Merry Christmas

Well, I'm finally making time to add a post of my own. It's been a busy but wonderful Christmas and we hope all our friends and family had a merry Christmas too:) I think Ryan and I and Eli's grandparents and aunt and uncle had more fun than he did but next year he'll understand a little more. Or at least be able to rip the paper off by himself. I know it's a little extreme but you can't say the picture of him with all his loot on/under the tree isn't adorable! Sometimes I get a little carried away with the camera but what first time mom doesn't?

Here's a family picture we took Christmas Eve. And yes, for those of you who live out of town, I chopped off my hair. It was supposed to be below the chin but you know how that goes sometimes. At least I won't be throwing it up in a pony tail every day anymore...because it won't fit! Anyway, Merry Christmas to you all!

p.s. Can someone tell me how I can change the color of my title???

Elias Christmas pictures

Sharon took about 50 pictures for our Christmas cards. Here are just a few.

Peek a boo

Our music man

Eli has really started to love his changing table. He will often chill on it for as long as you let him coooing and agooooing his little heart out. He has really started enjoying music as well. His favorite is when mom sings to him. Here's a picture of mommy singing to one excited babe.

Halloween!

Since Sharon has been slacking on the updates (it's like she has other stuff to take care or something)...here goes nothing from Dad. Elias had his first trick or treating...well not alot of tricks or treats but he got dressed up anyway. He was a little pirate and had a great time visiting Grandma and Grandpa Ford then surprising Grandma and Grandpa Hitz and family on their doorstep. Who wouldn't love this little guy!

A New Tradition

I know Eli will enjoy this much more as he gets bigger but I really had my heart set on going to a pumpkin patch this year to start a new tradition. We had so much fun!!! The place was huge and had tons of fun stuff that Eli will get to play with next year like a big hay pile that little kids were playing on, a huge inflatable caterpillar to crawl through, a little "pumpkin train" to ride on, and a huge sling shot where you can fling baby pumpkins into a pond aiming for a canoe. Plus they had elephant ears and lemon shake ups, you know why I'm going back next year! Here are some pictures we took. I dressed Eli up in a little outfit with pumpkins on it and made him wear pumpkin socks too, lucky for him the pumpkin hat was to small...

Back to work

Yesterday was my first day back at work. I'm easing my way back into it by working Tues/Thurs this week and Mon/Weds/Fri next week. Then I go to my new part-time schedule of Mon/Tues/Thurs/Fri. I'm working 32 hours with every Weds off. It was such a blessing to get that approved so I can have more time at home with little Eli. Strange as it may sound I actually kind of enjoyed being back at work. It was nice to be out of the house and interacting with other adults. Plus, I know it's cheesy, but I enjoy my job. The best part is that Eli gets to spend the day with Grandma Ford while I'm at work (and Grandpa on his days off). It's the most wonderful thing in the world. I can't imagine dropping him off with a stranger at a daycare. I know he'd be fine but this arrangement really gives me peace and allows me not to worry at all while I'm at work, plus it give Eli time with the grandparents. THANKS MOM!!!!

Here are some picutures of Eli making some more cute faces.

Growing up...and out of clothes!

Now that he's 8 weeks old Eli is finally growing out of some of his newborn clothes and into the 0-3 month stuff. To everyone who said "don't buy any 0-3 he'll grow out of it too fast if he even wears it at all" you are so wrong! He's almost 2 months and still can't wear most of it, okay, just had to get that out :) I have TONS of cute 3-6 and 6-9 stuff waiting for him but not much 0-3 so I'm going to hit up some garage sales this Friday. It's getting cold all the sudden and he doesn't have much warm stuff.


Last weekend we went to visit Grandpa Hitz (Eli's great-grandpa). It was so much fun, here's a picture of 4 generations of Hitz men (all with Frederick as their middle name). This weekend Eli gets to meet my grandparents and we can't wait!


I managed to get some tummy time pictures and thought they were adorable, here you can see him starting to roll over. I had to quit taking pictures to catch him so he didn't bonk his little head ;)

2nd Month

Well, it's official. Our little boy is starting to grow up! He's finally moved out of the "newborn" size diapers and into size 1, although we have to wrap them pretty tight to get them to stay on. They make size 1-2 where is the size N-1? Monday, the day before Eli turned 6 weeks old, he found a way to get out of tummy time. He rolled over from his tummy to his back! Now he only does it when we put his arms underneath him in push-up position but he did it like 5 times in a row on Monday, how big is he?! I have to be right there though because he'll knock his head when he flops to his back if I don't catch him :) And, last weekend we moved him out of our room and into his crib.

