Seven-Month Old

Carson celebrated his seven month birthday this week!

He matured from a laying bather to a sitting bather this month.

I love clean, towel bundled babies.

Looking suspicious. Maybe because he's plotting against his drape hidden brother.

We love our bundle of joy!

Here's what he's been up to this month:

• Tried to wake up at 4:00 AM two days in a row after daylight savings. No way baby.
• Takes three 1 1/2 - 2 hour naps now. Wahoo!
• Bedtime is 6:30-7, he wakes up at 10:00 PM for a bottle and goes back to sleep until 6 or 7 AM. I wrote that post about sleep training Carson a while ago, but he actually got teeth right after I wrote that post, so we gave up on sleep training. He fell into this night time sleep routine after consistently reading him books every night and putting him to sleep earlier. 
• He started biting while he nursed after he got his top teeth. I'm talking bit every single time he started eating. After a week of being constantly bitten, I stopped nursing him. I have been pumping every morning and night, but he's a formula baby for everything in between. I feel like less of a mom because we didn't make it to a year, but nursing a biting baby made me way too anxious!
• He has four teeth on top and two teeth on bottom.
• He learned to crawl this month!
• Says, "ma ma ma ma" all the time.
• Loves sweet potatoes, green beans, bananas, oatmeal, prunes and pretzels.
• Has pulled himself to standing a few times.
• Likes to be rocked to sleep, but I'm trying to resist the urge to cuddle him to sleep so that he can fall asleep on his own in his crib. But he will still fall asleep in our arms. (Great for church!)
• So happy all the time. He usually only has his binky to sleep because he's so content when he's awake.
• He likes to dive head-first off of couches, down the stairs, and off our laps. Silly baby.

Those thighs kill me.

He's a little stud muffin!

Finally, here's a video of the little man's latest trick. Eli is obsessed with (what we call) potty noises.  He thinks he's hilarious. Every time he does it I'm in shock at how innately gross boys are. It's seriously in their DNA. Or at least in my kids' DNA. Yeah, Carson's already caught on to the fun.
Happy seven months!

Block the Stairs!

As of today we have a crawler on our hands!

Looks like the baby gate is going back up.

Carson's been shuffling around (mostly backwards) for the past month and finally figured out how to move forward. He's always loved being on his belly. I'm actually surprised he didn't master crawling earlier.

Here is the crawling in action. Now that you've given up on me having any kind of video that isn't terrible quality, I think we fixed my problem! So this video isn't super blurry like my other ones. Also, the song choice is a little strange but it's one of my favorite songs right now and it is applicable if you view it as me singing the song to Carson. Now you have a mental picture of me singing karaoke to my son, don't you? Don't make this weirder than it has to be. Enjoy!

In other news, we had our first snow day. And what a snow day it was! Eli insisted on going outside the moment he woke up.

When he made his way back inside, we made popcorn. Nothing says "Snow Day!" like a freshly popped bowl of popcorn. Am I right?

Don't be mistaken. They were not holding hands like cute, friendly brothers. No, no. Eli was keeping Carson's hand a safe distance from his precious popcorn.

Carson didn't mind. Eli drank his popcorn out of the top of a bottle. What a kid.

Waiting to go to church and looking super handsome! I love brother pictures so much.

Brother pictures quickly turned into, "Hey CARSON! Don't get my ______!!!" Eli's having a hard time keeping all his toys to himself now that Carson can make his way over to them.

This boy has six teeth. And we think he's growing two more. Where did he come from?!?

On Saturday night we taught Eli how to play hide-and-seek for the first time. He was a fast learner.

You know how every house has that one super awesome hiding spot? In our house, the money spot is hidden in the window behind the curtains. If it weren't for the giggles, we'd never know he was there.

Jeff was a gem and cooked up some ribs for dinner tonight. Can't beat a husband in the kitchen!

Since I wasn't busy cooking dinner, I whipped up some dessert. Hello tasty pumpkin pull-apart bread. You are as delicious as you look.

Happy Sunday!

Scripture Power

Oh Eli. He was wired today. Which is great for you guys, because I have some good quotes for you. But for us...it's only 7:00 and we're ready for bed.

Eli was crazy today from the moment he woke up. At one point he snatched a pair of scissors and ran with them, then hurled them across the room. That's a good picture of what today was like.

Here's another visual for you:

After our rough morning, we filed into Sacrament Meeting with a few minutes to spare. As we were settling in, Eli began staring at the woman sitting behind us. With concern in his voice, he finally said to her, "Are you my mommy?"

Jeff and I looked at him confused. Then Jeff piped up, "Eli. Your mom's right here."

