Happy New Year!

I've been neglecting our blog again. Not that too many people out there particularly care, which is actually a really good thing because I don't think I could take that kind of pressure from the nebulous blogosphere. My friend Sarah, for example, goes offline for a few weeks and seriously gets hate mail. Apparently she owes it to the world to say something witty every few days.
That's why it's all baby photos and long-winded space dialogue around here. We're only looking for a bare click-in, click-out following.
But here is the thing, sometimes life just get in the way. I wish I had some crazy fun reasons that I have been away, like a fun trip or huge party I have been planning or something, but really my only excuse is my 11 month friend whose energy never seems to dwindle. There are days I feel like I could go to sleep at 730. Eli still cant quite figure out that waking up before 530 just isn't right! No matter what time he goes to bed at night that little alarm clock goes off at the same time every morning. But I just cant help but smile when I walk in his room to sweep him up, with his huge smile, and his arms up reaching for me as hard as he can! And speaking of his big smile, he has started making the funniest grin, ear to ear, smiling so hard his eyes are almost shut. It gets me every time...after each bite of a meal, at strangers, at plants, at the check-out lady at HEB, while he is staring out the window at the cars driving by. I'm not sure where it came from, but here is a little glimpse...

I just want to eat him up!
The last few mornings have been particularly difficult as Eli has decided that 330am is a good time to wake up, and then again at 430, and then again and 5, and heck, since its already 5, might as well get up for the day! I'm not sure what is going on here, but my mantra is This is just a phase, it will pass....
I'm hoping he was just been playing a mean trick on us and things will turn around for us starting tonight, and we are going to start the new year out right, and restfull, and through the night, and restful!!!

We plan to stay in tonight for New Years, cuddle up in our pj's and watch some re-runs of 30 Rock. I know that I have my two precious boys at home safe with me, what more could I ask for. We will toast to the new year before I go to bed (waaay before midnight)with a glass of champagne and Blaine promised to come wake me up and kiss me at midnight. Perfect!!

Happy New Year to Everyone!!!

Is it fall?

Would you believe me if I told you that Blaine raked our yard TWO days ago!!??!!??

A Sigh of Relief

Today is a big day. For me anyway. I am hanging up my pump (it makes me a little bit giddy just thinking about it!). This morning was my official last pump! Over the last 11 months, I have spent more than 400 hours attached to that pump, washed over 3,500 bottles and pump accessories, donated over 300 ounces of milk to The Mothers Milk Bank and managed to somehow exclusively feed Eli breastmilk. Phew. There were days where I felt like this day would never come. What to do with all my free time!

Every Tuesday, Rachel has the day off and she always comes over. She is one of Eli's favorite people!!! Here is his face when she walks in the door...

And this is how she entertains him.......

(his new favorite spot in the house, this windowsill, watching people walk by, cars drive by, and squirrels running across the yard)

Can you see it?

If you look real, real close you can see the snow...okay, so maybe you cant see it, but Eli saw his first official "snow day."


You can tell how excited he was by the look on his face...similar to the look on his face during his first bubble bath, only that time it ended in tears and complete fear! I was so excited, thinking he would love a bubble bath, and that he might even be mad at me for holding back such a wonderful thing, but quite the contrary! We sat him down in the bath, he wouldnt even put his hands in the water, he held them above his head, as far away as he could from the bubbles, looked up at me and Blaine with complete fear in his eyes....and then came the tears. I swooped him up and put him on my lap dripping wet so we could drain the tub and put in fresh water. Anyone that has taken a bubble bath knows how hard it is to get rid of all the bubbles. I was scooping them out with a cup, pushing them down the drain, they were relentless! Bathtime last night was a wash, Im just hoping he isnt scarred from the experience. We will try again in a few months! Who doesnt love a bubble bath???

