One Year

Looking back at these pictures, it's crazy to see how much these amazing little babies change in just a year. Here's a look at Eli's first year of life.

Day 1 - 9 lbs. 3 oz. 21 inches long
1 Week Old:
1 Month:
2 Months:
3 Months:
4 Months:
5 Months:
6 Months:
7 Months:
8 Months:
9 Months:
10 Months:
11 Months:
One Year:Happy Birthday Eli! We love you so much and are so glad to have you in our family.

Kisses!

Another thing Eli does very well is give kisses. Big, juicy, open-mouth, slobbery kisses. Whenever we play on the floor with him, we are usually rewarded with these oh-so-loving kisses. They may be slobbery, but I absolutely love it! He's such a sweet boy and I love when he comes at me with that smile and opens his mouth wide to lay one on me. This has been hard to catch on camera, but we finally got one the other day:
And here he his goin' in for the kill with Jeremy:I'm not sure why we both have the eyes-tightly-closed expression. Maybe we're afraid slobber will get in our eye? I don't know. But I love these pictures and I love our Eli!

Graduation Anniversary

This weekend marks 4 years since Jeremy graduated from BYU and 3 years since I graduated from BYU. Time flies!!! I can't believe Jeremy has been out in the work force for 4 years already. It seems like just yesterday when we were both students living in Wymount Terrace. :)
Jeremy graduated 4 years ago with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering. Not the easiest degree ever. Most people tend to take a long time to finish that degree, but my amazing husband did it in 4 years. (With a mission in between of course. And yes, that means that this summer also marks 10 years since he graduated from high school! Whoa.) Anyway, he graduated on a Friday and started his career working at Fluke: Hart Scientific as a Manufacturing Engineer on Monday (May 1, 2006 actually). Not much of a break there - and he's been working ever since. :) In July of 2007 he got promoted to Manufacturing Manager and in December of 2007 he got a call from a company in Salt Lake wanting to interview him for a job up there. He seemed to impress them so they offered him all sorts of goodies to come there, and Jeremy really liked the company, so in January of 2008 he started working at 3-form and in March we moved up here! His responsibilities at the company continue to grow. They keep giving him more parts of the factory to run, more products to make, and more people to be in charge of. I'm so grateful for a smart, amazing, hard-working husband. And I'm so grateful he has a job. These are hard economic times, and I don't let a day go by without thanking the Lord for Jeremy's job. I know what a blessing it is, and that there are many without work right now.

Three years ago I graduated! No Engineering for me (yikes). :) Just a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance, with a Minor in Family Life (not sure why the minor matters since it's not on my diploma or anything, but I liked the classes I had to take to get it). Then I started a Masters of Music: Vocal Performance with a minor in Choral Conducting - decided that wasn't what I wanted to do, so I quit after a year (yep, grad-school dropout here; my mother is not proud of that) and started teaching. Then I got pregnant and I quit teaching at the Conservatory about a month before Eli was born and now I get to be a mom and homemaker! Best job ever. (And teach a few lessons at home).

I'm so glad Jeremy and I both have college degrees. Both of our families were always very encouraging and stressed the importance of education. I'm grateful for Jeremy's mom who told him to get through school fast! Because every year you're in school, that's a year you're not earning. My parents both graduated from college (BYU baby!) and I'm glad I had that example. 4 out of the 5 kids in Jeremy's family are college-grads and 4 out of the 5 in my family are too (and all the son/daughter-in-laws in both families are). Our siblings that haven't graduated are currently in school, so in a few years we'll probably both be 5 for 5!

Anyway, this is kind of an Ode to Education post, but I'm glad to be a part of an educated family and I'm so grateful for my time at BYU. We both loved BYU so much - of course, that's where we fell in love. (Awww). We had so many wonderful experiences there and always look back with fond memories. :) So many of the people on my blog list are people we met at BYU and I'm glad we still keep in touch!

So here's to college! And BYU! And friends! And I need to stop now...

Speaking of Favorites...

...I think Eli enjoyed last night's dinner.

"Mmm, thanks Mom, that was great."
"Oh, maybe I'll have a little more."
"Should I put it in my hair?"
"Maybe I'll just swirl it around my tray."
"Or maybe you should just clean me off and stop taking pictures of me."
"Okay, one more bite."
"Maybe two."
"And one more for the hair."
"Haha, I'm so funny!"
"Now seriously. Get me outta here."Yeah, he definitely got a bath after that. :) Happy Thursday everyone!

(Sorry if messy food all over makes you gag. It makes me laugh).

Eli's Favorites

From left to right:

• my old phone (he's very happy I got a new one so he can have this all to himself)
• blue circle block
• red circle block (he always dumps them all off and holds onto that one)
• socks (in his hand or mouth; not on his feet)
• purple circle thing

At any given time, Eli can usually be seen hanging onto one of these 5 items. He'll just tote them around while he crawls down the hallway or plays with his other toys. It's pretty funny. He's probably the most attached to his socks for some reason, and gets very mad if I try to take them out of his hand to put them on his feet. So if he's wearing socks, he often has more socks in his hands. Weird, I know. :)

Anyway, here are some of Eli's other favorites:

• Wallets: he loves to empty our wallets of all their contents; and then he always picks out the American Express card and hangs onto it
• Food: he loves to eat, especially pasta, beans, rice, peas, pears, and avocados
• Peek-a-boo: If you say "Where's Eli?" he'll put his hand on his head (like he's hiding or something) and then he puts it down when you say "There he is!"
• Playing "chase": he loves to chase you or be chased and giggles uncontrollably when you chase him
• Music: he loves to dance to music and always looks up from what he's doing when music starts to play

(I love this picture of him sitting right in front of the stereo when I had just turned some music on)

• Emptying things: my bag, wallets, bucket of toys, trash cans, laundry basket full of clothes , etc.
• Pillows: he loves to wrestle with pillows; he just tosses them around and dives onto them and slobbers all over (beware of our couch pillows)
• Being tall enough to reach everything! Just tonight he discovered that if he gets on his tippy-toes he can open up the TV cabinet. Uh-oh.

So that's a little more about our Eli. One more week until the big b-day!

Hives

So Eli had an allergic reaction to something this weekend. We think it might be to grass, but I took him to the doctor today and he said that the majority of the time a kid gets hives, you never find out what it was. He said it could be a virus, an allergy, a pollen that blew in from 800 miles away, or something else. Helpful, I know. :) However, he said if it persists or keeps coming back we can take him to get a blood test for allergies. So in the meantime he's on Benadryl and a couple different antihistamines until it clears up. We're on day 4 here, so hopefully it will get cleared up soon. I took a few pictures on Saturday. They're kind of sad, but I thought I'd put them up anyway.(His face and eyelid got swollen Saturday afternoon).

Luckily it hasn't seemed to bother him at all. I would've felt a lot worse if he seemed really uncomfortable, but he's still been his happy little self.

Jeremy's family has a lot of allergies, and I told the doctor that and asked if it was genetic or whatever. He said the tendency is genetic, but the specificity is individual - meaning there's a higher chance he'll have allergies, but what he is allergic to is not genetic.

Anyway, so that's what we've been doing. It has been AMAZING weather here lately. We spent some time doing yard work on Saturday (mostly while Eli was napping, since we think it may have been a grass allergy) and it's so fun to be outside! We're getting really excited to plant our garden in a couple weeks. Jeremy's allergies have been really bad lately, so he's been Mr. Sneezy, but even that couldn't stop him from enjoying the sunshine and 70+ degree weather.

So that's the news! Thanks for stopping by.

