14 Months!

I'm a few days late with our 14 month update, but it turns out to be fitting to post a developmental update today because
HE TOOK HIS FIRST STEPS TODAY!!!!!!!
He's been cruising confidently for a while now, but I didn't think he was even close to walking unassisted. But when Justin got him out of his crib in the afternoon, he said that he stood up on the far side and then walked across to Justin all by himself! I was so sad that I missed it! So I stood him up at the couch, then I knelt down a couple feet away and said "Walk to Mama!" and he did! Just turned right around and took 2 or 3 steps to me! It's not like he's walking yet, it's more like flinging himself forward and managing to get a foot under him once or twice before he falls... But it's exciting and I'm so proud of my boy!

He's growing up so fast, and we continue to be so proud of him! He is such a sunny, happy boy - it never fails that we get at least 5 comments from admiring strangers every time we leave the house! I just burst with love and pride over how wonderful he is - sometimes it brings tears to my eyes how much I love this child. I never imagined how strongly motherhood would make me feel toward that little person.

He's making so many developments, turning into a little boy! I already did a post about his talking here; it seems like every day he learns a new word or can answer a new question!

Peek-a-boo is his FAVORITE thing to do! He's gotten to where he'll initiate it and do it himself - hiding behind the couch or a pillow, or even just covering his eyes with his hands. He thinks it's a hilarious game and can play forever! In the past few days, he's also starting playing when Justin or I are sitting on the floor with him. He'll crawl around behind us, pull up so he's standing directly behind us and then start giggling. That means he wants us to ask "Where's Elias?" and then he'll walk around until we can see him and start to laugh. So cute! This is a picture of him playing Peek-a-boo with me behind the kitchen counter while I'm making dinner!
He's still SO big and tall! He can reach doorknobs now, so it's only a matter of time before he can't be contained. I'm really not sure I'm excited about that day coming - I think I'm in BIIIIIG trouble.He's definitely getting a mind of his own, so we've entered into the world of discipline this month, which is a challenge. He definitely pushes boundaries and tests us, so we're trying our best to be consistent, praying for wisdom in teaching him right!But he is such a joy, he fills our home with laughter! We are so thankful for this sweet, sweet child.

Is All Suffering for the Lord?

It's been a rough season for me. I've been suffering various physical challenges for the past 6 weeks that are really wearing on me emotionally and spiritually. I am weary and worn, feel like I'm stuck in the spin cycle and every time it looks like it might be ending, somebody turns the machine back on for another round. I've realized about myself something that has been true for a long time, but I've never been able to put into words before: Whenever I'm facing long bouts of adversity, my tendency is to just shut down, stop doing anything. It's a challenge for me to get out of bed every day and fulfill my very basic responsibilities, much less do anything that isn't absolutely necessary. So then I start feeling useless and guilty, just adding to the ridiculous emotional roller coaster.

There is no way for me to end the challenges myself, but something has to give here. My old idols that God has been working to free me from (vaguely referenced here a few months ago) are beckoning loudly telling me to come to them for comfort. And I've worn a permanent groove in the couch where I lay there for most of the day whenever Elias is napping. I'm a disappointment to myself and to those who care about me and depend on me, and it has to stop.

But I don't know how. I just don't have the ability to pull myself up by my bootstraps - I feel like somebody has just ripped off my bootstraps so there's nothing to even try to pull up on. My only hope is to throw myself at God's mercy and believe that He'll catch me there. But I've realized over the past couple days that I'm MAD at Him. For allowing all this crap into my life one thing after another, for making me so weak and foolish to not be able to bear these burdens that when I look at them rationally are SO LIGHT compared to anything else that anybody else suffers. Why can I not handle this?

So then this week in Bible study (Beth Moore's Daniel), she talked about selflessly enduring suffering for God's glory. The Lord used that to speak to my heart that I haven't even considered that He might be wanting to use this particular suffering for His glory. I just don't see how He could or would. I mean, if He asked me to move my family overseas and live a cross-cultural life for His glory, that would be hard, but I'd gladly go because I can obviously see how His glory could shine by my faithfully enduring that challenge. However, when He asks me to endure chronic back pain for His glory, that doesn't make sense to me. How can He be glorified by that? It, in fact, prevents me from being able to do things that according to my reason would much better glorify Him. The word He spoke to me on that regard is pretty much that He isn't asking me to apply my reason here - what He wants is my faith.