Ode to Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving! It is by far my favorite holiday--the food, the time with my family, the weather, the food, and reflecting back on the last year and all that we are thankful for. Especially this year, I feel we have so much to be thankful for! I look forward to this day all year long! And somehow, every year, I always forget how exhausting the weekend is, albeit its a wonderful weekend, but busy, and long and glutenous! My parents work so hard to make the day perfect! They start cooking days ahead, and plan every little detail. The fried, smoked and kosher turkeys are just the beginning of all the cooking that takes place in that house to get ready for the 55 guests! I hope that one day I will be as good a host.
The Thanksgiving celebration actually starts Wednesday night with the making of the signature Thanksgiving punch. I live for this punch. We all gather around the biggest pot we have and help pour all the ingredients into the pot, and of course we have to taste it as we go to see what needs to be added.

Then, it went into the freezer until the morning. Yum!!!
Thanksgiving morning always starts out the same--a turkey fry in the driveway. Its a little white trash sounding, I know. All the guys come over around 8:30 or so with thier longhorn gear, and poker faces. They sit around playing poker, drinking bloody marys and frying turkeys. It has become a very serious tradition that all the guys take very serious. It is kinda a come one come all kinda deal, the neighbors come over, my counsins bring thier friends, and our good family friends all stop by with thier turkeys, even thier dogs sometimes make an appearance.

The day has just begun. The rest of the company started to trickle in around 1pm. All of our family and friends come over. The guys were upstairs watching football, the kids were playing outside, and everyone else wasjust visiting, eating, relaxing and eating.

Unfortunatly, Blaine had to go to work on Thanksgiving Day this year. But it wasnt so bad, because we made a trip to the fire station to see him, along with all the other families coming to visit thier dads. Blaine not being there did make the day a tad more difficult, of course because we missed him, but because there were no "Daddy to the rescue" breaks. Not to mention the fact that Eli decided napping was over-rated this weekend and sleeping through the night was soooo last week!







But we had a great visit and watched the guys scramble around the kitchen to finish up thier Thanksgiving dinner.

Friday morning Eli, my mom and I went to visit with Eli's friend Sophie who was in town from Atlanta for Thanksgiving. Eli's Aunt Dinky (Sophie's grandmother) made them matching hats--are they not the cutest???



Later than day Susu (Eli's Great God mother) and Sara and Nicole came over to visit. Sara and I have been friends basically since birth, and how lucky I feel that we are still friends. We even had matching pillows that we slept with-Patty Patch and Suzie Snoozie!
We close our our Thanksgiving weekend with what we call Polachinka Palooza! Polachinka's are a thin pancake, kind of like a crepe, only we put jam or peanut butter inside them. The family comes over to our house for breakfast and eats polachinkas--they are so delicious and a favorite of mine. When we were younger we went to Maw's (my grandmother) house for polachinkas, but now that she isnt cooking as much, it has moved to our house. Maw would sprinkle Wombly Dust into the batter before making them (a sercret, magical dust!!!).



Maw, who went to Guliard and studied Oprah sang for us at breakfast, it was magical and sweet!


Look at my new shirt!!! Thank you Waxmans!!!
Oh, did I mention that somewhere in this madness Eli figured out that he could walk?!?!? Let me clarify...holding onto anything that moves, a stool, a chair, a toy, and table, and he just navigates around the house. Of couse I have video and pictures of the rest of the weekend but my computer crashed three days ago and I am unable to get to anything on my computer (booo!). I plan to post more pictures when I get my computer back from the Geek Sqad. I was getting antsy hanging onto this post so I went ahead and posted it! Check back for more pics!

