Eli's second christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday spent with those you love. Eli once again was spoiled! He got some pretty cool things including a rocking horse, clothes, books, ornaments, vtech lap top, little foldable chair and a cute Mickey Mouse table and chairs which he's already taken a liking to! I was cleaning up the kitchen this evening and usually if I'm not paying attention to him, he's wrapped around my leg trying to GET my attention but for once he wasn't and it was really quiet. Uh oh, where's Eli and what's he up to? I go into his bedroom and he was just sitting at his table playing with his blankie. It was the cutest thing :) Here is a pic I snapped of him just chillin' with his markers securely in his fist (you can write on the table with dry erase markers) and his new car steering wheel that plays music, sitting on top:

It dawned on me the night before our family gathering on Saturday that I didn't have a Christmas outfit for him so I frantically went to my craft room to see what I had on hand. I found a blue plain t-shirt hanging in his closet, grabbed the baby legs from his outfit last year to attach to the arms to make it long sleeved and then made Rudolph out of felt to appliqué to the tee. Here it is up close:

To complete the look, I tied jingle bells to his shoes. This served 2 purposes, 1) it got people into the christmas spirit and 2) I always knew where he was :) 

Here he is grooming himself in the mirror, getting ready for the party

 

My little stud all ready for another family gathering

 

On Sunday we went to my dad's side where we got to meet my cousin's son Tae who's the same age as Eli. They were so cute! The minute Eli entered the room Tae walked up to him with open arms ready to give him a hug!  I melted. Here's a pic of the 2 kiddos with a couple of my other cousins:

 

How cute is little Tae??

 

Alrighty, back to the grind tomorrow so I better get myself to bed. Na night all.

 

-Linds

Eli has started tumbling class

Now that Eli is a fully mobile, rambunctious, typical toddler, I've been looking for activities for him to get into to keep him entertained. He does pretty well playing by himself but I think we both go stir crazy staying at home all day. We. Need. To. Get. Out. Of. The. House! Ha ha ha. I'm pretty sure Joanne Fabrics is starting to expect our daily visits :)

Here are some pics of Eli at his tumbling class. It's a little room full of padded trampolines, swings, ball pits and ramps--A little boy's dream! If I'm going to be honest, I'd recommend starting a class like this when the child is closer to 2 years old. Eli is the youngest in his class (with all the other kids around 2 or a little older) and veeeery easily distracted-- SQUIRREL! The instructor said this is normal for this age but then it becomes more of a tumbling class for ME bending, lifting, twisting, and dragging him back to the task at hand, ha ha. Oh well. They also dance and sing which is pretty darn cute too. Speaking of which, now I have one of their songs stuck in my head, "Shake, shake, shake our sillies out…"

Crawl through the tunnel

stop and listen for directions...

Take time to chat (stare, whatever) with the ladies...

Stretch time. Eli touching the ground, momma wishing she could touch her feet...

Swingin'

With his teacher as they rocked back and forth singing "Row row row your boat..."

 

So fun! It's pretty neat to watch the older kids who've been in the class a while doing all the activities and singing along with the words. Eli is nowhere close to that but I have hope that he'll get there :).

Ok, he's asleep, now it's time to spend some quality time with daddy. Night y'all!

-Linds

My big boy is getting so independent!

 

I'm trying out a new blogging tool called "MarsEdit". I'm not sold yet. Luckily they offer a 30 day trial period so I can see if I like it or not. I feel Windows Live writer was so much more self explanatory which is what this computer illiterate needs. Ugh! I hate learning curves! So bear with me as I learn the ropes.

 

A couple things about the video, 1.) He stole my spoon and would not give it back, hence the ginormous spoon he's using instead of a baby spoon, and 2.) Not sure why he's using his left hand to eat. So far he switches back and forth and hasn't shown any particular hand preference yet. And have I mentioned how crazy I am about this kid yet? Well I am.

 

Later gator,

Linds

Can't touch this...

Woo hoo! Go Eli, show us whatchu got!

