Scar Face

Eli decided to memorialize a particularly bad week for me at the end of July by hitting his head on our fireplace. All he did was bend over to pick up his ball. Unfortunately he did not correctly calculate the trajectory of his head and he smacked it on the corner of our tile fireplace hearth.

Just a flesh wound

That was a horrible moment--watching your child get hurt and realizing there's nothing you can do about it. Eli cried and popped back up and I managed to stay surprisingly calm. The gash was wide becuase he was moving down, but it actually stopped bleeding pretty quickly so we didn't take him to the doctors. It healed pretty quickly, but now he has a nice little scar on his forehead. I guess the world couldn't handle such perfection and had to add a little mortality to his face. Oh well, he still looks perfect. And with that scar he is already getting girls oodling over him. Oh brother!

About a week later

About a month later.

Guideline or Rule?

I know you all do it. You see the "Dry Clean Only" or "Not Dishwasher Safe" warnings and decide that, just this once, you'll ignore them. One time can't hurt, right? I mean, those are really just a guideline more than a rule. You'll be careful and put the heat on low. You won't even dry it. And you KNOW your nice, new water bottle will be juuuuust fiiiiine.

Well...sometimes all it takes is one time.

One of these things is not like the other. One of these things is smaller than the rest.

From Diapers to Depends

This was my conversation with Eli this morning after changing his third poopy diaper in two hours.

Me: "Are you going to go poopy in the toilet soon?"

Eli adamantly shakes his head no.

Me: "Are you going to go poopy in the toiled when you're bigger?"

Eli shakes his head no.

Me: "Are you going to use the toilet when you're as big as Daddy?"

Eli shakes his head no. Now I decided to see if he's just saying no to everything I ask.

Me: "Are you going to wear diapers when you're grown up like Daddy?"

Eli smiles really big and emphatically shakes his head yes.

I guess we're not potty training any time soon.

Trip to Utah

Eli and I went on a big adventure up to Utah. We drove, so I was a little worried about the long road trip with just me and him, but it worked out and we had a great time. It helped that he had a nice set-up in the car.

Thank goodness for laptops and the Cars movie! And when I got tired, I let him drive.

But mostly he slept.

Our final destination was Provo, but we stopped at Andy and Jaclyn's house in St. George on the way up and back. It was so nice to be able to break up the trip. And it was wonderful to see them and Madi, too. I didn't get any pictures of them, but Eli sure did love their stairs.

We made it up to Utah in time to go to my old roommate Nancy's wedding reception. It was awesome to see her and meet her husband, and to catch up with old friends.

Unfortunately Eli was exhausted from all that driving, so we had to stick him in the window during the reception.

See how happy he is now?

Or maybe it was Aunt Julie that made him happy.

We also got to roam around the BYU campus. Eli fit right in.

Sometimes he got bored, but then he discovered they have stairs. Everywhere! Uncle Kyle let him play on them while I checked out my old TA office...ahhh the memories.

To thank the Barker Clarkers for putting up with us for a few days we took them out to dinner.

And Eli provided the entertainment.

And then we came home. It was such a fun trip. We are lucky to have such awesome family to let us crash at their houses for a couple days. Next time our trip won't be so last minute and we'll make sure Daddy can come with us.

Man in the box

Hmmm...

I'm sensing a pattern here...

Yep. Eli likes to climb into things. And then pretend they are cars. And then go "Brrooom, brrroom!" until we get the message. And then laugh while we push him around. And then say "Again!" when we stop because that's a long way to bend over and now our back is sore. But he just says "Again!" So we do.

And then we put him in the drawer becuase we are done. :)

Elijah 1.5

So, this post is a few weeks late, but Elijah is now 18 months old! Here are his stats as a one-and-a-half year old:

Height: 34"

Weight: 22 lb 6 oz

Head: yes, he still has one

He is growing so much and really turning into one tall, skinny little boy. The doctor looked at his growth chart and said "He is off the charts!" This wasn't entirely true, but his height is around the 95th percentile while his weight is around the 5th percentile. Yep, I don't feed him and hang him by his toes just to make sure he gets stretched out. 

Here he is sporting is size 2T shirt (Go Cougars!) and 3-6 month old pants.

When did this....

Turn into this...

These are some of Eli's favorites at 18 months:

He loves cars.
He Loves cars.
No, really, Elijah LOVES cars. Anything and everything about cars.* He loves to drive them around, look at pictures, see them in commercials, watch the Disney movie Cars, pretty much watch anything as long as it shows a car. One of his favorite things to do is sat on Mike's lap at the computer and watch a car slide show of the Weissman, Mike's dream car. Eli asks to do this about a million times a day. He loves cars. He spends all day driving cars all around the house.
You will find cars everywhere in our house...

*Eli hates when cars move on their own. He has a remote control car from Christmas and he loves it when it's turned off, but if we turn it on he Hates it! Mike has a little Stomper truck that can drive on it's own. Off, Eli loves it. On, Eli hates it.

He is talking like crazy and learning so many words. Some of his favorites are "nanana" for banana, "brrrroom, brrroom" for car, and "choc" for chocolate. He also says "gngk" for drink. It's this weird guttural sound, I think it's a mix the ending of milk and drink. But at least he's consistent with it. Some of our favorites are that he says yak, iguana (sounds similar to banana), and yo-yo, and he knows what they are, too!

Eli loves to read. He can pretty much find anything in his books when we ask him "Where's the _____?" He also likes to read with us. I'll say "let's read some books" and he'll go get two books. He hands me one then sits down to read his. When I start to read out loud, so does he.

He still loves music, singing, and dancing. He's got this funky stomping, spinning dance that he does. I have no idea where he learned it, but it is funny. Sometimes when I sing along with the music he tells me to stop...apparently he only likes good music.

He's so good at feeding himself with a spoon or fork. In fact, he almost always refuses to let me feed him yogurt anymore. He knows he can do it and he wants to do it on his own; he's an independent little boy.

Eli also loves brushing his teeth. Whenever we're brushing our teeth he wants us to brush his. This is another thing he prefers to do on his own, so it's sometimes a challenge to get him to let me brush them first. But he knows where his toothbrush is and will run up to the bathroom counter, point to it, and say "Teeth! Teeth!".

There are so many fun things about him that I could go on and on all day. We are just so blessed to have this amazing little boy in our lives.