Practicing for baby

Another fun thing we've done to prepare for baby is to play with baby. This is Eli's Baby Albert (thanks Aund Jodi!). It is the only baby doll that we have for Eli. So some days we pick up Albert and play baby. In this picture you can see Eli sharing his pacifier with Baby Albert. When he wants to, he takes good care of Baby Albert.

Adjusting to the idea of baby . . .

So funny story for the week . . . .

Many of you have asked how Eli is adjusting to this idea of a new baby. Frankly, who knows?!? He is 18 months old. How much of this does he understand?!? We have done what we could. He is in a big boy bed with the crib "for baby." The infant car seat is waiting by the kitchen door "for baby." We went to the store this week and he picked out a toy "for baby." When you ask him to give baby a hug, he hugs my belly. He has even begun sharing the occasional toy with my belly.

A few days ago, Eli was in his high chair before lunch. Kris and I were standing on each side of him holding his hands and thanking Jesus for our food. Kris was praying and thanked Jesus for the new baby about to come to our house. As he said this, Eli let go of my hand and patted my belly. Awwwwww.

Then he reached over and patted Kris' belly . . . .

A Boat & More Cousins

At the end of July we went to a family reunion. The family who hosted it live on a beautiful lake. At the end of the day they invited the few of us who remained on a pontoon boat ride. It was Eli's first boat ride and he really enjoyed it.

Here you can see him checking things out with his cousins, Clare & Evvie. Keren was in the back of the boat enjoying the breeze.

Isn't that a cute little face?! He would hardly sit down because there was so much to see!

Grandpa even took him to the back of the boat to see what was back there! What a fun day!

Socks

Near the end of July I was working on cleaning a few things out of Eli's room. I have been working to make space for baby in the room, too. So one of the jobs that needed to be done was sock sorting. I knew quite a few of the socks in the sock bucket were too small for Eli. As I tried socks on him, he got very excited. Then he asked to put on socks on top of socks. If you look closely, you can see that he is wearing four pair at once in this picture.

A few days later even his stuffed animals joined in the sock fun. Dadot and Chicken both wore socks for several days, too. I can't find those pictures, though, but when I do I will post them.

Ft Wayne friends

Also in July, we made it to Ft Wayne to meet Baby Maggie. Eli really wanted to help push Maggie's stroller when we went for a walk. He is practicing being a good big brother already!

Camping with Daddy

So when Mommy went to CO for the conference, Daddy took Eli camping for his first camping experience. They met several of Kris' college friends in Muskegon for a very fun weekend.

Eli made quite a few new friends! Apparently he was very good at begging food, too. Here he is with Lars.

Eli enjoyed swimming in Lake Michigan with Daddy but it seemed that his favorite part was snuggling with Jenny after swimming.

Then he let Joe bury him. It really surprised me that Eli enjoyed this so much but apparently he did.

Here he is driving home from an exhausing two days of camping. Even then he couldn't quite let go of the volleyball. You can see that Dadot (the frog) and monkey blanket (red & white blanket under his arm) are still right there with him. Those are his favorite comfort items.

Summer of cousins

This summer we have been blessed with lots of cousin time. I wish I could share pictures of all of them and I may add more later. In the meantime, I thought I would share this precious one. This is my oldest sister's girls - Tessa and Kyra. They live in Florida so we really don't get much time with them. This was a precious summer for cousins!

July baby picture

Here is the belly shot from mid-July - 7 months along. This was actually the day I left for a conference in CO without Kris & Eli. So this child is becoming well traveled before birth, just as Eli was.

Cloth Diapers

Some of you are aware of our diapering preferences. We decided before Eli was born to use cloth diapers. I was most interested because of the financial savings. My hubby was pleased with this but even more interested in the environmental effects. I really didn't realize how green my husband is!

So after much research, we landed on BumGenius as our diapers of choice. These are definitely not the diapers your mom used! We love them. We've used them for over a year now and we really have no complaints. We even think they are rather cute. They come in such fun colors!

Considering baby #2 is arriving soon and the potty training of #1 is not complete, I was pleased to hear about this BumGenius contest.