Well folks, this post is going to be the last one for a while. My lap top bit the dust and my hubby talked me into getting a Mac. The problem with this is I use Windows Live Writer to do my blog posts (because doing the post IN Blogger BLOWS! I'm doing it right now for this post and already I'm about to shoot myself in the face.) Well I can't use that program with my Mac so if any of you are super computer savvy and want to help me transition to a new one compatible with a Mac, I will love you forever and ever and ever and ever. Until that day, so long my lovies. It's been a blast!

**Sniffle, sniffle**

-Linds

My smart kiddo…

This is a very fun age (16 months) when he is starting to use more words and understands SO much! I just took this video today (for you grandma):

I freakin’ love that kid.

Toodles!

-Linds

Quick update and funny story…

So the hubs and I just got back from Disney world today, sans kiddo. It was nice. Now before you get all crazy on me because I didn’t bring a kid to DISNEY WORLD, let me explain. Aaron went on business and I invited myself to tag along he lovingly said it just wouldn’t be the same going to Disney without his lady..**cough**, and asked that I go with. Now how can I turn down an offer like that??? (And that’s God’s honest truth how it went down ) .

Anyways after many days of thinking this over and doing a trial run with a one night trip to the Dells with Eli and realizing how much work it was going to be toting a running,don’t-want-to-sit-still-longer-than-a-nano-second toddler to a place that is not home, aka “baby-proofed”, I realized it was best for me to leave him at home with his favorite person, Grandma. (Do you believe me now when I say she’s the BEST grandma in the whole wide world???) I’ll just wait until he’s older to bring him with. Also by waiting, he may actually remember it and enjoy it then. That one overnighter to the Dells was a nightmare that I was not quite ready to repeat for a whole 5 days alone! (Remember Aaron wouldn’t be available to help me because he was there for business.) So Super grandma and Grandpa took him for the week (spoiled him rotten no doubt) and this momma had some relaxation time. Glorious!

Onto the part about my funny story. Let me just first say how much a kid GROWS and changes in just 5 days! WTH! He seems so much older to me. Waaah! Anyways, so tonight at dinner, Eli is finishing up his cut up lasagna (eating it all by himself with a fork), when he sees me eating a piece of chocolate and starts reaching and begging for it. I go and grab him one of his little cookies which he devours in no time and starts reaching/begging for another one which I begrudgingly give him. Finally he keeps this little business up after finishing that second cookie and I say, “ok Eli, you’re all done. You’ve had enough cookies. No more.” He immediately shuts up, closes his mouth and looks down like I just hurt his feelings. I’m like “what is he doing??” Meanwhile, I see him keeping his head down in a pout, while looking up under his eyelashes at me. What?!? Am I being schmoozed right now??? He gives a big sigh, while still keeping his eyes down cast, so I look at Aaron astonished, saying “I can’t believe he is working me like this” and I give him another cookie. Eli snatches the cookie out of my hand with lightning speed and gives Aaron the biggest Ha!-is-she-EASY-or-what?!? grin and starts laughing!!! I’m not even joking! When did he learn to manipulate?!?!? You should have seen the 3 of us all laughing so hard after that! Aaron says to me, “I blame that entirely on grandma!”

Oh mooooommmm, you’ve got some ‘splainin’ to doooooo….

So that was my story . You really had to be there. Here’s a pic of my little manipulator guy wearing his new Mickey hat:

This one is a little blurry, lets try another one:

It’s hard getting a pic of a moving target. Oh well.

Ok, that’s all for now. I figured I was due to check in since it had been awhile. Na Nights.

-Linds

Homemade Popeye and Marilyn Monroe costumes…

Popeye! (Disregard the toilet bowl cleaners in Eli’s hand. He wouldn’t let go of them so they had to be in the pic. And don’t worry, they’ve never been used )

My fav . Eli with his cousin Roland and his great grandparents.

My favorite part of Eli’s costume is that I didn’t have to go out and buy any supplies because I had it all on hand. Bonus! I can’t believe the amount of money people spend on Halloween. Holy Cannoli batman!

