So Handsome

Nana snapped this picture of Elias in the front yard when she was here a couple weeks ago, and I think it is just SO GOOD! Who needs professional photographers when you've got grandmothers??? Thanks, Nana!

Climbing

My little guy is just growing like crazy and he's getting really tall! With the increased height comes his ability to start climbing on things, and that's now his new obsession. He tries putting his knees on everything to see if he can reach and then climb. Here he is climbing into our entertainment center: (That was soon nipped in the bud, but it was too hilarious not to capture on photo first!)

He also has a little Winnie the Pooh activity table that he is finally just tall enough to climb on, so he tries that one often too. His favorite climbing gym, though, is the couch. (Check out how proud of himself he is in this picture!)He loves to climb on and off the couch, rearrange the pillows, and use them as aids for further climbing. He pushes up the couch cushions to give himself a little lower place to climb up to. Whenever he does that, we say he's in his "spot." Here is a sample video of what he does on the couch. What a goof!

If you remember the disastrous living room from my last blog post, this is that same day - the video shows a bit of how it got that way!

You'll notice that he has pulled one of the couch cushions completely off and put it on the floor in front of the couch. He does this so that he can then stand on it and get an extra inch or two to be able to climb onto the coffee table. Sigh. We even caught him once climbing over the arm of the couch onto the end table! Yep, I'm definitely going to have one of those fearless boys who's not afraid to try anything. I'm definitely going to have to be a praying mommy that he'll survive the early years!!!

Hurricane Elias

I just had to share this - thought many of you mommies of toddlers could relate. This is what my living room looked like moments ago before I put Elias down for his nap (Click to enlarge.):What on earth happened in here? A freak indoor tornado? A burglar who was searching for our valuables? Nope, it was just Hurricane Elias, my toddler whirlwind. Cleaning up is the next thing on my list to teach him!

For Grandma

When Elias and I visited my family in Ohio back in August, his Grandma taught him how to say "Mm-mm-mmmmm!" when he's eating something tasty. Well, he's still doing it! He usually only says "Mm-mm" but occasionally he gets the "mmmmmmm" at the end. Either way, it's cute and we think of Grandma every time!

Whirlwind Wedding Weekend

I just got back from a whirlwind weekend in Texas for the wedding of my best friend, Charity. (We were missionaries in Africa together, and she was the maid of honor at my wedding. I thought that might help some of you know who I'm talking about!) It was an AWESOME weekend, and the wedding was PERFECT! I am so thankful to have been able to go! I'll just post this pic, since Charity hasn't posted her own yet and I don't want to steal her thunder. But I'll just post this one to show how beautiful she was and how perfect the ceremony was!!!!! (Photo courtesy of Margaret Allen)Congratulations to Mr. & Mrs. Njesada!

Justin and Elias stayed home when I went, so Nana (Justin's mom) drove down to stay with them and keep Elias while Justin was at work. From what I hear, they had an incredible weekend and I'm so thankful Elias was well-behaved for Nana! I couldn't believe how much he had grown and developed even just in the 4 days I was gone! Such a big, smart, sweet, and handsome boy. I'll be posting more pictures and videos soon to catch you up with all that he's doing these days, so stay tuned!

Shape Shenanigans

I mentioned in our 15-month post that Elias had learned to recognize the shapes and push the buttons on his little toy computer on command. Well, I'm finally getting around to posting a video of that! He lost interest after pushing only 3 of them, but you get the idea...

A more recent talent he has developed is being able to correctly use his shape sorter! I'm very proud of him for being able to do this.

My little smartypants!

Bubbles

The first few times Elias ever saw bubbles, he didn't care in the slightest. He was always like "So what?" But then one day a couple weeks ago, I was blowing bubbles with him at home, and it just clicked! He laughed and tried to grab and pop them, and he even said "Bubbles!" very clearly! So here's a video of that day. He has loved them ever since!

If you watch it all the way to the end, you can also see his good use of the sign for "Please," which is pretty new in his signing vocabulary.

Eating with a Fork

This video is a couple weeks old, but I keep forgetting to post it! We're trying to teach Elias to eat with utensils, and he's actually not doing too bad with a fork! He still loses the food off of spoons, but since the food stays on the fork, he does a great job getting it into his mouth. He has only been able to get the food on it himself once or twice, but it's still progress! He actually really loves eating with a fork, and we can often get him to eat food he doesn't like by putting it on a fork. I hope THAT continues!