Our other development is that we decided to stop the reflux medicine. I've never been fully convinced he has reflux and on top of that we've come to the conclusion that the medicine is making Eli constipated. Even though it happened to only 5% it was the number 1 side effect listed for use in children. We found that in the fine print on the label after almost 2 weeks of wondering why he hasn't been pooping the same and coincidently 2 1/2 weeks of the medication... Only a mother would write about their kids poop! So hopefully that will help his tummy to feel better. Well, that's all for now. Maybe next time he takes a nap I can add some pictures.

Lots of changes!

Okay, I'll try to be conscise (not my strength). Scratch the comment in the last post about us having to wake Eli up to eat, he must be going through a growth spurt or something becuase he's wanting to eat as often as every 2 hours during the day and he's definitely not going more than 5 at night :( He's been really fussy when we feed him and would just scream when we tried to burp him so we finally took him in and they say he has reflux. Very common in babies so they gave us some medicine but it's supposed to take 1-2 weeks to begin working. Poor guy! We've decided he's old enough now to go out so we've been to dinner, friends houses, and for a walk on the Monon Trail. It's wonderful to finally be able to go places with him. I've finally decided I don't have to be in the room with him at all times (that leaving him doesn't make me a bad mom) so tonight I put him down at about 9:30 and turned on the monitor and left the room...FREEDOM! Usually I'd try to sleep too but just needed some time for myself. I did the dishes, read a magazine, and thought I'd update the blog. Here are some pictures of his first real bath, he liked it...at first.

So if you haven't realized by now I'm not the best at keeping up with my blog. And I'm more in to posting pictures than blabbing about the baby but I suppose some of you may want to hear our stories anyway:) Eli is doing great. He makes all sorts of funny noises and faces, he squeaks all the time and does really good elephant and terradactyl impressions. Aside from his squeaks and grunts he's a really good sleeper. Several nights we've had to wake him up after 4 1/2 hours to feed him. At this age he's not supposed to go longer than that without eating but by 1 month if he's willing he can sleep through the night so we're anxious to see if he'll be up for that, wouldn't that be awesome?! Cross your fingers for us;) We had a photographer come to the house Tuesday to take his pictures and they turned out great. We should have them by the end of next week but there's probably some copyright issue about me posting them here so we'll see about that. They're adorable though! Well, that's all for now. I think I'm going to try to squeeze in a nap.

New Pictures

Here are some more shots of our adorable little Eli. He likes to play (during the brief moments when he's awake) and loves to sleep on his daddy's chest. He's also already a Colts fan:)

Baby Eli

Eli finally came to see us at 7:30 pm on Tuesday August 5th. We went in at 7:15 am to be induced and 12 hours (and several needle sticks) later had the most beautiful baby boy we've ever seen. They had to try 5 times to get the epidural (that means 2 numbing shots and 1 huge epidural needle sticking me in the back multiplied by 5) but finally they got it and boy was it worth it! I'm in the lucky 1% who gets what's called a "wet tap" with the epidural which means they went in too far and punctured something that leaks out spinal fluid. It causes really bad migranes for about 8 days but again, it was all worth it. Okay, enough about that, here he is in all his glory. He had quite the cone head at first!

The Baby Room!

Well here they are, the long awaited pictures of the baby room!! Eli will be here any day now and

his room is ready to greet him:)

More Showers

Today I had another shower, this time with friends from work thrown by Debby, arguably the best cook in the entire office. Needless to say the food was delicious! In addition to friends from work the "grandma's" were also invited. You'll notice Malena in the picture but my mom wasn't able to make it. This week she fell off the ladder while picking cherries from a tree in their mini-orchard and landed square on her knee:( She can't get around very well but did still manage to make the cherry pie! It was so much fun seeing people from work outside the office and I was really touched by how many people were able to come.

Last weekend Erin, Kelley, and Tara hosted a couples shower for us. Finally Ryan got to open some presents! We grilled out, ate cake from Concannons (the best bakery in the world for those of you who've never been to Muncie, IN), sculpted babies out of playdough, and of course opened gifts. Everyone contributed to a very special gift, an "advice book" where each person wrote some words of wisdom/encouragement for us. We've loved reading thorough it. The excitement of the day came when Alisha realized the diamond had falled out of her engagement ring and we were all down on all fours tearing up Steve and Tara's house (all I found was a toy cell phone and a couple pennies) until she finally found it in her purse:) Thanks to all for making this such a great shower, we feel blessed to have such amazing friends.

Ford Family Shower

Saturday June 7th my Mom hosted a family shower. We had relatives from both my Mom's side and my Dad's side there as well as Ryan's mom and sister and a family friend. It was great to see everyone. The house was decked out in a jungle theme with stuffed monkey's, lions, and elephants everywhere, most of which came back with me to decorate Eli's room! Everyone had a wonderful time. Special thanks to my Mom for making this such a perfect day and to my aunts for all their help :)

Hello World!

Well, we've finally entered the world of "blogging". With so many friends and family members living far away we figured this was the best way to share our baby journey with you all. Enjoy :)