3 months

Yesterday Eli turned 3 months old! I can't believe how fast it's gone by, and yet at the same time it feels like a really long time ago that I was pregnant. So here are a few things he does now that he's 3 months old:

• Sleeps more regularly! If he sleeps well during the day, he sleeps 8 hours at night! (Generally from 8-4) And he goes to sleep almost always with no crying.
• He loves to sit on our laps. His head is much more steady than it used to be and he enjoys looking around.
• He can hold his head almost all the way (straight) up when he's on his tummy (as of yesterday)
• He loves to smile and sometimes we can get good laughs out of him too.
• He only eats every 3 hours now. Hooray!

We are having a lot of fun with our little guy. He's very contented and when he's fed, changed, and well-rested, he's pretty much always happy. It's so nice to get more sleep now and to have my body pretty much back to normal. My tailbone is still hurting me, especially when I sit on anything harder than my couch for longer than 20 minutes, like at church. I'm starting to think that maybe I broke it after all, since it has been 3 months. But other than that I feel really great.

We've had a few fun things going on lately. Last weekend my sister Amy was here with her family. They have a family reunion with Rob's family this week, so they came a little early to hang out with us. So Saturday we went to a pool in honor of her oldest's 8th birthday. We took Eli swimming for the first time and it was really fun. He was a little apprehensive at first, but then started to kick and splash around. Here are a few pictures of the day there:
Here's Jeremy in midair (no, he's not wearing a shirt, that's just his farmer tan!):

Amy and Russell: (And Rob and Grant in the background)
Then yesterday, Jeremy's cousin Robert and his wife Melarie and baby Julia came over to see us. Melarie was due 3 days before me, but ended up having the baby early, and Eli was late so they are 15 days apart. It was fun to see them together and get a bunch of pictures. I never thought of Eli as tall and skinny until I saw him next to Julia! They weighed the same at their 2 month checkups, but as you can see, Julia is a little more compact than Eli. :) Cute babies!
Julia kept reaching over and grabbing Eli's arm or shirt. It was pretty cute.
We decided to put them on their tummies for a contest of who would start crying first (since neither of them like tummy time)......
.....and Julia won. :)
Jeremy and Robert with the kiddos:
Coming up: This weekend we are going up to Nampa, ID (near Boise) for Seth's birthday (my nephew that just turned 8). My parents and little sister will be there too so it'll be a party!

I love to see the temple...

Last Saturday we walked through the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. It is located in South Jordan, which we learned from the video is the only city in the world to have 2 temples within its boundaries (the Jordan River being the other). It was so beautiful. Jeremy took some colleagues from work and we had a great time. I brought my camera but forgot my memory card, so luckily Jeremy's friend had a camera and took a picture of our little family.Eli was awake through the whole tour, but as you can see, he conked out as we were walking around the grounds. What a cutie. :)

It was so nice to be in the temple. We got to the celestial room and we had to shuffle through really quickly since there were so many people there. As we were leaving I found myself wishing I could've had more time in there. Then as I realized I could go back whenever I want (in theory anyway, a little harder with a 3-month-old), I felt so grateful. I can return again and again to the temple. I can just go and feel at peace and enjoy the feeling and blessing of being in the temple. I also feel so blessed to be so close to so many temples. This temple is only 15 minutes from our house, and it's not even "our temple"! We are assigned to go to Jordan River, which is only 10 minutes or less from our house. I love that we can see the tops of both of these temples from our kitchen window. Such a blessing.

We've also been having a lot of fun with Eli lately. We're getting a lot more smiles and laughs from him and it's so fun! Here are a few pictures:



Sittin' on the couch with mom. I took this picture myself, and was surprised it turned out!
He loves his bouncy chair. He just kicks and pumps his arms like crazy whenever we put him in it. And it's great for me to be able to get things done! Of course, while he's movin' and groovin' he drools like crazy, hence the bib. :)

Visit and laughs

Last weekend we had a visit from these wonderful people:(Yes, I stole this from your blog Rachel. Sorry, but we didn't get any pictures while you were here!)

We had lots of fun catching up and talking for hours like the good ole days in Provo. :) We sure miss BJ, Rachel and McKay. They are out in Kentucky for dental school and then on to become an orthodontist (orthodontist school? i don't know). So only 6 more years until they're out this way again! Who knows where we'll be by then.

This week we've been relaxing a bit and enjoying some time as a family. Here's a cute little video of Jeremy and Eli having a good laugh. He's been experimenting with his voice lately and it's so fun to hear him squeal and coo and talk to us. He was really tired here so he was getting some good laughs. :) I apologize for the poor quality and mostly side-view, but as you can see at the end of the video, if he sees the camera, he can't think of anything else. Enjoy!