In my thinking about this, of course the Scriptures that God has brought to my mind are from Job. All that he endured didn't make a lick of sense, but God was glorified in his response.

So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes. His wife said to him, "Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!" He replied, "You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" In all this, Job did not sin in what he said. ~ Job 2:7-10

"Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him." ~ Job 13:15

That definitely doesn't make any sense, but it's the kind of response that God is pleased with and so I need to take a lesson from it.

So I guess I'm posting all this to ask for your prayers - not necessarily that God will bring me physical healing or even understanding about my challenges, but more that I'll find spiritual healing and renewed communion with the Lord. Instead of drowning in self-pity and my own skewed sense of personal injustice, I need greater faith in His sovereignty over my physical state and greater trust in His goodness that all suffering is given for a reason, even if I don't get it.

And I would love to hear any thoughts or comments, especially from any of you that may have walked this road before and can share personal experiences. I want to pass this test of my faith, and I want God to be glorified through it.

What Did You Say?

Elias is really starting to get vocal! He's saying words and he clearly knows what they mean. This is AWESOME for us, since we're starting the adventure of communicating with him. Here are a couple videos we took this week of him talking:

He just jabbers away when he's in his high chair, and I first started taking this video because he was saying "Nana," which we hadn't caught on video yet for his Nana to hear. However, he just kept talking, and so I kept filming!

We got a pretty good display of the animal sounds he can make, although I forgot to ask him what a lion says. That one's cute, so hopefully we'll catch it soon. For the fish, we pucker our lips and make a fishy face. He thinks it's hilarious and he usually opens and closes his mouth even though he hasn't figured out how to pucker yet.

Every night before bed, Elias drinks a bottle or sippy of milk and we sit in his rocking chair and look at pictures of family. He's starting to recognize them and say their names!

He first said Nana a couple weeks ago, and he's said Jessica once before, but this is the first time he's attempted to say GrandDad ("Ya-Da" here). I'm hoping he'll say something like Grandma and Grandpa before we go visit them in two weeks! As funny as it is that he kept saying Dada when I wanted him to say Mama, it got worse later. We were looking at a different picture, and I said "Do you see Mama?" and he started panting and barked like a dog!! What the heck? Moms don't get no respect.

One is the Loneliest Number

Here is my first edible zucchini harvested from my container zucchini plant!Unfortunately, I discovered tonight that it will also be my ONLY zucchini harvested from my zucchini plant. This is because it was completely eaten by squash vine borer, the scourge of squash farmers everywhere. I had read about this nasty little white grub, but I didn't know how to recognize the symptoms of an infestation. I had seen the leaves wilting, and I just thought they needed better nutrients, so I was fertilizing. But tonight I discovered the borers - there were a million of them in there! So I was trying to get them out, when the whole stem actually completely broke because it was so weak after being eaten through! I'm so mad! So unless it can magically grow an entire new plant from the broken stump, it looks like this will be my only squash this year. :(

And I got 18 mosquito bites while I was out messing with it this evening. :( Some master gardener I'm turning out to be!

Hitting the Skies

Justin is going on a business/mission trip to Turkey in a few weeks, and I had planned on staying home with Elias while he was gone. However, my parents generously offered to buy us a plane ticket to come spend the week with them while he's gone! So I booked it this week and we're going! I am SOOOO excited about this sudden opportunity to spend time with my family - I can't wait for them to see how much Elias has grown and developed since they saw him last a couple months ago.

However, this means that I will be taking Elias on his first flights... Alone. I'm not terrified at the prospect because Elias is a good boy and generally easy to manage, but I am a little nervous just because I don't know what to expect. So I'm pleading for help from anyone who has any experience flying with toddlers! (Elias will be 14 months when we go.) I want to be as prepared as possible. I've thought up some specific questions, but if you have any advice that I didn't think of asking about, ANY of it would be greatly appreciated!

1. Air pressure - I know you're supposed to take a bottle or sippy for them to suck on when the plane is taking off and landing to help their ears adjust. When exactly do I give it to him? I'm just imagining giving him the sippy too early, and by the time he needs it for his ears, he's already drunk as much as he wants and he won't drink anymore... Would a pacifier work the same way?

