6 month stats

We just got back from Eli's 6 month appointment today.

Here are his stats:

16 lbs 9 oz. (35-40th percentile )
28 inches long (90th percentile)
44 head circumphrance (50th percentile)


This boy sure doesn't get his height from his mommy that is for sure!
I am a whole 5ft 2 inches with my shoes on so thankfully Eli has inherited his height from Adam's side!

The doctor said Eli has allot of muscle tone and is very strong. He said this at our 4 month appt. and again now & I am just getting more scared that I will have an early walker ! YIKES. That is just payback coming at me....my mom said I never walked I just ran. Adam and I will have to be on top of our game once our little guy becomes more mobile. So far he is attempting to crawl, he keeps getting his knees up underneath him but no forward movement just yet.

Here are some pictures from today at home. Hope everyone is enjoying this warmer weather we have been having in CT lately. I can't wait for spring and to be outdoors with Eli!


This is my old Grover stuffed animal I ADORED growing up, it was my favorite so I love that Eli is now enjoying him too :) Poor Grover has seen better days but he cleaned up pretty nicely on the delicate cycle so Eli has been having fun with him now. My mother had to sew back on Grover's leg (not sure how it fell off) but for some reason his leg never went back on straight so he is pigeoned toed on his right leg. Oh yeah and I dropped his leg in a candle growing up (yeah I know real safe right?) so one of his feet has candle wax that hardened over the years and I have been able to chip off, still his foot has never been the same. hahaha..



Loving all my toys!

Officially 6 months old! (well yesterday...)

Elias is officially 6 months as of yesterday! Next week is his appointment so we will have to wait until then to get the official stats to report for you all. I am going to cringe when he gets his shots as I always do but I am excited for this appointment.

Here is Eli playing with his new favorite toy, he loves to sit up on the floor (with the slight assistance of a boppy pillow) and stack these up as well as put them in his mouth.



Clowning around....


HUGE present for Mommy & Daddy!


Look how happy it makes him. This kid is too much. If you notice he has poop creeping out the side of his upper thigh! hahaha...


Sorry for the last 2 pictures if they grossed you all out. I figured as cute at this little bugger is the world must know what gross things he produces!

Shopping & a quick trip to NYC

On Friday night into Saturday morning, Adam came down with a nasty bug that has been going around so Saturday I decided to run all my errands with Eli in tow. I figured us being out of the house was a much better idea than keeping Eli home with a puking Daddy.

Here is Eli in his stroller, he doesn't look overly happy in this picture but I can assure you he does love being pushed in the stroller and all the old ladies going crazy over him!



My to-do-list on Saturday was pretty agressive for bringing a baby along but I figured this was still my best option. Here were all the things I needed to do & actually completed. I was so happy with Eli, he did awesome :)

1. Visit Fleet Feet to sign up for the 1/2 marathon training group runs.
2. Go to Play It Again Sports - Adam is looking for a free weight set starting at 25lbs and up, I figured I would pop in and see if they had any with the rack, no luck.
3. Drive over to the West Farms Mall for Eli's Christening outfit
4. Visit J.Crew & Ann Taylor Loft with my gift cards :)
5. Pick up my free bag of Moose Munch from Harry & David with my certificate from spending so much $ there this past Christmas, YUM
6. Stroll through Pottery Barn just because I love that store

So overall my Saturday with Eli was a success. We had to take a 15 minute break for Eli's bottle but other than that he was so content in his stroller with his little piggy stuffed animal & looking all around. He seemes to really love this new perspective as opposed to being strapped into the infant carrier.


Sunday I went to Brooklyn, NY to visit my grandparents & Dad. I left Eli with Adam since he was on the mend. It would be just too much for me to handle without Adam. Plus, we are dog sitting right now so Adam kind of had to stay home anyways. Overall, it was a good traveling day- nice & sunny out and not too cold. The ride down took 2hrs and back in the evening about 2 1/2 hrs due to traffic. I was home by 7:15pm and tired, we also went to church in the morning before I left for NY so it was a full day.

Here is Eli sporting his zip up sweatshirt from Alaska. Our friends Sue & Rob went their for their honeymoon last June and brought this back for Eli. Thanks guys!

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