Win a Bum Genius 3.0 Starter Kit from Nature's Child - Wholesome Goods for Mothers and Babies

And I love talking cloth diapers so if any of you have questions or just want to tell me how crazy we are . . . bring it on!

The joys of an old house

After we got back from the two weeks in Grand Rapids, Eli had fun rediscovering our house. He had never really noticed the serious slope in our hallway. For those of you who haven't been in our home, it seems that the back half of the hall has settled dramatically through the years, which has produced a slope of almost two inches. The day after we got home, Eli discovered the fun of running up and down this slope, as well as rolling things down it. I apologize that the video is a little hard to see but I still thought it was cute. And that is a straw that he rolls down the hall near the end of the video.

First Nap in the new bed!

And as I type this right now, Eli is sleeping in his new bed for the first nap. He did beautifully, settling right down and going to sleep. When given the option, he was adament that he wanted to sleep in the new bed. The test will be what will happen when he wakes up. I am also hoping that big boys in big boy beds will take VERY long naps!

Big Boy Bed

When the upcoming arrival of a new little one, a few changes are needed. One of those happened today. Eli got a big boy bed! This frees up the crib for a new brother or sister to arrive soon.

First, Eli & Daddy had to put it together.

Eli was a very big help!

Can you tell that he likes to fix things already?!?

Then, it became a jungle gym. He went back and forth climbing over each bar at least five times.

Finally - a big boy bed! When we put on the mattress with a sheet and blanket, he knew immediately what it was! He was very excited to climb right up on his new bed! And for those of you who are wondering, the kids will share a room. The new bed is just across the room from the crib.

June Belly Picture

Six months along . . . This picture was taken mid-June-ish. This little one continues to get bigger. He/She loves to stretch and push. It seems that when he/she falls asleep, he/she stretches out as far as they can, which means little feet sticking up and out. We can't wait to meet him/her!

Blog Dumping

I have probably mentioned this before, but I hate blog dumping. I have quite a few blogs of friends and family that I love checking on a regular basis. It is a major pet peeve of mine when the blog sits unchanged for weeks or months at a time and then one day, they post a years worth of pictures.

And yet, here I am. I have many excuses and none of them are great. The reality is - life is busy. So I apologize for how silent our blog has been. And I also apologize for the giant dump that I have done today. I am also aware that I have not fully caught up on the belly shots. There are more still on the camera. But, alas, I have reached my capacity for today. Nap time is ending.

Thank you for loving us despite our lack of blog etiquette.

Family Reunion

The week following Susanne's wedding, we had a family reunion. This is my Dad's family. The last time we had an official family reunion with this clan, I was about eight years old. We were overdue. It was a fun group. We were only missing Susanne and Darren (who thought a honeymoon was more important), and two other cousins with their families. Hopefully I will have more pictures to share of this later. Unfortunately no one has shared them with me yet. Somehow, we never even picked up our camera the entire week. Isn't that great?!?

More of Susanne's wedding

This is the entire wedding party, including five nieces and nephews who had parts in the ceremony.

Here are the Eadelman women, although now only one still carries the Eadelman name.

And here is the entire Eadelman clan. Yes, there are now eight nieces and nephews. Family pictures are getting a little crazy. I just hope the professional photographer had better luck than we all did. . .

Aunt Susanne's wedding

On June 21, my baby sister was married. It was a beautiful day and we had a very fun time as a family through the festivities.

Susanne and her new husband, Darren.

Hand me downs

This picture just makes me laugh! We have been very blessed to have a generous family that has given Eli all of their son's clothes as he grows out of sizes. This has been a huge help! This summer, though, we have discovered a new danger in hand me downs, since this is the first time he has not worn one piece PJs. After a few children have worn them, there is generally not much elastic left in pajama pants. Since our cloth diapers for overnight are larger than our day time diapers, this is generally not a huge problem. However, the first few times that Eli wore them, he would begin playing in the morning and as he woke up more and became more active, this inevitably was the result. The first time it happened he was shocked. Then it just made him laugh. And rest assured, I have since replaced the elastic in these pajamas. It is no longer a problem.

Cooking with Daddy

Eli has discovered how much fun it is to help in the kitchen. Notice the ingeniuty of Daddy with the stool stacking to make him tall enough. Daddies are so great!

