A Very Merry Christmas

It's been a lovely few days. On Wednesday (Christmas Eve), Tyler and Matt joined us for a ham dinner. We had a lot of great time together to visit and play Jeopardy! I am no match for either of those guys!

Christmas morning, Ed made french toast and moose sausage. We enjoyed a nice breakfast before being joined by Alexander Strong, who enjoyed hearing all the deer and moose stories from the season.

Matt and Elijah kick back with a "cold one"- sippy cup, that is!

Tyler and Matt brought me a beautiful ceramic bowl from Phogg Pottery in Newport. They showered Elijah with gifts- wool socks and mittens, as well as an absolutely adorable turtle fur hat. All items he so desperately needed!

The boys left around noon to head to their Mom's house. We really enjoyed being able to share part of the holiday with them; it was so quiet after they'd gone.

"One of these things is not like the others..."

(Notice how Ed, Tyler and Matt all have the same dreamy blue eyes- and then there's the Ermine, with his beady browns)

Ed, Elijah and I relaxed for a good portion of the day. We opened our gifts to each other, and from Santa Claus.

Elijah, who had no concept of Christmas, was tuckered out and fell asleep:

The next day, Friday, Ed stayed home with Elijah while I ran a few errands and had lunch with my friend Sarah.

Saturday was the Alexander Christmas party at Wesley and Darlene's in Glover. Elijah wasn't feeling well, he was running a slight fever and was showing signs of having a cold. He was a pretty good trooper for a couple of hours, after which we had to make a hasty departure. He was deteriorating fast!

Dan Rothman couldn't believe how good-natured Elijah had been earlier in the day. Then he got a peek at the "Dark Side"...

Here are the few photos I did shoot:

Sarah, Katie, Cole, Mary and Jesse:

Elijah with Uncle Paul and "Elmo":

Opening the Monkey Doll that Grammie made:

I think this is a very flattering picture of Grammie, she looks so pretty:

Here's one group photo of the cousins who were available. As you can see, Matt had his hands full with Elijah. The meltdown had certainly begun. We left shortly thereafter :-)One of the highlights for me was finally getting to meet Tyler's girlfriend Aimee, who lives in Atlanta. She is very pretty and sweet, and seemed to manage quite well at meeting our whole family in one shot.

Sunday afternoon we attended a party for Bob Slayton, MMU's long-time baseball coach (and Latin teacher) who has decided to retire from coaching. It was a very nice party, we saw a lot of folks we haven't seen in a while (including Pat and Roy Keith, who got a big kick out of Elijah), but our child was out of control! He didn't want to be held or restrained in any way, and he just doesn't understand "No" yet. Or maybe he pretends to not understand it! We decided it was time to go when he nearly succeeded in pulling down a tablecloth (including all the plates, flatware and glasses that were on it)- he's QUICK, too! I fondly remember the days when he would hang contentedly from the Baby Bjorn carrier...

We had hoped to take advantage of childcare and do some XC skiing today, but the snow has not cooperated. Today was pretty low-key, I'm feeling a little under the weather and Ed has started feeling a sore throat coming on.

Wednesday night we'll go to Heather and Jason's, like we always do to celebrate the New Year (although I don't think we've ever actually made it until midnight)

Friday we leave for Rhode Island, to spend some time with my family. I hear we're expecting a storm, and hope our travel plans are not impacted!

It's Beginning to Feel a Lot Like Christmas!

Wow, is it snowing here!

I thought it would be a good day to make Christmas cookies for Elijah to bring to daycare tomorrow. I made the dough this morning and began gathering my supplies. After searching high and low, I found only 4 cookie cutters-- a Christmas tree, a heart, a bat (of the rodent variety) and this one:

Your guess is as good as mine!

I can't for the life of me figure out where the rest of the cookie cutters have gone to!

So I asked Ed to help me make some cutouts using cardboard, so I could trace around them. Never ask a geometry teacher to help you make a Star of David...

I call this one The Planning Stage

Anyway, as you can imagine, the cutouts came out perfectly!

Elijah helped, by trying to eat the raw dough and scattering the flour all over. Actually, he was pretty engaged for about 15 or 20 minutes.

Later on, he actually DID help by cleaning off the chair, while Zoe cleaned the floor.

Then Elijah cleaned Zoe.

The finished product.

And the best part. Zoe had to come back and clean this area again.
Later on, Eli played with a box of granola bars. He likes the shiny wrappers and to put them into the box and then take them back out again. You should see our house by the end of a weekend!

We are warm and comfy, with a pot of Grammie's recipe of corn chowder simmering on the stove. This is about as good as it gets!

Merry Christmas!

The Haircut

Well, we finally went ahead and had Elijah's hair cut for the first time. We took him to Tamra, our local hairdresser here in Fairfax. It's great- the first haircut is free, plus you get this very cute certificate to mark the occasion.

Needless to say, he really needed a haircut! To illustrate that point, here's a "before" picture:

To be fair to Eli, he HAD just woken up...

"During":

And "After":

He was really good, sat nicely for Tamra and didn't seem to mind his first haircut at all!

We had a snowday on Friday, which made for a lovely long weekend. Nothing like the ice and wind damage down in NH. It was very cold on Saturday, which was the day we had planned to cut down our tree. So we postponed that task until Sunday. It was considerably warmer, but quite windy, which made it feel brisk! Much to Ed's pleasure, I picked out a tree in record time, since we were carrying Elijah through the tree farm (he has not yet mastered the task of walking in snow boots, and after a couple of near-dumps out of the toboggan, he'd decided he'd had enough of THAT ride).