Resemblance

Everyone is always commenting on how much Eli looks like Jeremy. I agree. His looks are Nowland through and through. I found this picture of Jeremy that his mom had given me awhile back, so I thought I would put it up so you could see the resemblance. Jeremy is around 2 in this picture I think (Debbie, correct me if I'm wrong). Isn't he adorable? I tried to take a picture of Eli with a similar expression (easier said than done). He's furrowing his chin a little bit, so his face shape isn't quite the same as usual, but other than that I think it's pretty good. I see a lot of similarities in their eyes and the shape of their face. What do you see?

And then I just couldn't resist adding this picture too. I think this was kindergarten? My, what a handsome lad.

Almost One

Our baby boy turns 1 in 13 days! Ahhh!
(I love this picture by the way. This was taken this morning).

I'm going to try and blog a lot about Eli between now and then so I can remember all the cute things about this stage in his life.

Eli has been so much fun lately. He's always been wonderful, but it's been really fun watching him learn about the world around him. He's starting to understand what we say and it's so cute to see him respond when we ask him something or tell him to do/don't do something. When I tell him to not touch something you can see the little struggle going on, but for the most part he obeys and stays away from what he knows he shouldn't touch. (Sometimes he'll just point to it over and over as if he's saying "I really want to touch that, but I know I'm not supposed to). He also knows what/where his toys and his books are. Here's a little video of me telling him to go get his books:

What a smarty-pants. :) (The books are in both of those drawers by the way; I guess I didn't show that in the video). He does the same thing when I say "Go get your toys" or "Go play with your toys". He's so cute.

He also kinda-sorta said his first word. He babbles a lot, but this was the first time that he made a sound and knew what it meant. Background: He likes to touch my earrings, and I'm always telling him to "be soft" so he doesn't rip my ear off. He usually comes over to touch them several times a day and I always say the same thing (I also say it when he tries to grab my glasses). So the other day he started saying "sah, sah" when I was saying "be soft", and then that evening I told Jeremy about it and when I was explaining about how I say "be soft", Eli crawled over to me, pointed to my earring and said "sah, sah". So cute! He may think "soft" means earring, but hey, that's okay. It was just neat to see him make a sound on purpose, you know? I catch him saying it all the time. Actually, about a week ago he was going around saying "sss" all the time, so maybe he was practicing for his new word.

Here's a little video of him saying it. It's not the best video, but you get the idea (this was taken with Jeremy's phone).

Anyway, that's all for tonight. I keep thinking of all these things about Eli that I want to blog about, so there will probably be lots of that coming. If you are a grandparent of Eli's, you will love it; if you are a friend of mine, you may get bored. :) Sorry.

On another note, aren't sleeping babies the sweetest?

Saturdays and Sundays

Let's start with Saturday.

I love Saturdays. It's the one day a week that we are together as a family all day (most of the time). Yea! We can be lazy or we can be super productive. We can run errands or we can just spend the day at home. This Saturday was a combination of all. We started out the day somewhat lazy. The weather forecast said it would be warm and sunny, but the morning (okay, so until about 3pm) was overcast, so I think that added to the laziness. Anyway, we did some things around the house, like clean out drawers/closet and try on vests over jammies:And then once the sun came up in the afternoon, we decided to spend some time outside. It was great! Jeremy mowed the lawn for the first time this year and although it isn't quite green yet (we live in Utah, people), it sure looks a lot better.

While Jeremy mowed, I pulled weeds in our front yard with Eli's "help". Haha. He started off chillin' in his stroller eating Cheerios, but then he wanted in on the action, so he came out and started "helping" me pull weeds. Then I started having to fish bark out of his mouth every 2 seconds, so that was less effective. :) He did pull on a few weeds though, and some flowers, and then he just started taking all the bark and putting on the grass. Very helpful. That's probably what it looked like I was doing, so I guess that's kind of cute.

Flowers blooming in the front (there are still weeds in the grass, but there were a lot more around the flowers; and I love the little munchkin in the background; he loves the freedom of the outside)"Give me that camera!"
Anyway, so then we got all cleaned up and then we went to Cafe Rio for dinner. Yesss! We are big Cafe Rio fans, especially when we're due for a free meal. Woohoo! So that ended our family date, and then we went home and put Eli to bed and Jeremy and I enjoyed a nice relaxing night vegging on the couch.

