What's Going On?

So, I guess we've been pretty busy over the last couple weeks, as it's been almost 3 weeks since I last posted. Here's a run-down of what's been going on:

We went to some friends' lake house and had a great time playing in the water.

Our gym has opened an outdoor waterpark, so I've been taking Eli up there to play sometimes.

We've had some great evenings hanging out with our neighbors; including one night out at a bar that had all the ingredients of a great night out - no kids, good food, good beer, and conversation that doesn't leave the table!

One of Eli's girlfriends, Josie, had her 1st birthday party!

And, oh yeah, we bought a new car. Mom and Dad were nice enough to watch Eli for a couple hours Tuesday night, that we could go sign all the papers and all that fun stuff. It's Thom's new car, but we plan on using it when we go out together, instead of my giant SUV, to save on gas. I'll definitely get a picture of the new car up soon. It's a 2009 Hyundai Sonata. It has all the fun stuff - leather seats, sunroof, iPod port, touch screen, XM radio, GPS. And now it has a brand new giant car seat.

Eli has also been up to a lot lately. Here's a rundown of some of the things he's doing:

Shaking his head "no." Actually, this is the same motion as his dance move. If you tell him "no," he shakes his head. If you tell him to dance, or if Ellen comes on TV, he also starts shaking his head. His dance move shake involves a slight head tilt to the right, but all in all they're very similar.

He's waving "hello." He spent Sunday's sermon waving to Pastor Vicki. She had been gone on vacation for about 2 weeks, and I guess he was excited to see her back.

He now moves more gracefully from sitting up to being on his belly. And can get from his back/belly to a sitting position - we're now full circle.

Eli is also "giving 5" to anyone who will offer their hand.

We think maybe his top teeth are finally starting to come in. We can't see anything, and he's quick to get you with his bottom teeth if you dare stick a finger in there. But he's acting a lot like he did when the bottom ones came in. So we'll see.

He's giving lots of kisses. Big, open-mouth kisses. But if you're up for getting your cheek wet and slimy, they are very sweet.

And our favorite new thing is that he will mimic his first animal noise - the monkey. For anyone that has been around Eli for any amount of time, you know that he is very monkey-like. He does a lot with his feet, and I'm not exaggerating. We call him our little monkey, and his 1st birthday party will be monkey themed. And now he will mimic monkey sounds. Very cute.

So that's a brief synopsis of what's going on here. Let us know what you're up to!

You're a Grand Old Flag

Happy 4th of July! We had a busy weekend. Our neighborhood had a party Thursday night, we had parades, a party at Bunnell's, and fireworks on Friday, another parade and dinner for Thom's Dad's birthday on Saturday, and today we're going to the pool all day with my parents. So here are some highlights from the last couple days. . .

Kitty on Steroids

As some of you may know, our cat, Tia, has not been herself since we got back from vacation about a month ago. I took her to the emergency vet as soon as we got home that Saturday evening (3 hours in the animal ER plus 12 hours in the car make for a very long day). Anyhow, they couldn't find anything wrong with her. Well, she still had not gotten any better and I was really starting to worry about her. So we took her to the vet last Wednesday. After a very lengthy exam, the vet recommended an x-ray on her back. She had a myriad of possibilities - a neural muscular issue (like MS), a broken back, a herniated disc, or who knows what else. So we did the x-ray, which was negative, so no broken back. So we decided to treat it as a herniated disc - steroids and pain medicine. And if she wasn't any better within a week we would reevaluate. Luckily, she does seem to be doing better. This is her first day without pain medicine, so we'll see if she continues to get better. I want to make sure the pain killers weren't masking her pain enough that that alone was allowing her to move around better. So we'll see what happens.

When You're Smiling

Here are Eli's 9 month pictures. We think they're pretty cute! He did really well this time. We couldn't get him to stay on his stomach for pictures, he wanted to roll over immediately, and we eventually had to remove the beach props, because he just wanted to touch them and not look at anything else.

But if you would like a picture, let me know, and I'll get one to you!