4 Months

Another month older and wiser.

Here are some things that Eli now knows  about this wild world: 

1. My hands are tasty.  If only I could get them BOTH in my mouth at once.

2. Baths might actually be fun, not just totally mystifying.
3. I thought my mom is supposed to understand my every cry.  Why does she keep trying to feed me when I am tired?

4. My aunt Sarah always sings rap songs when she sees me. Interesting.

5. Boy do I love watching football with my Grandpa.  Big screen TVs are almost as great as ceiling fans!
6. Dad calls me Chigger, E-bo, and Chicken Bump.  I guess you can't trade in parents at this stage of the game...

As if you wanted to know...

Okay, this is from Facebook, but I thought I would go ahead and post it here, too.  What is a blog but a central place for all one's narcisistic randomness?

 

25 Random Things about Me

1. 4 people had to tag me before I broke down and did this.
2. I like telling stories more than sharing facts.
3. I consider myself lazy (though I use the term "cozy" in my head). I thought motherhood would change that... I will let you know.
4. I hate veins (my own especially) and am most aware of them when I walk into hospitals and nursing homes. I am getting light-headed typing this. When I am aware of veins, I have to uncross my arms and legs (and I just lifted my wrists OFF the keyboard). Don't ever check my pulse.
5. The hardest thing I have ever done is birth a child. Don't know what I was expecting, but it was harder. I can't believe how beautiful that slimy screaming boy was and is.
6. I think cloth diapering is easy and am willing to evangelize.
7. My two favorite adventures were hiking and camping in the Picos de Europa in Spain (because of the cows with bells on and the soup and wine we had afterwards) and backpacking in Aspen, Colorado (it snowed, Bryce needed my help, and we stayed in a swanky hotel after)
8. My husband causes me to attempt more physical feats than if I had married my lazy twin. I love that he always wants to be outside in all weather and gets me out there too. It makes coming back in so much more fulfilling than if you never left.
9. I have just become a person who bakes bread, which I see more as a character trait than an action, and I hope that trait becomes true of me now that I am attempting the action. Hmmm...
10. I love making things, but hardly ever finish things. I have 9 projects that were supposed to be Christmas presents that still are not complete.
11. I love old things much more than new things and my mom tells me to stop buying junk from thrift stores until I go through my grandmother's attic. Old fabric is my real weakness.
12. I make things in ridiculously complicated ways, because I think is inherently better if it is harder. I insist on hand-quilting instead of machine-quilting. What this means in reality is that I send all quilts home with my grandmother so that she can just do it for me.
13. Come to think of it, I would rather cook from scratch, too.
14. I feel deep shame in the summers when produce from our garden goes bad before I use it. I really feel guilty even talking about it.
15. I have broken five or seven bones (some were just stress fractures), had a root canal because of sledding incident, had a nosebleed caused by a pencil up my nose, have been hit by my own car (just caused another nosebleed) and have been hit in the face with a rake. I don't consider myself particularly unlucky.
16. My husband is the biggest hearted person that I have ever met. I truly feel that the world would be better off if they could all be friends with Bryce.
17. My favorite urban adventure was going to San Francisco with my sisters last summer. Gordon Girls Take on Napa in a Mini Cooper! Woo-hoo!
18. Katie is the most common name in my phone. Josh is second.
19. I LOVE Willie Nelson and Lyle Lovett. I like to think that they love me, too.
20. My sisters and I would put on talent shows and "Star Search" and videotape it. I did a ribbon dance to "Man in the Mirror" once- very moving. We also acted out "I Think We're Alone Now" by Tiffany in my grandmother's barn.
21. If I had to pick a place that I identify with most, it would be my grandmother's farm in Joy, Kentucky.
22. When we were little, we go into the woods behind our house in Dickson and come out in a little field with a gate and a water culvert where our Hawaiian Barbies like to swim. We called this place "Hay Hotel."
23. I won the Spanish Medal in high school, but didn't learn to speak it until I went to Peru for two months. I love seeing my Venezualan in-laws because I get to practice. I always sing kid's Bible school songs in Spanish and I always talk too loudly.
24. I am a very self-involved person and LOVE attention, but these 25 things are wearing me out.
25. This year I hope to spend lots of good time with people I love. That is very important. I hope lots of good food is involved as well.

What is ahead?

I always channel my mom at new beginnings... every time Bryce heads out the door for a new first, I feel the need to snap a picture.  You know... to put on the fridge next to his finger paintings.  His first day of nursing school, shortly after we got married in 2003, his first day at his job at Metro ER here in Nashville in 2005, his first day of the nurse practitioner program at Vanderbilt... all recorded.

Here he is just about to go to his first interview for an NP position in Robbinsville, NC.  It was a good option in so many ways and would be a great place to start out.... We will see what happens!  Bryce said when he walked in the rural clinic, they thought he was a drug rep because of his suit.

Though, I must admit, all the talk of interviewing, choosing our own adventure and maybe moving makes me tired.  Eli, too:

Sharing Lives

I think that one of the things I have enjoyed most about Nashville living is having people over for dinner.  I am no good at planning, having food ready or forks clean when people show up, but I just love sitting at a table with new friends and old friends and sharing food and conversation.  

The first time we had people over after we moved into our house, I was convinced that I had to serve APPETIZERS since I now had a table to serve people on... unfortunately I was just putting the stuffed mushrooms into the oven when everyone arrived- I hadn't even started the main meal yet.  Everyone else stayed busy with gin and tonics while I made biscuits, started a fire in the oven and had to finish the salmon in the microwave.  Bryce showed up 45 minutes late with our new 80 pound hound dog to a smoky, tipsy house!  Quite a night.  

Be warned that if we have you over for dinner, you may show up to more people than I warned you of (sorry, Lisa and Dustin), you may have to make the salad (thanks, Lisa!), find your own bowl for the hummus (thanks, Katy!), invite yourself (thanks, Katie and Tish!), slice the cheese (thanks, Dustin!), share a napkin (thanks, Bryce!), hold the baby (thanks, Emmy!), check on the pie (thanks, Amy!) or help with the grilling (good job, men!)  I don't plan on getting it together any time soon... but I DO plan to keep having people over to share our lives.

Peter Pan

I don't usually post videos, but this is the most incredible thing I have ever seen a person do.  (I saw it on Flo's blog).

Business Man

Well, Elijah has really enjoyed his holiday vacation, but it is time to get back to the office!  Back to the daily grind.  It is hard for a mini-human, typing away at his mini-computer, to not wonder what happened to the child labor laws of the past.  But in this rough economy, kid has to earn his keep!

Ring in a New Year!

It is officially a tradition.  For the last four years, we have celebrated New Year's Eve with our best friends, Ella and Will.  They are always in the US from Costa Rica for the holidays and it is always so good to have time with them.  We got out to some low-key parties on NYE, and Ella cooked us up a super tasty mess of food while she was here (as is her way... a direct quote: "The only kind of gravy that I ever make is roasted garlic and rosemary" as if other people have more gravies in their belt than she does...) Mmmm... I am still thinking about that bread pudding.

I have realized that there is a magnet in our camera that locks in on a certain mini-human in the house, which is why I have no pictures of adults unless they are holding said mini.  PS- who knew that we were adults?  It is hard to keep up!  It can't be that long ago that Bryce and Will were climbing into the trunk of the car when there wasn't room for everyone to go to dinner... Thanks for coming to see us, Ella and Will!  we are so thankful for y'all!

Acrobat.

Does anyone LIKE the way their voice sounds in recordings?  Just have to share this: