Picture Perfect

It's Christmas time and for most new parents that means inundating friends and family with cavity inducing photos of the little one. Call us bad parents but when Kelvey presented the required task to me, we both gave a simultaneous "guugh". The thought of taking Eli to a Sears or babies-R-Us for a photo shoot seemed like such a daunting task of getting him dressed up, keeping him clean of drool and spit up, and of course, keeping him happy enough to smile for the camera.

Luckily Kelvey was determined to make it happen as quick and painless as possible. We put our heads together and thought of the perfect plan to get it over and done with within the span of a weekend afternoon.

Step 1.) Go to Goodwill and find some cheap Christmas outfits instead of paying top dollar for outfits he would only wear for a few days. We hit up the Goodwill down the street from us and struck gold in finding a snowman sweater vest and some christmas pj's! Unfortunately, I had to go to 3 different stores before finding a santa hat for Eli to wear (probably because of all the other poor suckers/parents doing the same thing as us).

Step 2.) Set the scene. In case you didn't know, Texas is not exactly a winter wonderland so we had to do some quick thinking about how to Christmas-up Eli's picture. Hmm . . . snow is white . . . our comforter is white . . . why not have Eli sitting on a fluffy cloud of white comforter with a white comforter backdrop? Done.

Step 3.) Get Eli prepped. Eli was in a good mood (hell, he's almost always in a good mood, that's what makes him awesome!) so we quickly dressed him in some jeans, a white long sleeve onesie, his new sweater vest and his hat. His sweater vest was a size too big so we used binder clips on the back to pinch it tighter. His hat was a size too big as well, but luckily Eli has a big head so it fit perfectly.

Step 4.) Picture time! Kelvey had the lion's share of the task because she had to keep Eli's attention forward, keep him smiling and take the picture all at the same time. I just stood behind Eli holding the comforter up. We traded places so I could try to take few pics, but I failed miserably and gave up quickly. After taking 24 rapid fire pics, we looked them over and could instantly pick out at least 5 or 6 that were golden. Believe it or not, the one featured here is NOT the cutest one. It's too bad that you will have to wait to see the chosen few because Kelvey will not let me post them until the framed versions have been sent out to our families. She doesn't want to ruin the surprise. After some begging and maybe a little bit of whining about how I wouldn't have anything for the blog, she let me post this one. Enjoy this one for now and brace yourself for eye-melting cuteness once the others are posted on flickr.

Travelin' Man

So we're preparing for our second trip to Colorado to see my family for Christmas, but we were having a hard time figuring out how and where Eli will sleep. My brother reserved an apartment for us so we will not have a crib available like we did at the hotel in Denver and we have not been able to find a portable sleeping unit that is soft, sturdy, or big enough for Eli to be comfortable in. What are we going to do?! We couldn't have him sleep in bed with us because we might roll over on him. We couldn't leave him on a couch or bed of his own because he might roll off. We were beginning to accept the sad realization that we would not be getting any sleep on this trip either.

We were at our wits end when a brilliant idea struck down like a bolt of lightening from Einstein's mustache. I grabbed the padded mat from Eli's play yard and our largest suitcase and BOOM . . . I got chocolate in my peanut butter and an instant travel crib was born! The play yard is designed to fold up for portability and to my amazement it fit perfectly within the suitcase. We gave it a test run by placing Eli in it and it looked like it just might work (we even strapped him in with the suitcase straps and laughed to ourselves about checking him at airport). Eli tends to toss and turn and scoot around in his sleep so we may need to help him adjust within the small space, but hopefully that will be the least of our problems.

Zombie Baby Eat Your Face!

Eli is the coolest and sweetest kid right now. He's already cute and cuddly and the perfect size to snuggle with, but now he is returning the love by giving us full on hugs and kisses! When I pick him up from a nap, he reaches out, wraps his arms around my neck, and burrows his face into my cheek or neck. When we are playing around, he will occasionally reach out to grab my face and pull it towards him so he can kiss me. His hugs are spot on, but he's still learning the technique for kissing. When he goes in for a kiss, he doesn't really pucker up. Instead he opens his mouth really wide and tries to stuff your entire face into it. Despite looking like a zombie trying to eat your face, he's actually pretty gentle and if he happens to get your nose or cheekbone in his mouth he just lightly gums it or licks it.

Eli Eats!

Now that Eli is starting to eat more than Kelvey's milk factory can produce, we decided it was time to get Eli into training for real food. We picked up some rice cereal as suggested by our pediatrician and mixed up a delightful little batch with Kelvey's milk. We strapped a bib on Eli, grabbed an extra burp rag for clean up, and braced ourselves for the most magnificent mess we've ever seen, but to our surprise Eli took to eating like Takeru Kobayashi takes down hot dogs. He must have been studying how Kelvey and I eat because he knew exactly what to do when he saw the spoon approaching with a tiny puddle of rice cereal on it. It was a little difficult at times when he tried to grab the spoon and feed himself but he was easily distracted with another spoon he could hold on to. Here's a clip of him getting his grub on:

We still have some more training to do, but I don't think Tubbs here will have much difficulty picking it up.

Eli heads to Denver

Last week Kelvey had a conference in Denver, CO so I was left in charge of Eli for the week. Since I can't produce milk and it is too hard to catch and milk the squirrels in the back yard, I packed Eli up and we headed out to Denver to so that Eli could continue to drink the sweet nectar of milk from his mother. Eli and I hung out in the hotel room and took walks around downtown while Kelvey worked throughout the day. I tried to take Eli to the Denver Art Museum so he could become cultured in the contemporary arts, but he ended up sleeping the entire time. I waited around until he woke up and then tried to show him some of the cooler interactive exhibits, but he was still half a sleep and did not seem to know what was going on. Maybe next time.

Later in the week we met up with my brother and his fiance and went to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. There was quite a bit to see there but I was a little worried when Eli was more intrigued by the goldfish swimming in a tiny tank than the giant stuffed grizzly bear right next to it. As we explored the museum some more Eli became more aware of the crazy exhibits and he seemed to enjoy the animal displays the most.

It was fun hanging out with Eli all day and then relaxing together as a family in the evening, but when the sun set and bedtime rolled around . . . the beast was unleashed. For some reason, Eli could not sleep at all in the hotel room. He slept fine the first night but the following 2 nights he woke up every hour with a blood curdling scream. We couldn't tell if it was the diaper rash, the hard mattress in the hotel crib or the high altitude that was making him uncomfortable, but we did not get wink of sleep those 2 nights. I could deal with the getting up, but what made it worse was the anxiety that the people next door to us were having to suffer the commotion as well. We were worried that Eli had reached the point of being fussy at night for no reason like some of our friends had told us about their babies, but thankfully everything went back to normal as soon as we got home. He is now sleeping through the night again and all is right with the world.

The thing I liked most about our trip to denver was that Eli got to see some real snow. Since we live in Texas, Eli doesn't have any clothing fit for playing in the snow so we couldn't actually roll around it and make snow angels without him getting completely soaked and freezing. We did make a snow ball for him and he did his inquisitive scratching to figure out what this crunchy white stuff is. For more awesome pics of our trip to Denver, check out our flickr.com page.

Happy Halloween!

It's Eli's first Halloween and we were excited to dress him up! I initially wanted to find a way to attach him to me so we could be like that guy from Total Recall with the quatto, but I didn't have the time or effort to put into it. Plus, he's a baby. He's supposed to be something cute. Luckily, his Nana Karol had gotten him a Frankenbaby costume a few months back and he looked adorable in it! We didn't take him trick or treating because he wasn't going to be eating any candy and we thought it would be rude to take candy that could be given to other kids. We did take him to a couple of parties that night, and our friends were able to gasp and rant about how cute he was. The only problem with taking him to the parties was that he stayed up a little later than usual and his routine was thrown off. It didn't help that it was Daylight Savings this weekend as well. We completely forgot about it being an hour earlier as we began his bedtime tonight and got an earful of tired baby. As soon as I set him down in his bathtub he began screaming because his internal clock was telling him he should be getting his last feeding and going to sleep by then. Hopefully he will adjust to the new time schedule without too much hassle.

Sit. Stay. Roll over. Part II

Eli has been getting tired of us deciding whether he is on his back or his stomach lately so has been putting in work with his rolling attempts. The first video here shows him hard at work trying to figure out this rolling thing on his own. Listen at the 00:25 mark for his strain of frustration:

After a few days of practice, Eli finally got it down . . . sort of. He's pretty much just learned to rear his head back until the weight of that large noggin forces the rest of his body to flop over. Here is is in action (he had already rolled over multiple times for Kelvey before I got home and that is why he does not seem so happy or proud of himself when he was finally filmed):