Climbing Mt. Everest...sort of

Love for your children should never be performance based, however, is it ok to get really, really, really, really excited when they do something awesome?  Some people climb Mt. Everest, some scale the Himalayas, other may swim the English channel.  Eli climbed over his 'Boppy'. 



Eli Update
Eli is 3 months old and we're finally getting the hang of this parenting thing - too bad they keep changing.  Since last week he's made life a little easier on us by deciding to sleep through the night.  We'll put him in bed around 9p and he doesn't wake until 8:30ish.  It's GLORIOUS.  He smiles more, laughs a lot, and enjoys talking to his mama (goo-goos and gah-gahs obviously translate to 'I love you mommy and daddy').  The worst thing about him getting older are his poops.  They smell very bad.  Overall, we'll give him a 10 out of 10 on the awesome baby scale and we're very fortunate to have such an easy baby (I'm told they're not all like that). 

Gary and Allison Update
We're doing great - most of the time anyways.  I suppose any day you wake up to a job, smiling baby boy, food, a roof over your head, and people who love you is a great day.   Allison is beginning to work on concocting her own recipes for a future cook book.  She made some sort of lamb/croissant role tonight that might add a few pounds to the posterior, but it was finger-lickin good.  I'm finishing up the semester with Young Life and getting ready for the summer.  Along with taking students to camp two different weeks, I have an assignment this summer at Frontier Ranch (YL Camp in CO) for a month that I'll be able to bring Allison and Eli on.  Apart from Young Life we've been enjoying our church (Grandview Fellowship) where I teach high school kids on Sunday morning.

Our good friend and fellow YL leader, Nicole Prosser took some great pictures of our family that I'll leave you with.

Pee On The Wall

In light of General Larry Platt's new hit, 'Pants On The Ground', we've decided Eli's theme song right now could be, 'Pee On The Wall'.  Reason being he successfully shot a stream of urine onto the wall while laying in his changing table (I'll post a picture soon).  Here's the whole song (click here for original lyrics).

Pee on the wall

Pee on the wall

Looking mighty cool shootin pee on the wall

With the poop in my diaper

paci in my mouth

Pee hit the wall

Call myself a cool cat

Looking mighty cool 

Layin on the changing table with pee on the wall

Get it out, hey!

Get my pee on the wall

Lookin mighty cool

Cryin' lyin' on the changin table with my pee on the wall

Back on Dec. 4th I wrote a blog titled, 32 Weeks And Counting.  I wrote something about not wanting our blog to turn into a baby blog.  After having Eli I understand why people want to blog so much about their newbie.  THEY ARE AWESOME.  haha.  Seriously.  So, I'll try to keep thing fresh on here, but there's really nothing more exciting or interesting going on in our lives right now than our little boy.

February Update:

We've been in our apartment for a little over a month now and really like it.  We miss having a yard, wood floors, and a second living area, but we don't miss the draftiness of it - or the human-sized cockroaches.  That reminds me: When I was seven or eight we used to find the small cockroaches and dare each other to bite off the head...and we did.

 

Happy New Year

For us, 2010 started with a bang. Last week Allison became 36 weeks pregnant and we were excited about Eli coming the end of January. However, when Allison went to her doctor appointment Monday they told her she was dilated to a three and needed to go to the hospital. When she called she was really calm so never did I think she was going into labor. Once at the hospital we tried going home, but they wanted her to stay overnight for observation. The following morning (Tuesday) I talked to the nurses about letting us go home and they assured me if Allison hadn't progressed we could leave.

Twenty minutes later we find out Allison had dilated to a six and was now officially in 'active' labor. Soon after, an anesthesiologist came by to give her an epidural and her life (and mine) became much better. Around 2p a nurse came into the room and Allison began pushing. An hour later later the doctor came in and Eli James was born at 3:33p. We stayed another few nights at the hospital and were able to bring him home Thursday afternoon.

When I say "home" I mean the apartment we moved into while Allison was in the hospital. Unknowing that Eli would be born a month early we decided to move into an apartment from the house we'd been renting since we moved to Sugar Land. So, Wednesday a group of guys and myself moved four trailer loads of our belongings across town and they were life savers. Allison and I both are EXTREMELY grateful for all the help and support people have shown us this past week. Not only have people helped us move, but we had people visit the hospital(some with food - our pastor came up right after and prayed with us), decorate our hospital door, take great pictures of Eli, buy groceries for the apartment, provide air mattresses for our mothers, offer to let any of our family stay at their house, bring dinner this past week, and showered Eli with gifts. Allison and I have shed tears talking about privileged we are to be around such great people.

Speaking of great people, our moms were able to come down the day Eli was born and they've been wonderful. They single handedly transformed our apartment into a functioning home. We both agree our level of stress would be much higher without their presence.





We haven't gotten much sleep this week, but we have a beautiful son and wouldn't change anything.



Quote of the Week: (This occurred during contractions) Allison: Find a music channel or I will rip you apart!

Eli Came Early

He's here! Four weeks early, but what a present! His presence not only means that I'm now officially a daddy, but also we can claim him on our 2009 tax return. He was born at 3:16p today, is 17 inches long and weighs 6 lbs 1oz. Momma is doing really well and momma did a terrific job.