Now we come to Sunday. I love aspects of Sunday. (Am I going to get struck down for saying that?) I think every mom will agree with me here though. Sundays are hard, and they get harder every week! Eli is getting so wiggly at church, and I know this is just the beginning. He's happy, but he just wants to crawl everywhere and get into everything, so I'm always chasing him or restraining him, etc., etc.

And besides the church part of Sunday, it's pretty busy. This morning Jeremy got up at 6 something and was out the door before 7 for his early meetings. So Eli and I got up about 7:00, got breakfast, played, napped, got ready for church, prepared for choir, etc. and Jeremy came home at 11:00 for a short break at which point we ate lunch and got ready to go out the door. We left at 11:45 for choir which starts at 12. Then we had church from 1-4, Eli and I came home, I got dinner ready, Jeremy came home at 5:30, we ate, played a bit, got Eli ready for bed, and then sighed a sigh of relief as we plopped ourselves on the couch.

Through the craziness of it all though, I do love Sundays. I know it's hard for it to feel like a day of rest, when by the end of church I'm exhausted (and I only have one kid! My sister Wendy, who has 3 and her husband's the bishop is probably laughing at me right now). But I am grateful that we have a day set aside for worship. With Jeremy gone all day, it can be easy for Sundays to feel like any other day, but I do love going to church and choir and feeling the Spirit there and feeling it stay with us through the entire day. I love listening to my CD of sacred music I compiled from many years in BYU choirs and I love the quiet I feel in my home even among the sometimes craziness. No TV, no working, no worldly influences. Ahh. Speaking of, I think I better go enjoy my quiet evening with my hubby now.

I hope everyone had a nice weekend. We have another storm coming, so we were grateful for our 4 hours of sunshine yesterday. :)

Picture of the Day

Post-nap hair. Awesome.

Our Easter Weekend

Wow. What a fabulous weekend!

We started off Friday night eating these:
(Yes. That's homemade burgers, homemade buns, homemade oven fries. Recipes coming soon. Yum!)

Then Saturday we watched 4 wonderful hours of Conference while occasionally battling things like this:
I guess he didn't want to watch Elder Bednar. He was actually pretty good through most of the sessions, but we did have to wrestle him away from the TV a few times. :)

Then after the afternoon session Heidi came up to visit! We had dinner and then sent Jeremy off to the Priesthood session while we made the potatoes for our Easter feast the next day.

Then Jeremy came home and gave us the full report on the session and then we made these:
(Above is Jeremy's Humpty-Dumpty-esque egg).
Aren't they beautiful? (I don't know why that picture rotated. Oh well).

Then Sunday we watched 4 more hours of Conference:
Eli loved the music. This is during Music and the Spoken Word before the morning session. He got right up there when they started singing the Hallelujah Chorus and just stared at the TV. We love him. :)

We spent the in-between times playing a bit...
...but mostly preparing for this:Everything went so well! We made ham, gourmet potatoes, asparagus, rolls, and carrot cake for dessert. We had some friends from our ward over and they brought a salad and a fruit platter and everything was sooo delicious! It was fun to celebrate Easter in our home and we had a great time chatting with our friends and getting to know them better.

And about Conference: it was fantastic. I loved how so many of the talks were focused on teaching in the home. Jeremy and I were talking about this last night and we were feeling the responsibility of being parents. It all comes down to us. With the world the way it is today, we can't rely on anyone else to teach our kids the truths of the gospel or even basic moral and ethical behavior. We have to be strong in the home. I'm excited to be able to re-read and study the talks (especially since we had a cute little distraction making lots of noise). They were all perfect for what we needed to hear and learn right now. I hope everyone else had a wonderful weekend! We felt so grateful for good family, friends, food and faith.