Shawn and Kim visit Dec 30-31

We have a long history of having Shawn and Kim Thompson over to our house on New Year's.  It started back before any of us had kids.  It didn't work out this year to have them come ON Dec 31 and stay over for the new year since the Hardinger family made plans to get together over that time, so we opted to have them come Dec 30 and 31.  Dec 30 (Sun) is the day after we arrived home from Texas.  A little soon after just arriving home from a long trip to host people, I realize that...but with some relaxed flexibility and meal planning on the road, we pulled a visit together quick.  I'm glad we did because its always nice to see them.  Their two kids, Caleb and Genevieve are 2 yrs and 6 months, respectively.
I don't remember exactly what we did.  Rachel was around, having come early to our house to prepare food and organize the Hardinger get together in a couple days. We played telephone pictionary, which ended in fits of laughter about each person's series of drawings/phrases.  Caleb (who is slightly autistic) enjoyed running around with toys and watching Backyardigans.  Genevieve was so sweet, smiling and jumping on all our laps.  She loved the jumperoo toy, and even fell asleep in it.  The next morning Dave and Shawn took our older 3 kids and Caleb swimming at the hotel where Shawn's parents were staying.  Rachel, Kim and I did kitchen stuff while caring for Eli and Genevieve.
Violet and Calvin call Shawn Uncle Shawn.

Dave was testing out the smile detection feature on the camera - Shawn smiled - it snapped a pic.

 Genevieve asleep in the jumperoo.

 Rachel constructing her last pie of the year.

Christmas in Garland, TX with Armitages – Dec 22-29, 2012 and Calvin's 5th Birthday

