Eli's Half Birthday!

Eli was 6 months old on Tuesday the 19th, but it was a busy week, so I am just now getting around to posting some pics.  He is doing great.  He's a very happy baby, but opinionated as always.  He was 15 lbs 10 oz at his check-up and 26+ inches.  So, he's average height and on the skinny side.  He rolls all over the place and blowing raspberries is one of his latest tricks.  We love him lots!

I'm a dork, so I put a candle on a piece of watermelon.  We gave him some little tiny pieces of watermelon and he thought he was choking (healthy gag reflex I guess), but what he really wanted was the fire. 

Family & Friends

I just wanted to give a shout out to all of our family & friends.  We feel very blessed to have so many great people in our lives.  I also wanted to ask you all to pray for my Dad.  He is having open heart surgery this Friday.  It should be great because once he recovers it will allow him to get back to his old basketball playing, kneeboarding self and we won't have to hide the weedeater from him anymore.  But,  in the meantime he could use some prayers.

                                Grandma & Papa Hardgrave

 

                                       Nana & Pappy Willson

                                Sunday dinner at Nick & Kira's

 

Eli & Uncle Doug who is now serving a mission.  He is currently serving in Washington state as he awaits his visa for Argentina.

Friends Friends Friends

Eli & Mazee Southward in the Southward's bike trailer right before Eli's first bike ride.  Mazee took good care of him.

 

Eli and his pal Jesse Gustin.  His mom Renee and I take turns watching the boys while the other one runs.  Gotta work on our swimsuit bods you know.  Seriously though, it's a pretty sweet deal.

Texas friends Beth & Shirley Johnson, Richard, & Abby.  We visited TX back in May and Richard came up a few weeks ago.

If you're not on the blog that probably means that we don't have any pictures of you or I ran out of room, but we still love you all.

Who knew?

I am kind of on the fence about who to vote for, so I jokingly asked Eli. The first several times I asked I said, "McCain or Obama?" After he replied the same way several times, I got out the video camera. He has a clear opinion.

Manja!

Eli ate his first legal solid food this week.  (Grandma & Grandpa Hardgrave fed him an illegal animal cracker one day on the boat while I was kneeboarding.)  On Wed. he had some organic brown rice cereal and, as we suspected, he gobbled it right up.  He has been wanting our food for a while now.  He even held the spoon and fed himself a little.  He pretty much ate all of it , but of course it was messy.  An hour later I was still finding rice cereal on his eye lids and in his ears.  His Uncles Davis & Joey are here visiting form Utah, so they got to see the big event.  Joey said we should have fed him buttery garlic bread.

The Big 5

Eli is 5 months old today.  He's a crazy loon, but we love him.  He squeals a lot and he is starting to get frustrated that he can't do the things that we are doing.

My favorite things about being a stay-at-home mom:                               1. Eli's smiles                                                                                     2. Cooking healthy food for my family

Least favorite thing about being a stay-at-home mom:                             1. Cleaning up spit-up

4th of July Weekend

Summer Fun

We went to the lake yesterday since it was Derek's birthday.  Eli was sporting his new shades and we had lots of fun (see below).

Me                                                Derek                       

            Dad

Me and Eli chillin' by the pool the first time he had his swimsuit on.  (Don't worry, he was only in the bright sun long enough to take the photo.)