Happy 1st Birthday, Eli!

I guess Josh and I are now the proud parents of a walking, talking one year old! Okay, the walking is a little wobbly still, and the talking is still largely incomprehensible, but Eli seems to get better every day. He can now walk the length of a room by himself, and his first word that Mommy understands (other than mama and dada) is "please." It sounds more like "pwee," but at least I know for sure what he's saying. Sometimes I think he says other words, but I'm not completely certain. At any rate, he seemed to have enjoyed his birthday yesterday. We took him to Hermann Park so he could ride the train, and since the zoo is nearby, we took him to the aquarium and tropical bird house. Fortunately, Josh got to spend it with us because he didn't have any class in the morning. Later, after having an afternoon of playing with Mommy, he loved opening his new toys and devouring his birthday cake. Thanks for the phone calls and gifts and blog post ;-). We, especially Eli, wish you all could have been here with us! Maybe next year?!!!

Eli got really excited when the train first started and blew its whistle!

He enjoyed seeing and listening to the ducks that are nearby the train in the park.

Here he is in the aquarium looking at the fish and sting rays.

Silly little Eli showing off as he proudly walks across the room with a sock in his mouth!

Eli enjoyed opening his gifts and playing with his new toys.

He was fascinated by the "fire." He tried to blow but just couldn't get out enough air on his own.

He certainly loved devouring his cake!

March Madness is in Town

Contrary to popular opinion (okay, I don’t really know if it’s popular, but at least I’ve heard it said), Houston is not full of cowboys and tumbleweeds. Maybe another part of Texas is—I’ve not been to Dallas yet :-) —but not Houston. In fact, let me debunk this myth right now. Houston is quite the “mecca” of different nationalities. My neighbors are Black, White, Asian, Jewish, Hispanic, and Indian, and I don’t see them walking around in cowboy hats and boots. As for the tumbleweeds, they usually imply wide, open spaces, and much to Josh’s chagrin, that is certainly not the case. We’ve got a grocery store across the street and a donut shop and restaurant in our backyard (thanks to the lack of zoning laws we have here). We are all CITY. Those of you who have been here to visit can probably testify to that truth.

However, that being said, we do let a little cowboy spirit into our city once a year at this time. It happens to coincide in part with March Madness every year. While the nation was soaking up NCAA basketball tonight, we went to Houston’s own March Madness—the Rodeo. That’s right, the R-O-D-E-O. Who needs hoops when you’ve got cows? Right, Dad :-)? Though BYU played, Josh showed his true colors and chose the better part (J/K :-) I couldn’t resist). Actually, BYU played before we went to the Rodeo. Tough loss! It’s not all bad news for Josh, though. He actually chose our Texas Aggies in his bracket, and I was the one that chose BYU in mine. Let’s hope we both chose correctly for Utah’s game tomorrow. As for Utah State’s game, sorry Dad, we both chose Marquette, but at least we’re hoping we’re wrong on that one.

Anyway, I digress. Honestly, Josh and I are not big fans of bull riding and cattle roping, but we decided we’d finally go to the livestock show, which was pretty interesting. Josh actually commented that we need to do it again next year. The livestock show is simply a showcasing of animals such as rabbits, chickens, cows, pigs, goats, etc. that FFA members have raised. There’s nothing fancy about it, but at least it’s not bull riding and cattle roping. There are also carnival rides, though we didn’t go on any, and tons of deep fried food on a stick. Basically, it’s like a fair, only bigger and more elaborate. We didn’t try the deep fried Oreos or Snickers that many here have raved about, and we didn’t even have a funnel cake, but we did have some barbeque. I guess we had our deep fried foods a couple of weeks ago.

Let me digress again and explain. The restaurant that I mentioned we have in our backyard specializes in deep frying pretty much everything. We decided to try it a couple of weeks ago. My dad tried their fish and chips last year when he came. Though we’ve heard they’re good, we decided to get burgers, which were very tasty. Then we tried their fried vegetable platter. It’s probably not the best way to eat vegetables, but they too were tasty. In addition to fried zucchini, which we had eaten before, they had fried broccoli, fried mushrooms, and even fried avocados. Of course, our favorite were the fried sweet potatoes. Yum! Anyway, it seems easier to stomach a bunch of fried vegetables than a dozen fried Oreo cookies, though I’m sure they are pretty tasty in their own right. Perhaps if I ate chocolate it would be a temptation. I guess it’s a good thing I don’t. Well, enough of digressing. Here are the pictures from the Rodeo.

This is for you, Dad. Sorry, we were too late for the actual demonstration, but you don't need one!

I have never seen so many rabbits in my life and didn't even know so many different kinds existed!

Eli seemed to like the petting zoo!

I don't know if the H stands for "Howdy" or "Houston" but it's the Rodeo mascot.

This is unrelated to the Rodeo, but I have to share. Eli is now standing on his own--not just for a few seconds but for quite a while! I promise there are no invisible strings attached in the pictures below ;-).

