Recent Cell Phone Photos

We put a lot of photos up here, but we rarely put cell phone photos up. That's because they're generally of a lower quality, but there are times when we've forgotten the regular camera or don't have it handy, and we snap one with a cell phone. Or in the case of several of these, they're shots Jessa has sent me during the day to keep me apprised of their goings-on. So here you go--recent cell phone pictures.

They found some sort of baby store yesterday, and Jessa went crazy putting hats on Eli and sending me pictures of them. There was this froggy-type thing....
....this bear/cat/miscellaneous animal hat....
....this hate of unidentified type....
....and this mousy hat, that Jessa actually bought (like 90% off), and which Eli was wearing when I got home last night.
Here's a blurry one (comes with the territory) of Eli showing off his newest trick, which is standing up by himself. No, he didn't get to that position by himself, but once he's there he can stand there pretty much indefinitely. Eventually he'll lose interest and let go, causing him to slowly and dramatically fall backwards. It's pretty funny.
The same idea, this time on the back of the stroller in the park the other day. It's been warm here lately (60s and 70s), so we've had a chance to play outside some.
Tuckered out while out on the town.
Crashed at the ceramics co-op after a day of glazing.

If you have pix messaging and would like a photo sent to you from time to time, we can probably oblige. Just let us know!

Big Things Afoot

It seems like Eli is doing new things every day. Here are some photos from the last week or so:

Sitting up by himself. He can't get to a sitting position from a lying down position (yet), but if you leave him sitting he'll stay there for longer and longer times. Here, he inexplicably has no diaper on.
Jessa would like everyone to guess which movie this is an homage to.
Eli recently started eating rice cereal.
He wasn't too sure about it at first....
....but he's now eating it like the world is going to run out of it soon.
Eli and dad on the floor. Note that we have the same hairline. Sorry, Eli.
Drooling on the floor.
Standing on the table in his Chuck Taylor All-Stars. He got these at Christmas, but has just started really growing into them.
He likes to bump foreheads.
Jessa bakes! She made this cake to celebrate Eric's finishing his second quarter of coursework. Notice all the oreos decorated like quarters. Get it?
Out of all the toys in the house, Eli loves empty plastic water bottles best.
Another new thing lately is teething biscuits. Since he now has a tooth (photographic evidence forthcoming, as soon as we can figure out how to get it), he's been gnawing on everything in sight. He absolutely loved this maple-flavored barley/oat teething biscuit, and got it all over EVERYTHING....
....as you can see.

Finally, here's a video of Eli laughing at the flying easter bunny. He gets into these laughing fits about once a day now.

Easter

We got Eli dressed up in his Easter outfit yesterday (gray slacks, white shirt) and took some pictures. Good thing, too, since he's spent the morning spitting up all over them.

We can't wait for spring, so he can be barefoot all the time.
Mr. GQ.
Eli and his Easter basket full of fake Peeps (those nasty marshmallow bunny things). He loves chewing on them.
Eli contemplating the Easter egg, just before he started chewing on it and we had to take it away so the dye wouldn't run all over his shirt.
Eli, there's something on your head.
Who doesn't need a Peep in their pocket?
Our version of an Easter egg hunt.
Found one!
So cute.
Nice bunny. Can I eat him?
We trimmed the head-dress thing to make bunny ears. The bunny is not impressed, though.
Happy Easter!

New Pictures

Here are a few photos we haven't posted yet...there are a few on the camera, but the battery is dead right now, so look for those later in the week.

Eli in his crib. This is a pretty good representation of the way things have been going lately...Eli...in his crib...awake.
Eli in his mom's hat. Notice the copious drool. It's crazy. There was a big milestone today, that helps explain the drool: Eli got his first tooth! It's barely poking through, but it's there.
Eli wearing his orange snowsuit. He put this on JUST to cheer up Jacque!
On the counter. Eli has decided his new favorite place to be is on his belly. He isn't crawling yet, but he's spinning and rolling like a champ.
Eli in his high chair. He's eating a steady diet of rice cereal now (possibly the least-appetizing substance in the universe other than mushrooms).
Last week Eli had a playdate with two other boys. They all just happened to show up in overalls. Isn't that just the cutest thing ever?
On the belly again.

More photos later in the week.

High Comedy

Eli thinks a water bottle hitting the counter is absolutely the funniest thing he has ever seen in his 5 1/2 months in this world.

