Long post (I'm drawing a blank on titles right now)

For being such a cold week, we had a pretty good one! While I know we shouldn't complain as we had a total of 1 inch of snow that has already melted, we did have some pretty frigid temps. This week Eli & I visited the Suttons, attended a birthday party, Eli started to use a new sign, said some new words, ate some "whole" fruits, did pretty well with a fork, mastered closing his straw cup, ate spaghetti, picked sock fuzz, wore daddy's coat & a bucket, decided he would BUILD with blocks instead of just knocking down towers and throwing them around, learned how to give a "5", worked on 2 teeth, AND started being a silly walker (not in any particular order)! PHEW!! Let's get started!

Daddy thought it would be funny to dress Eli in his big puffy coat:

Mommy & Eli played "bucket head" some this week which we used to do a couple of months ago. It never gets old:

Mocha "cat" figured out how to stay JUST arms length away:

Instead of riding his pony, Eli has decided he needed to go for a walk and would push him all around the house:

Our friend Jodi from breastfeeding group turned one and had his party at Gymboree. Eli had never been to a Gymboree so it was a wonderfully fun experience! I would love to enroll him in a class but they aren't cheap. I'm trying to find a lower cost alternative because he really had a great time! Here's pictures from the afternoon:

Eli with Jodi's mom and Callie's mom:

Eli saying "Happy Birthday" to Jodi:

Eli loves straw cups and drank from them long before a sippy cup. Part of the fun is closing the lid and then saying "up" (he says "up" for on, open, up, etc.) for me to open the lid back up:

Daddy decided to let Eli explore eating some whole fruit at breakfast. He did pretty well with an apple and a banana. More & more he is wanting to eat the food that is on our plates and larger hand held food. The only issue is that he still has a hard time with portion control and will fill his mouth too full of food. He has a sensitive gag reflex like his mama and if food goes too far back in his mouth, he will gag and throw up. So, to avoid this, we are still making sure he has small bites of food until he can learn to stop being a chipmunk!!:



Eli continues to explore his utensils. He's getting better although still prefers to play with them. He does insist on using them at each meal, though, so that is good! Here's some video of him using his fork:



After dinner, Eli waits about 5 minutes in his high chair while I clean up. He sometimes likes to prepare for his bath by taking off his socks. One day this week he was wearing blue socks and had a lot of sock fuzz in his toes. He discovered this and started picking out the fuzz (another way he is like his mama as I hate sock fuzz, too). I found this to be too funny:

Some other news from the week:

1) Eli has continued to use some of the signs that I have tried to teach him since he was young. This week he used the sign for eat while saying eat informing me he wanted a snack! As for words, he really likes to point out the shape "obul"=oval in his shapes puzzle, he points out bunnies in books and says "baba" which isn't really bunny, but he says it and points to a bunny each time. Eli also is stuck on the number "2". He will hold up his thumb & pointer finger and say "2!". He can't identify "2" yet but he certainly likes to say it!

2) On Tuesday afternoon we visited Emily, Josh, Mallory & Chloe. No pictures, but it was good to see them as it had been awhile! I got to hold Miss Chloe for a short time as she spent her time napping and nursing. Imagine that!!

3) I forgot to post when Eli got one of his molars last month. It's kinda in a weird spot, in the middle of the top right side of his mouth, so I assume more molars are on the way! This week we noticed one his bottom front teeth is on it's way in, too!

4) Eli, for some odd reason, decided he would walk on his tip toes off and on throughout the day. He did this when he was a pre-walker and only able to walk with help, but then did flat foot walking once he walked on his own. Silly little man!

5) Eli has never enjoyed building with his blocks. Instead he would throw them and knock down towers we would build. This week he surprised me and started actually BUILD with them!

6) Daddy taught Eli how to give a "5":

Eli gets really excited about food that he REALLY loves:




Hope everyone has a great week!