Eli's Blessing

I've been meaning to post about this, but I just haven't gotten around to it until now. Eli's blessing day went very well. We were so grateful to have so many family members there supporting us. That is a great thing about living in Utah - there is a ton of family out here! My dad's parents and 5 siblings live here and Jeremy's grandma and aunt live in Provo/Orem too. His parents, sister and her kids, and 2 brothers were also here, and my mom came out too. So we had a big group. Jeremy blessed Eli and it was a beautiful blessing.

After church we had about 40 people over for a party! It was almost exactly split in half with Jeremy's side and my side. We had rolls and meats and cheeses and then everybody brought something, which really helped out. We had fruit and salads and veggies and chips and even homemade ice cream and fudge! Of course I forgot to take pictures, but Jeremy managed to get a few.
The Nowland boys (all but one). Jon, Jared, Jeremy and George (oh, and Eli of course. I already changed his clothes, oops.)
Some of the fam.
Happy Independence Day!
Here's just a cute picture after a bath the other day:
And since we were lame and didn't get any pictures of just Eli in his white outfit on Sunday, we attempted to get some yesterday. He wasn't in the best mood for picture taking, but we managed to get a few cute ones. By the way, we were planning on having him wear this cute little outfit that Jeremy was blessed in, but our little chunk was way too big for that. So we went casual with white shorts and a polo shirt. :)

Fuzzy but happy: (He smiles a lot, but getting him to smile for the camera is very tricky. We pull it out and he just can't do anything but stare at it.)
He loves to sit up (with help) now. He's a cutie pie.

My grandma made this white blanket and we were so glad to have it on his blessing day. He looked so sweet wrapped up in it. And he slept through the whole thing.

We're Done!!!

The fence is done! With the exception of a few corner boards and the gate. But basically, we're done and it is amazing. We're all exhausted and I'm too tired to put up pictures right now, but I'll get there. Now we just have to get everything cleaned up and ready for Sunday! We're blessing Eli on Sunday and we're having a ton of family over after. We're crazy. But it'll be fun. It feels good to get so much done. It really feels like we have a usable backyard now and we're excited to continue to work on it. We could not have done it all without the help of Jeremy's dad and brother. Thank you, thank you George and Jon!

Fence as of 12:30pm

Here are a few more pictures:
This is the side that faces the road. Pretty nice looking, eh? We put the nicest side facing out.
Here's the corner. As you can see on the right side, we have 2 different color boards (but they were free, yippee!), so the darker ones are in the front and the side facing the road and the lighter ones are in the back and the other side. So if we get neighbors behind us eventually, no one will see it. We're still debating whether or not to paint it. We'll see when it's all up.
And here's the back so far. In the back we put the nicest side in. The neighbors can cover it up if they want. :) We're at least halfway done with the boards now!
And he's so cute so I had to put this up too. :) Go Cougars!

Fence Progress

We've been working on our fence a lot and it's coming along! Saturday Jeremy and his dad dug all the holes, Monday they set all the posts and started putting up the 2x4's (and his brother Jon came up for a couple hours to help), Tuesday morning Jeremy's dad put up some more 2x4s, Wednesday night Jeremy and I finished all the 2x4's and tonight Jeremy trimmed the tops of all the posts and I started putting up the boards! We expect to get it all done tomorrow. Now is the fun part when it goes fast and looks like a fence! Here are some pictures of our progress so far:
Digging holes
Posts are up!
Getting ready to put up the 2x4's
Monday evening
Our little helper! This was tonight. He was so sweet just hanging out with us. He fell asleep to the sound of the drill. :)
Oh yeah, that's right.
What we have done so far! We should have a lot more done by tomorrow!

Sewing

As I said before, Jeremy's mom and I spent some time making some cute things this weekend. I picked out some fabrics for a quilt a few months ago and she made the quilt and had leftover fabric, so we made curtains and a bumper pad. Here's Jeremy and his mom. Nice glasses babe. Hehe. :)
And here is the quilt she made. It's so cute! It looks great in his room with the light green walls.And the bumper pad. The fabric on the back of the quilt is the same as the back of the bumper pad and the same as the curtains. I couldn't get a good picture of the curtains yet today because of the light. So I'll have to take one when it's dark. I'll put that up later.

And here's a cute picture of Jeremy and Eli:
And Jeremy and I at Tucanos on my birthday: