christmas in annapolis

So after Xmas we flew to Annapolis to see Scott's sister and family, and most importantly meet our nephew Grahame for the first time! Eli and Grahame were too cute together!

cousin fun!

'hey, Grahame- i think that lid goes to this one?'

bath time!

Eli and his Grandma Cherry

walking the campus of the United States Naval Academy, a future Mid-ship men perhaps?

Deters and Collins

Eli was a little leery of this stuffed animal....scary right?

cutie cousin Grahame

vintage

Hi! Here are a couple quick shots of Eli in some vintage clothes. These were Scott's clothes when he was a little guy and his mom was awesome enough to keep some things and pass them along to Eli. Some of you may remember the shoes he was wearing on his birthday, those were also Scott's and sadly Eli has already grown out of them, but we have these cool shorts and overalls to wear still. :)

lucky 13!

dear eli,

today you are 13 months old. i feel like in the last month you have grown leaps and bounds! you are now not only the fastest crawler in town (seriously, you're starting to get a bit of a reputation for your 'fastness') but you are now pulling yourself up to stand on everything and are cruising all over the living room furniture. it is so much fun to watch. another one of your new favorite past-times is to crawl all over mommy, I've become your own personal jungle gym. also, right after your first birthday you finally began to babble all the baby words, which include baba, dada and goo-goo-gaga. then...on mommy's bday you said 'mama' and it melted my heart. now you are starting to look at me and say 'mama' and this morning you looked at 'dada' and crawled to him. :)

your favorite things, songs, books, etc... are:
-your bunny/lovey that you sleep with (pictured above)
-'hey wake-up' is still your favorite Sandra Boynton book, we read it every morning and I know that you know the story by heart now, because when you turn the page to the part where we shout 'good morning sun, happy morning everyone,' your eyes get even bigger and brighter with excitement. you also love her book ' belly button beach.'
-you love the cd from music class and favor 'all the pretty horses' and 'tiny tim.'
-you still love to go to the pool to swim and play at the park and play with your friends, even though you're not really playing 'with' them yet...
-you love to play with your car, your wooden puzzle and train
-you love animals, especially our cats and you LOVE dogs, so much that it breaks our heart we can't have one in our rental (maybe someday.......)

-you do not like to have your face wiped, your diaper changed, when we don't let you pull the drain stopper in the tub, and you don't like getting in and out of the car for errands, although you are liking the car so much better these days. and i don't think you like watermelon?

love you to the moon and back my 13 month old eli!!!

just because...

a little bit of our weekend

mom, i'm not a cat too, the cats are over there...

We drove up to the cute little beach town Davenport (which is 10miles north of Santa Cruz) on Sunday for a little outside/beach time, it was quite lovely.

crawling into the ocean...

so, so busy digging!

a few firsts...

So today Eli is 10 days shy of his 1st birthday and he caught his first cold. :( I think it's pretty mild, just a runny snot nose, some sneezing and grouchiness! Oh well, it was bound to happen. He also rode in his new bday big-boy car-seat for the first time and seemed to like it, we only drove in town so the true test will be on a longer trip, but he thought it was really funny when I would wave to him in the rear-view mirror.

snot nose

but i still wake up happy.

so much to contemplate in life...

a little bit of our 4th of July

at the beach with daddy

sand baby!

whoa...the ocean

red, white and blue

hey! we're getting ready to host a 4th of July 'faux-bbq'*

i think I'll just get myself a snack...

this bottle of wine will do.

*A 'faux-bbq' is when you have the vibe of a BBQ but you don't have a grill and you serve veggie burgers. Haha! Hope everyone had a nice 4th of July!

skater chic

black t-shirts, converse, hoodies, skinny jeans, striped shirts and board shorts...you know the drill?!

Our trip to Yosemite

So we had a great time on our trip to Oakhurst/Yosemite. Yosemite is absolutely beautiful, wow! That was my first time there and Scott and I both agreed that we need to go back and spend a few days just in the park to really explore and see it all, trying to see it with a baby is a little tough. ;) So when Eli is older a family camping trip will definitely be happening. We went there for a wedding and of course I took no pictures of that because we were too busy distracting Eli from a meltdown during the ceremony and then Scott and Eli went back to the hotel and I stayed and danced to the awesome band 'FeatherWitch.' But, here are a few fun pictures of our shenanigans....

Oh, just taking a break from the road...crawling around this grass here.

say what? we're going swimming?

this is how i take my breakfast, hotel style.

hold on...i need to make a call.

one of the magnificent water-falls in yosemite

Happy Fathers Day Scott!

Eli and I are so lucky to have you! Love you!