So I made his pants based off a current pair of pants that fit, the top was based off a onesie style at the shoulders so it could fit over his head no problem. For the forearms I sewed 2 tubes of fabric, stuck one inside the other and added stuffing in between the two layers and then surged the 2 bottoms pieces together so it wouldn’t come out, and then just sewed the other ends of the tube to the black top. The hat I based of this tutorial but had to essentially come up with my own pattern and measurements because I wasn’t able to download the pattern and it was for a doll anyways. As you can probably tell from the top photo, Eli’s belt is just a one dimensional piece of felt. I didn’t feel like going ALL out on a costume he wears for a few hours on one day.

As for my costume, I went as Marilyn Monroe. I wanted to do Olive Oyl to match Eli but then an adult Halloween party invite came and I thought I could still do Olive and make an adult sized Popeye costume for Aaron. But as you can imagine, after he got wind of Aldo’s costume he didn’t want to go as “just Popeye”, followed by the comment of “Jeeze babe, why do you always pick the cute or frumpy characters?? I mean Olive Oyl? What the heck?? That isn’t sexy at all. Why can’t you pick a sexy character??” Ha ha ha. Because! Because I’m not the sexy costume wearing kind of gal :/ Then we went back and forth about Aaron going as the bald assassin from the movie “Hitman” with Timothy Olyphant and I was going to go as the “sexy” brunette in the red dress. But after asking my hair professional facebook friends about dyeing my hair black for the character, I learned that my hair being so light currently would probably stain even if I did a temporary dye or spray and decided against it. Plus I convinced Aaron the “bald head” at the costume store wouldn’t turn out as cool as he imagined and he wasn’t willing to shave his head, so he decided against it as well. Sigh. Back to square one and Popeye and Olive were still an adamant “no”. This made me think to stick with a blonde character, and someone “Sexy”, and that’s how I decided on Marilyn since Aaron approved. He ended up going as Rambo :

My costume cost about $15 because I had to buy the white fabric. I definitely didn’t have 3 yards of shiny white fabric lying around. I even sewed fake boobs to shove in my dress! Ha ha. Again, I just wung this costume as well. I scoured the internet for pictures of Marilyn’s iconic white dress and tried to make it as close as possible and then just started assembling it based on my measurements. The skirt part is just a giant circle I cut out, and the halter part is a giant hour-glass shaped piece of fabric if you can picture it, that I wrapped around my neck and attached to a band of fabric around my waist. It definitely wasn’t perfect enough to wear to a gala or anything, but was great for a Halloween costume. I even dusted off my invisible zipper insertion skills and put them to work for the back part of the dress.

Overall, I think I may have picked the wrong career path. Just kidding, I love nursing but I reeeeeeallly loved coming up with the costume ideas and seeing them come to life! I feel I have so much more freedom in making costumes then actual clothes because they don’t have to be perfect. They can have “fake” aspects (ie Popeye’s felt belt) just as long as you succeed in creating the illusion of the character. Hopefully I have just as much motivation next year. I’m already feeling the pressure to come up with a great costume because Steph and I won the costume contest both years so far and people were saying they couldn’t wait to see what we would come up with this year since they loved the Shinning twins last year. Remember that one?

So if you could all start thinking of ideas and shooting them my way, I’d really appreciate it. Pleaseandthankyou .

Alrighty, that’s all she wrote! Night ya’ll.

-Linds

Homemade Lycan costume…

 Well as most of you have already seen via Facebook, Steph and Aldo were characters from the movie “Underworld”, Selene and her captured Lycan to be exact. What do you think? A pretty close likeness eh? I was impressed with Steph’s costume but they were struggling coming up with Aldo’s part of the duo when she came to me for help. “Will you help me make Aldo a Lycan costume? Puh-leeease?? I need ideas. I want it to be awesome!” Well since being the most awesome sister in the whole wide world is my specialty, I obliged .

**Warning. I fully intend to toot my own horn in the following paragraphs**

I scoured the internet for tutorials on how to make a muscle suit but couldn’t find anything. Grrr. Then I downed some coffee, (aka my crack) and got to work brainstorming ideas. You want to know my secret?? I used one of Aaron’s t-shirts and cut it up to use as the base for the suit and sewed the black fleece on top of it making sure to use slightly bigger pieces of the fleece in order to create pockets to stuff. Then I just re-sewed the shirt back together using the same seams and voila! Muscles! That’s it. I googled body builder images to see the defined muscles more clearly in order to make it look as life-like as possible.

