Laundry, Bath and Bed...

I will admit it--I am within a few weeks of baby two now and I was starting to get nervous. Eli is still a BABY!! I am about to have two tiny children, both of whom still need me to do everything for them. (And Eli nixed his second nap a month or two ago!) I think Eli sensed my fear and has decided to cross some thresholds into little kid-dom. I am happy, but also a little sad since it means he's growing up. Here's a few examples of what I mean!

1. Yesterday, Eli and I were playing in his room. To make a longish story short, he basically started carrying his clothes from his dirty clothes hamper into the laundry area and putting them in the open washing machine!! I guess he decided it was time to do his laundry!! It was hilarious. He carried armfuls and threw them in, and also tiny things, like a few stray socks, until it was all in. Then he pointed at it and whined, as if to say, "Okay mom, I have done my part--now you get it going."

2. Over the past few nights we have been doing something new. I can say, "Eli, do you want a bath?" He really likes them, so he promptly makes a beeline for the stairs and to the bathroom. He then opens the cabinet with toys in it and picks what toys he wants for his bath. Then he helps me take his clothes off so he can get in!! When I think it's time I say, "Eli, let's get out" and I grab the towel. He stands up, holds up his hands for me and I pick him up. No crying, or whining, just a happy boy beginning to end. Miraculous! He has also stopped crying when I brush his teeth!

3. Tonight a new first took place. I said, "Eli, are you ready to go to bed?" It was 7:25, about five minutes until his bedtime. He ran over, grabbed his blanket, and went to the stairs. I wondered what he would do. He climbed all the stairs, blanket in hand, and then walked to his room, and over to his bed. I picked him up, said, "Give mommy a kiss". He did, smooching noise and all (he is really good at it) and then I laid him down. He smiled at me as I covered him with a blanket and I said, "Night night" and left. No tears, just a little boy tucked into his crib! WOW! Maybe we will be ready for a bed before long...

Also, I thought I would throw in a few more photos from Christmas. Here's one of Eli on Santa's lap. He did pretty well!! My brave little guy! No tears from him...

While my mom was here, she did a LOT of sewing (Again! She sewed a lot here in September too) for Dora's room. Eli was fascinated and wanted to sit on her lap ALL THE TIME. He was actually really good (unlike when Mommy puts him on her lap while sewing) and sat very nicely on her lap. It was too cute to pass up. By the by, my mom made curtains, at least two blankets, the better part of two wall hanging quilts (which I finished up), a laundry basket liner, three care bear wall hangings and so on... She was a BUSY BEE!! I am almost done with everything (still working on Isadora's bed quilt)... Once it's done I will put up photos of the nursery.

I am throwing in a photo of Eli's photo shoot with my mom. He won't pose for photos with me anymore, but he would go sit down every time my mom wanted to take photos of him! Funny!

And lastly, we had Haven and Teresa and their kids here for several days. I didn't do so well with the camera, but right at the end, we caught a few shots. Here's Whit, Haven and all the kids. They actually watched them all while my mom, Teresa and I all went shopping! Nice! I think Whit did all the "heavy lifting" since when we came back, he knew Clarissa's diaper had been changed... yeah, my husband is awesome! He never shirks changing diapers. What a guy!!

Christmas in Hershey

We had a wonderful Christmas in Hershey. It has been busy, hence the lag in blogs...

Santa (aka Grandpa and Grandma Stuckey) brought Eli a neat present--Elmo's restaurant. He loves it--it talks to him and has a pizza and some other food items. It's a kitchen on one side with an oven and fridge, and a table for serving on the other side. He has played and played with it!!

Grandma and Grandpa Stuckey also brought him some new clothes--among them, the big boy pajamas he has on in these photos--aren't they CUTE!?!?!?!

After a few presents had been opened it dawned on me that I ought to take a photo of the tree in all its glory before we depleted our ridiculous bounty. My parents really went above and beyond this year; no surprise.

One of the things Santa brought in Eli's stocking was a little penguin on an "ice block" that races like a car. My parents played with it with Eli, who thought it was REALLY neat.

Whitney got a three month membership to a Karate Gym in town and can now attend classes a few times a week (3). It also came with a gi! Eli and I got that for him... He seems to be excited. He gave me a really neat wall hanging I have been wanting from this metal waterfall gallery--I will include a photo once I have it all up on the wall.

Uncle Golden and Aunt Julie came for several days and Eli really liked Uncle Golden. (He probably reminded him of dad.) There was a significant period of time where Eli ONLY wanted to sit next to Uncle Golden. Golden put up with it pretty well! Cute, huh?

You can see Golden was surrounded by the love on all sides--his lovely wife Julie on his left and Eli on his right.

One last thing here--I am including a video. Eli periodically will be in a "kissing" mood. Here he was really happy kissing my dad. My dad has been AMAZING playing with Eli this trip. Eli has been so happy to have Grandpa Stuckey playing with him. They were playing with a train set and this was right before bed. I will throw in a photo of the train set playtime and then put in the vide. I hope you can hear his cute little kissing noise on the video. He makes it really well!

