The Baylor Family Blog

I love summer clearance. And I think Eli enjoys the benefit (this year, at least). I found this giant dump truck on clearance at Target and instantly envisioned Eli having a blast with it. Once again, it took a couple weeks before he would actually play with it, but he finally gave in and now does more with the toy than I ever imagined! So here’s Eli taking a leisurely Sunday ride in his dump truck…

Earlier in the summer, we invested no more then $3 in a plastic bucket, shovel and rake for Eli’s pleasure. Of course, he didn’t play with it for a couple of months. I was beginning to think it would be packed away for next summer’s fun. But all of the sudden, just recently, it has become one of his favorite toys! We store this treasure in the garage, and every time we try to go somewhere, Eli is searching the garage for his bucket and accessories instead of getting into the car! So enjoy the pictures of Eli with his prized bucket!

Hopefully from the pictures, you can tell that we have a good time with our little boy! Lots of laughter and smiles every day can be found at our home (and of course tears and time outs!)! Its fun how much more expressive has has become! Eli has especially been enjoying times with his daddy, and I stand mesmerized at the ideas and activities these two come up with! From waterfalls in the bathtub to exploding tunnels to sliding into big pillows, Matt and Eli have a great time together! So, enjoy the smiles!

OK, so it’s been a little frustrating lately as we had been using Picasa to manage all of our photos, however when we upgraded to Vista it started losing all our photos. What a pain!! So after some research we landed on a new program, Adobe Photoshop Elements. Hopefully we’ll figure out a good process to keep pictures coming on the Blog. For now, enjoy some shots of Eli as we were having fun with a Pacific Play Tent tube.

Though he isn’t talking, Eli is comprehending a lot these days! Its been fun seeing the fruit of him learning! He now will point to his head, toes, belly, and nose when asked. And he is so proud of himself…thus the grin…for showing you!

“Head!”

“Toes!”

“Belly!”

Life continues to move at full speed around here! We are still working on the picture problem, but I’m hoping these pictures will post just fine! Eli has been so much fun lately! Its fun watching his personality come out more and more and watch his brain make connections. He hardly seems like a baby anymore! He babbles like crazy, but still isn’t too interested in talking. We finally had success in teaching him the sign for “more” while eating. It sure beats his loud grunts and screams at meal time! We’ve been working hard at teaching him the sign for “all finished,” but he still prefers to throw his food on the floor as his sign that he doesn’t want to eat any more. Oh well, we’ll keep trying!

Here are some pictures of some of his favorite things to do lately:

Eli has mastered climbing up on the piano bench, sitting on his bottom with his legs dangling, and playing the piano with two hands. He loves hearing himself play. He’s not Mozart, but its still fun to watch him figure all this out!

Eli loves his blocks. He’s able to stack 3-4 blocks by himself, and he is a master at knocking over any tower I try to build.

Bubbles. The babysitter blew bubbles for Eli one night when Matt and I were out, and that began Eli’s love (or should I say obsession) with bubbles. He carries around the bubble container constantly holding it out for us to blow. Its fun for a little while, but eventually I start to feel lightheaded after blowing for so long. Eli is pretty mesmerized with them at this point.

Eli loves to help his daddy do projects around the house! Last weekend, Matt installed two more ceiling fans in our home, and Eli was delighted to help! Eli has mastered climbing up and down our step stool. I now set the step stool up in the kitchen so Eli can see what I’m doing in the kitchen. He loves to watch and imitate us right now!

I didn’t intend to take a month off from blogging, but if just happened. And the more time that passed, the easier it was to let more time pass! But here we are…back in the blog-o-sphere! So many things have gone on since we last posted, I hardly know where to start!

So in my attempt to start somewhere…here’s a simple recap of some of the events of our last month:

–The three of us flew out to spend 4th of July with my parents, brother and his family in Wisconsin (pictures and more details will come in a later post)
–All three of us returned with a nasty cold that Eli seemed to kick the quickest.
–We sold the truck on Craiglist to a farmer in Kansas. Though the timing was perfect as the truck did not meet our family’s needs, it was still sad to see it go as Matt and I have many memories from our dating days and early marriage in the truck!
–We just bought a white Ford Explorer (named Eddie) with low mileage and in great condition. This was our first car-buying experience as a couple…and we are excited that we were able to save up and pay cash!
–We switched trash pick-up companies and now have trash pick up at the beginning of the week instead of the end.
–We were treated to dinner at Olive Garden by Matt’s parents on an unexpected trip to Colorado. I savored the delicious minestrone soup and bread sticks so much, I hardly touched my dinner (but enjoyed it the next day!).
–Matt started a new job at Focus. He left the IT department where he spent the last seven years and now is working in marketing and emerging technology. Its been fun watching him be excited about the new things he is doing and to watch his stress levels drop dramatically!
–We spent a Saturday in Denver with Matt’s brother and family, enjoying their beautiful backyard and each other’s company!
–We discovered Smoothie King…the best smoothies on the planet. It just took one to get us both hooked!
–Matt worked like crazy this past weekend. With the assistance of his handy helper, Eli, two ceiling fans were installed, grocery shopping was completed, a cake was baked to share with some friends, and part of the fence in the backyard was replaced. And he did all this is 90+ degree weather!

This summer is flying by! Eli is going like crazy and is so much more like a little boy than a baby. He is starting to outgrow some of his 18 month clothes…and it hardly seems possible that he will be in 2T clothes shortly! He is loving spreading things all over the house. And he recently found a ziplock bag somewhere in his reach and loves to put things in it and take them out over and over again. He now climbs onto chairs and couches with ease. He can even climb onto the piano bench and sit with his legs dangling and play/pound the piano keys! He can go up and down stairs faster than I can at times. He goes around shutting doors in the house, sometimes shutting himself into a dark room which he doesn’t like so much. He recently discovered he can crawl into the bath tub and out by himself, making it a bit trickier to get his baths completed! He follows Matt and I around and always wants to be part of whatever we are doing. He also wants to eat whatever we are eating. Its so hard to believe that a few months ago, we were having so many feeding troubles because he eats like crazy now! We have learned you get what you pay for with sippy cups, as Eli discovered he can throw the cheaper sippy cups onto the floor and make the valves/lids pop up and spill milk all over the place. So we’ve been trialing sippy cups to find ones that are more Eli-proof! This weekend, I thought I saw Eli put a rock in his mouth only to discover he had put a couple fist-fulls of dirt (now turned mud) into his mouth. That ranks on one of the top 3 grossest things ever. Thankfully Matt was around to help wash the mud out of our child’s mouth! I think we are in the rocky period where Eli might be closer to napping one time a day…but we definitely aren’t quite there yet.

Okay, well, I think I’ll call this good for the first post back! Thanks for reading!