2. DIRT! - I'm expecting I may just have to get over this, but I'm sure there is no way I can expect Elias to consent to being held or sitting in his stroller for the entire trip. So I'm going to have to let him crawl around and explore at some point. (He's not walking yet.) But on the floor in airplanes and airports? NASTY! I'm envisioning that I'll just have to find a corner in the airport and let him crawl around, then clean him up with Sani-Kids wipes, but I wondered if anybody else had any thoughts about this.

3. Stroller - I was very relieved to discover that the airline will let me bring a stroller on the flight at no extra charge. There's no way I could've handled him for 1-2 hours in an airport for a layover without having something safe to put him in. However, I'm trying to ponder which stroller to bring. The obvious choice would be the tiny umbrella stroller for compactness and ease of travel. However, I think it would be a lot more comfortable for Elias if we could bring his larger collapsible stroller. (See photo at right. We obviously wouldn't be bringing along the infant carrier.) I think he'd be more willing to spend more time in it at the airport, and it's a possibility he might even nap in it - we'll be in the Chicago airport during his afternoon naptime. (There is zero chance he'll sleep on the flight, and also zero chance he would sleep in his umbrella stroller.) Plus, it has convenient features like a reclining back, a pocket underneath for the diaper bag, and a detachable tray that he could eat on. But I'm worried that the larger stroller might be too big for them to allow me to bring it... Has anybody traveled with a larger stroller, and did you have any problems getting it on the plane?

4. Noisy Toys - I'm wondering about what kind of toys to bring on the flights with us. Elias' favorites that keep him occupied the longest are ones that have buttons he can push and make noise. I'm worried about bringing those just because I don't want to disturb everybody on the flight with the noise. I mean, I think they would certainly prefer music and sound effects over him screaming his head off, but I don't think it would be impossible to keep him entertained with quiet toys too. Any thoughts on that?

Um, that's all I can think of at the moment. I'll post more questions if I think of them, and feel free to give me ANY advice if you have it! THANKS!!

Messy Face

Price of ingredients for bean recipe: $2 or $3
Time to make beans: 20 minutes
Other costs: Stains on bib and washcloth, time to clean face and tray
This picture: PRICELESS!

Firstfruits

I just wanted to post a quick garden update. All of my plants are growing things that look like they may be edible in the near future! I have two baby zucchini, two baby tomatoes, and more baby peppers than I can count. Yay for container gardening!

I waited a bit too long to start fertilizing, so my zucchini's leaves started to turn yellow. But they seem to be doing fine once I started feeding them. I'm thankful for the internet that tells me what to do!

Happy Independence Day

I hadn't planned on doing an Independence Day post, although I am very thankful that God saw fit to make me an American, which gives me so much freedom to know and serve Him. But then when reading blogs this morning, I found that somebody had posted this video and I just HAD to pass it on. So without further ado, enjoy the Muppets celebrating our independence. (I laughed til I cried.) You need to watch it several times to fully appreciate all it contains: Beaker's rendering of the piccolo part, the Swedish chef, the chickens, the bass-singing bear, the penguin in the powdered wig, the slow-mo background video. Love it!

Crib Update (a.k.a. Much Calmer Now)

I talked to the manager at WalMart, who told me they would be happy to take our crib back and give us a refund. However, that's not as easy as it sounds. Our crib came in a Nursery-in-a-Box set, which means that in order to take back the crib, we'd also have to take back the changing table and dresser. So not only does that mean losing Elias' whole room, but there's NOTHING out there we could get for the same price (which is why we got this set in the first place). Sooooo, we decided to just keep the crib and try to reinforce it ourselves. We never use the drop side, so we'll rig it somehow so we know it can't fall off. This crib is actually convertible, so it will convert into a toddler bed (by removing the drop side in question), and Elias should be ready for that in 6-9 months. So now that we've had some time to think rationally about this, that makes the most sense. However, I'm very thankful to have gotten the recall notice, so now we can take action to prevent any mishaps that might have happened.

Crib Recalled (a.k.a. Freaking Out!)

