Eli vs Santa

Eli got to meet Santa for the first time, at a children's holiday party at mom's office. He didn't seem to scared by Santa, just kind of weirded out by his beard. He LOVED the fact that all the other kids flocked to Santa since he had a front row seat and could play voyuer!

Eli's First Christmas in Avondale

We're sure this will be a family tradition, if nothing, then because mom loves to go, but Eli had a grand time! He hadn't seen so many kids running loose in one place before. His head kept swiveling from side to side because he was afraid he would miss something! He really liked the view from Gampy's shoulders... he could see for miles:

Eli's Trip to the St Augustine Amphitheater's Winter Wonderlan

Let me tell you.... Eli had a blast, though he was a little disappointed the ice slide was closed for repairs and they didn't have ice skates in his size. Check out http://www.staugamphitheatre.com/winterwonderland/ for all the details.

He was amazed by the elf village... everything was his size!

He absolutely LOVED the carriage ride! Romeo and Juliet are his favorite horses now!

And he loved getting to spend quality time with his granma and granpa!

For all those Eli fans out there, here's an update!

Eli is starting to pull up and partially stand, believe it or not! His dad keeps shouting to take his legs out, but mom and Amanda like encouraging him to walk and mature.

Here are some pictures of things he likes to do in a day:

He likes to start off the day with a nice piece of toast, preferably cranberry and raisin swirl with a little butter. He likes to share, especially with Jordan, and Jordan LOVES to like the butter from his fingers.

He likes to ease into the day with a little toy playing. Notice the teeth... he's up to seven! Oh, and the Burro Bag in the background. Eli is all about being at the height of indie fashion, that's why he's working on perfecting his rat tail.

He wants to stress how important sunlight is! A little bit each day keeps your complexion looking bright and sunny...

It is also important to stimulate your mind with a good book or sign language flash cards (mom is determined he will be tri-lingual in English, Sign and Spanish):

It is important to get exercise each and every day, even if it's a crawl around the living room practicing fish lips:

It is also important to engage your mind. Eli likes checking out the paper each night to find out what happened in the world:

And most importantly, keep those you love close...

Eli is Cat Angling!

Watch the video and you too will become a believer! Shiva was gracious enough to participate in this production.

Eli's Crawling!

...and smiling, and laughing, and swinging, and sticking his tongue out too! Well a couple of weeks ago, Eli began a new chapter in his life, one of mobility. Mom and Dad can't just leave the room anymore and expect Eli to be in the same place as when we left. Eli has now got wheels, or should I say "knees"? The whole ballgame has changed, and we may not have much time to adjust before he is vertical. He's is starting to pull himself up on tables and chairs. Wish us luck!

Alright, we are terrible parents

It's been so long since we've updated Eli's blog, and he's reminded us of it, in his own little way, daily.

So where to begin? Eli's crawling now (kind of)... he's still not racing across the floor (whew says dad). He's trying to pull himself up on things. He likes to go in the 'tripod' position (up on his tippie toes with one hand in the air and one anchored on the floor). He likes to smack his lips and make growling noises (seriously, it's hilarious). He is eating so much food (pretty much whatever you put in front of him). He's still breastfeeding. As a result of both of these actions, has almost adult like poo (and dad is designated poo scraper). He enjoys frozen teething biscuits a lot and tends to make a big mess. He has become a political activist (as evidenced by the pictures below). He LOVES his new bike trailer. He had a lot of fun picking out his Halloween pumpkin, but didn't enjoy Halloween quite as much as we thought he would, since there weren't many trick or treaters. He loves visiting the animals at the zoo. He really loves Amanda, his nanny. He was exhausted after early voting and has the sticker to prove it. He loves doing whipped cream hits. He loves to have his own leash when we walk the dogs. He is quite the ladies man and flirts shamelessly. He likes feeding himself puffs. He loves his baby blue, velour Nike warm up suit. He is REALLY hoping Obama wins tonight (he went to see him Monday morning).

Here are some pictures since we last updated his blog:

And for those who braved through all the pictures, he's a video of Eli enjoying the 'big boy' swing:

Eli's Growing So Much!

For those of you out there that read about Eli as much as you can, we're sorry! Mom and dad's lives have been a bit hectic lately and they've neglected to keep Eli's site updated.

Believe it or not, Eli's got four upper teeth! The two newest started pushing through last Friday. We can't see any new bottom teeth yet, but have a feeling more are on the way. His dad's a little worried he might keep the space between his top teeth. His grandpa joked and called him Bucky Beaver when he spent quality time with him during last weekend's Jaguar's game.

Eli's becoming MUCH more aware of his surroundings. He takes time to watch and study everything. He still likes to orally examine everything (i.e. likes to put it in his mouth) and is still getting on his hand and knees and rocking a bit, so we think it's only a matter of time before he takes off! Mom got him some 'baby legs' (http://www.babylegs.net/) to protect his legs from the hardwood floots. Let's just hope they'll fit over his chubby legs in the upcoming months! He's also eating a lot more 'food', though most of it doesn't require a lot of chewing.

Eli and mom have had what I guess you could call challenge matches recently. With his new teeth, he's taken to biting (and drawing blood in a few cases) when nursing (yes, he's still nursing), likes to pinch and pull out hand fulls of hair. Mom's polled a few other nursing moms to find out what they did to combat the biting, so hopefully a few tried and true methods will help curb Eli's need to chomp down.

Here are a few picture of Eli over the past few weeks...


Eli and Holden at Kid's Campus. We won't go into the cloth diaper scandal, but suffice it to say, the City of Jacksonville isn't environmentally concerned and thinks everyone should wear plastic.



Eli, dad and granma on St Augustine Beach. We stayed part of Labor Day weekend in what was supposed to be a four star hotel. I'm not sure what rating scale they were using, so we'll just say that Eli really enjoyed the beach and we'll leave it at that.

Eli's first Artwalk in downtown Jacksonville! He got to check out quite a bit, but I think the highlight was this Packard...

Eli's first visit (with mom and dad in tow at least) to the bar at Burrito Gallery. He LOVES the ginger teryaki tofu and guacamole there and just had to check out the bar with dad.