Jumping

While in Oklahoma, Eli learned a new skill watching bigger kids. He came home "jumping." This is a skill that is still being perfected but we thought you might like to watch the early version.

Uncle Kevin's wedding

In May we also had the privilege of taking a family trip to Oklahoma to watch Kris' brother Kevin get married. Welcome to the family, Lavonda! We love you!

Playing in May

One day Eli discovered this hat in the bottom of a bag of clothes someone had given us. I think he wore it around the house for three days straight.


He has also gotten quite good at throwing balls! Now we just have to learn to not throw other toys, especially the larger ones.

May Belly Shot

Baby grew quite a bit this month. In mid-May I was five months along. There was definitely no more hiding this one! We also had our ultrasound in May. For those of you who haven't heard - we do not know if this is a boy or a girl. We chose to be surprised this time. Kris and I are split 50/50 on our guesses, which isn't very hard to do! Hopefully one of these days I could get our ultrasound pictures scanned in and posted, too. Boy or girl, this appears to be another beautiful baby. I think my favorite part of the ultrasound was the short delay between what the baby was doing and what we saw on the screen. I would feel the baby flip and tell Kris, "watch this." Then we would watch as the baby rolled off screen or just totally turned around. It was amazing!

Mother's Day

I had a very nice Mother's Day this year. I felt very blessed with my two little ones and wonderful husband!

April belly shot

Watch me grow. This was taken mid-April. I was about 4 months along.

Playing in April

I just thought these were too cute not to share. The bottom picture shows you what happens when too much food goes into the hair.

Hummous

Eli still loves to eat - everything he can. But his very favorite food is hummous. He eats it by the handful. He also loves rubbing all of his food into his hair.

I cannot resist the highchair pictures. Can you tell? These were taken in April.

Time to play catch up . . . .

To catch up a little . . . these pictures were taken in April. This is when Eli really began playing in a new way. He made friends with his stuffed animals! Suddenly, they were his companions that had to go with him wherever he went and whatever he did.

This is the very special frog. We call him Dadot. He was the first animal Eli made friends with and the same week Eli kept wandering around the house, dragging the frog, saying "dadot, dadot, dadot." So guess how Daddy named him. He still sleeps with Dadot and when Eli gets up in the morning and after naps, Dadot has to come out of the crib to snuggle and share his milk.

More new roommates

In March, Kris' cousin Nicole moved in with us. We are having fun with Nicole in the house but I think Eli's favorite part of it at first was her pets. She has a gecko, fish, and two dogs. The dogs live outside and in the garage but the gecko and fish are in her room. As you can tell, Eli is quite fascinated with them . . . especially the fish right at his level.

Another big boy step!

This picture makes me laugh! In March we got a big boy potty. I know you all think we are crazy for trying already but with another on the way, I'm sure going to give it a try! After a few weeks, we accidently caught him in time to get some action on the potty. We threw such a party that he got a little clue. By the end of April he was peeing once a day on the potty for half a cookie. Of course, too much traveling and getting sick has gotten us out of that good of a record but we are still trying!

P.S. I've noticed in the last two days that Eli has started a new habit. Whenever the toilet is going to be flushed, he runs over to stand next to it and wave bye bye to whatever is being flushed. We never talked about anything going bye bye in the toilet. I have no idea where this came from but it makes me laugh every time! Thankfully, so far nothing inappropriate has gone bye bye . . .

Easter

Here is the little man in his Easter best. How cute is that!

March pregnancy pic

This was my belly shot from March. I have a few more to post but I still have to get them off the camera. . .

Two months already?!?

How has it been more than two months since my last posting?!? Where did the time go? Eli is now almost 15 months old. He is a very active soul. He spends his days running, jumping and exploring. I'm still trying to catch the jumping on video. It is hilarious. It involves squatting way down to the ground and popping up fast to stand up.

His first word, beyond Daddy and Mommy, was "outside" which is where he would prefer to spend all of his days. Every toy goes on the head like a hat and he loves to "help" with everything that he can. Considering how much bigger I'm getting already, I appreciate the help with picking things up off the ground . . .

This picture was from March - our very own pot roast.