Life savers

Swaddle blankets and binkies are amazing inventions. Elliot slept like 8 hours straight last night and most nights averages about 5-6, which is way better than Libby who refused both things slept until she was probably 9 months old. I also love the way he looks in this picture, a little blue baby burrito

Funny Things Libby says

Liberty talks pretty much nonstop now. It's very adorable (except when she's shoving her cup in your face yelling "mommy juice" while you are nursing...that gets old very fast) and usually quite comical. It's especially fun to listen to her when she's in her bed (supposed to be sleeping) or when she is drawing on her magnadoodle thing. Here are some things I've heard lately:

"look Libby is-a hat!" (she was drawing pictures for herself)

"mommy draw cookie cutter?" (she loves gingerbread men and asks me to draw them about 100 times a day, maybe more)

"Eww, gross elliot." (not sure why she said this, she just walked up to him and said it this morning)

"duper why" (super why--one of her favorite shows, even though we never watch it anymore)

"baby elliot boppy chair" (she says this when she wants me to stop holding Elliot)

"baby elliot poop" (I asked Libby if she was poopy or if I was smelling Elliot....she is already blaming him for foul smells, poor kid. It was in fact Libby who was stinky)

"Hey Maya, hey Elmo" (She frequently has conversations with these two during naptime. Maya is her beloved monkey/best friend.)

"Group hug!" (She gives group hugs to people and animals. I heard her talking to her animals during naptime and she said it.)

"Yesssh" (Everything used to be "yeah", but now its "yessh" and really cute)

"Sank you Mommy" (Thank you--I really love it when she says this. Sometimes she reminds me to say it to her when she does something nice too, it's kind of funny)

"oval" (I don't know why, but I love it when she points out the oval in her shapes, it's her favorite shape)

"curly hair, daddy" (we tried to teach her the difference between curly hair and straight hair are; we're not sure she understands, but she likes to point it out and also makes sure we draw curly hair on all the people in her pictures. )

"baby elliot blue binky" (she loves to find him binkies....and tries to shove them in his mouth.)

"maya sleeping, maya cry" (then I tell her she needs to rock her and sing her a song and she runs back and sings twinkle twinkle to her)

"I lub you daddy, bye-bye daddy" (while this sounds very sweet, she actually was shoving daddy out of her room when she said it)

"mmm, yum yum!" (really cute and usually if she thinks she is getting a treat, but sometimes about random thinsg like corn)

"libby eat the oatmeal" (oatmeal is her favorite food and lately she's had me draw pictures of her eating it)

Libby prounces Elliot like "Ell-we-weet". Very cute. She sure loves that baby.

CHRISTMAS Spoils 2011

Daddy got Libby an Elmo Potty chair. She loved it. She also loved brushing her little dolls hair, which she named Tangled after her favorite movie.

Richard :)

Mr. Elliot with all his spoils. He got very excited when we told him he had a present and started smiling and cooing. It was really adorable.

Me and Richard posed almost exactly like on our first Christmas together. Can't believe it's our 4th this year.

awesome dolls from Tomi Ann. I love them, especially baby Elliot

Libby modeling the shirt from Grandma Sue. Also notice the candy in her hand I had to bribe her with to sit for a picture.

Probably my favorite present :) thanks Orson!

We really got spoiled this year. Especially Liberty. She loved everything, even the wrapping paper. She also got play food/dishes and a little stroller to push her dolls in and a kid laptop thing from Grandma Sue/Grandpa Coplan. I honestly can't tell you what her favorite thing was, she loves it all. Richard also surprised me with using his b-day money to buy us a Wii. We have been having lots of fun with that. Richard is trying to get good enough to beat Penny at Tennis. It was a pretty fun Christmas. We are thankful that since we weren't able to be with our families that we could skype with a lot of them. It was fun to start our own traditions this year as well. You may have noticed our matching pajamas in some of the pictures. I maybe didn't wait till Christmas to use the sewing machine....I made us all pajama pants, even Elliot, but he spit up on them before we got a picture of him in them. Another tradition type thing we did was wrap up 25 books and let Liberty open one up at bedtime every night starting Dec 1st to count down to Christmas (most were books we already had, plus a few new Christmasy ones). It was kind of cool to have church on Christmas too, a good reminder of what the season is about. We all went together, since it was just sacrament meeting. Liberty was amazingly good too. Probably helped that she got to bring along her new little "tangled" doll and Ernie toy.

2 months

Elliot is 2 months old today. He had to get a bunch of shots at his appointment today. NOT FUN. He was so mad. Then he has been so sleepy the rest of today. Poor little guy. He is growing very well though. He gained 2 lbs in 3 weeks! They still want us to give him high calorie formula 2x a day until he is 4 months, then after that he should be fine with just breastfeeding or regular formula. The doctors office gave me this huge bag of formula too, which was pretty exciting cuz that stuff is expensive. I actually love that he can have formula. Libby refused a bottle no matter what was in it. I tried 3 or 4 different kinds of bottles with her. Now during the night if I am feeling particularly exhausted I can make Richard get up and feed Elliot a bottle. It is wonderful, even if Richard doesn't agree. It's also nice when we have company over; I don't have to try to feed him under a blanket (which can be very difficult sometimes) or go hide for half an hour. We can also have a babysitter and not worry so much about being back in time for a feeding. We are spoiled with this little guy. I guess he's making up for the trouble he gave me by coming so early.

