Eli is 5 months old!

Eli was 5 months old yesterday! He is such a happy little guy. He is now rolling over both ways and loves blowing rasberries with his tongue. He is trying to sit up on his own, but hasn't quite gotten it yet. He is quick to smile and loves to cuddle. And is a good sport about the millions of photos I try to take of him.

I like to call this series, "mom puts me in stupid hats".

...and boots

Brothers

Cutest Little Christmas Elf

Always with the tongue out.

Eli's first time eating solids

It's hard to actually count this as a "solid" since the rice cereal was so milky but none the less our little guy gobbled it up. He took to it right away, no gagging or sputtering just downed the whole bowl. This kid is an eater.

Notice his cute Christmas bib :)

Gingerbread House

Rowan and I made a gingerbread house today, and had a wonderful time. It constantly surprises me how grown up he has become. He loves when I tell him that we have a "project" to do, and eagerly came down stairs today to see what adventure we were going to have. I love turning him loose and watching his creativity.

Rowan hard at work.

The "road" was all his idea.

Final product

Van parking in the back :)

Random moments in December

The last several weeks have been insanely busy. I haven't picked up the camera much, and when I have, nothing really successful has happened. We did a final push to get the basement done so Josh's mom could move in with us the week after Thanksgiving and start her new job on the east coast. Rowan loves having Gram with us and waits for her to get home every night so he can drag her in to the playroom to play.

Here are a few shots from the last few weeks.

Eli adores Rowan, he watches his every move and laughs at anything Rowan does. Rowan generally does not feel the same about Eli, but here is a rare sweet moment between brothers.

Sweet Eli

Rowan helping me "decorate" the tree.

Christmas decorations.

Home Improvement projects

We have been plugging along with our home improvement projects. The basement is nearing completion, just in time for Josh's mom to take up residency with us so she can start a new job on the east coast! Hopefully Dana will be able to follow soon and the boys can have all their grandparents close by. My dad has been tirelessly slaving away helping us save thousands of dollars in labor costs. I am pretty sure we owe him our lives and first born son...and maybe the second one too. :) I have promised him if we ever move it will be in to a house that already has all this stuff done. It has been fun, exciting and totally overwhelming tackling all these projects and the decisions that go in to making them happen. I can honestly say I know my way around Home Depot and Lowes way more than I have ever wanted to. We have one more project going on upstairs in our half bath, but it isn't too exciting, so I will just post pics when it is all done, but thought you might enjoy seeing some pictures of our progress on the deck and basement.


Check out Rowan in his hard hat. I swear I don't put him up to this. He sees Pa and Josh doing work and he frantically gets his tool belt, tools and hard hat on so he can go to work. He cracks me up.
This will be the "mud room" side of the basement, right off the garage door. We still need to add a bench seat to the bottom cabinets, knobs and hooks, and maybe bead board, haven't totally decided. These were my bargain purchase at Home Depot for 50% off.
Josh's office will have french doors to let in some light and make the space feel a bit bigger.

Gram's room.

Full bath.

My dad as a baby

My Aunt recently brought a box of old pictures of my dad to our house and my mom is convinced Eli looks just like him as a baby (I think it is all the chunk). After further inspection though, I think Rowan might have a stronger resemblance. I guess we will just have to wait and see when they grow up :)

I am not sure how old my dad is here, but it can't be any older than 6 months.

Rowan at 5 months

Eli at 3 months