I wrote a post several months ago about how I subscribe to the Consumer Product Safety Commission emails letting me know when products have been recalled. If my post then didn't convince you to check them out, then maybe this will. In today's email, I learned that Elias' crib has been recalled! Ack! Apparently the bottom of the drop side can detach and the baby can get trapped in it. Like this:(The pictures are from the CPSC notice.) I am totally freaking out about this. Elias is asleep in it right now! I keep checking on him... As if right now he's any less safe than he was before I knew about the recall. *rolling eyes* But he spends a lot of time in his crib, both asleep and awake, and he grabs that drop side and shakes the heck out of it. I am so thankful nothing has happened to him!

What makes me really mad about this is that this exact product was recalled in 2007 for the exact same reason. So when we were buying it in 2008, I felt safe because it had been redesigned and supposedly was now safe. Ummmm, not?! So I'm making phone calls to try to find out what to do - I'll let you know what happens.

But in the meantime, please PLEASE keep yourself informed of product recalls - especially if you have children in your home. These email updates are an easy way to do it.

Notables

There are a few new developments in Elias' world that I thought I'd share all in one post.

Talking
Elias isn't talking yet, but he's starting to become a little more intelligible in his babbling. He'll say "bye bye" and "dada." (Of course he says dada first! He'll say the syllables mama, but he doesn't know it's me yet, I don't think.) He even says "Bye bye, Dada!" He'll say "Ah da," which means all done. He'll say his version of his name, which is "Issssss." (CUTE!) He'll say ball ("ba"). And he says "ba ba" which means about a zillion different things, but usually it means "big boy."

Edited to add: I knew there was no way I was remembering all the things Elias says, so with Justin's help I've come up with a few more. Some other things he consistently says "ba ba" for are Bible and bottle. I was actually very impressed this morning when Elias finished his breakfast, and Justin took him over to play. Justin asked him if he wanted to read a story, and Elias said "ba ba!" He knew they usually read his Bible then! He also loves to mimic the "sh" sound, so he'll repeat any word that ends in "ish" like fish, dish, or wish. He loves to draw out the shhhhhhhh. And lastly, he can do several animal sounds when asked what that animal says - "woof," "baa," "raa" (lion), "moo," and he even said something resembling "quack" the other day!

Napping
He's still taking two naps a day, and it will still be several months before he's down to one in the afternoon. However, I'm concerned about this transition because right now his strong nap is in the morning, and his afternoon nap is hit-and-miss. So I'm trying to be proactive in planning for this by limiting his morning nap so that he's tired in time for the afternoon. It's working pretty well so far! In the morning, I try to wake him up after he's been asleep about an hour. (If I let him be, he'd sleep 2 or 2.5.) So then by the time his afternoon nap rolls around, he's tired again and ready to nap, and we get another 2 or 2.5 out of him. Sweet! I'm so thankful for such a good sleeper. (Thank you again and again, Babywise!)

Teething
He FINALLY has his sixth tooth (top left)! And his seventh, eighth, and ninth, are all making bumps in there! For a kid who's doing so much teething, it doesn't seem to bother him at all, for which I am truly thankful. It seems like his top left molar is on its way in, so we'll see how that goes.

So those are the big developments for us these days. Stay tuned!

Swagbucks Now Offering CASH Prizes!

I've been contemplating writing a post about Swagbucks for a long time, and now I have an awesome reason to do it! Let me start by saying that Swagbucks is many things, but the basic service is a search engine. It's powered by Google, so you get basically the same results you would with a Google search. The exciting part, though, is that when you search, Swagbucks will occasionally give you points called "Swagbucks" (Bet ya didn't see that one coming!) that you can accumulate to earn prizes. They have all sorts of prizes that you can save up for, but my favorite is the $5 Amazon gift card that costs 45 Swagbucks. I've been using Swagbucks for about 6 months, and in that time, I've gotten $25 in Amazon gift cards ABSOLUTELY FREE! Just for searching the internet - something I do all the time anyway! Can't beat that!

But today Swagbucks announced something new that makes it even sweeter! You are now able to redeem your Swagbucks for CASH! Cold. Hard. Cash. You can buy $5 via PayPal for only 80 Swagbucks!

