6 Months Old

Happy 1/2 Birthday Eli!  Tonight you celebrated your 1/2 birthday at Country Kitchen with dad and Adam and all the other kids with their dads.  (It's a tradition that the dad's take their kids to Country Kitchen for Kids Eat Free night and 1/2 price Summit beers).

Eli's a little bit of a bam-bam.  He likes to hit with his hands to figure out stuff.  One of our favorite things that he does is he will pick up a toy with his hand and then just twirl it around.  Sometimes he'll even do it with his empty hand.  You'll look over and Eli will be staring at his hand as he spins it back and forth.

He's also very loud.  Maybe that's a product of being a second child, I don't know.  But Eli screams and yells and just plan old makes noise because he wants to.  It's actually pretty cute when Adam tells him to quite down, because he's hurting his ears.

Eli's been going to daycare for a month now.  And things seem to be going great.  I think he loves to be around so many other kids and have new toys to play with.  He is the happiest smiley baby.  Even daycare tells us we have the easiest baby!

Still no teeth (that's ok with mommy).  And I'm still afraid he's going to start crawling on me soon.  Realistically he can get anywhere he wants in the room right now, but it will be much faster movements when he starts crawling.  I'm trying to make a deal with him that Santa will bring more presents to a good little baby that stays in one place (otherwise a Christmas tree is going to be difficult this year).

I feel like this last month has gone at warp speed.  Why won't our lives settle down so I can enjoy my six month old?  I think my favorite baby stage is this six month time period and I don't want to feel like I missed this age with Eli.

It's Time to Sleep

We normally put Eli in bed about 30 minutes before Adam goes to bed.  So we leave the lamp on in the corner of the room and usually Eli falls right asleep.  Not so much tonight, though.  Eli was squealing and moving around his bed.  We tried re-nuking several times and while I read to Adam in the rocker I watched Eli maneuver to the wall and drop his nuk down in between the wall and the bed.   Dave came in the room to rescue it and this is what we got.

A baby trying to stick his head in between the rails.  I'm not sure if the picture does justice to how hard are baby was trying to get out of the crib.  Adam, Dave and I laughed and laughed at the sight.

Tonight we took Eli to get his 6 month pictures.  He was clapping while he sat in front of the camera.  My baby was clapping!

We Have a Sitter

I think somewhere during our crazy weekend Eli really figured this sitting thing out.  He was just sitting on the floor when I went to pick him up from daycare.

They both seem to be enjoying Eli's new perspective.  

Not Allowed

Eli is scooching.  He can pretty much get anywhere he wants by pivoting, rolling or the good old scooch-leg drag.  When I picked Eli up from daycare Thursday his teacher was reading him a book and telling him that soon he would be crawling, too.  I don't think she new I was there when I yelled out, "no, not allowed!"  I'm not ready.  Adam crawled at 9 months and I thought that was perfect.  He's my baby and I want to keep him in one place.  Who wouldn't want to hit the pause button and keep this little guy squishy cute for longer?

Fall Camping

Saturday afternoon we met up with our friends from Tech at Nerstrand Big Woods State Park.  Dave and I were both apprehensive about camping with the boys, but Tom is extremely good at organizing trips, so I new it would go smoothly.

I was surprised that the no-see-ums were out in full force despite the wind and warm dry weather.  So after we got our tent set up (in record speed do to every ones help) we packed up the boys for a short hike.  The wind knocked most of the leaves off the trees and I'm not sure the trickle of water falling off a rock counts as a waterfall.  But we had fun and it was the second fall hike for our family this year.

We did survive the tent with two children.  Adam went down with a rather large fight and woke up super hungry and crabby.  None of the couples camping with us have kids, so Adam's fabulous morning attitude may have caused them to wait even longer to start procreating.  But then again Eli is so happy and easy you can't help but catch a little baby fever from him.  We just threw down a blanket and some toys and he was set for the night.

Hopefully next summer we'll break out the tent and go camping sooner.

Watch Out

Tonight I was busy vacuuming around my playing children.  Adam walked in between the vacuum and Eli and started talking.  I couldn't understand what he was saying, so I had to turn off the vacuum.  And when I did I heard him loud and clear saying, "Watch out for Eli, Mamma!  Watch out for my broder."  Both Dave and I complemented him on looking out for his brother.  He was so proud of himself that he followed me around while I finished vacuuming and continued to give me warnings:

"Watch out for the table, Mamma."
"Watch out for the couch."
"Watch out for the wall."

That's a good idea, Adam.  (His favorite saying from a week ago)

This is just a cute picture of Adam 

Swinging

We've had the most fabulous fall weather lately.  It's exactly like the day we got married (our 5 year anniversary is Friday!) a perfect dry, sunny 80 degrees.  Last night I was alone with the boys until Dave got home from work at 7 PM so we went to the easy park.  The little park in the center of my neighborhood.  It's got two swings and a playground with no slide.  I'm not even sure if you can call it a playground if it doesn't have a slide.

Funny side story- I took Adam by himself to the easy park in the middle of the summer to get his sillies out before bed time.  And he climbed up the playground and then turned to me and asked where the slide was.  So after trying to explain to him that the park was designed without a slide I finally gave up and threw him in his stroller and took him to the hard park where there is a proper number of slides (which would be any number greater than zero).

Anyway back to the point Eli got to swing for the first time and mommy brought the camera.

Oh man do I love that puffy, fuzzy hair.  Dave keeps commenting about it too and wondering where it comes from.  This morning before Dave put gel in his hair I took one look at the both of them and could tell that Eli gets his puffy hair from his daddy.

In Case You Wondering

We all survived Eli's first day of daycare.  I handed him over and was doing great.  Then we were talking to Adam's toddler room teacher and I heard my baby crying.  I peaked through the window and saw that his nuk came out and he was not happy about it.  Then I lost it and started crying too.  Dave quickly got me out to the van.  I stayed strong through out the day, but when the clock struck 4 PM I was out the door to scoop up my babies.

Tonight he was worn out after his second day of daycare and needed a nap when we got home.  But he is still doing great and being his happy baby self (in spite of the congestion and cough we are both fighting).

A Fall Hike

Today my husband decided it was the perfect day for a hike.  So we packed up all the kids (even Brockway came) and drove to our nearest State Park.  The fall colors aren't quite peaking yet, but it was still a beautiful fall hike through the woods.

Adam was so excited to see animals that he kept talking and asking about them.  And Eli was squealing whenever he would catch anyone's eye.  It's not exactly how I remember hiking before the kids.  But then both boys fell asleep in their carriers and we had a little peace and quite.   As for animals all we saw was a couple of snakes.

After the hike Adam announced that he had to go potty.  Dave took him to the latrine and Adam took one look at it and said, "I no go potty on the garbage can."  Haha!  Dad convinced him it was a potty and then he was good to go.