Thank You Vets!

Tonight (Veteran's Day) as Lily and I were praying before bed:

Me: "Let's pray honey."

Lily: "Mommy, can we pray for the Tambourines?"

Me: "The Tambourines?"

Lily: "The ones who fight the bad guys"

Me: "Do you mean the Marines baby?"

Lily: "The soldiers who fight to keep us safe."

So to our Uncle Donald, all the other "Tambourines" and vets- we can't even begin to thank you enough for all that you have sacrificed (and continue to sacrifice) to keep my sweet little girl safe and to allow her the freedom to pray her prayers at night.

Mourning the Loss of my Pictures

The last few days I have been "mourning" the loss of some of my pictures. About a month ago Eli knocked over and stepped on our laptop computer thus totally killing our hard drive. We had two different friends who work with computers full time try to fix it for us (or at least just retrieve some of our lost data). One of our friends who tried to fix it had, previous to looking at our computer, never lost a hard drive before. I think we ruined his perfect record because our hard drive was totally fried. Thankfully we backed up the majority of our data onto our external hard drive. Except for everything we did the last three months- including my pictures! Of course I was pretty upset about this as there were some pictures that I just hadn't gotten around to even posting on my blog (and thus they are totally lost). And then yesterday I went to print some pictures for Eli's birthday and realized that in addition to those 3 months I also lost all my pictures from June of 2009 until March of 2010. Yep, that means that I lost all of the pictures from when Eli was born. I have no idea how I missed backing up those pictures but I'm sure it has something to do with being very pregnant and having a newborn that just made it slip my mind! So, if you know me you know how important pictures are to me- so this was a pretty big deal. I can't even tell you how thankful I am that I have all of my favorite pictures on my blog! I lost a lot of pictures, but I am so thankful that I didn't loose all of them (thanks to my blog)! So after I calmed down a bit and tried to put things in perspective (they are just pictures after all, not people), I dressed Eli back up and took some more pictures of him in his Halloween costume just to make myself feel a little better!:)

Watch Out Indy!

Here is a conversation I had the other day with Lily:

Lily: "Mommy, pets don't live forever do they?"
Me: "No honey, pets don't live forever."
Lily: "Mommy, Indy's going to die soon, isn't he?"
Me: "Oh, I don't think so honey. He should live for at least a few more years hopefully."
Lily: "But he's going to die soon, right?"
Me: "Lily, do you want Indy to die?"
Lily: "If Indy dies can I get a bunny?"

Indy, you better watch your back!

P.S. I took this picture of Indy sleeping the other day on our couch- it actually made me laugh out loud!

All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth...

Don't you just love Eli's little teeth? Oh I love it! Eli got his first tooth (on the bottom) when he was 6 months old (about the same age Lily was when she got her first tooth). It was quickly followed by a second tooth on the bottom and then (interestingly) a third little tooth on the bottom. I snapped these pictures when both of his two front (top) teeth were almost all the way in (seriously too cute)! And now he has eight teeth! And thankfully the whole process has been pretty smooth- no major teething issues at all- just beautiful baby pearly whites! Until today.... You see today Eli was cruising around near the couch when his feet sort of slipped out from under him and he fell with his mouth taking the brunt of the fall. He was screaming, but immediately I wasn't too concerned because he falls many times a day (he's learning to walk). But I quickly realized as I scooped him up that this was different. He was really screaming and his mouth was bleeding (not streaming blood, but more than a little). So I held him and did the best I could to clean him up and comfort him (Joe was at the gym). He wouldn't really let me look in his mouth and I didn't want to get him worked up again so when the bleeding was mostly stopped I gave him his pacifier and we snuggled until Joe got home. But then he wouldn't let Joe look in his mouth either... Until about 30 minutes later when Lily gave him a cheese stick. He happily chomped on his cheese stick until that cheese stick was bloody. Joe was able to get a look at his mouth then and could tell that his front teeth had been pushed in some. My poor sweet baby. Shortly after he went down for a good nap and when he woke up and Joe checked him out a bit more he could tell that he actually still had a piece of his inside lip still wedged and stuck in between his two front teeth. Sounds awful doesn't it? And yet our little man didn't seem to notice at all. And when Joe quickly removed it Eli barely flinched. He clearly takes after his father. I haven't gotten a good look yet (I'm not sure I really wanted to), but Joe says that his teeth are a little messed up. So we'll just wait and see but we think he's going to be just fine and we are grateful that he's going to loose these little baby teeth eventually anyway. I'm also pretty sure that if anyone can pull off crooked front teeth it's this adorable little man!:)

Orange

This year we weren't able to be with my mom on her birthday. She lives in Wisconsin, but I think this was the very first year that Lily missed her birthday. Usually my mom and dad fly out for a short visit right around my mom's birthday. This year, however, they just couldn't make it work. So to celebrate from a distance Lily and I made a very special birthday poster for my mom. In honor of her favorite color we did the entire poster (except the lettering which was purple) in orange (lots and lots of shades of orange)! The day of her birthday we called her on Skype and Lily proudly help up the birthday poster for Grammy to see! Skype is amazing by the way and I just love that we could sort of "be" with my mom on her birthday even though we were technically very far away!

Flash

When I took my first photography class a while back I learned how much better photographs turn out in natural light as opposed to using a flash. Ever since then I hardly ever use my flash and I love the results. But...not using my flash obviously has its limitations and just the other day I began to realize how much I am missing out on by not taking pictures when there is very little light in the house. So I snapped these cute pictures of Eli using my flash. So while I would have loved them even more if the light had been natural I now realize that I would rather have these just the way they are (using flash) than not having them at all! And yes, this little boy pretty much ALWAYS has something in his mouth!:)

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

P.S. More pictures to come soon!