So, with this news, Swagbucks is also offering a code to new members (ONLY). If you are interested in signing up with Swagbucks and want to start with 5 Swagbucks for yourself, follow these steps:

1. Go here to sign up for Swagbucks. You receive 3 Swagbucks immediately for signing up.

2. Now, to get another 2 Swagbucks, enter the code CASHISKING. This code is case sensitive. You can enter this Swagcode immediately upon registration in the box that says “Enter Your Swagcode” and them press “GIMME.”

That’s it! You have 5 Swagbucks to start off! This code is valid until 12 PM (PST) on July 6. You could even register here and then send your unique referral link to all of your friends and get them to sign up under your referral link. (Yes, all the links in this blog are to my personal referral link - if you sign up through me, I get rewarded for referring you, which means that I get matching Swagbucks for every Swagbuck you earn up to 100! We both win!)




Please feel free to comment here or send me an email if you have any questions. Happy Swagging! :)

Hop, hop, hop!

Elias has a book that has a page that shows a kangaroo hopping, and the caption is "Hop, hop, hop!" So one day after reading that book with Elias, Justin decided to hop around on his knees like a kangaroo. Elias thought it was HILARIOUS! Justin took a video while hopping, so it's pretty bouncy and blurry, but you can still get the idea of the hilarity. You can see Elias bouncing along with Daddy, and he keeps doing a high-pitched grunt and shaking his head, which means "Do it again, Dad!"

Father's Day

We had a fun day on Sunday celebrating Father's Day! We left in the morning as soon as Elias finished his breakfast, and we drove to Springfield (about 30 minutes). First we stopped at IHOP for breakfast, which is quite a treat for us!Then we went to Dickerson Park Zoo, which was letting fathers in free that day! Since Elias was young enough to also get in free, we got all three of us in for just the price of one admission that day! Score! The zoo was small, so it only took us about 2 hours to do, but we wouldn't have wanted to stay out in the heat much later anyways. Elias did GREAT, though, especially considering he missed his morning nap in order to go! He liked looking at the animals, especially the tiger and the giraffes. What fun!

The zoo had peacocks just wandering around.At the petting zoo - that goat REALLY wanted us to feed it!Looking at the flamingos......and the tiger......and the elephant.The giraffes had babies! Cute!

Fresh-Baked Bread

If any of you are friends with me on Facebook, you may have seen that I got a bread machine recently, and I have been experimenting trying to make the perfect loaf. I wanted to do this because we eat 100% whole wheat bread, and it is very difficult (if not impossible!) to find any 100% WW bread at the grocery that doesn't have high-fructose corn syrup in it. If you do happen to find one, they're really expensive! So I had been pondering trying to make our own bread for a while, and when I stumbled upon this bread machine for $5 at a yard sale, I snapped it up! So I've made several loaves, and I think I've finally achieved an excellent loaf for making sandwiches! I found this recipe on allrecipes.com, and I adapted it to end up with this:

Best Bread Machine Bread

1 cup warm milk (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)

2 tbsp. white sugar

2 1/4 tsp. (1 packet) yeast

1/4 cup canola oil

3 cups whole wheat flour

4 tsp. vital wheat gluten

1 tsp. salt

Place the water, sugar and yeast in the pan of the bread machine. Let the yeast dissolve and foam for 10 minutes. Add the oil, flour and salt to the yeast. Select Basic or White Bread setting (1.5 lb loaf), and press Start.

When bread machine is done, remove bread from the pan and wrap in foil. Set on a cooling rack until cool.

It's SO GOOD! Soft and chewy, nice sliceable crust... Mmmmmmm. Let me know if any of you try it! :)

The Box and the Ducky

Elias really does seem to be amused by the simplest things! Who needs expensive toys? All we need is a Crystal Lite tube! Who needs fancy toys? All we need is a Huggies box and a squeaky ducky!

I am so thankful for my silly, happy boy!

On a related note, I am also thankful for my precious boy's daddy, who is part of the reason he is such a good, happy boy! Justin loves him and plays with him, and he teaches him to be so silly! I pray Elias grows up to be a man of such godly character, just like his dad. Happy Father's Day to my sweetheart! We have a fun day planned tomorrow, so hopefully I'll have details and photos up soon.

