Pajama Boy Kitty Cuddle

Eli loves his pajamas. In fact, he loves them so much, his goal most days is to stay in them all day long. He explained to me this morning that if he keeps his pajamas on he won't have to change for bed. Scott said he understands the logic, it's kind of like, why make the bed? Anyway, there's many days now that we both stay in our pajamas all day long. If we have no where to go, why not? I'm kind of glad he's a home body, when the baby comes, that'll come in handy, as there'll probably be many days where I won't want to leave the house. Here's Eli loving Kodi. She tolerates him, and he's learning.

My Wonderful Husband Strikes Again -- This time in the form of a train table...

Scott bought the wood and built this train table in about 3 hours this evening. I was amazed. He built it at his parent's house, and I just figured he would buy the wood tonight and make it next weekend. I guess I shouldn't underestimate him!

Anyway, Eli is smitten. And, I'm very excited as it organizes all his Duplos and frees up the floor space. It also provides lots of hidden storage underneath --we'll definitely be heading back to Ikea for more baskets. We also got a box spring for his bed this weekend (we had his mattress on the floor until now.) When he was getting in bed tonight he said, "Now Ewi has a big boy bed and a big boy table."

Dendi's Park, Baking Soda and Chocolate Face

Could it be? Am I actually going to catch up with all of my pictures? It's official, as of this post, there are no more pictures on my camera, or in our files to be posted. Hurray!

Before we get to the pictures, I thought a pregnancy update was in order. I'm feeling MUCH better. I almost feel like myself, I have most of my energy back. And, while I'm still nauseous about 25% of the time, that's such a huge improvement, that it doesn't even bother me much anymore. The exciting news came a few weeks ago, with an early ultrasound. I keep meaning to post some ultrasound pictures, along with this news, but enough procrastinating. The ultrasound tech said that it was probably a girl! As I said it was a very early ultrasound, so she said it wasn't a hundred percent. But, she saw "girl markers" twice, from two different angles, and after that she referred to the baby as she. Of course, come December 4, when we have the full anatomy ultrasound, we may have a sneaky boy, but that would be okay, too. So, we aren't buying anything "girl" yet, but I have had fun thinking of all the possibilities. I'll try to post some of the ultrasound pictures later.

So, on to the remaining pictures... The first few were taken at Dendi's park last weekend. There aren't many exciting action shots -- my camera ran out of batteries pretty quickly. But, you can see his mismatched Crocs. He now refuses to wear them matching. We get all sorts of comments, mostly positive ones, and some people ask us if we bought them like that. I tell them that it's his artistic expression. Grammie says it's his Berkeley coming out.

Truthfully, we would never have two pairs of Crocs in the same size, but we made a mistake when packing for Disney World this summer. We packed everything he needed for the trip, then woke him up at 5 in the morning and loaded him in the car, in just his diaper (all he'd slept in), and a blanket wrapped around him. We realized half way down to Orlando that we didn't have any shoes for him! So, our first purchase in Disney World were his pair of blue Crocs.






These next two sets are from Thursday -- a messy day. We made pancakes in the morning and because of not enough mix and old Buttermilk, we had two false starts. About half way through the long process, Eli became entranced with breaking up the lumps in the Baking Soda. While my initial reaction was to tell him to get his fingers out, I decided to let him play. It made him happy and kept him occupied while I wrestled with the pancakes.





Then, in the evening, Scottie spoiled me and made me Chocolate Chip Cookies. Truth be told, he came home from work, straightened the house, made dinner, did the dishes, entertained Eli for the rest of the evening while I napped and made Chocolate Chip Cookies. I had a splitting headache all day long, in fact it lasted for almost three days, so Scott came home and took care of me. Have I mentioned that I have a wonderful husband? True to form, Eli sounded excited about the cookies, but when it came time to eat them he tried to eat the chocolate chips out of them instead.

October Pics As Promised

Okay, so here I go, playing catch up again. Maybe someday I'll be all caught up again, one can only hope...

This first batch are from the first weekend in October. We were up at the Lake House and we went for a hike. Because of my less than stellar packing job, I forgot the hiking backpack, Eli had to hike too. He did really well, especially considering his stride is about one sixth of ours.







These next two are from WalMart. Eli loves to go in the "special room" after we do our shopping. Truth be told, I'm sure he'd rather go there instead of shop, but it definitely works as a good incentive. He used to like pushing all the buttons and climbing over all the rides. And, I never had to put any money in, in fact he prefered them to stay quiet and stationary. Now, he likes the motion and the noise, so I have to come prepared with some quarters.





These next few are from a few weeks ago. He needed to take a bath, but I was finishing up loading the dishwasher, so as a way to stall, I asked him to go find his bathtub crayons. I expected him to return quickly, either with crayons in hand or telling me he couldn't find them. Instead, I was able to load the rest of the dishes in peace. And, as we all know a silent toddler isn't usually a good thing. After starting the dishwasher, I found him in the dry bathtub, fully clothed, happily drawing away.






And, his new favorite part of his bath time routine is his Bumble Bee towel, thanks Grammie! He loves it, in fact, it's often hard to get him to part with it long enough to put his pajamas on. Although, it does provide a good incentive to getting out of the tub. If left to his own devices, I think he'd stay in the tub for at least three hours.

