Family trip to Cabella's!

Saturday we woke up early (we don't have an option anymore but hey at least the little guy is cute....) and got some things done around the house then headed off to Cabella's in the mid afternoon. It was my first time going & Eli's 2nd time. Adam took Eli with him there when Eli was about 2 months old. Cabella's is Adam's all time favorite store and it was a pretty fun experience for me I have to admit. The store is quite fun for little kiddies with all the animals and the aquarium. I imagine that Eli will really enjoy going there with Dad when he is bigger for sure. Here are some pics from our trip!



In the evening we had our friends Chrissy & Ben over for dinner and it was a great time. Eli couldn't play much with their daughter because of the age gap right now and he isn't mobile just yet. As soon as he can walk he will be able to interact more with Charlotte. I still can't get over how fast Eli has developed already - he is starting to sit up on his own now more and more. He is getting stronger with so many things it seems. Pretty soon he will be able to fly solo with sitting up on his own where we feel confident that he won't timber over!

Today we had a very mellow Valentine's day. We really celebrated V-day on Friday night. We had Adam's cousin Kayla babysit Eli and we went out for a great dinner at Bricco's in W.Hartford. It was soooo yummy! I love going out for a really good meal. The funniest part of the night was that we were done with dinner at 8:30pm and we didn't know what to do with ourselves. We picked up Eli around 9:30 or so & as we were driving home from W.Hartford I commented on how just a few short years ago we were just leaving the house at 9:30pm to go out!

Which leads me into our adventures from today. We decided on going out for a low key lunch/early dinner at a Pavillion pizza near our home. Except this time, it would be our first time taking Eli out to a restaurant by ourselves. Right now Eli is on the brink of coming out of the infant carrier system and into a convertible car seat. He is really uncomfortable in the carrier so when we got to the restaurant we put him in the high chair for the first time. Since he is in that in-between stage we had to stuff a baby blanket behind him to prop him up. Overall he was very happy and cooperated nicely (it is a good thing we called in our meal before we got there, it was ready when we got there).

After our big trip to the pizza restaurant we went to Ocean State Job Lot! hahaha...too funny. What a difference a year makes, last year we were at Cugino's restaurant in Farmington enjoying a fancy shmancy Italian dinner & today we were excited to have conquered our first outing to a pizza restaurant with a baby!

So overall, this weekend was really nice over here. And what is even better is that there is no work for me tomorrow! Yippie!!

Hope you all enjoy your long weekend :)

HA

I am not sure if I have shared with you all my small obsession with keeping my home/car tidy and clean at all times. Most of you know but basically, I don't let things pile up when it comes to mail, coffee cups in my car & genereal areas of our home. I am also pretty good with cleaning my home on a schedule as best as I can so that I am never really heavy duty cleaning get what I mean?

Well today I was on good old Martha Stewart's website (which I frequent when I am planning an event/party or having people over for dinner) and even I got a good chuckle out of a cleaning article. I stumbled across this "weekly" cleaning checklist that even I (a.k.a. "Monica" from the show Friends according to my sister) had to laugh at. I mean really who has the time to dust the tops and spines of books on shelves? HA....for more entertianment feel free to read the rest of her list!

http://images.marthastewart.com/images/content/web/pdfs/2009Q3/ms_checklist_weeklyclean.pdf

Weekend Wrap Up

This weekend was pretty low key with exception to Super Bowl Sunday. Friday night Adam's cousin Matt & his wife Val (who is preggers) came over and we hung out & made homemade BBQ chicken pizza for dinner.
Sunday we went over to our friends house for a super bowl party and it was a good time. Adam received his winning from the fantasy football league and his trophy. He was very excited about that. I also won $25 from my square picks for the last quarter of the game, yippee!! I never get lucky with gambling it seems!

Today I am working from home and waiting for my work PC to be back up and running so I figured I would squeeze in a blog entry. I plan on getting on the treadmill at lunch time, which I so desperately need after all the super bowl treats I ate yesterday.....

Here are some pictures from this weekend... Enjoy :)


It is so nice that the past few weeks Eli has grown to enjoy tummy time. I thought for sure we were going to have a child that only screamed when placed on his belly!


Eli feeding himself some multi-grain cereal, the process was quite messy but I had time on my hands to let him try it out. Eli loved playing with the dipper, I figured I would try it out since he keeps reaching for the spoon when we feed him.

Adam favorite feeding position when giving Eli a bottle. Although not the "recomended" position I am sure - but it does limit Eli's ability to stare at the dog or watch the cat walking past him or any other distraction he seeems to find!

Our little guy 6am Sunday morning. He makes it so hard to upset & cranky when you see him so happy that early in the morning!

