Happy Birthday Eli !!

Happy Birthday Eli!!! We love you!

Here is our little man yesterday at daycare, I still can't get over he is 1 already. It is definitely bittersweet. I can't help but think about how this time last year I was in the hospital giving birth to the little guy! I was scared, excited and anxious all at once. Adam did well at keeping his cool which was great and I like to think we have done a great job adjusting to parenthood. We even managed to be pretty relaxed first time parents thank god!
One hand, Eli being so interactive is so much fun and we truly enjoy every bit of it. Then on the other hand, the days of me just cuddling with him and holding him are over! Now he totally wants to be put down after he gives you a quick hug and kiss. As you can see from the pictures, Eli enjoyed his first birthday with all his daycare pals and some chocolate frosted cupcake cones. Daycare told me that he loved them singing to him, he soaked it all in! This kid is something else! They laughed at how much he enjoyed everyone singing to him that they did it all over again!

Here Eli is after dinner last night enjoying some birthday ice cream with Poppi. He is more fascinated with his new toys we got him, they are really cute Playskool animals on wheels. Perfect for his size hand & perfect for us not noticing them on the floor and tripping over them!


Eli's new dare devil tactic.......

And a quick video of Eli's new singing balloon from Meme' on his birthday, he is enjoying playing with it so much! Thanks Meme'!

Dam that Daily Mile !

Well if you haven't noticed my "daily mile" ticker icon to the right of the blog hasn't been updated in quite a bit! I have forgotten to put in a bunch of entries but at the same time was a bit sporadic with my workouts. I guess I need to get back into the routine of posting when I am done with the workout. I was doing so well at tracking my progress with the daily mile tool and found it motivating, so I am going to get back at it!

Oh yeah...and our family reunion was great this past weekend! We had what I would like to call the best weather of the summer yet. It was absolutely perfect, and was such a great time to be with family we haven't seen in a long time. Eli had a blast running around the park but we did have our first "real fall". It was scary, Eli had a huge egg on his head for a bit but was very alert and showed no signs of having to go to the emergency room so we got lucky on that front.

Here are a few pictures of Eli on his new foam alphabet blocks that interlock. My sister gave them to him and he loves them. And now that they are set up on the floor he likes how they feel under his feet and loves disassembling them of course! You can see Eli's scar that is front and center on his head here pretty good as well. Hopefully by his birthday party in the scar will fade by then.

Whatcha Doing????

After dinner yesterday during the "Eli Hour" I found our little Elias in the bathroom trying to figure out the toilet bowl. Here are some incriminating pictures when I asked Eli "Watcha Doing?" Up until now Eli has not shown a huge interest into the bathroom other than walking in & walking out. These pictures suggest we have to watch him more closely when it comes to the bathroom I guess!

Some other updates-

1. We are in the process of waiting on RSVP's for Eli's first birthday party that we will be having Labor Day Weekend. I still can't get over Eli officially turns 1 on the 24th! It just seems like this year was a flash, completely caught me by surprise. I wish I could keep Eli little forever but at the same time it is awesome to watch him learn and figure things out.

2. Eli is finally showing signs of more teeth coming in! Poor kid had only two on the bottom this whole time. The only downside to all this - he gets his extra cranky moments and sleep has been disturbed these past few nights. It looks like more than just one will be coming in on the top, I hope for all this snotty mess and lack of sleep that all four teeth on top come through at one time.

3. We have a family reunion this weekend for my mom's side and the weather looks like it will cooperate and be really nice. Eli will get to meet lots of family he hasn't met yet and enjoy playing with his cousins now that he is running around and mobile. He loves walking around with any ball he can find in his hands, reminds me of my sister's son Bennett who is 2 1/2 , he is constantly holding some type of sport ball. I'm sure Ben will show Eli the ropes on all his ball handling skills this weekend.

4. Eli likes feeding paper to our dog. It is becoming a problem. Poor Cubbie thinks he is going to get food and as any garbage gut dog would do he still eats whatever is in Eli's hands! Even if it is a part of the Sunday morning paper of my House Beautiful magazine.

Here are some pictures of Eli from this week, the first one is also from an "Eli Hour" moment where he basically runs around the house crazy playing with every toy possible while our house looks trashed. Eli really focuses on getting every last drop of energy out of him before his bath time during this hour!