Applesauce

Just a quick update of the goings-on in our lives:
The mountain house has made Jessa much more domestic than usual. Here, she shows off the bread she baked. This bring the total number of loaves of bread she has baked in her life to....one.
Eli snoozing in a shop in Boulder.
For some reason we think this is really funny. Mean? Yes. But funny.
Yes, Eli has a yellow Jeep too.
I think he looks like a gangsta thug here.
Eli loves crumpling paper. Here, he takes on the paper menu at the Spaghetti Factory. It never had a chance.
Eli is starting to really get to experience some solid food. At the Spaghetti Factory, we gave him some applesauce. He started off curious....

But ended up making the funniest faces. It wasn't sour--it was sweet. But it was sweeter than what he was used to, hence the funny faces. We even got it on video....

We think you'll agree that this is hilarious.

It always ends the same, though. He might be trying all kinds of new things, but he's still a little guy who wears himself out with all his adventures.

Where Have We Been?

We've been moving!

That's right...after buying our first house, doing months of repair work on it (including a full kitchen remodel), and getting settled, we've moved. There are several reasons for this, including the fact that 900sf is smallish for 2 adults, a baby, and 5 cats. The main reason, though, is that we had an opportunity to share a house with our friends Megan and Christa (links to their blogs are on the sidebar). Christa's parents own a house in the foothills (which, at 8000 feet, are higher than NC foothills, to say the least) that they plan on moving into when her mom finishes her PhD. In the meantime, though, Christa and Megan have been living there. There's WAY more room there than those two take up, though, so we're renting the basement and two bedrooms.

The benefits of this are numerous: a safer, more exciting place for Eli to explore (ten acres of land, no cars whizzing by on busy streets), friends to keep Jessa company, more space for us to move around in (the basement and the two bedrooms have more space than our house did), and a much prettier environment to live in (see the pictures below).

So this past Saturday, Megan, Christa, and our new friend Mattie came over, and together we moved our junk out of our Yuma house and into what we're calling The Mountain House. (We also moved about 40% of our stuff into a storage building, but that's another saga).

Since we know you don't come here for the writing, here's the photographic documentation:

The last days of the old house. Eli, as you can see, is growing like a weed and is now sitting up happily in his bumbo chair. He even sits up without it for 10 or 15 seconds at a time if you set him up properly. Usually his sitting session is done in by a desire to chew on his feet, which propels him forward.
Eli also loves his exersaucer, especially the fake cell phone attached to it, and the blue/green thing on a stick in the foreground, which he LOVES to chew.
Moving is HARD. Here, Eli is tuckered out from a day of getting our new spaces ready before we moved. This is in the big living room space, which is usually closed off in the winter so we don't have to heat it. Yes, that's a Christmas tree in the picture. Don't ask.
The moving crew breaks for lunch. Note the weather: it was a gorgeous, 73-degree, sunny day. More on this later.
Eli got his socks really dirty walking around on our driveway (with some help from dad, of course). We think he's going to be an early walker; he's been doing this since he was weeks old. He was also really interested in our Subway; its going to be time to break out the rice cereal soon.
Here's the house (photo credit: Elisabeth). This is the outside of the room you saw above. Our bedroom is the last thing on the upper back side, in the top left corner of the shot.
So remember that 73-degree, sunny moving day? The next day it snowed 14 inches. That's how it is in Colorado. So while we got the stuff moved from our old house to the new house, the stuff that was going to the storage building got delayed (there's just no way to drive a moving truck through 14 inches of snow). Here, Eli is bundled up for a venture out to the driveway. Clothing by our friend Selena's mom.
Eli, of course, was very helpful during the move. He LOVES books....
....they taste great.
Jessa organizing our tv/play room. This is in the basement, and this is where all of you who come to visit can stay, in accommodations far exceeding what we had in our old house.
The view from our bedroom, looking south-southwest. The deck is in the foreground, and if you squint you might be able to make out a trampoline and small playground under all the snow. By the way, there's a deer that sleeps under the deck at night.
The view from our bedroom, looking southeast. Just over that hill, on a clear day, you can make out the southernmost parts of the Denver metro area.
Eli hanging out on the bed in his mom and dad's (still not put together) bedroom. The wall is for passive solar heating, and the loveseat in the corner is going to be a reading nook. Also, the bathroom is amazing...trust us on this (no pictures).
Eli approves.

Come visit us!