Stairs...

Two short weeks after Eli started crawling I found him climbing up the stairs. He only made it up two stairs before I rescued him. While he may think he's ready for it, we are not! I love having a split-level home (we're never more than 7 stairs from the kitchen), but it's a nightmare trying to come up with 4 barricades. Today it was laundry baskets. So instead of climbing stairs, Eli pulled out clean laundry to chew on. Lovely.

And here is Eli enjoying his Valentine's Day card. Thanks Gramma and Grandpa!

A Child's Prayer

For the first time, C.J. wanted to say his bedtime prayer by himself last night. It was pretty cute, what I could hear of it (he prays in a little, high voice with his face buried in his arms):

Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank you for the food, for Mommy, for Daddy, for Baby Eli, for Baby Jesus, for Baby Eli, for Baby Kaisha (our neighbor's new baby), for Baby Jesus. AMEN!

Sure love you, C.J.!

Stuck in Texas

10" of snow in Dallas. Who would have thought? And Barry happened to be there, just finishing up a business trip. Flight after flight was cancelled. But he FINALLY made it home, two and a half days late. We're so happy. According to C.J., his daddy just needs an umbrella so it won't snow on him. Then he wouldn't get stuck in the snow. I guess we'll have to send one with him next time.

Imagine my surprise on Friday when I got an edible bouquet delivered to my office. Yum! Here it is. Thanks, love! Happy Valentine's Day!

Sick Day or Ski Day?

I stayed home with the boys yesterday. C.J. was sick with a cold and rather miserable. Mostly because his cough had kept him up most of the night before. There were a few times during the day when he perked up though. Here's one of them. He insisted on playing outside for about an hour (don't worry, it was warm and he was bundled up.) He found his skis, put them on and tromped around on the dead grass. Maybe one day it will snow again so he can take another sick day to go skiing.

Crawling!

Eli turned 7 months old a couple of days ago. And on the same day, he started crawling, for real. It's still such a cute crawl. He moves inches at a time. But he's getting faster and going further every day. He's always loved being on the ground. And now he loves it even more!

I had to clean up and re-arrange our family room last night, to make more room for our mobile baby. (He kept rolling and bumping into the train table that was in the middle of the room.) I consolidated train toys into one drawer below the table, and put many of C.J.'s other toys in the other drawer. And moved a lot into storage, too. This morning when C.J. saw the oh, so clean room, he was a bit distraught and wondered where all of his toys were. Peering into the new toy drawer, he exclaimed, "Mom, you made a MESS!" I guess he prefers his toys organized his way -- strewn across the floor where he can see them all.

By the way, here is a photo of C.J. when he was Eli's age. Do they look anything alike?

C.J.

Eli