I gave him a wave. He seemed to acknowledge me and accept that he was stuck with me as his mom.

The meeting started. Eli was uncharacteristically calm. Just as things got quiet, Eli started staring at Jeff with the same look of concern he had earlier. Then we heard, "Daddy? Are YOU my mommy?"

Jeff: "No, Eli. I'm your Daddy."
Eli: "You not my Mommy," Said with a giggle like he realized he was being silly. Then the concerned look returned and he looked at me.
Eli: "Mommy. Are you my Mommy?"

Jeff and I died. You know how everything's funnier when you have to be quiet? We were holding back laughter for about 15 minutes at Eli's mid-church-identity-crisis.

After Eli finally figured out his family tree, he was back to his rowdy self -- meaning he threw Carson's bottle (still full of milk) at the lady sitting in front of us. It hit her back. She turned around. And laughed out loud. And then Jeff and I lost it again.

Disciplining your toddler while giggling is not very effective.

That, my friends, is why I feel like a 3-ring circus every time we go to church. But hey, at least Eli didn't escape our pew and do laps around the chapel like he did a few weeks ago. I'll take pride in whatever progress we can muster.

Here are some other Eli quotes from this week:

While trying to open my lap top:
Me: "Eli! You are not supposed to get out my computer!"
Eli: "My just have to check my emails!"

While at the park:
Me: "We have to go home. Daddy is building something and needs your help!"
Eli: "Oh! Daddy needs O'Toodles!"
(Toodles is a character on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse who gives Mickey tools to fix their problems.)

Eli and I play this game where I sing a song to him and then I'll sing it again with pauses and wait for him to fill in the right word. So this is while we were playing the game:
Me: "Scripture power keeps me safe from sin."
Eli: "Again!"
Me: "Okay, I need your help this time."
Me: "Scripture power keeps me safe from _______ "
Eli: "Carson!"

And finally, here's a blurry video for you to go along with the last quote. We read scriptures with Eli tonight, and he sat so perfectly the whole time we read. Then he spent at least a half hour flipping through the Book of Mormon jabbering about all sorts of things. It was so adorable I had to document it.
(I've been trying to figure out how to make my videos not blurry anymore, but I'm struggling. So I'm sorry for the poor quality!)

Spooky Overload

Here are some garbled pictures from the last week. This is from our neighborhood trunk-or-treat. I wised up and worked Carson's hot dog outfit around a baby carrier so I didn't have to lug him around on a cardboard box.

Halloween night! Eli quote, "I can't see what's going on around here!"

Carson's first Halloween!

It took some convincing to get Eli to leave our candy to go get other candy. I could see him thinking, "Why do I need to go knock on doors for candy when I have a stash right here?!?"

Waiting for trick-or-treaters.

I refused to buy those $1.00 trick-or-treating pumpkins from Wal-Mart. I don't know why I was so against them. Maybe it's because Wal-Mart bags are free? We will upgrade next year.

Eli's first time trick-or-treating. It's even more fun as an adult watching your kid work the neighborhood for goodies.

Rewind. This is from our Cedar trip last weekend. Eli loves anything with wheels. Especially if he can ride it! He spent the majority of our first day there on this toy:

The weather was pretty nice, but I still felt the need to protect my baby from the slight chill in the air.

Boys, boys, boys! Little men are everywhere whenever we get together with the Excells. Many trees are climbed, and many clothes become dirt-stained.

Excell Spooktacular! We had lots of great food. Here's the pukin' pumpkin.

Bryan made spooky spiders.

It's always fun to see everyone in their costumes. Celeste was the girl from the movie Brave and Bryan was one of her suitors.

David and Mary were hippies.

Ben, Tana and Family were ninjas.

Laura was Mary Poppins, Ben was Bert, Caleb a fireman, Coleman a frog, Kaelynn a witch and Tyler a ninja.

Carson experienced the fish pond for the first time.

Eli got an awesome Mickey Mouse night light!

The adults played Bingo while the kiddos watched a movie.

I won the final round and won my most favorite candy.

The next morning it was time to leave. The cousins had one last bonding experience throwing snakes on the ceiling. Luckily Mary's used to having lots of boys around and was in on the fun.

We hurried home to my Grandma and Grandpa's Halloween party. Here's the chubby hot dog with my cousin.

Here's my sister's family ready to party.

Whew. That concludes the Halloween festivities. We dressed up four times. Four. Times. I'm glad Eli's tight pants made it through all the times we squeezed him in and out of them. Happy Halloween! Thanks everyone for the fun parties!