Two Fisted Drinker

Whenever Elias has a meal, he also gets a sippy of milk. However, sometimes he finishes the milk before he finishes the meal, and so then we give him a sippy of water to drink with the rest of his food. A few days ago, though, he didn't want to give up the milk in order to get the water! So he just held both sippies and kept switching back and forth from one to the other. Silly boy!

Eating Machine

I took some video of Elias eating lunch this week just to show that he really is doing it!

We've come to the conclusion that he is just the kind of baby that will wait to start doing something until he really knows how to do it. Then one day, he'll just start. It's been this way with everything so far - rolling, crawling, clapping, feeding, etc. So when he finally decided to start feeding himself, he was ready and he just did it. So he has very few problems with coordination or dropping food - he's a champ!

I did show a few of the problems he has, though. The first one is, of course, that he doesn't always chew his food - he just shovels it into his mouth at a high rate of speed. He especially does this with foods he really likes... (TMI alert! - I find whole blueberries, beans, and carrots in his diapers!) So I try getting him to slow down by saying "Chew, chew, chew! Chomp, chomp, chomp!" And it works sometimes because he thinks it's funny so he'll stop to smile. Whatever works.

He also occasionally forgets to take his hand out of his mouth, which results in him chewing on his fingers. By the end of every meal, his first two fingers on his right hand are red because he's chewed on them so much! (By the way, he's DEFINITELY a rightie! Anybody notice how he feeds himself with his right hand, but grasps his sippie in his left hand the whole time?)

And he does on the rare occasion miss his mouth and drop the food. He makes very little mess on the floor, though, considering he's just a little guy and he's only been feeding himself a couple weeks. So I'm very thankful!

Piano Man

Elias got a toy piano for Christmas (Thank you, Aunt Jessica!) that he is just now really getting big and coordinated enough to use. However, he REALLY loves it! Justin snapped these pictures of him playing on it a couple weeks ago:The seat is adjustable, and Elias usually actually just rips it off and kneels in front of the piano. It's cute, though, and I hope this is just the beginning of his musical career!

Faux Hawk!

Whenever Elias gets out of the bathtub, he likes to look in the mirror and see the clean boy with the hooded towel on his head. However, one time last week, he decided he didn't want the hood on, so we pulled it off. When we pulled it off, though, it made his hair stand up in a perfect faux hawk! He's finally starting to grow some hair, and he's such a cutie pie! It looks really red in these pictures, but it really does look that red when it's in sunlight. We may just have a redhead on our hands!

Crawling Maniac

I haven't had a chance to post this until now, but Elias really started crawling on all fours the week of his birthday. It was kind of like one day he just decided to start crawling on all fours, and he didn't look back. Now he has gotten FAST, and he can even crawl while holding something in his hands. So he'll grab something (for example, the forbidden TV remote!) and then crawl away really fast so you have to chase him! Stinker! I took some video when he first started, so this is an assembly of those clips. They're a couple weeks old now, so he's a better crawler than this now, but it still gives you an idea of what a big, smart boy he is!

He's Feeding Himself!

I was planning on writing a post updating you all on Elias' self-feeding progress. I really had nothing to report since he still wasn't feeding himself. I had tried a few of your suggestions, but he just wasn't interested, and he got upset whenever I tried to physically move his hand toward his mouth. So I had just decided to chill about it and let him do it whenever he was ready. Once he put his hand in his mouth in what seemed like an attempt to put food in it, but instead he just bit his own finger, which as you can imagine did not do much for his self-feeding confidence. But then today, he just started doing it! Like he's been doing it all his life!

It's actually pretty funny. This morning for breakfast, he didn't feed himself. Today for lunch, he didn't feed himself. Then we went to afternoon VBS at church, which included his dinnertime, so I packed up his dinner and the nursery workers fed it to him. He wasn't quite done when I went to pick him up, so I brought the rest of his blueberries home for him to eat while we ate our dinner. So we served up dinner, put him in his high chair, and Justin put the blueberries on his tray. Justin turned his back, and two seconds later, they were gone. All of them. He was like, "Where are the blueberries?" Then he noticed Elias was chewing. He said "I think Elias just fed himself the blueberries!" So we put some Cheerios on his tray, and he just picked them up and ate them all. In rapid succession. Like seriously, the kid might as well have just put his face close to his tray and inhaled in all the Cheerios. For the rest of dinner, we just fed him off our plates like we usually do, except all we had to do was put a piece on his tray and he picked it up and ate it! Unbelievable!!! Now we need to concentrate on slowing down and actually chewing all of the food he puts in his mouth!