Eli found his nose

Well here you have it people. Adam found it completely hysterical to find Eli this Saturday morning with his finger full of syrup up his nose. I do have to say the boy looks pretty happy here! hahaha

On to some more flattering pictures of Eli-
We had some professional pictures taken by our friend Chrissy July 4th weekend that I have been meaning to put up. Here they are finally!





Meme', Poppi & Eli


One of my faves with the little guy :)








This one cracks me up! Looks like Eli is all ready for the runway here :)

First Family Vacation - Cape Cod

Hey there!

Sorry for being so delayed with the blog posting. It has been one busy summer for us! I am also just coming off a terrible sinus infection that tried to ruin our first family vacation and the week following. The vacation was so much fun even with me feeling under the weather. Eli had a blast & showed off all his walking skills that he is perfecting more and more each day. One thing is for sure, going on vacation with a baby is allot of work. Between packing & preparing for the vacation & then doing that each day for the beach we soon realized how easy it used to be when it was just us! Of course looking at Eli's smiling face and his cute things he does to amuse us makes up for all the work!

While away we visited with Adam's Aunt Brenda who lives in Cape Cod & then Thursday we checked into a house we rented with our friends in Chatham. Every summer we go away with the Uconn crew and this was the first year the house was filled with babies! Hahaha...they all had a great time. Eli loved playing with Jack & Cammy, it was so cute to see the babies on the floor going crazy with all the toys! You could tell each baby was going towards all the new toys they had never seen, it was a blast to watch them interact.

The last day in the Cape my sister Tammy & her family came up for the day and spent the night with us. They also made us all a fabulous grilled steak dinner, it was yummy. It was so much fun to see them and go to the beach together. My neice & nephew keep growing up so fast, it makes me sad!! I remember holding them when they were Eli's size and it seems like just yesterday.
Bennett & Melina


Auntie Tammy & Eli wearing her sun hat

This past weekend we didn't do too much which was nice. I had a bridal shower to go & Adam was solo with Eli on Saturday. He took him to the park, he loves the swings and we spent the rest of the weekend hanging out in Adam's parent's pool. It is such a nice luxury to have right down the road!!

On the running front - I had to take a bit of break while sick which was a bummer. I absolutely love running on vacation especially in Cape Cod. This sinus infection was so bad that even once we got home I was wiped out with a fever on top of feeling miserable. I am happy to report that this past Friday I started to feel consideribly better and I am back in the swing of things now. I was back at it this Sat. & Sun. and hope to sign up for a race soon :)

Here are some more pictures from our vacation! Enjoy :) The first picture cracks me up, that was our lame attempt at getting all the babies to sit together for a group shot, Eli looks so distressed! hahaha....



Eli's most favorite thing to do at the beach...eat his cheerios in his stroller!

The beginings of walking & figuring out child locks

I promised some pictures of Eli's new tricks and here is a video of him walking, he is a bit cranky in this video since "Dada" just left for work but I figured it was good enough to make the blog still. Check out his new tricks!

Eli trying to open the child locks on our cabinets & trying to get up the stair case which we have to keep gated at all times. He has made it up the full flight of stairs with Adam behind him, very determined boy!

Here he is putting his toys on the bottom of the staircase, he loves to put them in between the banaster and figure out how to get them out.
Here I think his smile looks just like mine as a baby, but I will let my sister & mom be the judge of that.

Also, I posted the next picture of Eli because in my opinion he looks like my niece Melina when she was little, Tammy what are your thoughts?

And Were Back!

Hey There!

We are back, I know you all missed us dearly ;) And our little guy is walking at 10 months...just as I suspected would happen! I will post a video of his walking skilz very soon!

Here we are pictured above at our friend Jeff & Sherri's wedding in the Dominican Republic just over a week ago. And the happy couple below right after they tied the knot! The wedding was beautiful and our vacation week in the Dominican was great. We enjoyed being away with our friends and having some time to ourselves but I can't get over how much we missed our little guy. By day 4 I was ready to make our way back home for sure. The airfare was just so expensive to only stay on vacation for 4 days.


While on vacation we worked on our tans and caught up on some much needed rest. I was able to get a full nights sleep every night, and woke up every morning springing out of bed, it was wonderful. I even squeezed in 3 workouts in between all the partying and drinking we did.The gym was really nice but the treadmills were kinda funky. I was doing sprint intervals at a rate of 15? I have no idea why it went from 0-17 on their speed scale. I could never figure that out. Anyway, I was able to get in 3 great 45-50 min. workouts & my weights so I was happy with that. Made me feel much less guilty when I was ordering a Cocoa Loco at 10 am beach side!

