Sixteen going on Seventeen...

Elijah is now sixteen months old! Well he was quite a few weeks ago, but I had some issues with the blog site so now this is a "sixteen going on seventeen" post. Elijah has grown so much and in so many ways.  His walking has progressed to a run and he is all over the place! He has also perfected backward walking and side stepping.

He has a new group of favourite foods, he love Zia's roast chicken, papas turkey, wild rice, cherry tomato's, oranges, and his ultimate favourite is Pomegranate! To be honest I was not sure someone could love pomegranate more than me, but Eli has proved me wrong. I adore the way he sits and picks up each individual seed with pure delight. Now he even says " Pom Pom" and it is always said with the "more" sign. Yes that is pomegranate juice on his face.

He  now climbs up on to chairs, he finally learned to go backward on the stairs oh and has taken up surfing in the dishwasher.

Speaking of dishes, when he gets hungry Elijah has taken to setting the table to speed things up. It drove me crazy, but now looking at a photo of his handiwork, he did a pretty good job considering he could barley reach the table. He did it all on his own and would not stop till the cupboard was empty.

Elijah has also graced us with his cute little voice and started talking!! He has added tree, duck, box, hi, Nate, Zia, more, milk, poop, bye, book, balloon, and squirrel to his vocabulary and can say the sounds meow and mooo. 

Elijah  is much more himself now that he is all healthy! Papa takes all the credit. Elijah loves to honk Papas nose, he applauds after papa sings, he always looked for him in morning, and loved closing the door when papa left. Thanks for taking care of us papa!

Elijah had a great time taking art classes at Gymboree, he loved play dough, painting and story time. Oh and of course the open play gym, he would squeal with delight every time we went. He perfected the plank walk all by himself and was never tentative about climbing on and over any obstacle. He loved all of our Christmas festivities and was so pleased to wake up to the magic of zoo lights, and experience the sheer joy of bacon at the heritage park Christmas brunch. He must be related to Uncle joey.

Elijah still loves books more than anything, and will read non stop, he adores getting new books at the library. He spends the better half of his day pushing books at us, doing his super cute book sign and saying book. Or it is a shove with the book with a whine. 

He is growing up to be quite the little man, and is still sleeping in till 9:26am every morning and does not mind stretching it to a leisurely 10:00pm. Shhh....do not tell anyone with kids that we have to set an alarm and wake him up slowly. We love you.

Music Video

As I can not post any photo's (I am outta space...hopefully I will have it sorted soon) here is a music video from the yoga festival we went to this summer, and Elijah is in it!

Trick-or-Treat!

This year we dressed up as our favourite family, you know who you are! Here is our very own Fox Family Portrait!

 

You have to love a true snowy Autumn, my heart goes out to all those kids (ours included) who had to shove a snow suit under their costume.

Happy Halloween!

Fifteen months and counting...

Elijah is 15 months old! What a month it has been. In all honesty it started out as quite a crappy month. Elijah had to be in hospital, our house has mould, we had to give our notice to move out, it has been a whirl wind of a emotional rollercoaster. That all being said, we now we have a much needed visit with family. We are now in Calgary and Daddy is packing up our home in Vancouver (what is left of it after all the icky mould), and we get to see him soon! Elijah is missing him like crazy, and stands at the window calling "Da Da , Da Da".

Our little guy is feeling better each day, and is starting to become his jolly self again. He has learned the sign for 'hot' and practises it often while passing the stove. He also figured out how to stack up blocks making little towers, and he is getting pretty darn good at climbing UP the slide!

He has had a bit of time adjusting to being around so many people, so at night time when all the cousins have gone to bed he runs around as happy as can be and screams with delight and plays and plays. I think he is getting pretty tuckered out, the other day he slept till 12:00pm!

He still loves the bath, and when we went to visit Grandma Sandie she was fresh out...but the sink did the job quite nicely, and thanks to that moment Elijah now knows how to turn the taps on and off. When I wash his hands he will now grab the tap and turn it on full blast!

He is not much of a talker, but Elijah learned how to say "Papa" and he whispers it so sweetly! I do await the time when we get to find out what his little chatty voice sounds like.

Sometimes it does not matter how long your parents have been Vegetarian for, if your baby is a Carnivore one must embrace it. Elijah has discovered that he loves chicken, and after eating a hunk of beef jerky he is hooked! Hey when you are allergic to milk and eggs there is not much choice for a hungry boy! Apparently I am going to have to learn to cook meat. Yikes.

Oh and we have verified his apple allergy after a projectile vomit incidence and also his milk allergy with some yogurt- hive inducing-eye swelling- finger painting.

His top favourites are still watermelon and tomato sauce. Together they are even better! Do not knock it until you have tried it. Clara showed me the peanut butter sandwich dipped in milk trick, and it is amazing.

Elijah also loves to drive me crazy! With all the change and sickness, he did not let me put him down, we are excited for Daddy to join us, three weeks is way too long! Good thing Zia and uncle Reid gave me a break so I could go bra shopping at the mall, who knew that could be a break!

We are happy that we have had some fun Autumn activities with Hay rides, and farm visits! I forgot that in Alberta the Fall is quickly swept up by Winter... and you start thinking less about Halloween and pumpkins and more about Christmas and cookies.