Recent Quotes and Some October Pics

I've been jotting down cute things as he's said them. He's gotten so much more verbal in the last 3-4 months which makes communication so much easier, and life much more entertaining.

*I've been calling Eli "Pumpkin Pie" for at least a year now. We'd never really talked about it, and I wasn't even sure that he was aware of it, until our most recent trip to the Lake House in the beginning of October. Seana called him "Pumpkin Head", and he looked at her very seriously, and said, "No Ah-Yah, Ewi's Pumpkin PIE."

*He's always singing something, usually ABC's, Twinkle Twinkle or the Wheels on the Bus. The other day I noticed he was singing his own medley... He sang, "Where is Thumpkin? Dormez-vous, sonnez les matinas. Run Away." I guess they are sung to the same tune. :)

*Most of his vocabulary is fairly predictable and utilitarian, but two words that he uses frequently that make me smile are "probably" and "actually".

*If "Elmo's World" is on, he goes and gets Elmo from his room to show it to him. When we are listening to the "Mickey Mouse Club" he sits his stuffed Mickey next to the speaker. And, Big Bob the Builder and/or Duplo Bob the Builder listen to "Can We Fix It?" with us.

*When Kodi comes in from outside, or walks into the room, he gives her an explanation of his activities... "Koodi, Ewi's just playing Dupoos." or "These are just Tupperware, Koodi."

*He has definitely learned and adopted the favorite toddler word -- No. But, within the last two weeks, he now says, "No, please." It's pretty great -- gets his point across, but much more politely. It's often in an exasperated tone, but the please is still nice.

*The other day Eli and I were discussing the difference between cooking things on top of the stove and baking them in the oven. Then, he asked what was under the oven. I told him pan storage, he asked what that was, I told him that's where we put our pots and pans when we aren't using them. I could practically see the wheels turning as he pondered my response. Then, his face lit up with a smile and he said, "We have storage at the Lake House, too!" And, we do, but I have no recollection of ever using that word with him. It's funny the things he remembers.

*One morning, maybe a month ago, when we woke up, Eli asked where Daddy was. As I often do, I turned the question back on him. He said, "Daddy's at his other home. He's at tool (school) where he lives sometimes." We said the other home thing a lot this summer when we were referring to going back to our camp site or the Lake House. It's interesting how he adapted it, and I think sometimes Scott does feel like he lives at school.

***
And, now for some catch up October pictures that I found on the camera while downloading Halloween pics. I am continuing to feel better. I'm nauseous about half of the time now, which is a huge improvement on 90-100% of the time. So, maybe some day now, I'll only post current pics. As with anything, I figure better late than never.

Okay, these first few are actually from September!

These first pictures show his smile as he discovered the number 100. We got "Chicka, Chicka 1,2,3" from the library, and the end of the book introduces 100. He was very excited. Interestingly, a month later, we were visiting Scott in his classroom, and Eli was flipping through a fraction chart. I was only half listening as he read the numbers off the chart, "1, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10... etc." I find it hard to turn off the teacher in me when we visit Scott, so I was also watching the students. Then, I realized that Eli read, "one hundred." I looked down and sure enough he was pointing to the hundred at the bottom of the fraction. I don't think he had ever even said the word out loud before, and we had returned the book to the library about a month before. Again, it's funny what he remembers.





These next few are from about the same time -- the middle of September. They show him entertaining himself with his various puzzles while I make dinner. He's getting much better about that, which makes showering and cooking a lot less stressful. The next ones are Eli at the table enjoying his dinner and being a goof.






Well, Eli's woken up so I guess I'll have to add the actual October pictures later.

Halloween

Elijah's First Halloween --

He had two costumes: a dinosaur and a vampire.





Eli's Second Halloween -- He was a tiger.



Now, for last night, Eli's first trick or treating Halloween. I think we ended up hitting about six houses. We started at Dendi and BaPa's. In fact, Eli spent a few hours at their house in the afternoon while Scott and I voted. Then, we had dinner at their house, got him ready there, and trick or treated at Dendi's and about three other houses in their neighborhood. He actually wasn't too excited to go out at all. It's one of his most recent "toddler behaviors." He doesn't like change. He wants to stay wherever he is, doing whatever he's doing. But, once I convince him into going out, then he doesn't want to leave there either. Also, I think he thought that trick or treating meant getting a lot of candy that he didn't like. Once he started to realize that most houses offered at least some chocolate he started rushing from house to house. Until, a creepy house, complete with smoke coming out of a grave, a large stuffed ghoul sitting on the porch and spooky music and sounds convinced him that trick or treating wasn't so fun after all. Then, we decided to head on to our next stop.






Then, we went to trick or treat at our next door neighbor, Madeline's house. He climbed up on her porch chair to ring her doorbell. He's very comfortable on her porch and at her house now. In fact, he tried to let himself in to play. We said we'd come back to play another time.





Then, it was on to Grammie and Grandpa Paul's house. We trick or treated there and then stayed for the rest of the evening to eat some candy, share some with Grammie, hang out and play.