Yipppeeee!

Thursday we found out they accepted our offer on the house!!!! We never thought it would happen, so we were so excited. Now, we just have to sell our house and hope we don't get ousted by someone else. We have everything done on our house that we wanted to accomplish, which is a great feeling. Today our Realtor is coming to take pictures of everything, and tomorrow it will be on the market. There will be a For Sale sign in our front yard tomorrow morning! Wow!! We took Eli to my dad's sister's house for dinner last night to welcome my cousin and good friend Ellen home from studying abroad in Mexico. She did the exact same exchange program I did three years ago. It felt so nice to have a break from house projects and be with people I love so much. Eli was smiling like crazy and laughing at their house last night, so he was the star of the show. He's definitely Mr. Personality and Mr. Wiggle Worm. He continues to crack us up constantly. I told Brandon last night that I wanted to record his laugh and put it on a cd and play it when I feel sad because it's the most amazing sound I've ever heard. There's no way you won't feel God's joy when you hear his little laugh. It's the strangest things that get him going too. Funny faces or kissing him sometimes does it, but sometimes something just strikes him as funny. We're really excited for 4th of July since we're all going to my parents house and having a huge family party. It will be good to be away for 4 days too, so they can hopefully show our house and I won't have to deal with cleaning every day and getting both baby AND dog out of the house. It could get interesting during the day showings.

Happy Anniversary to Us...NOT!

Tuesday, Eli didn't act like he'd even gotten shots at all! What a relief. I did give him Tylenol though, so maybe that helped. At 4 the next morning though, he woke up and had a low fever. I stuck him in bed with us so I'd be right there to keep checking on him. His temp. started going down like 10 minutes after taking Tylenol, so I was able to sleep. Today I've had to keep him on Tylenol to keep his fever away. I've taken his temperature like 5 million times. Every time he's gotten tired he's acted extremely cranky, and I know he's not feeling that great. I finally had a break down when I overcooked my beloved artichokes (my favorite food in the whole world) because he was crying. I'm stressed out because of all the house stuff we're dealing with!

Luckily my mom came Tuesday and watched Eli so we could go on a date. We went to Pei Wei and Baskin Robins and had a wonderful time. Eli thought he was in heaven because he loves his Granny and she took him on an hour walk. Sometimes he just looks at my mom and laughs because he thinks she's crazy, but he loves it. The funniest thing ever is that my mom came and did this as a surprise because she thought it was our anniversary....she was just a month off. We didn't realize her confusion until after we were home from the date and she mentioned our anniversary. We laughed so hard. I guess Brandon asked her a while back if she could come babysit for our anniversary as a surprise for me. She got mixed up on the dates. I thought it was crazy she was here when my dad was starting harvest but he insisted she come since it was our "anniversary". What a hoot. It was a much needed date, so we're so thankful she came!!!!!

Yesterday I got pooped on MAJOR! I was nursing him and it just went everywhere, all over the both of us. I had to strip; then I stripped him. I used about a hundred wipes cleaning us both off and then he spits up! I got that all cleaned up, and then he pees all over himself. At this point, I was laughing so hard. He thought it was hilarious as well. What a goof ball!!! We were both practically naked having a funny time. Eli sucks on his fingers all the time now. He still chews on his fist, but more so he sucks and chews on his thumb and first two fingers. Sometimes he gags himself with his pointer finger. I'm always like, "Quite gagging yourself Eli," and then I think about how weird of a statement that is.

There's hope they'll accept our offer on the house today, so my fingers are crossed! They were seriously considering it yesterday and crunching numbers.

shots stink!

Today Eli has his 4 month appointment. He had to get the same shots he did last time. I'm scared for him to wake up from his nap. Last time he was SO fussy all day, plus the autism thing is always nagging at the back of my mind. I'm praying it won't be the same. He weighs 13 lbs and is a little more than 23 inches long (still a shorty). She said he looks and seems great. We're not going to start rice cereal until after his 6 month appointment, so I don't have to deal with that until August. I thought I had been doing enough tummy time, but I guess not. She said he has to be on his stomach now half of the time he's awake. This could be interesting! He doesn't mind tummy time, but he likes to be able to see what's going on and I dread having to be down there entertaining him every second.