6 more school days until Christmas vacation!

The Toddler

I remember a post of Julie's from about a year or so ago, when she came to the sudden realization that Estelle was no longer a baby, but a toddler! Today, I would say Elijah is officially a toddler. He has gone from taking just a few wobbly steps at a time to suddenly walking. Pretty proficiently. It's been coming on slowly for the past couple of days, but today (at 12 months and 7 days) he has adopted walking as his new official mode of transportation. To go along with this milestone, Elijah got his first "broke-the-skin" wound today when he face-planted into the fireplace mantle. Oops!

Have a great weekend!

Giving Thanks

I haven't spent an entire week in Rhode Island since I was in college. But a couple of weeks ago, my Dad (Albert "Skip" Borrelli) was diagnosed with rectal cancer. This came as a real blow to my family. My father is a healthy man who has never known anything but manual labor. The coming months (chemotherapy, radiation and two surgeries) are going to be very hard on him, as well as the rest of us. This was my chance to bring Elijah to spend some quality time with his "Grampy" before the treatments begin next week. I decided to extend our previously-planned 3-day visit into a full week, in order to spend a lot of time with my Dad as well as the rest of my family.

The first comment I need to make is that I have a new appreciation and respect for Julie. Traveling with a baby is really really difficult. And to think she has done it, alone, OVERSEAS...Incomprehensible! Elijah was clingy. I mean REALLY clingy...I could not go to the bathroom without initiating a complete meltdown (I finally figured out my best chance at a shower was to wheel him into the bathroom in the umbrella stroller). He was pleasant enough when I was in the room, doling out kisses and letting anyone cuddle him. But if I dared step into the other room, it was catastrophic.

Then Elijah got sick and was stuffy and miserable for his first Thanksgiving, poor guy. He did not sleep straight through a single night. In fact, the night before Thanksgiving we both got about 2 total hours of sleep.

But it was fantastic visit. I was able to spend several days with my Mom, several with my Dad, and a ton of time with my nephews Brandon (11) and Kyle (4) and my niece Sarah (7).

Here are my pictures:

This is my Dad, feeding Jell-O to Elijah. The first thing Dad tried to give Eli was an orange popsicle. Jell-O might not have any nutritional value, but it beats cleaning orange popsicle off a nearly-one-year-old!

Kyle and Nana (my Mom), who was so sad to see Elijah leave today after a fabulous week together.

Here are Elijah's cousins- Brandon, Kyle and Sarah. Yes, he only has 3 cousins on my side (compared to 24 on Ed's side!)
Brandon is "Grampy's Little Helper" in the kitchen. He makes a killer loaf of fresh bread that even rivals Grampy's!
When he wasn't making bread or apple pie, Brandon was doing homework. Brandon suffers from Crohn's Disease and has spent a lot of time in the hospital lately while the doctors try to determine the best course of treatment for him. Because he has missed so much school lately, this kid has a TON of homework to do!

My sisters, "Auntie Carole" (enjoying one of Elijah's signature kisses):

"Auntie Paula" (with her awesome new haircut...on Wednesday she donated more than 10" of her hair to Locks of Love, a non-profit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children suffering from long-term medical hair loss http://www.locksoflove.org/)
And "Auntie Leslee" (Elijah's thinking, "I will do anything this woman says...she is so beautiful..."
And Carole with my Brothers-in-law Jim and Mike:
We visited with some of my old high school friends. Jen and her husband Andy just moved back to New England after several years in New Jersey. One rainy day, Jen and I took the kids to the Providence Place Mall. For lack of anything better to do, we let them play in Pottery Barn Kids, since we figured it's the closest they'll ever get to such expensive toys!

Here's Maya (4) and Elijah playing with a $75.00 tool set:

But mostly, Eli loved the pink kitchen set ($299.00 for JUST the stove!)

One evening we went to my friend Kim's house. She, her husband Ken and two children (Sydney-4 and Gabriel-10 months) live in Warwick. Elijah loved playing with Gabriel's toys.

Gabriel recently had his first haircut. WHAT a handsome guy!

The Thanksgiving meal was fantastic. My Dad and stepmother Lynn really outdid themselves with a 28 pound turkey! Paula got a lot of great TG pics, you can see them by clicking on her blog link to the left. I was busy taking care of a sick baby, so taking photos wasn't a priority. But I did get that great shot of us with Dad that's at the top of this post.

The next day, of course, was Elijah's 1st birthday. My sister Paula generously offered to host his party. So we baked him a cake. Y&C of course. It wasn't fancy but it tasted great!

Then we sang "Happy Birthday". He didn't really know what to make of that:

He ate some cake (pretty neatly in fact):

And quickly got the hang of opening presents:

Cousin Kyle showed him how to play with the "ball popper"

There were BIG smiles all around!

On Saturday, we watched Brandon play in his grade 5/6 basketball game and then pointed the car North and didn't stop until we hit Vermont. It's good to be home.

Thank you everyone for your: hospitality, love for Elijah, long talks, hugs, tears (happy and sad), optimism and support, great food, birthday parties and presents, 28-pound turkeys and all the great memories we made over the past 7 days in the Ocean State. We love you all.