What we do at 6:30am....

Well here is the little bugger this morning at 6:30AM! Full of life & batteries charged! hahaha...

The past 3 nights Eli has been sleeping really well BUT now he gets up at 5:30am. GRR.....He is hungry& ready to party it seems. I guess I should stop complaining because on the days he pulls this nonsense he doesn't get up in the middle of the night like he was doing (between the 3am-4am hour) where would need to go in there and give him his teddy bear. With all his movement in the crib these days he would wake up scared on the other end of the crib upside down and if we just moved him back & gave him his teddy bear he was ok and went right back to sleep.

I guess what it comes down to is that we were not blessed with a "true sleeper" our child has never went the whole night without getting up. We still do the "dreamfeed" at 10:30pm (he goes down by 7:30pm then we get him out of his crib at 10:30pm to give him a bottle) and if we were to drop that feeding it would be an issue. If we fall asleep early on the couch watching t.v. he gets up eventually hungry. Why can't he just eat plenty during the day so that he can sleep the whole night? This has been our challenge since day one, he is quite the "snacker" with drinking his bottles. So when it comes down to it, he really does need the 5 oz. bottle we give him at 10:30pm. He LOVES his solids though, unfortunately we can't just fill him up on solids - cereal, fruits/veggies, etc...because the most important thing is that he gets his b.milk/formula so we still need to balance that.

Our dreamfeed system seems to be working so that we get a solid 6 hrs of sleep which is WONDERFUL compared to the craziness that was going on all the way up until the end of December. I was a walking zombie because I was exclusively b.feeding then and up all night every 2-2.5 hrs or so when he woke. Anyways, we have made vast improvements over the month of January and supplementing formula for 1/2 of his feedings has helped big time!

I wonder when it comes time for baby #2 (not anytime soon!) will that baby be a sleeper for us?

On another note - we are planning Eli's Christening for March and that has been consuming much of my time lately. Between coordinating a date with all the parties involved, getting the invitations out, and a place lined up for the reception I have been a busy bee. We couldn't possibly have had everyone in our house and been comfortable so we did get a hall. I went with the church hall mainly for convenience and it is definitely helping on the cost. It just seemed easier, it is spacious enough if everyone comes we will have no issues and just a much better option than our house. If it were summer we would have planned an outdoor picnic party at our house and maybe rent a small tent if needed. Being that March is way to cold here in CT everyone would be in our home and it would have been a bit crazy with trying to get places for people to sit comfortably.

So that is the wrap over here! I hope everyone is doing well :) Also, I am feeling much better lately, working out much more consistently and my running is getting back in line. It is just what I needed!

5 months old today!

Here I am! 5 months old today. Elias is quite the "flirt" with the ladies, here he is working his magic with my friend Sylvia :) One thing about Eli that I would like to mention about his character is that he loves to kick his legs & stare at his reflection. When this baby gets on the floor he kicks like crazy! Then he turns to the side to look at himself in the mirror on his gym mat and giggles/talks to himself. It is so cute to watch. I find myself just watching him amuse himself when I can totally be getting something done and be productive!

On Friday I decided to take a half day from work to have a lunch/play date with the girls. It was so much fun to see the babies together again, in just a few weeks they change so fast! Eli had a great time at Margaret's house visiting Cammy (her 3month old), here are some pictures from our lunch date.


Sylvia and Jack (Eli's future BFF) & Corinne holding Eli.


All the babies hanging out....Cammy sitting in her chair, Jack in the Jumperoo & Eli chillin' in the Bumbo chair.


While I was working from home for the first half of the day on Friday I got to see the the tree's in the front of our home come down. It was crazy to watch to be honest I was terrified quite a bit. Here is the view from our bay window in the living room of the tree's standing while they were getting ready to take them down.

The final before & after pic will be posted soon, the stumps still need to be ground up and the front lawn is a mess. It is very weird to see our front yard so open, it is going to take some getting used to that is for sure.

One other thing, I hate landscaping or anything to do with the lawn so this new project we have on our hands (getting some curb appeal back to our home) is not my favorite thing. Hopefully, I will learn to like it, I have a feeling the next few summers will be a work in progress with the exterior improvements we would like to do to our home.

How Daddy Dresses Me For Daycare

This was what Adam dressed Eli in this morning for daycare, he looked so happy and cute in his anti-Yankee gear that I had to take a picture of him!

Here are some other pics of Eli we took over this past week, I can't get over Eli is turning 5 months old in just a few days!





Eli trying carrots for the first time!

