Best looking butt I’ve ever seen…???

Yep. Hands down. I totally rubber necked too .

-Linds

Standing,standing,dancing, and more standing…

I’ve been seeing a lot of this lately around these parts:

My big boy standing so tall.

Although he’s fighting his nap here, not gonna lie, I kinda like , strike that, LOVE being greeted like this

He said to me, “mom, if I do a little jig for ya, will you get me out of this baby prison?” I told him it depended on how good it was and instructed him to “show me whatchugot”. Folks, without further ado, I give you Eli, my little master manipulator (I apologize for the quality and the email notification, mid video ):

He got out of jail free.*Sigh*.

I know somebody who’s going na-nights early tonight!

-Linds

Some new tricks…

Have I mentioned how fun Eli is lately?! Gosh, he’s hilarious. Grandma has been working with him on stuff like singing, showing us how big he is, and high fives. So far he’ll sing on cue and follow your example, (we really need to work on melody though) occasionally give high fives (ok, so maybe some are low fives and I have to chase his hand) and sometimes mimic me smacking my lips. This evening I got a few new tricks on video, including him showing how big he is, doing strawberries with his tongue and lips (is there a real name for this skill? I have no idea what to call it but you’ll know what I mean when you see it in the video. It’s how he sassed me in the last video) and waving.

Oh and guess what else he did for the FIRST time today thanks to the off limits, (so therefor very tempting) remote?? He pulled himself up to a standing position against the couch to reach for it! I was like, “wow, what a long arm span. I could have sworn I made sure it was out of reach next to me.” Then I lean forward to see that he was no longer kneeling on the floor reaching, but STANDING!! Ahhhh! Aaron and I joke that we could probably get him to walk by tomorrow by dangling that dang remote out in front of him just out of reach . “Heeeerrree fishy fishy fishy”….Ha ha. Remember? It was the remote that got him to crawl for the first time!
Ok, enough excitement for one night. Na night folks.
-Linds

Comfy??

I’d like to know how this could possibly be comfy??!?! He is out.cold.

Hmmm. Some things I’ll never know.

-Linds

Excuuuuuuse me mister?!

It’s started. And it’s so soon! I thought these things happened around 2 years old. You know, the whole terrible twos thing? Eli sassed me today. He kept crawling away from me into “no-babies” land and I kept telling him “no” and dragging him back. Well this is how he responded to that:

Little stink pot is right! So stinkin’ cute though so I’ll let this one slide .
In other news, he’s completely, 100%, mobile now and into everything. This is his favorite spot lately. I’m just waiting for him to crawl right in:

Ha ha. He is SOOO fun! And showing a TON of personality these days

I must say, being a “cautious” momma, this helmet thing turned out to be a blessing in disguise . I used to joke with Aaron before getting pregnant about wanting my kid to wear a helmet while on a bike or anything “dangerous”, and he’d jump straight to “well if you could have your way, you’d just have him wear a bubble suit 24/7.” Well, now that you mention it…. I kid, I kid! Well sort of. Now I tell him that God was just answering the desires of my heart by forcing him to go along with a safety helmet because it’s prescribed by a doc. Ha ha ha. I get a lot of eye rolling from him..I don’t know why .

Alrighty, back to enjoying this awesome 70+ degree weather in March! Happy St. Patty’s day to you all.

-Linds

Project reveal…

Ok, thanks for being patient with me as I finished up my latest project. I’m happy to report that it is all done, and hung up . My friend from work Jen guessed it right as being a growth chart. Atta girl! (Thanks to those of you who humored me and played along in the guessing game ) I have thought about wanting to get Eli one of these for a while now, particularly before he turned 1. Like I said, I searched Etsy for personalized ones and they were around $50! So I decided to just tackle it myself. I stuck with his airplane/Mickey themed room but also added a bunch of color to it so it could grow with him and not always look like it belonged in a nursery. I wanted it to easily go into a big boy room when the time comes. (ahhh! I can’t think about that!) I had just bought a bottle of stuff that makes acrylic paint into fabric paint so I decided to use fabric for mine. I could have ordered a vinyl decal one I suppose, but we will be moving into a bigger house as we expand our family (God willing) and I obviously wanted this thing to be able to go with us.
Now the reason I said that I could have jacked it up many times and was surprised I didn’t was because I free handed all the lettering, airplane, and Mickey Mouse. And even though I started by sketching it on the fabric in pencil, being that it IS fabric, I couldn’t erase it. (I tried to in one spot and thank God it was in an area I was able to paint over! It just smears into a into a big ol’ smudge mark, and doesn’t really go away) So I held my breath and jumped in feet first hoping for the best. I worried that I’d get it all sketched out and then mess up painting it or something. (I used to draw cartoons a lot when I was little, especially Garfield and Goofy. I would use a picture as a reference, as I did in this case, and go from there but I hadn’t drawn in yeeeeeears so I felt pretty rusty.)