So I can't wait to ask the nursery ladies how on earth they taught my child to feed himself! This is seriously the fifth thing he has come home from church suddenly being able to do!!!

My New Garden

As of this morning, I'm a proud new caretaker of a container garden!At the farmer's market, I got tomato, bell pepper, and zucchini plants! (They had already sold out of strawberries, or else I would've gotten some of those too.) I'm so excited about them, and I can't wait to see if I can coax anything edible out of them! This is my first attempt at ever trying to grow something edible. I had good success with miniature roses in Texas, so I'm hopeful that this will work.

You'll also notice a pathetic little plant in a milk jug next to the other beauties. The man I bought my veggie plants from was giving away free flower plants to any kids that came by. I had Elias with me, so we chose this one for him! I have no idea what it is, but he said it would bloom with large red flowers, so I thought that would be fun. (Anybody recognize it? Click on the picture to enlarge.) It's in a pitiful milk jug, though, because I thought I had a pot here at home that would fit it, but I can't seem to find it... So it's going to have to live in temporary housing until next month because I have DEFINITELY spent all our gardening budget getting the veggies in their new home!

Vacation Photo Round-Up

I thought I'd just do a post of all the random pics from vacation that didn't fit anywhere else but were too great not to post! Don't worry, there aren't many.Here's Elias in the bathtub at Nana and GrandDad's. He likes it because they have really cool tub toys! (Daddy did a good job of making sure the photo was PG-rated, don't you think?)

Some fishing pics. Justin and his dad trying out some cane poles:Fishing is a main attraction at my in-laws' house, and it was very good while we were there. (At least that's what the menfolk said. I only fished for about 15 minutes, but I didn't catch a single fish!) They have some submerged trees from all the recent flooding they've had, and those are great spots for catching bass or bluegill. However, they're also great spots for snagging your line and losing your lure.In this photo, Justin got his lure caught WAY out in this fallen tree, but apparently it was his favorite one and he didn't want to lose it! So he just climbed on out to rescue it. This photo is my dad handing him a long stick to try to knock it out of the branch. Believe it or not, it worked and he DID rescue the lure. And he didn't fall in, either! Many thanks to my brother-in-law for capturing this moment on his iPhone - the womenfolk were all in the house, so we missed it.

I saved the best photo for last. On our route between Missouri and Kentucky, we drove through a short piece of Illinois, where there is a town named Metropolis. As in the town Superman is from. We only stopped at a gas station there, but there was Superman stuff EVERYWHERE! So we snapped this photo of Elias behind a cutout that they had outside the station. What a hilarious shot!!!!!!!

Emmitt, Linda, and the Dog

We took the opportunity while we were in Kentucky to stop and visit some of the extended family that lives nearby. We drove to Madisonville one afternoon and went to visit Justin's Uncle Emmitt and Aunt Linda. They had only met Elias once before, when he was 7 weeks old. So this was a much different baby than they met the first time!We had a nice visit together, and we were all surprised at how Elias took to Emmitt! He is generally pretty wary when it comes to strangers, and Elias clings to Mommy or Daddy. He wouldn't even let his own grandparents hold him much, much less anybody that's even less familiar. However, he really took to Emmitt. They were big buddies! Elias let Emmitt hold him, and they just laughed together! From what I hear, Emmitt is kind of like the Pied Piper when it comes to children - they all just love him!

Emmitt and Linda also had a dog, which was thrilling to Elias since he just loves dogs. ("Woof" is still the most common word in his vocabulary.) So we got down on the floor to pet the doggie, and Elias got a big kick out of that.I'm glad we got to visit!

