scare. Scott and I spent about three hours at the emergency room last night for me. I'm okay, but my asthma's been really bad for several weeks now. On Thursday, I realized that my rescue inhaler was no longer doing the job, so using my allergist's standing suggestions I ordered a round of steroids and upped my maintenance inhaler to the highest dose. Now, it's always tricky with my asthma while I'm pregnant. Obviously, the baby and I both need oxygen, but I try to limit my medication intake too. So, I think I may have erred on the side of medication caution and waited too long. After having the meds that my allergist suggests when my asthma flares up for 2 1/2 days I was feeling no relief and getting worse and worse. So, we called my OB and she suggested I go to the ER. She even called ahead so they would take me seriously -- it worked. Right after taking my paperwork they whisked me back to a room, and started working on me. So, baby and I are doing welll as possible under the circumstances. They gave me IV steroids and a breathing treatment as well as checking all me and the baby's vitals. They toyed with the idea of admitting me depending on all my numbers, but they were impressed so they sent us home, and told me to triple my dose of steriods till I saw the allergist on Monday. I felt pretty good last night, and today I'm back to feeling fair. I'm dizzy and can't get my lungs as full of air as I'd like, but I'm definitely better.

All in all, this means we will probably never have a real tree in our house again. I think it was one of my main triggers, and Scott finally put it out on the back porch last night. Apparently each pregnancy is different in terms of your allergies, they can get better (as they did with Eli), stay the same or get worse (as they definitely have with this pregnancy.) So, now the live Christmas trees will go the way of candles and having fires in the fireplace. Here is the last picture taken of our tree before we took it down. :(

A Close Encounter with Santa

The Peachtree City Library has Family Night every Thursday night. I hadn't paid much attention to them, until I saw the December schedule -- they were festively themed and looked fun. Each Thursday night I had brought the idea up to Eli and he never seemed interested. I didn't push because it's one of my favorite yoga nights. Surprisingly, this Thursday night he was interested. The reason it was really a surprise was that it was a night with Santa. Last year I couldn't even get Eli in the same room with Santa. In fact, here are the last two pictures we got of Eli with Santa, they are from his first Christmas. And, as you can see he was only a little okay when I was sitting between him and Santa.




Scott thought we would get to Family Night, see Santa, and have to turn around and go home. But, actually Eli was really interested. He sat spellbound on Scott's or my lap and listened to the stories, sang songs and watched Santa. He was transfixed. On a side note, you can see his new oral fixation in the pictures. He's never been into a pacifier or his thumb, but now, within the last few months his hands always seem to be in his mouth. Trish Summerville thought maybe it started with his cold that he had in late November, helping to relieve the pressure in his ears. I think she's probably right, and now it seems to have become a little bit of a habit.






And, these are the best pictures that we got with Santa this year. This was as close as we were allowed to get. But, I figure we made a lot of progress, a close encounter with Santa this year, maybe a real picture with Santa next year.

Catch, Climb, Run and Jump

Eli's large physical movements (in teaching we call them gross motor) have improved leaps and bounds lately -- literally. He's now always jumping and running everywhere. His running has progressed past the awkward toddler gait and he can really haul now. He's funny too, on our home bound days, which my pregnancy craziness has forced us to limit, I used to worry about him getting enough exercise. But, I realized that he literally runs between each activity. To the point that, throughout his hour of screen time (we've recently been forced to start limiting him now as DVDs, Sesame Street and videos on the computer are increasingly holding his attention) he likes to jump up and run across the room touch the garage door knob and report his favorite part to me in the kitchen as he runs by, as I'm usually doing dishes or cooking.


Of course, getting good shots of him running is nearly impossible, but here are two recent attempts.



The rest of the pictures that follow were all taken on the same day at our neighborhood Tot Lot. His most exciting advancement for me has been catching. I read in a toddler book somewhere that if you want to work on catching, blow up a beach ball, but not all the way. I tried that tactic this summer, but to no avail. Then, about a month ago I unearthed the beach ball again and figured I'd give it another shot. This time it clicked, I guess developmentally he was just ready (of course I'm still waiting for this to happen with potty training!) Anyway, now, if the throw is good he seems to catch it at least 75% of the time -- pretty exciting. Here are some shots of our game of catch. Interestingly he's been really good at throwing for quite some time, to the point that we've had to limit throwing in the house to foam balls. Thankfully, not only can he catch now, his aim is getting much better, too. In the pictures, notice his side arm throw.







The other thing I've noticed is that his climbing has really improved too. He's much more confident and less awkward.




And, finally these pictures are of Eli reacting to Daddy throwing the ball really high. He loves to watch people throw balls as high as possible in the air and I love to see his facial expressions.