This was the fuller pic of the teaser I gave you yesterday. I had to crop it more because I realized with his mouth in the pic, it was super obvious who I was drawing. Sneaky, sneaky sir. Ha! I had just outlined Mickey in black marker paint and filled in the black areas with the acrylic paint at this point. (Don’t worry, I went back and outlined that top part of his hand that I missed near his back. Did you even notice it until I pointed it out?)
Then I proceeded to paint the rest:

Bottom of chart

Top of chart

The whole thing. Ta Da!

Eli wasn’t havin’ it.

I started it at 24 inches and it goes up to about 6 foot 5in. My plan is for every birthday, I will measure him against the chart, mark it, and put a birthday picture next to the spot. I tried to leave a lot of “blank” white space so the pictures would fit next to the measurement. I’ve never seen a growth chart like that so who knows if it’ll even work out but it sounded like a cute idea in my head . I don’t know, kids grow quite a bit from year to year right, so I won’t have a cluster of pics all in one spot, will I? Ha ha. We shall see.

And there you have it!

Thanks again Jac for the “blank canvas” that was just itching to be drawn on. (You know me and blank paper, LOVE!)

-Linds

New craft project…

So I’m pretty excited about the new project I’m working on for Eli because I’ve been wanting one of these things for him for a while now. I checked on etsy and on average they go for $50. FIFTY buckarooskies?!?!!? Are you kidding me!? Not on your life. Operation I-must-make-my-own-for-free commence. If you know me, when I get a “vision” in my head about how I want something to turn out, it can be a miserable process until I see it through. Well so far, everything has gone without a hitch when there could have been a lot of set backs and troubles. Yay me! I’m thisclose to being done with it so hopefully I’ll do the big reveal tomorrow, but we’ll see. Just one last step to take care of and now that I’ve jinxed myself…
Here’s a preview of what’s been involved, and a shout out to my wonderfully understanding hubby, for allowing our kitchen to be a disaster zone for a few days and to my girl Jac for giving me her left over “black out” fabric she used for her kiddo’s curtains. Thanks lovies!

Can’t do a craft project without my beloved coffee drink. Hello Lova

So? Any guesses? What in the world could it be using fabric, and paint, but not exactly be a sewing project…?
Hmmmm…..
Night yall,
-Linds

Houston, we have a CRAWLER!!!

Ruh roh. He’s got places to go and people to see. Move outta the way people!

Each time I’d grab my phone to catch this milestone, he’d get distracted by a different toy and get detoured. So finally I put his beloved, off-limits remote in his path/line of vision and finally success!
On a completely unrelated topic, I took Eli over to his buddy Parker’s house today so that he and I could visit with our friends and it turned out to be a bust—for the kiddos, anyway. Jac and I still had fun catching up and sewing. But listen to this: I leave the house at 9:45am so that Eli can just take his morning nap in the car and finish it up at her house in his car seat (it usually works like a charm). Well that didn’t happen, he stayed wide awake, Doh! So on to plan B. I figured Parker still had about an hour left of his nap (because he goes down from 9-11am) so I’d try to get Eli to nap in Parker’s pack-n-play for the next hour. Nope. Although he was quiet in there and I thought he had gone na nights, I peeked my head in just to confirm and I see him sitting up, right at the edge of the thing, staring at the closed door! Ha ha. I immediately started laughing but became bummed when I realized it’s now 11am and he STILL has not taken a morning nap (translation: crabby baby in about 2 seconds if momma does not act fast) and now Parker was awake! Grrrr. So Parker lets us borrow his crib and I finally get Eli to nap…for 2 hours. Again, Doh! When Eli finally wakes up, Parker goes down for his afternoon nap. Sigh. Play date = fail.
Whelp, needless to say, the kiddos did not get to play together today as we left for home just as Parker was waking up from his second nap. It was like we only had one kid between us. Ha ha.
I just thought it was a funny story.
Ok, time to end this thing so Auntie Stephie and grandma can see the video already.
Toodles!
-Linds

Play date with the twins…

Periodically, Eli, Grandma and I will stop by to visit the twin boys that live in the same town as my mom. I met them and their mother shortly after they were born and I was just about due to have Eli. They are a little over 2 months older than Eli so It’s fun to get them together and swap stories. Now they are of an age where they semi-interact with each other. When I say “semi-interact”, I mean swap toys. Here’s a pic of the 3 of them conspiring:

How cute are they?!?