The idea for this trip to Texas started awhile ago when Lisa and I were chatting on facebook, she was telling me about the house they lived in since moving out of Swiss Tower on the DTS campus. She mentioned it is easier to host people now that their house is bigger. Neil, Sten’s dad, purchased the home for him and them in June 2012. She suggested having family to her place in TX for Christmas and the idea was planted but no decisions were made. We decided to make the trek to visit the Armitage family for Christmas sometime in November. We had a garage sale to fund the gas for the trip in November. We didn’t decide travel dates until a few weeks before coming. Calvin’s birthday was Dec 28th so we didn’t want to be traveling on his birthday, we decided to go on the 22nd (Sat before Christmas) and leave the 29th (the Sat after Christmas). When deciding how to get there (driving, not flying), we decided to make the trip all in one day, as opposed to two days. Dave and I disagreed on that when we first started talking about how to get there. I thought…let’s just enjoy the drive and take it in two parts, stay at a hotel with a pool, etc. Dave thought no, the “getting in and out of a hotel” is a lot of work and an extra expense, so why not try make the trip in one day. His viewpoint is rather “why have 2 miserable days of travel when you can only make it one.” I agreed. We weren’t sure whether to drive all through the night, or all through the day. We decided to wake up early in the morning and drive there with the hopes that we would get there and avoid arriving super late in the evening. “Super early” for this family is 5-6 am. Dave and I got up at 5 am on the 22nd and loaded the van and got the kids in the van by 7:15 and drove off by 7:20. My goal in blogging for this trip is not to summarize each day but rather highlight certain memories worth recording. I did not keep a running tab of the events as notes for me to refer to like I’ve done in the past, this time it seemed way too hard to do. We didn’t really do all that much, maybe that’s why. We mostly stayed at Sten and Lisa’s house. The drive down to Texas was l-o-o-o-o-o-n-n-n-n-g-g-g. We thought it would take about 12 hours, but we didn’t arrive at their house to close to 10:30pm, which was 15 total hours of travel. The first few hours of the trip were crawling over icy roads that were aftermath of a blizzard that swept through the Midwest a few days before our trip so that lengthened it quite a bit. We stopped a few times for food/feeding/bathroom breaks/diaper changes. The kids slept a little bit, but mostly watched a marathon of movies. We stopped for one quick “sit down” dinner at a place called Taco Mayo and sat under a table with a big straw umbrella.
Even though we really thought the trip would never end, we eventually arrived at Sten and Lisa’s house on Lakemere Drive in Garland. Emma and Anja were the first to come out and greet us. Violet was a little shy. We said hi, hugs, got a tour of their house, got kids settled where they were sleeping, and went to bed too. Everybody was pretty tired from traveling even though we did nothing but sit all day.
Emma was gracious enough to let us have her room for the week. Eli slept with us in a pack and play crib, and the older 3 kids shared Neil’s room (he was gone for the week visiting family in Peoria). Vanessa in the pink tent, Calvin in the bed, Violet on a mattress on the floor. The first couple nights Violet shared the couch with Emma in the living room. She said she liked sleeping out there.
Sten and Lisa have two very cuddly dogs. One, a pitbull named Kaia, and second, a “puppy” (1 yr old) named Cricket, not sure of the breed. She was named Cricket because she likes to eat bugs. The dogs
are very gentle, snuggly, sweet with kids, and not aggressive at all. Calvin really needs to learn how to “be” around dogs (not rubbing his hands all over them all the time and getting in their faces and sitting on them) … I suspect that is why he may be the victim of many dog attacks lately. I’m glad nothing happened with their dogs. He enjoyed laying down with them, petting them, etc. the whole week.
There were random trips to and from various places, Dave went to a craft/paint store with Kristina to get some art supplies for a painting she worked on for us. Lisa made a few runs to the grocery store. Christmas morning the kids opened their stockings and presents. Lisa and I planned a few meals. We made for meals for the week these things:
* Chicken fajitas
* Orange chicken with rice
* Mexican chicken/cheese/tomato soup
* Potato soup
* Cheeseburgers
Lunches were random, usually simple or leftovers. The favorite of all the kids for breakfast was creamed eggs.
Anja (age 11) and Violet seemed to play together the most. Kristina (almost 15) is more shy, and seemed happy to escape to her room to work on the painting for us. Emma (age 13) was always around, playing with whoever was around her. The kids watched some shows on Netflix, played with lots of playdoh, colored lots of things, played with the dogs, played outside in the snow that Dallas got on Christmas Day (a couple inches!), which was very rare for Texas. Christmas morning our kids had less presents because we had our own LaMarche family Christmas on Thursday of last week before leaving – we didn’t want to pack all their presents and bring them home. That’s another blog post. The Armitage girls gave our kids some books and movies. One evening after dark they lit a fire and we had smores.
Dave and Sten hooked up a rope swing to a tree in their big woody backyard and that was a big source of entertainment the last two days.
We didn’t get out of the house much because leaving with our big crew was a little difficult. We did make a trip to the library to play some games and check out some books. Vanessa and Violet wanted Dora books, Calvin wanted super hero books. Eli scooted across the floor and sucked on the diaper bag handle. The library was really neat – one whole wall of the children’s section was turned into a little store scene, with different storefronts all connected together at a child’s height, featuring different books for each store. It reminded me of BBC’s Western town made of cardboard.

Friday the 28th was Calvin’s 5th birthday. In the morning he said he felt different.  He wanted his favorite breakfast, which in that moment, he said was oatmeal with raisins and brown sugar.  He was so happy the whole day. We made the day special for him by all going to Chick Fil A and letting the kids play on the indoor playplace there and treating everyone to lunch. Lisa made a delicious chocolate cake/chocolate frosting/chocolate chips from scratch and we all enjoyed that after the chicken fajita/taco dinner. Anja hung up a happy birthday sign along with a hand written note that said “Calvin, we just want to let you know that we wish you a….” above the happy birthday sign. We sang happy birthday to Calvin and he opened his presents ~ a transformer Optimus Prime, toy cars/trucks, a stomp rocket and extra nerf rockets, dinosaur coloring book, superman hero figurine and a spiderman “piggy” bank.