It was very cute, and he does like them :) Tonight we are trying out Avocado mmmm..... To be honest this whole "starting your baby on solids" thing was driving me nuts and completely stressed for a bit. Part of me was like I know it is best to make the baby food from scratch but then I was like you know what I didn't die from eating baby food as a child! AND I am breastfeeding much longer than I ever thought I could handle so sometimes good enough is in fact good enough !

I have decided if I have time to make things for Eli I will but if I don't it's OK. Our game plan is to basically switch up sweet stuff with boring veggie stuff so that he doesn't get used to just sweet things. After Avocado we will do squash or sweet potatoes, then peas or string beans, we'll see how it goes! So far so good with no allergies :)

Here is a picture of Eli's favorite new thing to do - play with his feet!

After bathtime....

Loving his exersaucer

Just hanging around in his jumper!


Oh yeah on another note - the "working out while watching the Biggest Loser" thing totally fell apart. I know 1 week was not a good track record...literally I am just so tired at 8pm it just isn't happening. Sometimes we are JUST finished eating at 8pm since Eli goes down to bed at 7:30/7:45pm. It is tough. I know it is an excuse but trying to squeeze in workouts is getting rough. I am going to have to figure something out fast though, it is getting to me. Going from working out 4-5 days a week consistently up until 3 days before giving birth to this type of inconsistent workout schedule is the pits. I have nothing good to add to it, it just sucks.

Enough of my complaining, I just have to figure it out that's all.

I hope all is well with everyone, Bye for now!

Working from home today

Love working from home with this little guy :)

Ben's 2nd birthday!

This weekend Adam, Eli and I drove to MA to visit my sister Tammy for Bennett's 2yr birthday party. He is a big 2 yr old, he looks like he is much older to me but he is still such a sweetie and gives hugs and kisses when you ask.

I am much like Elmyra from the Tiny Toon Adventures cartoon so I smoother babies and little kiddies, I just can't help myself! Good thing Ben still lets me do this to him and poor Elias he has no say in it because I'm his mommy!

Here is a description from Wikipedia of Elmyra if you don't know who I am referring to - Elmyra is quite young and obsessed with animals and cute things...even chasing after animals...obliviously causing great discomfort or serious injury to potential pets from her overenthusiastic affection and complete lack of even the most rudimentary knowledge of pet care
Well you get what I mean.

Here are some pics from this weekend :)



Miss Melina hamming it up! Eli in Ben's "big boy" bed


My sister makes the most creative homemade cakes, and they are SO yummy. This one was 3 layers -chocolate/banana bread/chocolate with awesome peanut butter frosting and chocolate frosting topped with cocoa krispies!



On the "to-do" list today, laundry, make banana bread, organize the basement from our electrical fire so I can get back to working out on the treadmill, and visit our friends Tab & Malley at the hospital - they just had a little boy yesterday! His name is Quinn he will be pals with Eli weather he likes it or not! hahaha...

Oh yeah and one more thing...since it is still early in the month of January I guess you can say Adam and I made a New Years resolution. We usually don't do it because we wouldn't probably keep it but this year I figured lets give it a try. So my new years resolution (which became Adam's because I enlisted him in it for support) is to get on the treadmill while watching The Biggest Loser this season.

Adam and I are notorious for watching The Biggest Loser while eating ice cream on the couch. It is so bad sometimes, here I am commenting at the t.v. while I have a bowl of ice cream in my hands! How terrible...so this Tuesday night is our first night, we plan on just getting in 45 mins. of a workout together (we have a bike on a trainer too) so that we can be showered and go to bed at a decent hour, the show is 2hrs long and goes until 10pm.

Hey it's a start...wish us luck!

Back Up & Running!

Well....after a hectic week following Christmas I am glad to say we are finally back up & running. For starters, we are so lucky to have been out of our home when the tree snapped in front of our home and caused an electrical fire. The electrician said that if any one was home using the water we would have had serious issues. So thank god that wasn't the case. Our electrical panel and a bunch of wires are completely new & replaced, within 3 days we were back in our home. Originally our house smelled like hair burning on a curling iron but that gradually went away. The pine trees in front of our home are around 60-65 ft. tall, we have 7 trees (well now 6 since) so it is a big job and will be costly to get them removed, but we think worth it at this stage. The thought of this happening ever again with another wind storm freaks us out. When we bought the house I fell in love with these trees that line the front of our property but right now my feelings have completely changed. Check them out in the pic below, you can tell the one that came down where you see the gap between the trees.

