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Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Eli-Centric

I haven't done a post just about Eli for awhile so that's what we're doing.
Here's Eli wearing Aunt Suz's favorite hat, he kept taking it off and getting this picture was hard, I had to be quick like Toiger!
Eli and Addie enjoying a rare moment of calm on the sofa. Lately he has taken to abusing her by hitting at her and pulling on her tail. The dog is pretty patient but I'm waiting for the day when she has her I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore moment.
Here is Eli enjoying the tiny Italy shaped blanket I crocheted for him during one of his many naps with daddy. The blanket lives in his toy box and someday I hope to make a bigger one with better yarn; we'll see what happens.
The other night after dinner I found this present from Eli in my shoe. That's what I get for sitting them so perilously close to the highchair.
Here is a video that finally shows Eli's walking skills to the best advantage. He's pretty much a full time walker now. In the past few days he's started to carry things around while he walks. Show off.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

When Other People Win

I've been watching the Academy Awards and it always makes me think of my dad. My dad loves when other people win things. Every year he'd watch the awards (or tape them if he had to work) and he'd be so happy when people won and if they got emotional he'd tear up too. That's one of the things I love best about him, how he roots for perfect strangers to win. I can be pretty snarky sometimes but I hope I have a little bit of that in me.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Greymazing

Yesterday on the walk home from work I had to deal with snow and rain. I was wearing boots, pea coat, gloves, scarf, hat & carrying an umbrella; the colors went brown, green, grey and pink, green, cream, school bus yellow. You can imagine for yourself how great I looked. Of course I passed several other people who were similarly outfitted for their personal journeys. One man was shoveling big scoopfuls of water off his sidewalk. As usual the weather in Pittsburgh defies logic. I have experienced days where it was 70 degrees at 9 am, 50 degrees and raining at 4 pm & 25 degrees and snowing at 8 pm. I'm sure this happens other places but I always think "only in Pittsburgh".
The basic point of this post is that I'm more than ready for spring, if it doesn't warm up soon I'm packing up the baby and taking a Greyhound out west.

Speaking of Eli it's 3 minutes to 10 and he's still asleep! I woke up at nine because it was physically impossible for me to stay in bed any longer. I got the diapers in the washer and started the dishes and now I'm just relaxing. I'm actually contemplating going upstairs and waking him up because I kind of miss him. Because I'm lame.

Friday, February 22, 2008

Web Diving

Sometimes I'll get started looking at one thing and end up in a completely different place. Leaping from one idea to the next is one of my favorite things making me think that my ideal job would be as some sort of researcher or fact checker. Today I was reading a post about supposedly haunted abandoned hospitals and started doing image searches on the places, I found some great images that I blatantly stole for the purpose of blogging with them. SSSSHHHHH.

Some of the images, like these suits left to decay are kind of creepy.
Then there were things like this beautiful fireplace where it's just sad to think of them sitting there rotting.
I just thought this was very creepy and lovely. Most of the old hospitals were tuberculosis sanatoriums's so they are full of windows.

But the pictures I liked the most were the ones showing things that were geared towards kids as in the below pictures.






The clown thing of course creeps me out the most.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Fun Stuff

I'm pretty sure I never put this picture on here and I noticed it on my comp today and wanted to share. Jason spotted this great graffiti a block or so from our house when we were out walking with Eli (when it was still nice enough to leave the house with Eli). It instantly became my favorite graffiti ever and I snapped this pic with my camera phone. We're going to be very sad if the city ever decides this doesn't qualify as art and paints over it.
This second thing I found while taking a Saved By The Bell quiz on http://www.mentalfloss.com/ which is one of my very favorite sites. They always have interesting articles and fabulous links. I did very well on the test and was so excited about this graphic that I stole it. I hope that you can actually purchase this on a t-shirt as this is my favorite ever episode of Saved By the Bell and Steph and I have been mocking it ever since I first saw it. Not that caffiene pill addiction is a laughing matter; once way back in 1995 I took two NoDoz and couldn't even blink for like 18 hours. Scary stuff.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Obsessed

I'm now kind of slightly obsessed with menu planning and am collecting recipes like a crackwhore collects- well you know what she collects. I've been going to Foodnetwork.com and Allrecipes.com and getting sent links from my internet buddies (thanks Shellie) for crockpot and casserole recipes. Who knew that I could enjoy cooking as much as I enjoy eating. My next round of new ventures includes eggplant parmesaen, cheddar apple quiche, and lime chicken thighs with jamaican rice and peas. My grocery list is just going to keep getting more and more interesting.

Eli has been fairly good spirited the past couple of days and is doing so well with his walking. Soon I'll no longer be able to call him baby Elijah but rather he'll be known as toddler Elijah, the thought makes me sad. He did wake up screaming twice last night, which is unusual nowadays. Nothing seemed to be wrong he just wanted tucked back in. Jason theorizes that he was having bad dreams, what sort of nightmrares do you think a baby has?

Monday, February 18, 2008

Stuff

Today I need to start by writing a thank you ode to our IT guy at work.

Dearest Darling Jeremy,
I know that I often make ridiculous requests of you, requests involving teaching me how to download the songs that aren't supposed to be on my computer onto discs which I will need you to supply for me. Or that week when I made you move my computer 3 times. And also I feel bad for that time I kind of backhandedly called you a rascist after learning that your pet ferrets (who you clearly adore) are named Boo and Whitey. Of course he's named Whitey, he's an albino ferret. Jeremy your patience with my shenanigans has not gone unnoticed and I laud you with thanks.