I am writing this post from Dave’s laptop computer in the van on the drive home. Eli is crying, Vanessa is whining she is “dir-dee” (thirsty), Violet and Calvin are watching Tom and Jerry, and my eyes are throbbing because I barely slept last night. Eli was a terrible sleeper each night, waking up every couple hours, I do not know why! Maybe the cold he has is keeping him up.
A couple funny moments in the week included Vanessa copying something Dave said. He was being silly getting the kids to bed one night and said with an accent that he was going to break the kids heads if they didn’t listen and obey while getting them ready for bed. Of course he wasn’t serious – but Violet was tired and emotional at the end of one day and really thought he was serious in that moment for some reason and started screaming about it. Vanessa picked up on what Violet said and as she went to bed, she was holding Dave’s hand and said, “Don’t break head, dad!”
Cricket (the younger puppy, age 1), also nearly climbed a tree by jumping up into it trying to chase a squirrel.
Most of the stops on the way home were quick.  The kids watched a bunch of movies and slept some.  Eli (poor baby) enjoyed the trip the least.  I wasn't having much success pumping milk and feeding it to him by the bottle so I made a point to nurse him every time we stopped for someone to go pee.  Our one "long" stop was Chick-Fil-A somewhere in Oklahoma (I think) on the way back for supper.  Or was it Missouri?  I don't know.  Either way, they all got to run around for some time.  I took over driving on the way home ... and somehow we got home at 10:30pm-ish.  To keep us awake, Dave turned on his Slacker radio program and played tons of crazy songs and sang the lyrics probably for my entertainment.  The only one I remember was "The Final Countdown" and some Michael Jackson songs.
Rachel and dad were there (after grocery shopping for our Hardinger family get together).  Dave and I got kids in bed...put everything away.  We were zombies...exhausted.  And we went to BBC the next morning...miraculously.
Dad crashed on the couch, Rachel in the guest room.  Eli in Vanessa's crib - Vanessa on an air mattress in V&C's room.  I was so ready for Eli to be "un-heard" at night...for my own sleep's sake.

Eli's first bites of food

-Eli's first food...bananas on Christmas eve (in Garland, TX with Armitages)
-second food - applesauce on Christmas, avocado

Observations...he swallowed some bites, some others he spit out.  Seemed to like the avocado too!
This seems like such a pointless post.

Christmas (Thursday night the 20th) 2012

I am writing about this a month later than it happened, so the details won't be there.  However, I'll write whatever I remember about it.  We did presents with our family before our trip to Texas, knowing that it would have been difficult to travel with the presents and bring them all home if we decided to open them there instead.  So we told the kids we would have our family's Christmas at our own house on the Thursday before we left.  Friday was reserved for packing.

Dave and I set up the little fake pre-lit Christmas tree a week or so prior to this, and on the day we set it up, the kids decorated it with the ornaments we have.  It seemed too easy, dealing with a fake tree.  No sap, falling needles, and no lighting it.  But the awe of a REAL tree and the smell of fresh pine were definitely missing.

A big snowy blizzard blew through Iowa and most of the midwest those two days (Dec 20 and 21).  So severe that school for both older kids was canceled Thurs and Fri.  This left me with finding something to do with the kids for most of those two days and trying to be productive getting ready for our long trip ahead of us.  We made sugar cookies and decorated them with red/green frosting.  I made two different kinds of frosting to accommodate both mine and Dave's frosting preferences (he likes hard and shiny frosting, I like fluffy buttery frosting).

When it was time to open presents the kids lined up their little chairs next to the tree.  I don't think Vanessa understood what was going on but she quickly caught on. 