That’s Marshal next to Eli, and Jensen is on the end. I deserve a medal for getting a “decent” pic of these 3 movers and shakers! NOT an easy task, ha ha.

They are all about the same size but the twins are crawling and able to pull themselves up to a standing position. Here Eli is introducing the boys to his buddy Gerry.

Eli and I can’t wait for spring/summer to get here so that we can test out our new wagon from grandma and take it to the park .

Thanks for the play date Marshal and Jensen!

-Linds and Eli.

Mr. Mobile…

Yesterday we visited grandma and I had fun watching Eli move around, testing out his new crawling skills.
For those avid hunters out there, I’m gonna share the highly coveted, super secret, “Eli method” of hunting prey. Straight forward is over rated. Check out his stealth move here, that potato never even saw him comin’:

I bet you couldn’t help but root for him could you? Ha ha. Did you shout out “VICTORY!!!” at the end like I do every time I watch it?? No? Just me?
ok, off to have a craft day with my friend Leslie. My plan is to make Eli some shorts for our May visit to Virginia, and a sun hat or two since unfortunately, this kid takes after me in the “white” department.
Hope you have a great Sunday!
-Linds

My baby is EIGHT months old!!!

And let me tell you, a goooood time! He is so fun and entertaining. The more his personality develops, the more exciting this whole growing process has been. His daddy and I get a kick out of pointing out the different characteristics he has of each of ours. For ex: He has his momma’s startle reflex (sorry kiddo), curiosity, and sense of humor, and daddy’s inability to understand the word “gentle”, his cheek dimple, and ability to curl his toes around stuff—just to name a few. Neither one of us will lay claim to Eli’s man farts or burps but I think we all know that goes without saying. *cough*he’s-a-boy*cough*

It amazes me how lean this kid is because you should see how he eats! He never did the “tablespoon” portion at first. He stops eating when I stop feeding him!

How’d this pic get in here? Oh yeah, he has momma’s long legs

On to his stats:

Size: Well we don’t go back to the doctor until his 9 month well visit so I don’t have a lot to tell you here other than when I see him in other people’s arms I think to myself “dang, look at the size of that toddler!” and nursing him in our usual nook of the couch is getting cramped. He’s mainly in 9 month clothing and he’s back to being flat footed in his jumper since daddy raised it last month. He’s about to be too long for the 0-9month sleep sacks that he wears to bed so I’m now in the market for “big boy” jammies. Also I’ve moved him into size 4 diapers since that’s what I had in the house when we ran out of size 3’s and they fit him well.

Likes: eating, swimming, playing peek-a-boo, being around people, his car seat, and did I mention eating???

Dislikes: being overtired, people eating in front of him and not sharing, being put down for a nap when he’s “not ready”.

Feeding: I’m assuming you read my previous post about him eating everything and anything? Well, at this point, it seems nothing is off limits (I’ll take it!). It continuously amazes me the things he is willing to try and continues to eat. I don’t want him to be a picky eater like me, (I’m getting way better as I get older) so I’m exposing him to a wide variety of foods. Just to name a few new ones: green beans, parsnips, mango, broccoli, chicken, and turkey. I do a mixture of organic jars of baby food and homemade. We still nurse like usual, but now he’s getting 3 big boy meals a day as well. If we skip a meal, I don’t sweat it because of the fact that he still nurses regularly.

Sleeping: He does very well in this department and typically does 10-11hrs straight before waking up to eat and then goes back down for 2-3hrs more. This means he goes to bed around 6:45pm (his choice) and gets up around 4-6am, then up officially between 7-8am. The other day he slepted from 7pm-7:30am without needing an early morning feeding! So I know he can do it. He now sleeps in a wide variety of positions including belly and side. For the first 7months of his life he slept only on his back, turning his head side to side, and then all of a sudden, this week has tried out every sleeping position imaginable:

<<Laying on his side with his feet propped up on the side rails.

Laying on his belly with his butt propped>> up in the air. Not gonna lie, I woke up Aaron to see this one
Milestones: Well most of you already know from previous posts but Eli has now sprouted not one, but TWO teeth. He gets around by scooting on his butt (this allows him to go forward) or on his belly (to go backward) and then rolls back and forth (to go sideways) so needless to say, he gets where he wants to go even if it isn’t via the conventional “crawling” method. He is however, up on all 4’s doing the rocking thing.

Not the greatest pic but you can see his 2 teeth on the bottom here.

There you have it!
-Linds and Eli