Emily

Ok, I feel better now.

In other news I started my plan to make a real meal every night this weekend. What money I had leftover after paying utilities is gone, but my freezer and cupboards are pretty well stocked with REAL food which makes my mom very happy and proud. I need to remember to clip coupons so I'm not spending so much, but I am saving money by eating leftovers instead of buying lunch every day. Tonight I'm making orange chicken ala Cyndie's recipe. If it sucks I'll surely let her know.

And in other new things news I'm learning how to crochet. Not being crafty has hindered my progress a little but today I finally learned how to make single stitches. You can see the evidence of this in the picture below. It's a blanket for Eli. It's shaped kind of like Italy and made of yarn that one of the supervisors dug out of her grandma's attic. I'm impressed with myself.

Your eyes aren't decieving you it's a blanket smaller than a piece of paper. And yes I am available to teach you how to make your own tiny blankets.

Friday, February 15, 2008

The February Blahs

For me February has always been a hard month, it's been winter forever (or at least it seems like it has) and we've got at least 2 more months of cold weather, zero sunshine, and ice to look forward to. As a teenager February was always the month where I cried the most and missed the most days of school. I still have a mix-tape (yes an actual cassette) of sad songs entitled There are 90 days in February. So maybe it was a blessing that Eli was born in my least favorite month. He brings joy to me daily in the schmaltziest sense of that already schmaltzy expression.
Showing off his new style yellow fuzzi bunz, looking dapper, he's actually lying down on the ottoman not standing up being gripped by his ankles.
Cuddling with daddy, one of his favorite things to do. Daddy can make him laugh no matter how mad Eli thinks he is.
Eli's new favorite food is spaghetti. He looks good eating it.

Here's a short video I took last night. We've been trying to catch Eli walking on camera for a while now and this doesn't show his walking skills to great advantage but he makes a darn cute face at the end of the video. And yes that is 90210 in the background.
p.s. spell check still isn't working. excuse all mistakes please.

Thursday, February 07, 2008

My Temper Doth

Get the better of me sometimes. Like this weekend when my mother-in-law was visiting. I'm not going to get into it, it's been rehashed enough times in my actual life that I don't need to get into it online as well. Suffice it to say the visit didn't go well and I'll be feeling the repercussions for awhile. I thought instead that it'd be fun to discuss some previous blowups.

-I am 8 and I have a neighbor named Timmy. Timmy is spoiled and has a lot of toys that he is not obliged to share with siblings. One day Timmy is visiting (we rarely invited him to play but he often showed up) and is flaunting a toy in front of us and not letting us touch it. So I deck him. I hit him square in the face with all the force of my 8 year old spaghetti arms. It felt very cleansing until he scratched me with all the force of his uncut 8 year old nails. I still have a scar that runs down my chest and our mothers never spoke again.
-I am 20 and riding in Michelle's car on some sort of freeway, we have extended our vacation to the great annoyance and inconvenience of others. My mom calls (on my very first cell phone that we ran up a $400 bill for on that trip, hi AT&T!) and proceeds to tell me how irresponsible and inconsiderate we are being. So, I throw the cell phone as hard as my 20 year old spaghetti arms can. This feels extremely cleansing until Michelle's windsheild cracks and she's so startled that her car swerves into the other lane.

And there are a thousand tiny instances of me freaking out and screaming and behaving innappropriately. I've decided halfway through this post that they're neither interesting nor flattering. On to pictures.


We got Eli his very own baby cell phone for his birthday since he was always so fascinated with mine. He loves it! It was only $9 and you can bet your ass that should we ever lose it I'll buy two more.
I decided to let Eli have cake after all. We did it during his small party Sunday night. Jordin Sparks was singing the National Anthem before the game started and Eli was thoroughly enjoying this new addition to his life called processed sugar. He went directly into the bathtub after this.
After his bath and about half an hour of hardcore walking he passed out in my lap. of course thanks to the sugar he didn't stay passed out, he woke up at 1 am 3 am & 5 am. Annoying.
Also my niece is six months old now and very cute. I don't blog about her much but she likes me and I like her.

Excuse any spelling mistakes in this entry I can't get spell check to work.

Friday, February 01, 2008

Happy Birthday Baby Elijah

One year ago today I was in labor, at home, trying to wait as long as possible to go to the hospital. I also didn't want to miss Grey's Anatomy. One year ago I did not know what Eli looked like or sounded like or how much I would love him and how all consuming that love would be. Now I know.

May I present to you Elijah- a year in pictures (severely condensed)

At first he looked like this, not smooshed at all because i pushed him out like a champ.


At 4 days old it was already clear that he was the best looking baby in town

He loved daddy, a lot.

Sometimes he liked to play with my bra.


Sometimes he went a little cross eyed.
He started wearing cloth diapers and got vaccines


He fell in love with a stuffed monkey named Dangles.

We celebrated our first mother's day. Eli wore a funny hat.


He found his feet and decided they were excellent toys.


He learned about playgrounds and swings and fun in general.


He went to a Pirates game and didn't get too upset when they lost


He rooted for the Steelers and didn't get too upset when they lost either.

He dressed up like a monkey


He took a lot of naps with daddy, less with mommy.


He met Santa and was not entirely pleased about it.


He learned to crawl and cruise and play and brush ladies hair.



He got heartbreakingly adorable.