Eli Thursday (and Merry Christmas!)

43 weeks

I think his favorite part of his first Christmas was the piles of wrapping paper. Silly little dude!

Eli Thursday

42 weeks

Eli loves playing the piano, and it's even better on Daddy's lap. 

Merry Christmas!

I still can't believe there is less than a week left until Christmas. It always comes and goes too quickly! Although there are lots of traditions I probably won't get to this year, we did send out Christmas cards and ate all the cookies we were planning on giving away, so I'm calling it a success. 

Merry Christmas, all! 

Sleep is a wonderful thing

Something miraculous happened last night. I went to bed at 10pm and didn't wake up until after 6:30am when Eli woke up hungry. As if that weren't amazing enough, he went back to sleep for a good hour and a half after that.

I can't tell you how wonderful this was. 

Eli hasn't always been a terrible sleeper. There were a couple months where he would at least give us a solid 5-6 hours straight, but lately he's been waking up more often than I really care to discuss. It's been lousy. I've been exhausted. My house has been suffering. And I've been feeling grouchy and overwhelmed. 

Until this morning. 

When I woke up this morning, birds and angels started singing when I realized it wasn't some unholy hour like usualy. I felt like a brand new woman! For the first time in a long time I woke up feeling motivated and ready to go. And this is what I did with all that energy:

• Got dressed and ready for the day before Eli woke up
• Ate breakfast
• Did a load of dishes
• Went to Home Depot for supplies for my Etsy shop, which has been keeping me very busy lately... yay!
• Put Eli down for a nap
• Sanded and prepped Etsy signs 
• Replied to emails and messages 
• Threw together a terrible lunch since I lost track of time... but hey, we ate something! Even though it may or may not have been leftover mashed potatoes, some frozen waffles, and blackberries. (Note: must go grocery shopping tomorrow.)
• Mailed off most of our Christmas cards
• Mailed off Etsy packages
• Put Eli down for another nap
• Stained a bunch of signs
• Baked up some of the peanut butter kiss cookie dough that was left over from last night... YUM
• Ate too many cookies and watched some episodes of The Mindy Project
• Did not make dinner (see above) (hashtag: #noregrets)
• Cleaned the almost all the carpets upstairs
• Wrote this blog post 

I feel so accomplished. It's amazing what a difference it makes to be well-rested, because I'm pretty sure I got more done today than I did all last week. (Seriously though.) And now I am going to sleep and pray that Eli does too! (Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleeeeeaaaaase!)

Eli Thursday

41 weeks

He's always, always, always trying to "help" me type on my computer. His busy little hands are sure cute, but sometimes I really need to get some things done, you know? Today I had a stroke of genius and dug up Dallin's old, broken computer for him to play with. He was in heaven... And maybe a little confused when I didn't stop him from banging on the keys to his heart's delight.  

Also, he loves to pull off his socks, which means there isn't a corner of the house that isn't hiding stray little baby socks. Silly dude.

Santa Baby

Eli met Santa today. It went something like this:

First, curiosity...

...then rejection.

Apparently he's not a fan. 

At least we got some terrific pictures out of the experience, eh? And to be honest, I might love these even more than a picture-perfect smiling face. I'm such a great mom... heh heh. ;)

Quick takes

Eli isn't much of a cryer. Usually if he is crying it means he wants food, and he wants it 15 minutes ago, and if he has to wait one more second he is going to die of starvation. Instead, he hollers as loud as he can when he wants something. It's hilarious to hear him squawk at us from his crib. It's a little less funny when it's in public when I am mean enough to not let him play with my phone.

Often he makes the goofiest little duck face that is almost always accompanied with heavy nasal breathing. We always do it back to him and he giggles. It's our favorite game.

Actually, that's not true. Our favorite game is hide-and-seek. I'll crawl down the hall and hide behind a door or around a corner, and call for him to come find me, and he'll crawl down there to investigate. At first he'll crawl as fast as he can, giggling and squealing, but once he gets closer he is quiet and alert as he tries to figure out where I am. When he finds me, he grins and his eyes light up. It makes me so happy every time! We play this game a lot.

Few things make him happier than going outside. I've been working hard to exercise several times a week, so we've been going on walks pretty frequently. He loves it, and it always makes me feel better too... win-win.

Eli always comes to me when I squat down and hold out my arms. He'll come close enough to grab on to my hands and then wait for me to pick him up. Lately he has started snuggling and hugging me sometimes too, and it just melts my heart. He's such a little sweetheart.

Nursing is still his favorite thing ever, so thankfully I still love it too. He likes to pat me, poke his fingers into my eyes/nose/mouth, and play with my shirt while he eats. Silly goose.

Eli Thursday

40 weeks

I don't think I've ever been this excited for Christmas, and that's probably mostly because of how much fun it is to watch Eli take everything in. He especially loves touching the lights on the tree. It's so adorable. Also, I am really shocked that the presents under the tree haven't even been touched by him yet... but that's probably just a matter of time. ;)