All grown up

Just in case you have not yet received a Christmas card, here are the two photos (snapshots) I finally took and chose from. Yes, we took Eli to get real photos taken but since we procrastinated, as walk-ins there was NO WAY we were going to get in and the lady told us the wait was several days. Plus we wouldn't have gotten the photos for like 10 days after that, so it would have put me behind on everything. I made my 100 Christmas cards in October so I wasn't going to wait for a good photo. In my defense, I did schedule TWO appointments to get family photos made by a professional but they both were cancelled due to inclement weather (not my fault!) The photo below is the one we used.

Anyhow, these photos are fine, I guess, but doesn't Eli look like a little BOY!? It makes me sad. He has been hugging my leg over the last few days. He will be running around doing things, and then he will run over and hug my leg! It melts my heart!!

This photo was the one I liked better, because his grin is more real, but it wasn't as cute. Without that dumb pillow in front of the tree I couldn't get him to stay still long enough to get a photo. Seriously, I have a photo of NOTHING. He was in it when I pressed the button but gone by the time the photo took!! Yeah. Nothing but air. He runs really fast now, which is cute, but also annoying!

Also, he doesn't talk much (other than mama, dada and animal sounds) but he totally understands what I am saying. If I ask if he's hungry and he is, he runs over to his high chair and moves the chair out of the way to get up in it. If I ask if he wants to watch Baby Einstein (I know, sad commentary) he goes running over to the TV. If I ask him to bring me a book, he goes and picks one and brings it to me. He can point to most of his body parts, including sticking out his tongue! It's actually kind of nice that we can communicate now!

One more note... his sweater has drool on it. And in that second photo, there is actually a string of drool on his chin!! HAHAHA! There was no way around it!! We have three molars all the way in, a new tooth on the bottom to balance them out (he has had just three for weeks now!) and one more molar that is ALMOST in... This has been a long time in coming. I feel like we have been teething (with molars, ick) for months!! I am sure it's only been 6 weeks or something, but I hope we get a break now. It will be nice if the drool stops again. He didn't drool too bad with prior teeth, but these molars are horrible!