Elijah's favourite book this month is 'Little Beauty', it is about a Gorilla who knows sign language. He loved it so much that he took it out our library bag, I repacked it, then he threw a fit at the library when I tried to return it. Needless to say I renewed it. He of course learned the sign for 'Gorilla' and was awe struck when he saw a real live Gorilla at the Calgary Zoo.

We are happy that Papa raked a pile a leaves for Eli to play in, because I hear that it is soon going to be replaced with a foot of snow! Oh man, you miss one winter and all of a sudden you are a Vancouver snob. Elijah loves to be outside and he is enjoing to cool Calgay weather.

Elijah is sound asleep in the bed as I write this, of  course without blankets, he hates covers of any kind. Yes at fifteen months he still does not have a crib. At this rate I think he might graduate straight to a big boy bed.

Thank you to all my wonderful friends and family who have been awesome to us this month, we really needed it. Love you.

For Clara...

I promised Clara a video of Elijah, as she told me that I have not posted one recently, seriously Clara how old are you? She would then answer literally "two and half... why Zia?". Anyways enjoy the video! If you cannot see it here, go to: https://vimeo.com/50184796

Fourteen Months and Counting...

Elijah is now fourteen months old! He has learned so much this month and of course he is as handsome as can be. He knows what he wants, and he is letting us know.

He has discovered his supreme love for watermelon, we have been buying a baby yellow watermelon at the farmers market every weekend and he loves it! Of course because he is my son, it comes complete with a sugar high, and he is hilarious after eating it...running, screaming, and dancing! One night he even rode my sewing box, on and off on and off.

With the wonderful weather we have spent many a day down at Kits beach, Elijah loves the playground and the awesome sand pit there. We have had too many days getting completely wet and sandy in his clothes, I have had the look from other moms like "you are making it so much harder for me to keep my kid outta there".  He is happy and that is the important thing, even if sometimes you forget a change of clothes and you have to borrow a diaper from a stranger and take the twenty minute walk home in nothing but a fleece coat you (thankfully) found under the stroller.

 He is obsessed with the bath this month, if we even mention the word he runs across the room to the bathroom, signing "bath" over and over again. Then he climbs up the side and cannot even wait two seconds. He now takes his own diaper off and helps with taking his clothes off. Once he gets in he will play with his cups, ducks, and shampoo bottles happily for hours if we let him. Oh and he learned how to blow bubbles and puts his face right in the water! He is very proud and shows us often, he even mumbled a word that sounded fairly close to bubble...as he is not saying anything else we will take it.

 He is quite particular on things he likes to eat, porridge, toast, salmon, peas, green beans, crackers anything noodle and anything covered in tomato sauce.

Speaking of food Elijah has his very own kitchen! I scored at a church garage sale and finally was able to fulfill my childhood dream of having a mini kitchen. I may have been a tad more excited than my child, come on, it has a chalk board, a phone, a pull out ironing board, a hologram muffin tin oven window, a curved side pantry a faux granate countertop, need I go on? Anyways, since he figured out how to turn the knobs, he loves to play with it and it keeps him busy while we cook...well kind of.

Speaking of kitchen's Elijah figured out how to put a two piece lid back on a mason jar, empty our pantry, revove all contents from cupboards and race across the kitchen with the cooling racks.

He is now understanding and responding much more, I will say "Elijah go to the room and get a book and mommy will read it to you on the couch" he will pitter patter to the room, get a book off the shelf, and climb up on the couch. He is also learning his body parts and will point to them, he knows teeth, tounge, mouth, nose, toes, head and sometimes bellybutton and knees.

This month we are working on sitting on his little potty so that he can eventually go by himself, so we do not always have to lift him on the big toilet. He has somewhat masterd the walk backward to straddle the seat, but sometimes it ends up with a foot in the potty. 

 

Today he woke abruptly from his nap walked to the bathroom and with a bit of help from Daddy he sat on his potty and had a poop (with a book of course). Well done! We do prefer being able to just flush the big potty, but all in the name of independance.

We had to spend a few days inside as our little dove was quite sick (momma does not want to talk about the details, tear) he is all better now and we can report that all that is left is one snotty nose. What a trooper. I explained to him that I was sorry about what happend, and he proceeded to sneak behind me and he bit my bum! What a guy.

We cannot believe how fast you are growing, and how fast you are moving...did I mention that I turned around for two minutes to pack the stroller and when I looked back Elijah was at the bee hive with a look on his face like "mom come check this out, it is amazing!!" Yikes.

We love you more than ever.

Country Fair

I was too excited for the Southlands Country Fair this year, we went last year and Elijah slept the whole time, this time he was old enough to enjoy the splendour. To my dismay he was not that impressed. Come on! You can ride a pony, pet the animals, feed carrots to the horses , play with snakes, jump in hay pits. Nope, the box of recycling is much more interesting. All jokes aside he did love watching the horse jumping and the fancy ponies.

We walked home and found an amazing blackberry bush and it officially completed my wonderful summer. I love picking berries, the way your hands turn purple, the prickles, eating handfuls, it was simply glorious. Now we have to make something scrumptious with them.