Note the tiny little fork that came in a set his Nana and GrandDad gave him for his first birthday. Cute! You can also see his good use of the sign for "More." He does it with his right fist closed and left hand open.

Be Careful Little Feet

God is working on teaching me something right now, and my thoughts aren't fully formed about it yet, but I want to get it out there all the same. Most of the time writing about something helps me organize my thoughts about it, so you all are lucky enough to be able to be the recipients of my ramblings on the matter.

I'm currently participating in Beth Moore's Breaking Free Bible study with a group of young moms in my area. This is a powerful, powerful study, and I recommend it to anybody whether you feel like you have areas of bondage in your life or not. This week's focus has been on looking back in our families to see what kinds of bondage may have been passed down to us from generations and generations of our families. One of the main Scriptures she uses this week is Exodus 20:5-6.

You shall not bow down to them [idols] or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand [generations] of those who love me and keep my commandments.

This verse doesn't mean that we have to pay for our ancestors' sins - Christ did that on the cross. Instead, this means that we often have to bear the natural consequences of generational sins, and we are often more susceptible to repeat the mistakes we saw in those who came before us. Don't get so caught up in verse 5, though, that you miss verse 6. The descendants of the wicked often reap painful consequences, but the descendants of the faithful are guaranteed to reap blessing for a thousand generations! So not only do I want to look back at my ancestors to see if I may have inherited any bondage that I wasn't aware of, but the thing that really took hold of me about this concept this week is to be aware of the legacy I'm leaving for my children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, etc. Do I want to be the means by which suffering is inflicted on 3 or 4 future generations, or do I instead want to be the means by which blessing is passed on to thousands?

God has given this all a very personal application for me, though, in thinking about my own struggles and areas of bondage, and thinking about the effect it will have on Elias and any other children/grands/greats/etc. I have been struggling a lot with shortcomings, difficulties, and failures for the past couple of years, and I often get discouraged. I struggle with making the right choices every day and with maintaining hope that God can and will deliver me from this bondage. I am often tempted to think that the little choices I make every day don't really matter, won't make a difference in the grand scheme of things. Or probably a better way to put it is just that I get tired of fighting day in and day out to make the best choices, when I don't feel like I'm making any progress or don't feel like there's any reward for doing what's right.

But there's a Casting Crowns song called "Slow Fade," which has always been meaningful to me, but this week has taken an even deeper meaning in the context of breaking my own bondage in order to not pass it down to Elias. You can watch the video here and read the lyrics here. This week it has seemed to come on the radio every time I get in the car, so if you see me driving down the street bawling, that's probably why. The chorus goes like this:

It's a slow fade when you give yourself away.
It's a slow fade when black and white have turned to gray.
Thoughts invade, choices are made, a price will be paid
When you give yourself away.
People never crumble in a day.
It's a slow fade, it's a slow fade.

So the meaning that this takes for me is just that every choice I make is either one step closer to freedom or one step deeper in bondage. There are very few neutral choices. So when I'm tempted to just stop fighting "just this once," I need to remember that just this one compromise is the first step down a path I don't want to walk down myself, and that I definitely don't want to lead my son down. The first verse of the song says this:

Be careful little feet where you go,
For it's the little feet behind you that are sure to follow.

Oh, I want to lead those little feet behind me down the path of God's Truth to freedom and nowhere else. So I will fight. And keep fighting. Because I do not want to see my children struggling in my same prisons. I want to be the means by which they are able to live in great blessing, freedom, and power from the Lord.

Pumpkin Patch

We went to a pumpkin patch with our church small group last night, and we had a great time! Elias loved playing on the playground and crawling around in the hay and dirt, and we got some really cute pictures! Enjoy!

True Blue

I debated whether or not to post these pictures now after Kentucky's APPALLING performance against Florida on Saturday. I mean, not only did they lose spectacularly, but they also incapacitated the best quarterback in college football. However, we are proud of our alma mater and will root for them no matter what. We are no fairweather fans!!!

Plus, is my precious boy in his UK jammies not just the cutest thing you've ever seen in your life?!?!So my sweet boy will be True Blue no matter how well they play.

I Love You!

I decided this week that I wanted to teach Elias to say "I love you." So I said to him, "Elias, say 'I love you!'" And he responded by making a kissy noise! I was surprised! I'd never heard him make a kissy noise like that, and he used it appropriately in relation to love! He was pretty proud of himself too, although, he could've just been reacting to Mommy's joy...

