Eli the Cougar or Eli the Ute?

No man can serve two masters.

Our poor child is feeling torn. Part of him wants to please his daddy because he wants his daddy to continue to play with him. But what about his mom? He can't let her down because she has the warm, delicious milk.

Eli hasn't decided yet where his loyalty lies, but I'm sure it won't take him long to figure things out.

We just want him to know that he looks adorable no matter what he wears.

5 Months Old

Dear Eli,

You have done a lot of growing, exploring, and learning this month (but not a lot of sleeping). You really found your voice this month and spent a lot of time "talking" to us. We have absolutely loved it! You are most talkative right before you go to bed and your dad and I usually spend a good chunk of time leaning over your crib before you fall asleep laughing at your tiny voice. We can't help but wonder what you're trying to communicate to us.

You're still huge, clocking in at 19 lbs and counting. Whenever strangers met you this month, they would ask, "How old is he? 8, 9 months?" We'd laugh and tell them, no, he's only 4 months! The funny thing is that you don't look that fat, but you're solid. People are always surprised at how heavy you are when they pick you up. Let's just say you carry your weight well. :)

Most moms start feeding their babies solid food at 4 months, but I still haven't given you any. By the looks of your thighs, you certainly don't need it yet! The reality of it is that I love breastfeeding you so much that I don't feel emotionally ready to replace some of your feedings with solids. I feel like the time that I feed you is our time, time that no one else can have. By feeding you solids, I'm worried that I'm going to feel like you don't need me anymore. You won't rely on me 100% anymore. I won't feel that sense of pride anymore knowing that every single fat roll on your body came from me. I'm going to be replaced by a box of rice cereal! The thought of it makes me really sad, so I'm going to hold out a little longer...

Getting you to sleep continues to be a daily struggle. You usually sleep great at night (except two nights ago when you got up 8 times in the night), but your naps are a different story. Your naps are still rarely longer than 30 minutes. I can sometimes get you to go back to sleep, but it takes a lot of work, you stubborn little monkey.

You're a very cuddly little guy. You love it when people pick you up and hold you close. You rest your tiny hand on their shoulder and snuggle right up to them. You get your love of cuddling from your dad, I guess. And though you love cuddling, it takes some work to get you to giggle. We hear a few of your hoarse, cougher-like giggles every day, but only when your dad is really rough-housing with you.

We bought you a jumperoo this month which has provided you endless entertainment. At first, you didn't quite know what to do in it, but now you jump to your heart's content. I love lying on the floor by you while you're in it and encouraging you to jump even higher. You are so funny to watch.

Eli, month 5 has been the best month of all. Life with you just keeps getting better and better. Thanks for coming into my life.

With love,

Mama

5 month stats:

Weight: 19 lbs (90th percentile)

Height: 27 inches (90th percentile)

Head Circumference: 17 inches (85th percentile)

Wears 9 or 12 month clothes and size 3 diapers.

Thankful

{ Thanksgiving 2009; Aunt Aldi & Uncle Nolan's House; Columbia, MD }

This year, I am especially thankful to know who I am, why I am here, and what my life's purpose is. I am grateful for a merciful Heavenly Father that knows me as an individual and is aware of my needs and the desires of my heart. I am thankful for a supportive husband, a sweet baby boy, and a loving family. I am thankful for my body, my health, my testimony, my membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and all of the little things that make my life happy.

Babies don't get cuter than this

Snow Canyon 5K

I don't know how he did it, but Adam convinced me to run the Snow Canyon 5K with him on Saturday. I hate running. I really do. I hate the way my muscles burn, being out-of-breath, and feeling like I'm going to collapse any minute. We trained for a few weeks and by the week of the race, I felt like I was in pretty good shape and that I could do it. However, we hadn't practiced the course and it actually turned out to be a lot hillier than anything we'd trained on. It was really tough.

Not only was the race tough to run, but it was tough to be utterly humiliated by my husband. He wore his Utah flag around his neck as a cape while he ran in honor of his beloved Utes. They played TCU that day and he wanted everyone to know of his support. Let's just say that I didn't run next to him.

Here is Adam with his cape flapping in the wind. In case you were wondering, yes, he really is as big of a dork as he seems.

I about died as I crossed the finish line. I was so tired!

Adam did awesome and placed 2nd in his age group with a time of 24:36.

I came in 8th in my age group with a time of 28:13.

My goal was to do it under 30:00, so I felt pretty good about it. Not too shabby for having had a baby 4 months ago.

I'm so glad Eli was there to snuggle with after the race was over!

He's my #1 fan.

I'm thinking maybe I'll run another one soon? Maybe even a 10K?

But mark my words, I will never run a marathon.

Kudos to everyone that does them, but I have absolutely no desire to put myself through that. Yuck.

Boating in November

Thursday night, we took the boat out to Sand Hollow for its last run before it goes into hibernation for the winter. We were literally the only boat on the lake. The water was as smooth as glass and you could see your reflection perfectly on the surface, like it was a mirror. Adam said it was the most fun he's ever had wakeboarding. He had a perma-grin on his face the entire time.

We love living in St. George! It's awesome! Where else can you go boating in November?

Still Learning How to Sit

This is three days worth of Eli's efforts trying to sit upright.

That head of his is one heavy load!

Weaning from the Swaddle

Whenever we talked to people about teaching a baby how to sleep, the most common advise we got was to swaddle, swaddle, swaddle.

So we swaddled.

And Eli learned to sleep swaddled.

He took beautiful 3 hour naps most days.

He slept 12 hours at night with only one feeding.

But these people never told us inexperienced parents that there would come a day when the baby would get too big and strong to be swaddled.

Surprise!

We realized it was time to wean him from swaddling when we would double (and sometimes triple) swaddle him and he would still work his arms out of the blanket almost instantly and then his hands would be stuck in his face and he'd be hitting himself all night.

We've been weaning him off of his swaddle blanket during the past few days and it turns out that Eli doesn't know how to sleep unswaddled!

He has reverted back to crying for an hour and then finally falling asleep for a 20 minute cat nap and then waking up crabby but refusing to go back to sleep.

Eli's tired.

Mama's tired.

It's hilarious watching him try to sleep now because he doesn't know what to do with his arms. Most of the time he just holds them straight out in the air. Poor kid.

Advice would be greatly appreciated.

Halloween 2010

For Halloween, we went to the ward trunk-or-treat activity and chili competition. It was a lot of fun and just like we expected, Merlin was a big hit! Showing him off to everyone in his costume was so much fun!

He didn't love wearing his beard or his hat, so half the night was spent wearing only one or the other or neither towards the end of the night.

The sleeves of his costume were completely soaked in drool by the time we went home. I guess wizard robes taste really good?

His grandpa loved showing him off too.

See what I mean about soaking the robes?

So cute! I would have liked to stay longer, but Adam's precious Utes were playing and after being there for an hour, he started acting like he was going to explode if he didn't get home to watch the game, even though it was being Tivo'ed. Hopefully next Halloween they'll be more considerate and play earlier in the day or something so that they don't conflict with trick-or-treating!

I absolutely love carving the annual Halloween pumpkins. Like usual, we had a lot of fun doing it and even got to do one for baby Eli. His turned out to be my favorite! My mom had a stroke of brilliance and suggested that we make it look like him by doing starry eyes and putting a binkie in its mouth.

Every time I looked at it, I laughed because the similarity was so striking. My son looks like a pumpkin.

We also made Halloween sugar cookies.

And caramel apples with homemade caramel. Homemade caramel is totally the way to go. It's not that hard and tastes a million times better than the store bought stuff. Yum!