Height: 21 1/4 inches
Weight: 8 lbs 1 oz

Fun things about Elliot:
loves getting his cheeks kissed--big smiles
loves his binky
has the stinkiest farts (probably from the formula)
loves showers with mommy
loves his swing (he hardly ever sleeps in his bed, just like Libby)
Usually really awake and wanting to play around 8-11 am and pm.
Usually sleeps around 5 hrs straight a night! (amazing)
Tries to grab things to put in his mouth
Very happy unless he is hungry or farting.

Just realized I should do a christmas blog....coming soon I guess.

Shoes

Lots of posts lately. I can't help it, this kid is so cute!

So I might be a little biased, but I don't think so. My baby is the cutest thing in the world! I love baby shoes. Despite the picture of him crying, he loves them too. Plus I found they keep his socks on really well, which is a miracle since his legs are too skinny to keep them up

Due Date

Today was Elliot's due date. Crazy to think I could've still been pregnant. I'm happy to have a healthy happy 6 week old instead! He is over 6 lbs now and 19.75 inches and looks like a regular newborn and can even fit some newborn things without looking like he is drowning in them. He is starting to "coo" a little bit and make cute little baby noises (besides his nearly constant grunts). It's pretty adorable. He is fascinated with one of the baby toys we have, which is basically black and white check fabric with ribbons attached. It's funny to watch him stare intently at it.

snuggling the giraffe i made him

sleeping in his big boy carseat after our trip to Idaho falls

To give a little perspective on how small Elliot was/is: This is a newborn onesie next to a preemie onesie. He can still fit into the preemie ones, but they are getting tight, so I've been putting the newborn size ones on him the last couple days.

Libby helping put up Christmas lights...or  dance with them, whatever works

Libby thought she was pretty hilarious when she put a swimming diaper on her head and wanted to check it out in the mirror

Libby taking care of her and Elliot's animals.

She's so grown up and so cute!

Evalyn Andrus (Libby's BFF), Elliot and Libby. Libby wouldn't pose for a picture

Gross, right? I didn't think Richard would believe me when I said Elliot spit up a lot, so I took a picture. Poor guy was covered in it and not happy.

I am really thankful that neither of my babies cried a lot. I was reading that pre-mature babies can cry up to 2 hours more per day than a full term baby and that it's still considered normal for a full term baby to cry up to 4 hours a day! (4 hours isn't 4 hrs straight, but all the crying in a day added up) I would go insane if I had a baby who cried 4 hours though. So I am extra thankful that Elliot probably only cries about an hour a day total. He is a really good baby. He only cries when he's hungry or farting. He really hates farting and we all hate it too b/c he can stink up a whole room. I didn't know a baby could stink it up like he can, must be the formula we give him.

Janae and Julie holding Zach and Elliot who are 2 1/2 months apart in age.

Liberty is still a really good sister. She gets jealous of him occasionally when she wants to snuggle with me and he is eating. She's not a huge snuggler though, so this doesn't happen very often. She does get mad if I try to let him use one of her blankets and tries to pull it out from under him. Even ones she doesn't use, she knows they are hers and she is not about to share them. She knows which ones are Elliot's blankets and won't even touch them (besides to put them on Elliot). Silly girl. I am getting used to having 2 kids though and it's getting easier and pretty fun. Our house is a huge mess most the time, but it was that way most the time when we just had 1 kid.....Clean houses are over-rated, right?

p.s. sorry the pictures are in such a weird order, I can't get them to move where I want. Stupid blogger.



They have matching santa suits, so we had to take some pictures. They are such cute little boys!

Primary Program

On Sunday Libby was in her first primary program. In most wards the nursery is not part of the program, but most wards have more than one primary age child. Yep, our ward has one 5 year old and 2 nursery kids. I didn't think we were going to have a program at all. To my surprise when we walked into sacrament meeting, one of the primary presidency asked me if I though Liberty would sit up on the stand or if I wanted to bring her up when it was her turn. I had no idea what she was talking about. Liberty pretty much went back and forth between sitting with her leaders and sitting with me on the front row. Basically the program was the primary teachers giving talks and then Noah (5yr old) said a couple short parts and sang 2 or 3 solos. During his solos, Liberty and Jace held up pictures of the temple, etc to go with the song. That was all they did, but it was so cute to see her up there. In between their parts, all the kids sat on the floor between the podium and the chairs and colored pictures. It was funny to see the Noah interact with Libby. I could tell he thought she was a baby, he kept doing baby noises to her and would make silly faces at her, which she of course thought was hilarious. I kind of wish I had known ahead of time that it was happening so I could've tried to teach Libby the songs. She loves book of mormon stories and does all the hand motions. Every day before nap/bedtime I have to sing it about 5 times and help all her stuffed animals do the hand motions. It's pretty funny, but I have to put my foot down eventually or she'd have me do it for hours.