I remembered then that he has a little toy cell phone that talks when you push the buttons, and one of the buttons says "I love you" followed by a kissy noise. So I guess that's where he picked it up and associated the two! I think it's so sweet, though!

All Clear

I took Elias back to the doctor today so she could check his ears and make sure the infection was completely gone. Praise the Lord, it is! It took him much longer than I expected to fully recover from this, but in the past couple of days, he's back to his old self. My precious boy. I have more pics and videos to upload that I'm hoping to get to over the weekend, so stay tuned!

I never did post an official 16-month update, which he turned on Monday. But I thought since I'm posting a plethora of pics and videos, you all are getting a good idea of what the past month has looked like for us. I fall more and more in love with this child every day!

Chillin'

One day last week when Elias was sick with his ear infection, he apparently decided he was too tired to keep playing with Daddy. So he just took his Jimmie car and went over and rested against a couch cushion. Sweet little guy.

Twirling

Elias has recently started "twirling." For him this is staggering around in a circle while looking down at the ground, but it's still pretty cute! And he loves to do it - does it all the time!

Throw It All Overboard!

This is a picture of what Elias generally looks like when I go to get him out of his crib after his crib playtime. Notice anything wrong with this picture? Let's zoom in a bit:Yes, the crib is empty and all his toys and books are wedged down in the crack between the crib and wall! He loves to throw everything out of his crib, even the heavy and big stuff! So we'll occasionally hear a loud boom coming out of his room and we know he just threw his toy cookie jar or Jimmie car or something else out of his crib. And then he complains because he doesn't have any toys left to play with!

He has also just this week started throwing toys over our safety gate into the hallway where he can't reach them. It baffles me why he does this too, since now he can't play with them. But without fail, there is always a ball and several toys in the hallway just on the other side of the safety gate. Silly boy.

BOOM!

Last week, Daddy came up with a fun new game, which is jumping in the air and shouting "BOOM!" Elias thinks this is hilarious, and will often jump and make his own BOOM! noise, or he'll wave his arm and grunt indicating that he wants us to BOOM!

Daddy's Boy

Elias absolutely loves his daddy. I keep meaning to have the video camera ready to record how he reacts when Daddy comes home from work because it is priceless. As soon as he heard the doorknob rattle, he gets so excited, and he shrieks with joy as soon as he sees Daddy come through the door! Seriously, priceless.

So sometimes we put his Baby Einstein video in while I'm cooking dinner to keep him occupied and out of the kitchen. On this particular day, he was starting to get sick with his ear infection and he was feeling a bit needy. So he wasn't content to sit and watch unless Daddy would hold him. The picture was too sweet to miss capturing:How sweet is this? My two boys. :)

Cracker Crusher

Now that Elias has plenty of teeth (all 4 molars!), we're wanting him to start learning how to take a bite out of food and chew it instead of us having to cut and break everything up for him. I decided to start with a nice crumbly cracker so that even if he did put too much in his mouth, it wouldn't be hard to chew it up. So the first time I gave him a whole cracker, he just took bites and chewed them up like he'd been doing it his whole life! So then the second time, I put up the video camera because I wanted to capture what a natural he was in eating a whole cracker. But he didn't do it the same way. Instead, he discovered that he could break it with his fist and crush it into smithereens. He got a big kick out of this, and I did too because he would work SO HARD to crush that cracker! He gets a frown of concentration and his whole arm shakes with the effort! Hilarious! So here it is:

Such a big and strong boy! So for a few weeks after he discovered this, he didn't eat any more crackers - just crumbled them to death. However, today for the first time he ate a cracker normally again... So maybe the novelty of using his brute strength to annihilate the cracker wore off.

Surprise Coat

We got such an unexpected surprise in the mail yesterday! My grandmother who lives near Chicago works at a thrift store in her church, and occasionally she finds some great deals that are awesome for us. So she apparently found this coat in Elias' size and sent it to us! I had been looking for a good winter coat for Elias and hadn't found anything yet, and here she sent us this one for free! It came from a thrift store, but it looks brand new! It has a cute detachable hood, and the hood even had a detachable fur lining! It's got a warm red fleece lining, and even knit cuffs in the sleeves and neck! This is going to be good for some SERIOUS playing in the snow this year! It's a tad big right now, but that means it'll be perfect for this winter when he's bigger and wearing heavier clothes under it. So THANK you, Grandma Ellie!!!!!

P.S. In this picture, he's making his new cute scrunchy smile face! He does this whenever I pull out the camera now... Silly boy.