Haircuts and pointer fingers

I really didn't think I would be one of those moms who was emotional about their baby's first haircut. And to some extent I'm not.....but when we walked out of the hair salon, I became a mess. Not so much because I saw his precious, first baby hairs being cut off but because his hair was a mess!!!!
I distinctly remember my worst haircut (not counting the haircut my grandmother gave me when she was babysitting me when I was 3). I was a sophomore in college living in Little Field apartments with my roommates Laura, Natalie and Ashley. It was the afternoon before a big Zeta party. I walked in the door, and just as my roommates started to say things like "your hairs looks so good...." i didn't hear the rest....tears just came rolling down my face, I think I threw my bag on the kitchen table yelled something like "i hate it! its terrible" and got in the shower and cried. But I think I was more upset about Eli's bad haircut. It was about an inch too short in the front, crooked all over, and fell flat on his forehead making him look like he glued his hair to his forehead. I think Eli could have done a better job cutting his hair.



There were minimal pictures taken the two weeks following his haircut. But I guess the first was a memorable one. We did get a cute little certificate and a baggy of his little hair. I wasn't emotionally ready for the first haircut (its such a big-boy thing!) but when we started getting comments like "she is so cute" we thought it was time to trim the hair, it was half-way down his nose and in his eyes.

We make a lot of unnecessary trips to places like the grocery store, Target, Costco, Starbucks just to get out of the house. So in an effort to do something different and perhaps educational, Eli and I made a trip to The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. Bummer. Maybe I should have thought about the fact that it was "winter" and no flowers would be in bloom. But we had a good time and looked at a lot of green plants that we could have just seen in our backyard for free...oh, and rocks and leaves!




As of late, Eli has bloomed into this happy, observant, energetic little guy. The cutest little pointer finger points at just about everything--every speck of dust or crumb on the floor, every mole on Blaine's chest, every bubble in the bathtub, every flower or bird that comes into sight and every light switch or doorbell we pass. It has made me realize I may need to clean the floors more often! He has also taken a keen interest in balls, the bouncy kind. We took him to Academy last week and as we passed the big basket of balls he pointed at them and started to cry as we walked away from them. We passed them again, and the same thing happened, so we got him one and brought it home. Holy potatoes, he LOVES it! He loves it so much he said his first work..."ball." It is the sweetest little sound, I just cant get enough of his sweet little voice. He points at his ball and says "ball," or if Blaine is watching basketball he points at the TV, "ball, ball, ball, ball"...I never thought I would say or hear the word ball so many times in one day!

Times are a'changing!

I have always thought that the time change was annoying, but now that I have a baby who is on a schedule that I live by, I think its down right ridiculous! You wouldnt think that one hour would make that much of a difference, but if you had been waking up at the 4 o'clock hour the last few days, you would think it was a huge difference!!! Although my days have seemed incredibly long this week, I do have a more independent baby...a mobile baby!!! He is crawling, like a machine. One day he decided he was ready to start crawling, and since then, he has picked up speed, distance and endurance!!! Blaine could not wait for Eli to be able to crawl and walk...but I think he may eat his words once he realizes that means not being able to take your eyes off of him for one second...he is pulling up on EVERYTHING...the couch, his crib, coffee tables, toys, opening cabinets and pulling everything out. Even our doctor thought he would go straight to walking and skip crawling all together, so I dont think that walking is far away.
He has been able to get himself up to a sitting position from his tummy for some time now, but he just figured out that that same trick works in his crib. So we put him down and he is back up...in seconds...sitting up, standing up, bouncing up and down. He falls down and he is right back up. He is fighting so hard not to fall asleep because he is having so much fun, and in an instant, he just cant fight it anymore.....and..... he is out!


Eli, Sophia and Henry threw thier first annual Halloween party, and it was a hit! We had all kinds of little ones dressed up...a strawberry, monkey, robot, lion, puppy...the didnt like thier costumes much but we were able to snap a few shots before they ripped them off. It was so nice to spend our first Halloween with good friends!

We have been spending a lot of time outisde this week taking advantage of this beautiful weather! One of my favorite places in Austin is the trail. I have spent countless hours down there and run the trail more times than I could count; I think I know every crooke, cranny, hill and mile marker! Eli has become my favorite running partner and we have run many miles together. Yesterday, we took some time to enjoy the weather and watch the dogs running up and down Auditorium Shores after our run.