Merry Christmas!

I have lots to blog about - cousin's wedding, parents coming into town, Messiah concert, Christmas program on Sunday, etc., etc., but I need to keep packing and getting ready since we're leaving for California tonight! We're driving about a third of the way tonight and then we'll go the rest of the way tomorrow. We're excited to see our families and enjoy a nice relaxing break.

I hope you are all safe and happy and we wish everyone has a very Merry Christmas!

I keep forgetting

My sisters have announced this on their blogs, but I wanted to share that both of my older/married sisters are also expecting! How fun is that? We were all pregnant for some of the same time last time, but not as close as this time. Eli is 4 months younger than Vanessa (Wendy's), who is 6 weeks younger than Russell (Amy's). We're going in reverse order this time. :) I'm due March 21, Wendy's due with #4 April 16 (with a boy too!) and Amy's due with #5 May 29th (?). My mom's going to have a busy spring!

It will be so fun for these little dudes and - maybe a dudette - to have cousins close to their ages. Of course it would be a lot more fun if any of us lived even in the same state, but at least when we do see each other, they'll have playmates. And just for kicks, here's a picture of all the girls in my family from my baby shower when I was pregnant with Eli. I love having sisters!

I just couldn't help myself

Merry Christmas!

Busy Boy

Eli does so many fun things these days that I thought I better blog about them before I forget! I've been terrible about writing in my journal and I don't scrapbook, so if it doesn't get on the blog, it will be lost forever! (That's how much I trust my memory).

So...here are some random, writing-whatever-comes-into-my-head interests/activities that Eli has been into lately:

• Trucks and trains - anytime he hears anything that remotely sounds like a truck or a train he perks up and says "truck!" or "choo-choo!" and gets very excited and then points to me and says "mama" so I can take him to the window and show him the trucks outside (except usually they're just driving by and gone by the time we get there). He loves Friday morning when the garbage man comes. We stare out the window until all the trucks are done and gone. That's a big highlight in his week. :)

• Books - this kid loves to read/be read to and I love that he loves it. He will often get all of his books out and pile them together and then grab my hand and bring me over to read to him. He also likes to get a blanket out to put on the couch so we can snuggle and read books. Very cute! My favorite is when he "reads" to himself. It's pretty darn adorable. He also has three books that must be read to him before bed - "Choo-choo" (All About Trains), "duck" (One Little Duck) and "book" (Little Boy Blue - it's just "book" to him).

• Letters - along those lines, he's starting to learn some letters. He knows o and s and we're working on a few others. Yesterday, while I was making dinner, he was laying on the floor on his tummy reading some books. He kept pointing to different words and I would hear "O" or "S" randomly. I love it!

• Observing - it's amazing to me (and I'm sure all mothers feel this way) how much kids see! It blows my mind how much Eli notices. He is very aware of everything we do, especially the things I never notice I even do, and it amazes me when he mimicks them. The other day I said "Okay, mommy needs to go get ready" so he ran into my room like he always does when I say that and then pointed up at the light for the vanity because he knows I always turn that light on when I get ready. Then today after I got out of the shower, he reached in my drawer and handed me my deodorant. Haha. What a kid. He loves to assist Jeremy getting ready in the morning too by giving him his razor or stealing his gel and trying to do his own hair. :)

• Helping - along with the observing, he knows how to help (when it's his idea and he's in the right mood of course). If I tell him I need to clean the bathrooms, he goes over to the cupboard and tries to open it to get the cleaning supplies out and then ways "wash!" until I hand him a towel to help me. He loves having the job of carrying the supplies into the bathroom. Very important work. (He's washing the floor in this picture - I was cleaning the bathroom. I swapped that water spray bottle for the windex I had been using)He also likes to help put things away (although he takes things out much more often!), water the Christmas tree, empty the dishwasher, put the clothes into the dryer, etc. He also likes to put things in the trash - luckily it's just been trash. Here's a picture of him helping with the trash. This was the day after Thanksgiving. Jeremy said he was going to take the trash out, so Eli went in his room and grabbed his trash can, brought it out, and took out the bag to hand to Jeremy.
• Kisses - Eli is very loving and snuggly which we are so grateful for! He's always been a bit of a snuggler (Jeremy and I both were too) and he also gives great kisses. He'll kiss anyone who asks for a kiss. How sweet.

• Snow - he is fascinated with the snow. He doesn't love to touch it with his hands, but he likes to stomp on it and he loves to look at it out the window. The entire week of Thanksgiving we heard "That's snow!" over and over and over again. (said more like "das no") He still randomly points to the window and says the same thing.

• Tupperware and bowls - my goodness, Eli LOVES getting out all the tupperware and bowls he can reach. He'll fill them with his toys and then transfer the toys from one bowl to the next or stick them in a pitcher ("juice!"). Jeremy said we should just give him tupperware for Christmas. Haha.

• Hi! - lately he just randomly comes up to me and says "hi" with a big smile. He does it like 15 times a day. It's pretty cute.

And as if this post wasn't long enough already, here's a little video I took this morning. It's not very exciting, but I thought I hadn't taken a video of Eli in awhile, so I did. Somebody put a different setting on and I didn't notice it until after, so that's why the lighting is a little weird. He wasn't in the mood for another video after I fixed it, so oh well. :)

Snow Pictures

These are a week old now, but I said I'd put them up, so here they are! This was after our second big storm. We had 2 weekends in a row (before & after Thanksgiving) where we got about a foot of snow each time. In between the storms it never got warm enough to melt, so we had a lot of snow out there! It's actually mostly gone now. You can see our grass on about half of the lawn.

Above - front lawn; snow almost level with the top of one of the bushes. Below - Also in the front. Thank you husband for shoveling the driveway!

BBQ - The middle section has the lid, but the section on the left is just a flat shelf. That's a lot of snow!

Looking out the back door. That lump is a bouncy ball of Eli's and that mound on the far right is his little motorcycle thing that was completely buried.

This picture is actually before the second storm - the day after Thanksgiving - but I thought it was cute so I put it up!

Next I need to put up pictures of our Christmas tree and some cute things Eli has been up to. Stay tuned!

Thanksgiving Recap

Well I misplaced my camera on Monday but I finally found it today so now I can blog about Thanksgiving! I wish I could blame it on Eli, but I just totally forgot where I put it.

So...our Thanksgiving was a success! Jeremy's parents were here for a week and we had a great time visiting with them. They got here at 2am Saturday morning. Yikes! They were trying to beat the storm that arrived Saturday afternoon, and it's a good thing they did! We got about a foot that night. I had my concert in Salt Lake and it went really well even though our audience was quite small because of the storm.

Anyway, so we had a nice time that week. Jeremy's mom went to the Family History Library in Salt Lake a few times and his dad spent a lot of time playing with Eli, which was great! I felt like I went to the store 17 times those few days leading up to Thanksgiving, but I think it was only actually 2 or 3.

Wednesday I spent all day baking pies and doing other preparations for the feast. Jeremy's mom was awesome and did all the dishes that day as I was going. I told Jeremy it was like heaven! I got to cook all day long and I didn't have to clean up at all! :)

Thursday was a great day and it was so nice having Jeremy off work for the 4-day weekend. I put Jeremy's mom in charge of hors d'oeuvres. Their family always does fun hors d'oeuvres on Thanksgiving and I thought that was definitely a tradition we should keep up! :) So she put together some beautiful (and sooo delicious) plates of cheese, fruits, roasted garlic, stuffed mushrooms, crackers, sliced baguette, spinach artichoke dip, etc. It was great to take a little break from the cooking/prepping and eat such delicious food!

(We also had a veggie tray not pictured)

Eli liked it too!

A few hours later, we were in full-blown prep mode as we got everything ready to serve. To my surprise (and relief), we were right on schedule and were ready to eat about 3:15. We had the missionaries over and we had a great time! The food was delicious. As always, I felt like there were a few things that could have been better, but overall it was great. The turkey was so moist and delicious (if you don't brine your turkey, you really should) and we had tons of leftovers which made for a very easy weekend! (Note to self: I probably didn't need a 20 lb. turkey for 7 people - whatever).

Above - George taking the pic; Below - me taking the pic :)
Jeremy's plate. He wanted to take a picture.

After recovering for a few hours we dug into the pies and then played some games later that night. Friday, Jeremy's parents were out and about pretty much all day, so we just had a low key morning, an afternoon nap, and then we went to get our Christmas tree! We didn't end up decorating it until Saturday afternoon, but it was fun to go get it. We also tried to get Eli to enjoy playing in the snow, but as you can see, that didn't really work out:

But he sure is cute! Jeremy's parents left Saturday and then we got to spend that night writing our talks for Sacrament meeting the next day (I dread speaking in church - so glad that's over!)

So that was our week. More to come later - I've got lots of pictures from our 3rd storm of that week that hit Sunday morning (luckily Jeremy's parents got out before!) We got another foot! Crazy.