Once I get my mom's photos uploaded I will post a few more.

Merry Christmas (late) and Happy New Year!!

Sledding

Here are a few pictures from our sledding escapades yesterday!









And I figured out how to load a video!!

My SUPER little Man

So my mom got Eli these pajamas when she came to visit in September, but I only just put them on him for the first time last night. He has been really sick (throwing up and upset stomach) and he was pretty miserable all day. I knew he had no idea who Superman was, but I think a cape is something that universally makes little boys feel cool or something because when I put on his superman pajamas (because he poo-ed through his other clothes! Ick!! What NASTY junk accompanies parenthood, right!? I won't even mention how gross it is to wake up to a crib full of vomit in the middle of the night--for three nights in a row--and have to wash everything like 3 times to get rid of the smell!!)

But I digress... This post is about my SUPER man, not my icky stinky man. That's another post entirely... I was going to say that when I put on his pajamas, and showed him what he looked like in the mirror, he was fascinated with the cape and kept puffing out his chest and strutting around like a little decked out rooster! It was hilarious! He was so proud of how he looked and how much Mommy and Auntie Em kept praising him! The cape is held on with velcro, so never fear that he would be sucked up into the mechanism of a jet engine or something while flying (See the Incredibles.)

Look how cute he is, though!! Can't you just imagine him swooping down and saving something? Or at least make his mom smile?

Another thing--I unloaded a box from my mom and before I could hide this bear she sent for Eli, he saw it. He LOVES big stuffed animals. This is him hugging on it, and then eying it from afar. He also tried to share his bottle with it, and put it on his Mader truck and pushed it around the living room! I have safely hidden it now, and he will be duly surprised again on Christmas morning.

Oh and please ignore the huge cow-like pregnant lady in the photos. Emma does not really listen to me when I tell her not to take photos of me!! (Not while I am all pregnancy nasty, anyway!)

So we also got some snow today, which was pretty exciting. The last time it snowed, we were driving to the airport to spend the week before and including Thanksgiving in Washington with Whit's family and it was 4:30 am, so Eli didn't really get to enjoy it. He went right back to sleep. This was really his first time to see snow since he was a little guy. He wasn't really sure what to make of it, but isn't his hat cute!!! I love it with his giraffe coat. It scrunches his face up and I think it looks hilarious!!

It is still snowing outside, so I am hopeful there will be enough to go sledding tomorrow morning (Whit's working evenings, so if there is snow tomorrow, he can take Eli down the hill behind our house. Sledding was deemed to dangerous for me to do this far along in pregnancy, so I couldn't take him while Whit was working today. :( Hopefully some cute photos from that outing tomorrow, if it works.)

Here he is trying to figure out what in the world these mittens are.

My Big HELPER!

So Eli loves to get into the dishwasher. Up until today I always emptied it while he was sleeping or in his high chair. (Or shooed him off over and over.) Today though, he brought me a plate--one of his from the dishwasher. Then he brought me another. And another... I realized he's helping me! So I let him! He helped me unload the entire dishwasher--cute huh!?

Bridget

Water Fountains...

Eli likes to drink from water fountains now, which is not really a surprise, since he LOVES to drink from cups. Not sippee cups--he hates those. He loves drinking from water and gatorade bottles and real cups. He will scream for yours at a meal if you don't give him his own. What a cute little brat!
It's too bad you can't see his shirt--Whitney surprised me yesterday and bought me two holiday shirts for Eli from the Gymboree outlet (it's right by our house). He went and got them with Eli while I was taking a nap. His shirt says, "Santa's little helper". :-)

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!

Eli's Hideout

So I totally forgot about taking these photos until I read Cassidy's post earlier today. They are from back in November about two or three weeks ago... Eli loves to squish himself into this tiny little place between our laser printer and my tax paperwork under Mommy's desk. He usually has trouble getting back out, but if I can't find him and I hear him, that's where he is! I thought it was funny, so here are some photos of him hiding there. You can tell these are old because he's in shorts!

Also, here are two shots that are really cute, I think, but that clearly show I am a horrible mother!! I made cookies around the same time as the pictures above on a Sunday after church--and Eli was being a mess. He loves to sit in the kitchen chairs like a big boy--but when I put him up there he could see the cookie dough. So, I caved. I gave him a spoon and then my kitchen aid attachment to suck on! Turns out he takes after his father in looks, and his mother in his sweet tooth--he loves cookie dough!! Sad, but cute, right? Please don't report me to CPS!

You can tell in this one that the sugar is kicking in. He is so happy! Egads, what a mess he made with the dough, though.

Daddy be a Horsey...

So my dad always let us ride around on his back when we were kids and there was this little song we all liked "Daddy be a Horsey." The other day I was talking to Whitney about it, and I guess it gave him an idea. So, I came into the family room to see what was going on when I heard Eli laughing uproariously today... This is what I saw!