Dave and I did most of our Christmas shopping on amazon this year.  We chose for Calvin a big life-like crane with a hook/string.  He also got two Tom&Jerry movies, a lego building board, and legos (from Gma Martha).  For Violet, a Fur Real puppy, kid's accordian, legos (from Gma martha) , a pink/brown dress, a "how to draw book", and a Curious George movie. For Vanessa, a Dora movie (notice the movie theme?  we wanted to get them new things to watch on the drive to TX), a Dora blanket, and a Dora Leap Tag book.  She also got a baby doll from Grandma Martha. Vanessa loves Dora...obviously.  She wanted to wrap up like a taco in her new blanket, watch her movie and play with her book immediately, of course.  We had to load the book onto the Tag reader first, which took some time.
All in all, they were VERY excited about their stuff and seemed appreciative and said thank you a lot.  It was a nice time.

Eli's 2nd tooth and fun bath time

His 2nd tooth poked through to make a matching pair of teeth emerge from his lower gums today.
He also thoroughly enjoyed splashing in the tub full of warm water.  I held him with my arms halfway in the tub while Vanessa and Calvin played.  Eli was intent on grabbing and chewing every tub toy possible and splashing his arms continually and loving every minute.  Calvin helped me clean Eli with the baby soap.  After so much activity in the water, a clean diaper, warm pajamas and quick feeding put him to sleep for a long 2 hour nap.

Eli's first tooth popped through the gums today

It wasn't there when he woke up.  After playing on the floor and gnawing his way through some more cardboard from a box he rolled over to, I noticed his gums gave way to a tiny lower central incisor. :)  I could see his teeth through his gums for about a week now, I am sure the other one is coming in the next couple days or so.  The kids get excited about every little "Eli" change ~ he is even attempting to crawl, getting up on his hands/knees and rocking, and trying to move his knees forward and walking with his hands separately.  The wheels in his brain are spinning as to "how" but he hasn't done it yet.

Eli - 6 months old

My little baby is not a little baby! :) I find out tomorrow his weight/height stats, but I'm going to guess this:

20ish lbs
29" long

actual:

20 lbs exactly
28 1/2 inches long

Will update tomorrow when he goes to his 6 month check at the pediatrician.

He is changing a lot, and the biggest thing I notice is his personality.  His face lights up with delight when he sees me, and he squeals with delight most of the time.  He gives the same reactions to daddy, Violet, and Calvin.  Sometimes Vanessa.  Vanessa gets in his face and bothers him so I don't know if he gets annoyed with her more than he is happy with her.  She tends to take the paci out of his mouth and give it back, which makes him mad.  Violet and Calvin know how to make him laugh though, but surprising him, playing peekaboo, or gently tickling him.  They still enjoy helping me with him - holding him and moving him from place to place, although since he's so heavy, that is much harder for them.  This morning Violet got him buckled into his car seat all by herself, she did an excellent job.  Love having a big helper!

Eli started taking the larger pacifier which he finds easier to suck on and keep in his mouth.  He still loves his snuggling blankets (swaddle muslin blankets).  He is still 100% breastfed and I know I can start introducing cereals/foods to him, but nothing in me wants to start.  It makes for more messy work and it makes his diapers messier.  And since he doesn't exactly seem starving (my little hefty chunk) I will probably wait another month or so to start foods.  It will be nice when I can put him in the high chair with some cheerios to keep him occupied for awhile.  He also is very spitty.  He will throw up milk many times throughout the day, I end up smelling like spit up.

He does take a bottle, and can hold it himself and suck from it.  I have not given it to him though, this is a report from daddy and Calvin when they fed him while I was away from the house for a couple hours last weekend.

Eli is happy to play on the floor surrounded with toys.  He can use his elbows/forearms to drag himself short distances, and he easily rolls both directions.  He'll gnaw and chew on everything, his favorite seems to be cardboard.  He also likes (tolerates) the jumperoo toy for a few minutes at a time too.

He can't sit on his own yet, but he can sort of hold the sitting position for a second or two before toppling over to one side or the other.  I haven't really tried to help him either.  I suppose he'll get there soon.
He's still riding in his infant carrier car seat.  I am bummed he won't make it through the winter in it, since it provides a warm place to transport him in the winter months.  His seat only is rated to hold a child up to 22 lbs.  

Google just informed me that I have filled my quota space for uploading photos. :( Boo!