The costume is 2 pieces, the chest/arms and the legs (I used the same method as the chest/arms by cutting up a pair of Aaron’s knit pants and using them as the pattern pieces. Thanks Honey!!) Here’s a pic mid construction with Steph modeling it for me:

Front view

Back view.

This really was a great first time muscle making project for 2 reasons, 1.) I used black fleece which is very forgiving and hides a multitude of sins (versus using spandex or lycra, gosh that would have been a nightmare!), and 2.) We were adding fur in random places so that also added extra coverage for any imperfections .

I seriously couldn’t believe the amazing luck we had with it all working out the very first take. There was no trial run or major calculations/measurement mistakes or anything! This was it!

As for the feet, Aldo’s close buddy made him stilts to walk on using wood which made him go from 5’8 to 6’5! (Funny story, when we walked into the Halloween party, everyone was in awe of his costume and as Aldo was walking by, one guy said to another, “wow, and that dude has the perfect height for that costume!”) Ha ha ha. Made my night. Illusion complete. The only thing we didn’t make was the mask, and hands (I’m not that ambitious!)

This is no doubt my proudest sewing creation . For those of you who are not on Facebook, ahem JACI, tomorrow I’ll show you the costume I made for me, followed by my son’s.

Until then, buenas noches mis amigos!

-Linds

Viking costume….

Here’s a sneek peek into the Halloween sewing madness that’s been going on at my house! Let me tell you though, it has been so much fun seeing my “visions” come to life. I reeeeally love a sewing challenge but reeeeally hate making anything twice, ha ha. (That would be why I couldn’t go into business mass producing and selling my projects.)

So my step dad Terry went to a Halloween party this past weekend and was stumped as to what he should go as. Well Aldo always calls him Conan (because he’s a big muscle-y guy for those of you who have never met him) and I was putting Eli’s toys away for the 125,267,835 time and came across the warrior hat they gave us when we did the warrior dash back in September and voila, an idea popped into my head! He should wear the hat and go as a Viking!

What do you think? Does this pic cuh-rack you up or just me?!?!…and Steph…and Aldo….??!

Ha ha ha ha ha! I’m proud of him for really getting into character

For those of you who don’t really sew, this costume is for you! The fur stole involves no sewing at all. I just measured from tip of shoulder, across his back, to tip of the other shoulder and cut out a rectangle, adding a few inches so it could hang down his arms a bit. Then just cut notches all around and a straight line up one of the long edges and a circle for his head. I tied the front together by using a long strip of fabric (felt in this case since that’s what the tunic part is made out of) and lacing it through holes I cut along the sides.

Same thing for the arm cuffs. Just cut rectangles the width of the widest part of your forearms and wrap with long 1/2in thick strip of felt to hold in place. (He just wore a beige colored long sleeve shirt under all this and black pants. He didn’t want fur for his boots but follow the same concept as the forearms). As for the Barney rubble part of the tunic, picture a brown paper bag:

with right sides of fabric facing, sew across the shoulders, leave the cut outs for the arms, and sew up the sides. All done!

Minimal sewing really. Just straight lines! . Anybody else making their costumes this year??

I changed my mind on my costume after feedback people gave me on facebook about spraying my hair black and potentially permanently staining my blonde hair so I’m sticking with a blonde character. I’ve already made it, so there’s no changing my mind now. Any guesses?

This Viking and my costume are small potatoes though compared to Aldo’s costume. I just hope pictures will do it justice because he totally creeps me out being in the same room as him. Lets just say he is completely transformed! Stay tuned….

Night loves!

-Linds

Hello?? This thing on?? tap, tap….