We think Eli's the cutest thing in the world, and we all always were wondering if it was just because we love him so much or if he really is adorable :-) My mom said everyone at a wedding she was at all said he's the cutest baby they've ever seen, so we've decided that he really is cute and we're not just in love. We worked outside a lot this weekend. Brandon stained the decks and I cleaned the garage and filled in some gardening in the front of our house. I bought this little beach/sun/keep the bugs away tent for Eli a while back and it really came in handy yesterday. One whole side is mesh, so I just faced it towards the garage and put him in there on a blanket with toys and he could watch me work. It worked perfect. Now that I know he likes it I will use it more often when I'm gardening. I was hoping to use it at the lake when we go to Branson in August. Eli has this one strip of dark baby hair in the back that we keep calling his mullet. The rest has fallen out and is coming back in a lighter brown. I don't know if it will look dark when he has more hair like Brandon's was when he was little or be a lighter brown like mine was. Eli is officially saying "ma ma". Unfortunately, it's only when he's mad. He'll start kind of whining and crying and he'll say it a few times. Brandon can confirm it. Of course he doesn't know what the heck he's saying, but it's still fun. Now I'm working on "da da" more.

whistle while you work......

Okay, so I'm falling behind in blogs! It's probably going to be like that for another week or so until we get this house in top shape! Brandon has been sick, so we're doing the best we can to get a lot of stuff done in a short time. Eli is such a funny little guy. He has started fake coughing to get attention. You can totally tell the difference between the fake one and the real one when he coughs from drool. It cracks us up. He also has the cutest facial expressions. He raises one eyebrow or both and it is adorable. Last night he pooped and that woke him up, and he was too awake to go back to sleep. So at 3 in the morning after changing him I just stuck him back in his crib with his music going, and while I lay in bed listening and watching the monitor he babbled, smiled, cooed, and had a blast kicking his legs up in the air for an HOUR. Brandon was sleeping through it, but I couldn't so finally I kicked Brandon out of bed to go try to get him to sleep. He luckily was successful after a while. I always know I'm in trouble when I go in his room at night and he is in there smiling away. As I was leaving his crib I said "Stop smiling and go to bed." It struck me as funny. He loves his jumparoo that my mom got him. He's finally figured it out and gets really excited and likes playing with the toys.

We're finally home and going crazy :-) We have decided that we want to try to make an offer on a house, which means we have to get our house ready to put on the market. It's going to be interesting! Luckily, my mom and Brandon's mom were both here to look at the house again with us and help take care of Eli so we could work on some things. I guess if it's God's will then our house will sell. We love it, but hopefully someone else will see its charm the way we do.

We had a great weekend at my parents. The River Festival performance went GREAT!!! There were 10,000 people there, and we all felt good about our performance. The guy who runs it came up to me afterwards and said he loved our music, sound, and demo and that he would like us to be one of the main bands next year! We laughed because the next day the picture in the Salina Journal was a picture of our viola and guitar player warming up back stage. Out of all these well known bands for Salina...we made the paper :-) Praise God!

Rica decided she's a water dog. For father's day Brandon wanted to go swimming up at this awesome spring fed pond of my parents. Rica couldn't stand it that everyone was out having fun without her and she just dove right in! She's never done that before. The guys had to keep grabbing her before she tried to swim across the entire pond.

Eli is definitely teething. He has good days and bad. One day at my parents he was SO cranky. Poor kid! He just drools and drools and chews on everything. He's been waking up a lot the last couple of nights too. My mom got him a jumping toy. This morning I could tell he's finally getting the hang of it and was loving it! We had a beautiful day at the River Festival on Friday. Eli and I hung out in the shade at a stage and listened to music and ate crap all day. He loved walking around in the stroller a lot too.

This week will be interesting as we try to get the house ready...yikes!

Growing pains

We need a bigger house. Plain and simple. Easier said than done though! We've started looking for a bigger house in our neighborhood. We looked at an amazing one yesterday, but the yard was small and the stairs extremely steep. Then we had panic attacks thinking about the fact that if we find our dream home we better be ready to put OUR house on the market. Neither of us could sleep thinking about all the things we need to do before we get to that point. So, I made a list and when we get home from Minneapolis this weekend we'll start working hard, so we are prepared. I would really like to find something in the next year and am praying hard. Tonight we hit two more houses in Riverside. My fingers are crossed.