On a more happy note, our little Elias over here seems to be doing great! He loves the exersaucer which we introduced to him the week before Christmas. It can be over stimulation so we have to time it right, but for the most part he loves the new perspective of being in it. Also, Elias got a fun chair from Meme & Poppi as an Christmas gift that comes with a tray (they are called Bumbo chairs) so now we are using that when we feed him rice cereal. We started Eli on rice cereal the night before Christmas Eve. The first time we tried it while he was in his high chair & he seemed lost in that chair so this new chair he got is perfect for this stage!

Eli seems to be getting much better with the rice cereal, he is not scarfing it down just yet but we are making progress and he is getting better each day at moving the food to the back of his mouth. The first 3 times the cereal was all over his face and barely making it down the hatch. It was super cute though to watch. Here are some pics of Eli over the past few weeks, also a few pictures of him meeting Santa for the fist time on Christmas Eve.

And, because I never got around to posting pictures from Christmas Day at our house I figured I would put some up now, better late than never! I hated that our PC was out of commission there for a few days...not being able to upload pictures was killing me.







While in "picture mode" I wanted to post some of Eli meeting Grandpa (my dad) for the first time this past weekend. Also, Great Grandpa & Great Grandma got to see Eli again, we had such a nice time visiting everyone in NYC

SO first off I want to apologize, I hate being behind on my blogging, I am the first person to check my sister's blogs & everyone else's and hate when they are not updated! I also have to apologize there will be no pictures in this post as you will realize why when you read on...

Well I have lots to fill you all up on since my last post. I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and enjoyed their time with their loved ones!

1. Our Xmas party on the 19th was great and lots of fun! I should watch what I wish for though...we did get that snow fall I said I loved so much that happened for our Xmas party in 2008. Except the snowfall was to begin in the middle of the day so about 6 of our guest didn't make it with the worries of the weather but we still had a turn out of 30 people. The snow didn't start until 9:30pm (thanks weather men...you had the whole state freaked out that it was starting mid afternoon and we would be snowed in forever!) so when everyone was leaving our party around 12:30-1am there was a few inches accumulation but not a 12 inches like we had expected at that time.


2. Eli slept great for my in-laws the night of our party. Go figure....he was up only once at the 3am hour and ate/got diapered and back to bed until the 6:30-7am time frame. THIS HASN'T BEEN THE CASE FOR ME!! But I do have to say I was happy he did this for them so they were able to sleep well while they had him overnight.


3. I had 2 cavities filled 2 days before Christmas Eve. I got these cavities from being preggo I think, I haven't had cavities in SO LONG but of course another lovely thing about being preggo - it can do a number on your oral health. I was really worried about not being able to eat all my favorite holiday foods & treats because I had my cavities filled so close to Xmas but wouldn't you know my mouth was back in working order by morning, thank god!


4. Our computer crashed Christmas Eve & is completely useless right now. Spy ware & virus's all over it. So frustrating. I can't even get into it. It totally screwed our plans of playing our Christmas music from Pandora on Christmas Day at our home & also all my pictures I want to put up for the blog & a blog entry had to wait. We are still working on getting our PC up & running so pictures will come soon, I promise!


5. We spent Christmas Eve at Adam's Auntie Anne's house as usual. It is Adam's Dad's side of the family and Santa always makes time to visit/bring gifts for all the good little boys & girls so Eli got to meet him for the first time! I have the cutest picture to post which I can't wait to put up soon for you all to see. Eli also got a great gift from Adam's parents on Xmas eve- it is the book - Twas' the night before Christmas with their voice over as the page turns their voice is reading the story to Eli! It is the best, I can't wait for next year for Eli to hear his Meme' & Poppi reading to him. Such a thoughtful gift :) We love it.


6. I finished baking all my treats for Xmas gift baskets I was making after we came home from Auntie Anne's Xmas Eve. I was up until 11:00pm doing that then from 11-12:30am deliriously wrapping gifts and getting things ready for Xmas day at our home with Adam. I think we were both zombies at this point. I was lying on the hardwood floor and "taking a nap" in our guest bedroom waiting for the wrapping paper while Adam was using it. I get ridiculous when I am that overtired.


7. Christmas Day we hosted at our home and it turned out really nice. We did a brunch menu and it came out great. Watching my nephew Ben & niece Melina open up their gifts was too funny! They were so excited, Eli watched from his exersaucer and was in amazement too, he loves to look at bigger kids he gets fixated on them. He can't wait to be their size it seems...Between Christmas Eve & Christmas Day Elias received so many presents we couldn't believe it. He got lots of toys, clothes,savings bonds, and a gorgeous baby's first Christmas ornament from Uncle Tommy that brought a tear to both Adam and I. The ornament is so precious, it is a baby's building block in silver that opens up with his engraved name and birth date, along with his picture in it. Being that I love Christmas and decorating our tree it was the best to have such a personalized ornament we will have for lifetime now. In the evening we went over to Adam's Grandmother's house and Eli giggled allot and was a joy to have around while opening presents there. Overall, everyone was so nice to remember Eli and we really appreciate the generosity.