Fun on the Boat

My in-laws live on Lake Barkley in Western Kentucky, and they have a boat that we go out on the lake in when the weather is nice. Thankfully, we had beautiful weather while we were there, so we got to go out on the boat twice! The first time, it was pretty windy, so the water was choppy and we decided Elias would do better staying home with Nana. But the second time we went out, the lake was smooth as glass and it was beautiful! Nana and GrandDad had an infant-sized life jacket that fit Elias just right! I was shocked when he didn't complain about wearing it... He didn't even seem to notice he had it on. It was an overcast day, so it wasn't hot - we actually ended up putting on Elias' jacket because of the chilly wind out on the water! But he seemed to enjoy it. The rocking of the boat almost put him to sleep at first, but then he woke up a bit and found the most pleasure out of playing with the cupholders on the boat's table. :)
The real highlight of our "cruise," though, was when GrandDad let Elias drive the boat! He thought that was big fun.He started pushing in the center of the steering wheel, and we realized he was looking for the horn like his driving toy at home! So GrandDad showed him where the real horn button was on the dashboard!
Thanks for a fun vacation, Nana and GrandDad!

1 Year Well Visit

We had our 1-year well visit today, even though it was 2 weeks late. (Apparently, the beginning of summer is a rough time to get into the doctor's office!) Here are his 1-year stats!

Weight: 26lbs, 10 oz (90%)
Length: 31.5" (90%)
Head: 18.5" (60%)

So he's right on track to be a giant! LOL! I was looking back at his 9-month stats for comparison, and he gained 5 pounds in 3 months! Yeah, I guess whole milk and table food are agreeing with him.

I also learned today at this visit what a passionate, vocal child I have! I mean, I always knew he was expressive and dramatic, but I guess being in a public place where others are affected makes it feel so much worse! He just swings wildly from one strong emotion to another! For example, in the waiting room, he was smiling and laughing, flirting with the other people, playing with books, really happy. Then 2 minutes later, we go back to the exam room and get his clothes off, and he FREAKS OUT when the nurse tries to take him temperature. And it's not like she was doing anything invasive - they just use the temporal ones that get the temp from their forehead! But he was screaming and crying real tears!

So once she was done, I picked him up and he calmed down, then started smiling and laughing again. Until 3 seconds later when we went out to the scale and I put him down to weigh him. Once again, screaming, real tears streaming! So dramatic! We managed to get the weight and then when I picked him up again, instantly ok. While we waited in the exam room for the doctor to come in, he was shrieking again, but this time with joy over playing with his toys and sippy. What a weirdo. Then we rode the roller coaster again when the doc came in and tried to look in his ears - drama and screaming. Then happy again when she left. Then MAJOR drama with getting his shots. This is the worst he has ever done when getting shots - it took him 2 or 3 minutes to stop screaming this time, when it used to be just 15-20 seconds. What was really funny was after he got his shots and I picked him up, he was still screaming and crying, but he was just staring at the nurse, shooting daggers at her with his eyes, as if to say "Why on earth did you do that to me?!?!?!?!"

Part of his excitability may have been because he decided not to take much of a nap this morning, which meant that he was a little sleep-deprived by our appointment late morning. He conked out after lunch, though, and he's sleeping peacefully now.

So I'm so thankful for my passionate, healthy, growing baby boy!

Elias' Birthday Party

We arrived in Western Kentucky last Sunday evening, and we had Elias' First Birthday Party with the family on Monday. It was so neat that my whole family came down from Ohio to celebrate with us! We had quite a feast for the birthday dinner! My father-in-law cooked some meat on the smoker, and my mother-in-law made some AWESOME sides to go with it! For the dinner, Elias wore his "My 1st Birthday" bib that his Nana got him.
Then we pulled out the decorations and had our birthday celebration! It turned out really cute and festive! We didn't think there was any way that Elias would wear the hat and bib, but we were wrong! He kept them on the whole time we were having cupcakes! And he didn't cry when we all sang to him either - he just looked more confused than anything. He had never had anything sweet like the cupcake, and he REALLY liked it. We didn't let him eat the whole thing, and he cried when we took it away. He didn't make much of a mess either. Mostly just smashed it with one hand. (If you click to enlarge this picture, though, you will see that he managed to get frosting on his ear! That was a little hard to get out...)(In case any of you are wondering, he didn't feed it to himself either... I'll do an update post on self-feeding once I'm done with the vacation posts!)
After the cake cleanup, it was time to open presents! He got so many neat gifts! Toys, books, clothes, shoes... Thanks to everybody! After that it was bedtime and thankfully the sugar didn't keep him awake. I think he was exhausted from the hulabaloo!
It was a nice celebration, and I'm thankful we were able to all get together.