7 months

Well, Eliot will actually be 8 months old on Wednesday (1 day from now). However, I did take these pictures a few weeks ago when he was close to his 7 month birthday. 

He was not particularly smiley, but he was still pretty cute. Also, I wasn't able to get good photos on my bed like I have for the first 6 months. The light was bad and he was such a fast little mover, even though I was close I was scared he was going to fall off the bed. So, downstairs by the window had to do! 

Eliot has been working on getting his top two teeth for awhile and they are taking their sweet time. He is not comfortable and neither of us have been very happy about it. But, all in all, his spirits have been pretty good as long as he is awake and entertained. He is not sleeping the best, but hopefully that is just a phase. 

When I took these photos, he was just learning to crawl on his hands and knees. He is so busy that he does not want to even take the time to eat. I feel like I spend an absurd amount of time each day trying to get him to eat something. At his 6 month check up (which he was 7 months at), he was only 40% for weight. Arlo never got below 50%, but always stayed around 50%. He does not have the patience to nurse anymore, which is difficult for me. He does love the bottle though. Complete opposite of Arlo, who would not even touch one. 

Eliot is really sweet. He is mostly a happy little guy. He loves everyone. He is very energetic and motivated to move and get what he wants. He is very focused on whatever it is that he wants and does not forget about it. He wants to be held, but is hard to hold because he does not hold still! 

We love this little guy. I am not wanting him to get any bigger, but it happens every day and every day he learns something new! 

6 months

Have I really not blogged since Eliot's 3 month post? Wow... oops. A LOT has been going on. I need to post on a few things, but right now I will just go ahead with Eliot's 6 month post.

 Eliot is now closer to 7 months than 6, but these photos were taken 1 day after he hit 6 months :) 

Eliot has 2 teeth and is working pretty hard on the top 2 already, at least it seems that way. 

This guy is insanely mobile. He is not full on hands & knees crawling, but he is SO close to it. He rocks on his hands and knees and will spring himself forward from that position. He is insanely fast at scooting, who knows if he will ever actually crawl because I am amazed at his scooting speed. I should start thinking about getting some baby gates up. Just yesterday he started trying to pull himself up on short things. Eeek.

Eliot is always moving. If you hold him, he tries to crawl up your chest and starts jumping off of you or twisting around. He does not like to be still. He was the same way when I was pregnant with him, he was very active inside me. His amount of activity (even at this age) is making me a little scared for what is to come. I am glad that we got a home with a yard for my two crazy, active boys! 

He is still very, very happy for the most part. He will smile at you, even when he is crying. He is very social and will smile and jabber at any one. 

Eliot loves his big brother. Any thing that Arlo does, Eliot is watching. He would rather watch Arlo than eat, sleep, etc.  Even after Arlo is rough with him, he is back to smiling at him about 1 minute later. I am excited and nervous for their relationship. Since they are both so active, I have a feeling we will have lots of rough housing. Arlo already rolls around the floor with Eliot and they giggle and smile.

I seriously love this little guy. He is so sweet and happy. He is always a bright spot in my day. I love to cuddle him and rock him to sleep, it is one of my favorite parts of the day... except when Arlo is awake during that time and is running around, distracting him. 

3 months old

Eliot has already been 3 months old for almost 2 weeks now. Shows how on top of it I am. Oh well!

Eliot has been such a pleasant baby. If he is fed, changed, and rested... he is content and pretty calm. It can be pretty easy to get a smile out of him, but he can also be very serious a lot of the time. 

He rarely cries much anymore, pretty much the only times he does are on long car drives or if he is overly tired. When he wakes up at night, he usually just makes grunting sounds and sometimes will just shout out a couple times.  

He is also starting to not sleep in the car unless he is really tired. He is quite fond of sleeping in his bed (which is a pack n play in our bedroom) and sometimes has a hard time sleeping other places, which is not making me excited about our upcoming trip to New Hampshire, but I am going to try and bring the pack n play with us (is this crazy?!).

Eliot loves his hands, he often pulls or pushes out his pacifier to get his fingers in there. He can get his thumb and suck on it, which I am not a huge fan of... so I try and stick the pacifier in there instead. It works some of the time. He also loves to have things in his hands, a blanket or a lovey are almost a must for him. 

He is pretty good at putting up with his energetic big brother.  I am anxious to see if Eliot keeps his calmer disposition as he gets older. 

Eliot is a cuddler, which is so wonderful. Arlo was never really a cuddler as a baby so it is a nice change (although I must say that Arlo is now really big into cuddling, so I have two cuddle bugs, which I love). 

He rolled over all the way, after much effort for weeks, on the day he turned 3 months old. He easily can get from his back to his stomach, but has only flipped the other way about 4 times total and those times seem like more of an accident. 

He is sleeping pretty decently these days, waking up about twice a night. Usually he goes down around 9ish, then wakes up sometime around 3 and then 6. Those can vary some, but that is probably an average night. Alro still wakes up sometimes due to going potty or nightmares, so I am often up more than those 2 times though :) 

Eliot is starting to not love the swing. He doesn't mind just hanging out on the floor, but that freaks me out with how rambunctious Arlo gets. I find it hard to get much done if both kids are awake because I am always having to make sure Arlo is not attacking Eliot. 