8. Saturday we had a slow start, and then we spent the afternoon visiting my best friend Sarah from home and her parent's. It was the first time her parents met little Eli and he had a blast there, he was in such a good mood giggling lots for them too! Then we had dinner and left over desserts at my mom's house with the family. We then did the trek back home which is only a one hour drive, Eli slept the whole way so that was good.


9. Eli had his 4 month appointment and received 4 shots. He is 13lbs. 15oz. and is 25.5 inches long! He is in the 70th percentile for height & 25th percentile for weight. He is very healthy and seems to be doing great the doctor said. BUT little Elias is getting up WAY too many times throughout the night so we have to nip it in the bud. The doc told us we have to let him cry it out. Easier said than done. Night 1 has passed and it was rough to say the least. I cried just as much as Eli did at times.


10. We had an electrical fire in our home today. Luckily it happened while we were at work and Elias was in daycare. Our neighbor called Adam at work and told him the Fire Dept. & Police were at our home and that a tree limb snapped off from one of our huge pine trees in front of our home and hit our electrical wires. All the electrical stuff on the side of our house snapped off and there was smoke throughout the house and we nearly lost our home to an electrical fire today. It is scary to say the least, today is the coldest day we have had so far in CT and we have no heat or electricity. The claim has been started w/our home owners insurance and boy am I glad we have insurance. The tree needs to be removed all the electrical panel has to be replaced, wires are fried and melted....and top of all this we are not sure if our appliances will work until all the electrical work is completed. The work won't start until tomorrow and will take the full day, not to mention this is a holiday week so the electrical company is charging us handsomely... Thank god our home is still standing and we are all ok. We will be spending the night with Adam's parents tonight. I hope tomorrow everything will be ok to be back in our home. As I type this I haven't even been home to see or smell the damage.

Well that is all the updates for now. I know I have given information overload, sorry!! That has been our life over the past week and 1/2.....Hopefully the next post will be from home that has heat and electricity on my PC that is working and contains some much needed pictures I have been waiting to put up!

All Done!!

So the house is finally all decorated and ready for our Christmas Party this weekend. This year everything took so much extra time for a few main reasons -

1.) having a 3 1/2 month old makes it tough to get anything done

2.) Me feeling under the weather. I went from bad to worse & was out of work a few days last week as well as having a really bad fever Thurs - Friday. I ended up going to the doctors on Friday and sure enough I had bronchitis. I am MUCH better now thank god and thanks to being prescribed the Z-pack. It seems to be the only thing that cures me when I get bronchitis.

3.) Eli was under the weather too, he never got a fever or actual bronchitis but he was pretty fussy and full of mucus so EXTRA clingy. Which made me feel bad for the little guy...so him being clingy didn't bother me that much it was just that I wasn't getting anything done when I wanted it done.

Over this past week Eli is no longer just getting up 1 time in the night. He has been getting up 2 times which is frustrating. I keep thinking it is because of his congestion and all the mucus production that is going on. I hope this passes soon and he goes back to the 1 time in the middle of the night. I can deal with that.

We will be starting cereal very soon, I hope at Elias's 4 month appointment on the 28th the doctor agrees that we should introduce the cereal. I have heard once the cereal starts so does sleeping through the night. I would love for that to be the case! Getting up at the 1 am hour and the 3:30 am time frame is getting old fast! But with a face like this it is hard to be cranky about it all....


Eli's Christmas Card - I still can't get over the fact that I got him to sit up & smile all at once for this picture!


Thank you Auntie Tammy for my fun Christmas Onesie & Santa Outfit! I love you!


On another note, somehow I have been able to do some holiday baking and almost all the prep work for our party on Saturday. I have baked homemade biscotti's, surprise filled cookies (they have preserves in them- YUM!),and oreo balls. On the to-do list for baking is homemade granola & hazelnut truffles. I can't do those too early because they are for Christmas Day so I will wait until the night before Christmas Eve. I have a huge list of appetizers for our party I am making, most of it I can prep Friday night so that on Saturday all I have to do is pop it in the oven. I borrowed a warming tray from my mom which will be very use full for the party with keeping things warm.

Needless to say, I will be pumping & dumping - but I subscribe to the thought process of "If Momma ain't happy, nobody's happy". Eli will be spending the night at Adam's parents while we entertain somewhere to the tune of 30-35 guests at our home!