You can also see the exersaucer we picked up used for little Isadora. Eli never had one, but I hear girls like the saucers better than the jumperoo, so I will let her try both.

But I digress--Pretty cute, huh? Eli was screaming and having a great time!! If you want to see videos, you can check out the family websites. I can't load them on here!

Also, we rearranged my hobby room today--Whit built me some cabinets underneath an overhang to put my stuff in so I have so much more room!! (We are giving our old bookcase to Emma since she's moving into her own place soon.)

Christmas Tree

We found a Christmas tree on Monday night and then decorated it and put up the rest of the decorations on Tuesday... Here are a few photos!

Doesn't Eli look cute? He was really excited!

I am so glad we get real trees--they make the whole house smell so good!! Eli got a cough, which has been making him throw up at night (DELIGHTFUL!) and so it's nice to have something that clears out the smell of vomit! Ick!

You can't really see the top of the tree--but since I don't have a star, I made a pathetic little bow to put up there. I may have to break down and buy a star!

Rebekah's 1st Birthday and More Moses Lake

Okay so we had too much fun over Thanksgiving (setting aside the flying experience--at WHAT point is that supposed to improve!?) for a single post. So now I am updating you all on the Second Part of our trip. This part actually includes Thanksgiving itself!

But the night before Thanksgiving, Ivin and Christina came with their two adorable daughters--Ivie and Rebekah. We had the luck to be there for Rebekah's one year birthday! Christina brought a CUTE WALL-e cake, and we had a great time.

Eli loved Rebekah's toy table...

And Rebekah really liked the cake...

Apparently the sugar rush helped her sleep through the night, too!

Grandpa Baker had a great time sharing his sweets with Eli.

Whitney's family came over to his parents' house--30 people!! His poor mom was hostess for a lot of people--I just realized we never took a photo of all the pies! We had a pie contest and had a lot of entries. Whitney's apple pie was as good as ever, but his experimental pie (cherry apple) actually won an award. My lattice cherry pie won best crust, too and my pumpkin pie won "most traditional". Whit's aunt Lori got the overall best pie, though, for her unique and delicious apple.

I am going to toss in a few photos here--my favorite is the one of 4 generations of Baker men--Great Grandpa Thurn, Grandpa Hugh, Whitney and Eli! Cute, huh!?

Also fun is a photo of Whit, his brother Ivin, and a cousing in law, Ty. I am lucky to have such a HOT husband!! :-)

I thought the one of Hugh and Grandma and Grandpa Baker was special... We were really glad they drove all the way up from Oregon for Thanksgiving--and we are spoiled they live close enough to the Hugh Bakers to come up for a short trip, too. Great to see you both!!

Finally, here is a photo of Whit's cousins and his other cousin's (James) brand new daughter! Note how peacefully she is sleeping--like we hope little Isadora will do a LOT in the near future...

Thanksgiving and Trip to Moses Lake

So, we went out to Moses Lake the Friday before Thanksgiving (a week early). We flew into Seattle, and spent some time with Whitney's brother Ivin and his adorable family and then drove out to Moses Lake for a few days, and for the Thanksgiving celebration.

I have been eagerly awaiting the first snowfall of the season out here in Hershey, because Eli was too young to really appreciate it last year. I bought him a hat and mittens and snowboots so we could really go play in it--except our first snowfall came the morning we left Hershey! I had Whitney snap a photo of it snowing on our way out the door to the airport! What lousy timing. Oh well, it's supposed to be a snowy winter, or so I hear.

So, there is a cute video of Eli with his favorite toy at Grandma and Grandpa Baker's, this little popper, but I don't know how to add videos!! So, you will have to check it out at http://www.bakerfamily.net/ or http://www.thestuckeyfamily.net/ if you're interested. Those are our family websites.

Eli learned to climb up into chairs on this trip. I blame this discovery on Grandma and Grandpa Baker's house having a few cute tiny little chairs, like this rocking chair! Eli loved it. He also loved to stand on it, which we discouraged. Doesn't he look cute!? He was getting new teeth so he's been really drooly!

Also, we are learning some new things--like "Where is your nose?" He will touch his nose. Unfortunately, my camera does not have an amazing shutter speed so this was the best shot of that I got... He is on his way to touching his nose.

We went to Moses Lake in November of last year, too, so Eli technically saw the family horse, Babe and some goats then, but he was so little he didn't really remember it at all!! So, this was his first time to see a horse, and goats up close, too. He had a great time the first time he saw Babe. He kept screaming with excitement and clapping his hands. Mom wasn't on the ball enough to have her camera then, so we have some photos from the second time he saw Babe! And the first time he saw the goats.

Grandpa Baker took Eli and Whitney and I out to see the goats one morning too, and I thought some of the photos from that trip were pretty cute... Here is Eli listening to Grandpa Baker...

Here is Eli helping feed them...

And here he is trying to order the goats around. (Didn't work at all!)

And Eli screening their food intake...

And finally, Dad putting Eli on a goat's back. The goats were surprisingly nice about it!