CHRISTmas

I read something that I thought was really neat: CHRISTmas is about celebrating Christ's presence, not presents.

Every day I spend with Eli my love for him grows. I truly love him SO much! I am so grateful that Jason and I were blessed with him. This indescribable love and gratitude that I feel each and every day, simultaneously reminds me of two things: Without Jesus, the plan of salvation would not be possible and neither would families... I would not have my amazing husband and son that I love so much. And two, the love that I feel for Jason and Eli is only a tiny fraction of the love that the Lord feels for me and for each one of us! It is, of course, incomprehensible, and I am eternally grateful! Let's keep things in perspective this holiday season, family truly is the most important thing, without Christ, families would not be possible and in conclusion, praise to The Man!

November

GIVING THANKS

So much to be thankful for! Family, friends, church, employment, a roof over my head, food in my pantry, love, charity and so much more... but above all, my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Yay for the most wonderful time of year!

This year, as with last, we spent Thanksgiving at my mom's house with her and my step-dad Rick's family. The only difference was that this year Rick's dad Rod was sadly missed due to his lost battle against Alzheimer's. RIP Rod :o(

Despite the sadness of being together again and knowing that this time last year Rod was with us, overall, we had a wonderful day and of course, lots of delicious food!

Eli with his Papa Rick and Great Grandma Lael

Eli loves his Nona!

Eli totally ruined Thanksgiving (and pretty much the entire holiday/yummy food season as a whole) for me last year! Not that I hold a grudge or anything... This year, however, he made it up to me. He went down for a nice long nap right as we were sitting down to eat. So, I got to eat and eat and eat, with no interruptions and most importantly, no nausea or vomiting! I think, if at all possible, I will be planning my pregnancies around the holidays from now on. All that food is just too good to miss!

Also in November, some random pictures of Eli. As I've said before, I can never take too many!

I was eating a banana one day and Eli was eyeing it, I decided to give him a taste, but when I tried to take it away, he cried! He ate almost half of the banana! To be honest, I think he would have had more but I had already eaten the other half!

4 Months Old

11.1 pounds, 23 inches. He is officially on the charts! That's right, 3 percentile! Yay! Now that it's cold, I sometimes layer Eli's clothes so he stays warm, the funny thing is, at 4 months old, I use his newborn clothes as an under-layer... yes, they STILL fit!

This month, Eli has mastered rolling over and is working on sitting up. He can sit up for a minute or so by himself, but then tumbles. And finally, he's beginning to use his hands and grab things (I think he's a bit behind the ball in this area, but oh well). He eats rice cereal, avacado, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, we're currently working on bananas, and sometimes when we're in public and he fusses I give him the little Gerber Graduates rice puffs. Oh, and he has finally finished his growth spurt, now he only eats every four hours instead of every two, and has started sleeping through the night again. Thank goodness!

He's starting to learn how to actually jump in his Johnny Jump-Up too... rather than just spin around in it like he did in the past.

Wiggle Worm

This morning when Jason woke up for work, he went to check on Eli and this is how he found him...

How a 4 month old manages to wiggle out of snap jammies, I have no idea, but I really would have loved to see it!

Giggles

Not sure if he's really old enough for this, but he definitely enjoyed it.

Pittsburgh

Last week, Eli, my mom and I went to Pittsburgh to visit my sister and her brand new baby girl, Rhaya.

I was dreading the plane ride out there because the last time we travelled it was miserable, granted, it was just the two of us and Eli was only seven weeks old at the time. However, this time was a breeze! Having my mom was definitely helpful and Eli was also very well behaved.

On the plane :)

Once we got to Pittsburgh we did a lot of walking around down town (it's an awesome city), eating (seriously, I think I gained 10 pounds) and most of all, tending to the two babies. It got a little bit hectic between the two of them but it was still a great trip. Little Rhaya is such an angel! I miss her already.

The happy family celebrating Kristen's birthday at Benihana, yum!

My brother-in-law Juan

Eli with his Nona. He was really digging his rattle/arm band thingy!

Downtown Pittsburgh

Rhaya is 5 weeks and Eli is 16 weeks in this picture. Finally, a baby small enough to make mine look big! Well, biggER.

Eli thought his stroller was a lazy boy, and check out that spit bubble!

Just some random pictures of Eli sleeping that I thought were cute, he rarely takes his thumb out of his mouth these days!

Halloween!

Little Rhaya was a skeleton, how cute!

Pumpkin Cookies

If you enjoy pumpkin, I highly recommend these! I got the recipe from a friend and they are so easy I didn't believe her when she told me there are only 3 ingredients!

-1 large can of pumpkin puree

-2 boxes of spice cake mix

-chocolate chips (I used 1 bag of white chocolate chips and 1 bag of regular chocolate chips)

-I also added 1 tbsp of pumpkin pie spice, it's not necessary but I looked up the recipe online (like I said I didn't believe it could be so easy) and a lot of the reviews recommended adding this, so I did

I made these on Saturday to take to some of our friends on Sunday, but we ate them all before Sunday came... kind of sad, but they are that good!