Speaking of beach, here is what our beach looked liked, it was gorgeous!

Some more pictures from our vacation below - group shot from the rehearsal dinner night, all the boys at the wedding (they have been friends since grade school pretty much), and a shot of Adam and I at the beach.

Happenings...

Hi Everyone!

Adam and I are getting ready for a very big vacation away from Eli and it is so hard! One minute we are excited to be away in the Dominican Republic for our friends wedding & the next minute the thought of not seeing this cute little guy below for a full week is killing us!


They say vacations for Mommy's & Daddy's is really important so I just have to focus on that. If I get sad while away I can just drink it off right? hahaha... On another note my dieting for this vacation is finally paying off. THANK GOD.

This past weekend, my best friend from home Sarah had her wedding shower & bach party. It was so much fun to see everyone, and we all had such a blast. Most of us spent our summers growing up poolside on the Milford Yacht Club swim team. The MYC was not only for practice we literally spent all day there, think of it like summer camp. Such great memories there! Sarah's sister Samantha planned an awesome scavenger hunt for Sarah to kick off the night, we visited all our old stomping grounds as kids growing up in Milford. It was so great, cuddos to Sam & Sarah's parents for being the best coordinators & hosts for the weekend!

Here is Sarah & Sam together and one of Sarah on her own, we had pizza & wine at the beach down from their house to start the night off.


And just before I left the house on Saturday morning to drive to Milford, Adam decided for his father/son weekend to put Eli's hair in a mohawk! I had to take a picture, Eli looks so silly. I am always working on "Eli's part" in his hair and Adam is concerned with making sure he has a rad mohawk!


Also....Saturday morning after my run, I found my latest and greatest new "trash to treasure" project! I absolutely love this cabinet and for $15 (also a donation to the Lou Gehrig Foundation) I couldn't pass it up! Haven't decided what room it is going in just yet but more pics to follow once I am done revamping it!


And I leave you with some funny things Eli has been doing lately.
#1 our new PC we bought has the most shiniest blue button ever and Eli keeps turning off the PC!! I caught him in the act, he looks caught off guard in this pic. That little bugger turned it off most recently while I was in the middle of an accounting for work! Good thing he is cute. I spent last night rearranging our PC set up so that he really can't get to the button now. I can't tell you how many times I say no when he goes near it and he laughs at me! He totally knows what he is doing too....

This is a picture of Eli in his morning robe - It is perfect for when he wants to sit on the couch all cozied up with his morning cup of coffee & paper! hahaha....


And last but not least - this is what Eli does when he wants to be silly while eating something he likes!

1/2 Marathon Report & Results!

The Amica Iron Horse 1/2 Marathon I ran this past Sunday went really well! It poured rain for the first 5 miles but then it let up. There were some highs & lows when I was running but overall I think I did good for my first 1/2 marathon distance run. I have done a full marathon in the past & a bunch of other distances in between but I think I really liked the 1/2 marathon distance.

My time was 1:57:03, I ran a 8:56 split, my goal was to beat 2 hours and I did it!! I think I am setting a new goal to run another 1/2 this year and maybe a full marathon. I am still searching for the right full marathon to sign up for because I have so many weddings & tied up weekends.

Crossing the finish line and having Adam there with Eli was the best :) I wasn't sure if Adam would get out there with Eli because the race is a 1/2 hour from our house & it was raining, not to mention the terrible storm warnings we had. I guess Adam took a chance once he saw the rain let up and put Eli in the car and it all turned out fine!

After the 1/2 I went home and was craving eggs!?! Weird. I really wanted a bagel with cream cheese and an omelet. So that is exactly what I did. All I ate at the house before I left for the race was plain oatmeal and my coffee. I just don't have a huge appetite at 5:45am, but really who does? Then after I got my race bib & packet I had half a cheese stick but couldn't finish it. Maybe it was nerves?

Later in the day, Adam did yard work while we had a break in the crummy weather we were having. Eli and I went to Adam's parents house to take a dip in the pool. Eli seemed to really like it too! It was his first time in and he was relaxed and calm! I think I am going to check out our town pool for the mommy & me classes for this summer. I grew up in the pool ALL SUMMER long and by the beach; so I have very fond memories of learning how to swim at a very young age in grandparents pool. I hope Eli will grow up to be a little fish in the water just as I was. Actually, I think the term was "water rat"...but hey I did love being in that water!

Here are some pics from our dip in the pool. Eli is having a blast with Meme' in the bottom picture!