Wonderful Weekend

We had a fabulous weekend! It was nice to get a lot of things done, but not be crazy busy like we usually are. On Saturday, we went to my aunt Cate Mitchell's house for dinner. It was great to be with family, and we enjoyed her fresh cherry pie from her cherry tree. I know all of my family is jealous...because we're all obsessed with her cherry pies! Sunday, we went to church and then I had my girls day out. I had a blast. My best friend and I got all dressed up and went to a fancy expensive brunch and then to a movie. I'm not sure I want to confess which movie we saw...okay fine...Sex and the City. I don't watch the tv show, but my friend does. We ordered Shirley Temples (I don't drink) in Cosmopolitan glasses while we watched for fun. We both loved the movie besides the raunchy sex scenes. Afterwards, we went to a great boutique (which wasn't a good idea after watching all the fashion in the movie), and I had to rip myself away from several fashionable items :-) While I was out, Brandon took Eli walking in the mall and to Guitar Center. It was the longest I've been away from him (4 hours), so he had to give him 2 bottles. Brandon was commenting on how special it was feeding him. I forget he misses out on that precious bonding time. I'm starting to get things together to go to Minneapolis for a 4 day weekend. Our band is playing at the Salina River Festival on Thursday at 6:00 p.m., and then we're going to take Eli to the festival over the weekend. I am actually excited to take him to the Children's tent. He loves puppets, so I guess we'll try to take him to a puppet show or some of the other extremely cheesy shows and music they have at it. We'll see how much of it we can stand :-)

Tornado....

Eli survived his first tornado warning and power outage :-) I had everything we might need for him as well as us right by the basement door in case there was a tornado warning and there was! We were in the basement for probably about a half hour and he was laughing and smiling through the whole thing. Rica, on the other hand, was scared to death. After all was well, we heard a huge explosion and our power went out. It was out for maybe an hour. We broke out the candles. Brandon changed a dirty diaper in the dark, which was interesting. Eli hated it the whole time. He didn't like being in the dark, and I'm sure he thought we were trying to get him to bed! The second the lights came back on he was a happy camper. He still loves his baths. It's become a father son ritual. We broke out some bath toys that my sister had given him, and he loved playing with them too. I'm looking forward to a fun and relaxing weekend, especially because I'm going to a movie with my best friend Courtney. It will be the first movie I've gone to since Eli was born!!!

Survival Mode

So...the past couple of days I've been in survival mode! Eli slept through the night for the first time the night before last (from 10:20 to 6:20). You'd think we would have been rested and happy, but I felt exhausted and had a horrible headache all day yesterday, all night last night, and all day today!!! It's the stinking weather. We've been having crazy storms every day. Last night there was 120 mph winds just south of Wichita. Poor Brandon. I was up all night with the headache which kept him up, and he eventually went to the couch. Eli slept through the night again last night, but got up at 5:30 and was up for the day. Basically we both got like 2 hours of sleep. I told Brandon this morning that I wish I got sick days :-) So unfair. All of my "keep Eli from having bad sleep habits" meaning I make him nap in his crib have gone out the window until I feel better. So far he's napped in bed with me, in his bouncy seat, and swing! Oh well. We've been so busy practicing with our band, and last night my cousin Angela came with us so she could watch Eli and I could actually sing more. It worked out well.

Yesterday, we took Eli to the doctor because he's had tiny traces of blood in his diaper and I figured he had a fissure. I was right. He doesn't act like he cares about it, so it's not that big of a deal. The doctor also agreed with me that it looks like he's teething. She suggested putting a wet wash cloth in the freezer and letting it get a tiny bit hard and let him chew on it. She couldn't see any teeth coming through yet, but today when I looked I thought I saw a little white and a tiny white bump....it could just be the fact I'm probably going crazy from lack of sleep. He has been a bit fussier than usual. He chews on everything in sight. We were laughing because he was playing with his toys and he had stuffed two toys in his mouth and was chewing on them both at the same time.

We had a great weekend spending time as a family. We went to breakfast at our favorite local place on Saturday and rented a couple movies. Brandon led worship at church, and Eli enjoyed bouncing to the music. He's started laughing more than just one little laugh at a time. Yesterday Brandon was playing a game in the mirror with him and he just started laughing and laughing. It was awesome. Something struck him as funny during the prayer at church and he started laughing....I'm sure God loved it. We took a walk to a local coffee shop and got drinks last night, which was fun as well. I can't believe how much he is growing. He's wearing 6 month sleepers and yesterday I had him in a 6/9 month onesie! Whoever makes the sizes on these kids clothes has never had kids before! Most of his clothes are still 3/6 month. We just went to lunch with Brandon at work. Eli did great for a while and then when someone else held him he started crying. I think sometimes he gets scared when other people hold him. He was happy to see his Daddy!