Hello my groupies . How have you been? I’ve been swell, thanks for asking. Momma has been busy so I’ve just been laying low and you know, helping out around the house. Lately I’ve been making sure to lay out all her pots, pans, and measuring utensils so she can see them and therefor find them easily. My thought is, what better way to know where something is then to find it right under your foot?? Amirite? Can I get an “amen” on this fine Sunday? She’s always telling me how I’m quite the little helper. Oh and you know what else helps momma while she cooks? Opening every single cupboard door within reach so she can see right in there. Saves time, really. 

Alrighty folks, I gotta run. I just wanted to pop in and say “sup” since it’s been awhile. Stay tuned to see my Halloween costume momma has been working on (and Uncle Pibe’s! I may see if he wants to trade with me since his is way cooler.) I’m excited!

Lator Gator,

Your guy Eli.

My “baby” is FIFTEEN months old!

…and holy beefcake Batman! Woo-wee, I thought that kid felt super heavy these past few months. He had a 4lb weight gain in 3 months! The doc had to even re-measure his length because it was such a big jump! This certainly explains the adult sized portions he’s been eating. And its nothing but lean muscle of course :

Show me those guns!

So here are his 15 month stats:

Size: At his 1 year well visit he weighed 19lbs 9oz, and now he’s 23lbs! He measured 30 1/2 inches before and is now 32in . This puts him in the 80th percentile for height and 60th for weight. People have told me how big he’s looking and how he looks much older than 15 months. He’s in size 5 diapers and size 12-18 month clothes.

“What?! Naked dance time? Count me in!”

Likes: Eating, exploring new nooks and crannies, the Gummy Bear song, (thanks Laura!) dancing, climbing, going down the slide at the park, pushing his stroller, having books read to him while he turns the pages (super fast!), fruit, bathtime, playing with momma’s phone, hair brushes, his beloved blankie, and hanging out with Grandma, papa, and auntie Stephie.

Getting ready to go down the slide!

“Weeee! Lets do that again!” (and again…and again…and again…)

“YYYY-M-C-A! this is fun dancing with momma!”

Dislikes: Getting dressed or diaper changes, having anything taken away from him, getting out of the bathtub.

Feeding: This kid is eating me out of house and home! I hate to think about him as a teenager! I’m so thankful though that he’s a good eater and never gives me the stink eye when I try “new” recipes on him like daddy does :/ We are still nursing (gasp!) because of me really. I’m not ready to be done with it although he could probably take it or leave it. I feel until he’s officially out of the everything-goes-in-my-mouth phase, I want to keep nursing to give him the added immunity boost from me, not to mention the the many other benefits for him AND for me. I honestly believe this is what has kept him healthy so far, (because believe me, my floors are not the cleanest and I’d be one rich momma if I had a nickel for each time he found a morsel of food on the floor and ate it, **double gasp!**) So we continue to nurse 3-4x a day (morning, nap times and bedtime.) I figure I’m saving money on not buying as much organic milk . He does drink cows milk (or rice milk, whatever I have on hand really) while he’s with grandma and I’m at work.

What? Doesn’t everyone dance naked in just skivies and tennies? How else would you show the ladies your muscles and accentuate the foot work?!

Sleeping: Thank GOD we are doing great in this department. I’ve realized that he gets up roughly the same time each day regardless of whether he goes to bed at 6:30pm or 9:00pm…. soooo 6:30 it is then! He gets up for the day between 7 and 8am and then goes down for a 2hr nap at 10am. Then he’s done with the naps. I still try to get a nap out of him at 3pm but it hasn’t happened in a long time. It’s really hit or miss with this one. Go figure. He wakes up after 13+ hours of sleep during the night and is ready for a nap by 10am yet fights the one later in the day when he’s clearly tired. I don’t get it. Oh well, he just goes down for the night early. I can live with that.

“Hey don’t think I don’t see you checking out my sweet tenders”

Milestones: We’ve mastered walking which is the preferred mode of transportation now. Thank the lord we’re past crawling being the favorite! He does a lot of running. He can now say “apple”, “hot”, “hat”, “up”, “hi”, “momma”, “dadeee”, and “papa” in the correct context. He climbs up on everything, dances, sometimes uses a fork to stab his food and stick it in his mouth, throws (his stuffed blocks), and has 2 upper molars that just popped through.

And that’s my “bigga” boy!

-Linds