So far, adjusting to 2 kids has not been as hard as I thought! It will be interesting to see how life is as time goes on. There are definitely tough moments and I seem to always be busy, but I love it. I am so blessed to have two wonderful boys in my life! 

Lost Lake

Maybe I am crazy, but I really wanted to go camping this summer... even with a new baby. With the end of summer pretty much here, I thought we were out of luck. However, we were invited last minute to join some friends on an adventure to Lost Lake. We jumped at the opportunity and quickly got everything ready and I am so glad that we did. 

Eliot bundled & cuddled up on morning #1

He did so well and only woke up twice during the night!

The first morning we started off with a walk with the kids. There is a trail that goes around the entire lake. We didn't hike the whole thing, but checked a part of it out. 

When we got back to camp, we got ready to head down to the lake to hang out for the day. We stayed there pretty much all day. We all rented a row boat to share and the kids played in the dirt & water, content the entire day.

it was simply gorgeous!

 Dan actually got in the FREEZING cold water, crazy guy!

 This is almost all Arlo did.... throwing rocks in the water 

So, Arlo & Kai were playing together on this little beach. They were being so cute together and at one point I looked over and they were sitting on a rock together chatting. I grabbed my camera and tried to sneak over. I guess I wasn't sneaky enough because they got up and attacked!

Saturday was one of my most favorite days in such a long time. We were outside with gorgeous weather & scenery. Arlo was so happy to just play outside in the dirt, rocks, & water. Eliot was a dream baby and was so calm. It was so relaxing to just not do a whole lot outside. I didn't want it to end.

 another cute bundled baby photo

The next morning we did the 3 mile hike around the lake. It was gorgeous. Unfortunately, Arlo was exhausted from lack of sleep & lots of playing and whined/cried pretty much the entire 2nd half of the hike. But, I still had fun! It was very beautiful.

funny faces 

Unfortunately we did not get a photo with the ENTIRE group (one family is missing here, they went home the night before). But we got one on our hike before Arlo started melting down.  

 Everyone but Dan (taking the photo) hiking

and of course, I am an awesome mom and took a photo of Arlo crying. I mean, it was how he was acting the entire 2nd part of the hike... hahaha. This was right after we told him not to get his feet wet (he was wearing converse shoes & socks) and then he did anyway. Next time, listen to mom & dad!

I definitely want to go back to Lost Lake. It was one of my favorite spots for camping with kids!

little zig zag falls

I am very behind on blogging! There is a lot I have not put on here. Eliot is almost 3 months old and I never did his 2 month post. I will have to do that soon!

On labor day weekend, I was dying to get out. We went to the park by our house on Friday & Saturday evenings, but I wanted to do something more. Dan's knee was still bugging him from Hood to Coast, so we were someone limited in what we could do. We ended up finding this really short little "hike", which was perfect for Arlo. Even though it was so short, it was really beautiful!

Arlo was fascinated with collecting rocks and throwing them in the river. 

After the hike, we drove just a little further up the mountain to government camp for dinner. We went to Huckleberry Inn. I hadn't been there for quite awhile, but my family used to frequent the place when we had a cabin up near government camp. I was hoping that they would have maple bars left when we got there, but they were all out. They make them right in the restaurant and they are incredibly flaky and so good. At least from what I remember. 

I also taught Arlo to blow milk bubbles. It sure cracked him up, it was pretty funny. He loved it! 

sundays are the best

hanging out at home, snuggly baby, energy filled three year old, lots of fun together 

just keep swimming, swimming, swimming

This summer Arlo had swimming lessons for the first time. It was an interesting 4 weeks to say the least. We enrolled him in two 2 week sessions that met M-F for 30 minutes each day. On his very first day of lessons he was very excited and had a hard time waiting until it was his turn to get into the water. When the teacher called his name, he had no problems getting right into the water on his own, no fear at all. He swam with the teacher for his first time and smiled and was excited. But, I think he was a little too excited and not scared, he stepped off or possibly fell of the step and his head dipped into the water unexpectedly and he swallowed water and it really freaked him out. The rest of the lesson he cried. The next day I had a hard time even getting him to put his feet in the water. But, by the 3rd day he was doing fine again and loved his lessons. 

Then came session 2 and a new teacher. For some reason the transition of a new teacher made him revert to that first day of being scared. It was so odd to me, but he just didn't click as well with the new teacher or something. It could have been because his first teacher was still in the pool, but with a different class? Who even knows! The entire second session he struggled with liking it. He was scared to do certain things and would just get out of the pool at whine if he didn't want to do something. But, he did have some good days where he did everything that was asked of him. Luckily the day I brought my camera, he was pretty cooperative and happy.

We are going to keep him going in swimming lessons in the fall. Because of his struggles, I feel like waiting until next summer will be too long for him and I want to keep the momentum going. But we are giving it a little bit of a break, he will start again mid-October. Although, since he hasn't had lessons for several days now, he has been asking to go swimming! So, that is a good sign, right? He definitely likes certain things about being in the water, but from that first fall there is a nervousness about it for him. Hopefully he will get over that soon, because he does love playing with water and taking baths!

the many faces of eliot

this kid is very expressive.

most of his faces are serious/grumpy, but they are all cute!

shark attack