The Houston Zoo

This is almost a week late, but we finally took Eli to the Houston Zoo last week during Josh's spring break. We've been wanting to go but have been waiting until Eli seemed a little more interested in animals. He still wasn't very interested in many of them, and he fell asleep for part of it, but he was curious to see some of them, especially those that made noises and the orangutans. They were being silly and playing around, so they were most human-like for him, which is probably why he liked them so much. Truly, had there been people in a cage, he would have watched for hours. He's definitely a people watcher. Anyway, we have a zoo membership so we can go often (it's really close to where we live too), and I'm sure he'll enjoy the animals more the older he gets. Here are some of the pictures we took while we were there:

Eli's World

Eli does so many funny, interesting, and/or cute things that it's hard to write them down fast enough. At least for a first time mom I find them adorable and amusing, so here's an update of some of the things Eli likes or has been doing lately.

1. Being chased--He loves to "crawl" away from Josh and me. He will get our attention and then sprint crawl in the opposite direction until we start chasing him. Then he tries to find a place to hide. I love it. He always has this look on his face like, "Uh oh, they're after me. I got to go." It's adorable!

2. Dancing--I'm not sure where he gets it from, but he likes "movin' to the music." As soon as he hears some music, he'll either rock back and forth on his hands and knees or get up onto something and start shaking his legs and bum. It's so cute! Last night for FHE Josh and I were singing the opening hymn and Eli climbed up to the couch and started dancing. It's the first time (and probably the last) I've seen anyone try dancing to the music "Be Thou Humble." When we finished, I think he wanted to keep going because he opened his mouth and started "singing" all by himself. It was definitely a recordable moment. Too bad we didn't have our camcorder.

Though it's hard to see from a still image, here he is "movin' and groovin'."

3. Exploring--Eli has always liked to explore, but now that he's getting more mobile, it can be a challenge to keep him out of things. He loves cupboards, drawers, closets, basically all the places he's not supposed to go. We've babyproofed some places, but the boy is definitely smart and strong. He's so tall that he reaches things he's not supposed to yet. If he can't reach it by himself, then he climbs on other things to reach a little higher. If he doesn't do that, then he does pull-ups. He's strong enough to pull himself up and peek into a drawer or pull himself up to see what's on the kitchen table. And of course, everything still goes in his mouth, so that's a continuous battle.

Here he is trying to get a glass pitcher from the kitchen cupboard.

4. Communicating--Though I still haven't a clue what he's saying, I'm sure he thinks he's talking like a grown up. He loves to babble, and I know he understands me a lot better now. It's always been so difficult to change his diaper because he's so squirmy, but if I talk to him and let him know that he can move as soon as I'm finished with his diaper, lately he has been letting me change him. He'll hold still, and when I tell him I'm done, he'll roll over and start moving. It doesn't work every time, but it's getting better. Yesterday Josh and I both swear that when Josh came home, Eli said, "Hi, daddy." It certainly sounded pretty good. He at least seems to be directing his "mamas" and "dadas" to the right person now. Plus, I've been noticing he doesn't whine and cry as much to get things he wants. Don't get me wrong, he still does it, but he will often try other methods. For example, this morning he was tired and wanted to take a nap. Usually he whines and cries until I hold him, but this morning he went into his bedroom, reached between the slots of his crib, and tried pulling out his sleep bear. His sleep bear is a little bear/blankie that I give him when he goes to sleep. Anyway, I saw him trying to get his sleep bear, which wouldn't fit through the slots, and I gave it to him and picked him up. He was asleep within minutes. It was so much nicer than having him whine. Wouldn't it be nice if that became a habit?

5. Bath time--Eli likes his baths, and he's so messy after eating that he gets them quite frequently. Lately he's been "doing his business" in the bathtub, which hasn't been pleasant, but at least it's closer to the toilet, right? :-)

6. Sippy cup--We discovered a couple of weeks ago in the middle of the night that Eli can use a sippy cup. He won't take a bottle, so I thought that he should probably learn how to use a sippy cup since he's getting to the point where he won't need breast milk anymore. We've tried introducing it to him for a couple of months now, but all he would do is bite on the spout. He's been sick (he's finally getting better with the help of antibiotics), so he was up crying because he couldn't breathe when he was trying to nurse. I decided to try the sippy cup, hoping that water would be helpful in thinning the mucous. Instead of biting the spout, he actually started drinking from it. Not the best way to discover that he knows how to use it, but I'll take it!

I had to laugh at this unique way of trying to sip from his cup.

7. Swinging--Eli enjoys the swings at the park. He's still too young to do much else, but he will sit in the swing and stare at the other children playing. In some ways I feel bad for him because his looks remind me of the kid that got left out on the playground. It's enough to make me want to have another baby right now just so that he can have a sibling to play with. Don't go jumping to any conclusions, but it will be nice when he can play on the slides and other park apparatus. If I put him down now, he tries to eat the sand, wood chips, leaves, grass, twigs, anything on the ground. That's why he swings.

8. Walking--His main form of getting around is still crawling, but he enjoys walking as he holds my fingers. His Auntie Bronwyn gave him a little walker for Christmas that he enjoys using. He has learned how to push it backward and forward and any which way. He has also had brief moments of standing on his own before falling on his bum. His first steps shouldn't be too far away.

9. Eating--Besides eating inedible things, Eli does like to eat "real" food, especially if Mommy and Daddy are eating it. He now has a total of three (probably four tomorrow) teeth that he can use to help him with that task. It's so nice when I can feed him the same things Josh and I are eating.