It's been forever!

As many of you may know, A LOT has happened since I made our last post at the start of December. UGH...what a fast, busy, crazy, wild, stressful and happy 3 months! Let's begin!

As just a quick insert, I found this great picture of my dad face to face with the wild beast that lives at our house. The elusive Maggie, who has been a long enemy of my father, reached out for forgiveness. Several years ago now, while staying with my parents, Maggie-da-bandit jumped up on the counter, submerged her paw in the fish tank, skewered my dad's favorite fish, ate the back end of it and left it in front of his door to find in the morning. I never thought he would forgive her, but after seeing this....there may be hope!

The month of December was full of fun and family! For starters, we attended our first family Christmas Parade! The city of Florence hosts a wonderful and surprisingly long parade each year down one of the main streets leading to downtown. Despite it being a bit chilly (in the 50's probably), we really enjoyed it and Elijah was practically speechless once all the dancers, animals and even the Shriners went past.

We also spent a lot of time doing some of our new favorite things, like stickers, drawing and just being silly!

Elijah has finally gotten into the morning groove of getting up, ready and off to school at All Saints PMO program. Matt has even taken to driving E a few mornings a month, which has been a very special treat for Elijah. (secretly, I think Matt has really enjoyed it as well!)

Elijah's very excited smile as he's riding to school with Daddy

Our handsome guy shoveling Kashi waffle into his mouth before school

Anyhow, with Christmas approaching, we weren't sure what we were going to be doing with the family, but our our joyous surprise, it all came together at the last minute! Not only did Nonna and Grandpa make it out to our new home for Christmas, but so did Uncle Justin and Aunt Trink!!!!! And in the meantime, we played, went on suitcase rides, danced and just had fun!

Soooo much fun!

Watching Shrek together....note the odd similarity between head size and orbital pull....err I mean orientation

And as an early Christmas surprise, Matt took my Dad into Nucor to see THE TRAINS!!!!!!!!! I think my dad really enjoyed himself. And I know that we've all had some great laughs at the video of his train ride since!

Christmas morning finally came and Santa really brought us some wonderful gifts!!! Elijah and all the rest of us must have been very good this year!

Elijah got an awesome truck from Nonna and Grandpa!

Elijah also got a camera from Santa

Elijah also had a Thomas the Train stomp around the family room

And Aunt Trink fell asleep :)

Elijah has gotten more outgoing with slides, stairs and even athletics. He doesn't just walk, he runs...EVERYWHERE! And as he gets busier, mommy gets bigger and slower, with baby brother growing everyday.

Finally, after all the December excitement, we made it to January and Grandma and Grandpa Bowerman arrived!!!

Showing Grandpa how you work this thing

Elijah and Grandma. The sun was in their eyes, so it's not the best picture, but cute nonetheless. 

Elijah getting his first block of instruction on golf technique

Sadly, after Grandma and Grandpa left, we began our month long struggle of illnesses :( Elijah had a night of inconsolable crying, which resulted in a 3am drive with daddy and 3 Bowermans that were running on zero sleep.

Alas, everything seemed to improve....for a week or so. Then come a fateful Wednesday evening, Matt and I woke to Elijah stirring in his crib. It looked like drool all over his sheets (silly me), it wasn't. Elijah had his first GI bug. After about 6 hrs of throwing up, at least 5 changes in jammies, he eventually passed out in our bed.

Two days later, Matt had the bug and by Sunday evening, it was my turn. That same night, Elijah came into the ER (where I was working) with RSV vs. Pneumonia and was placed on anti-biotics and referred for an appointment in the morning. Despite feeling HORRIBLE, I went to work and shared the bug with my colleagues and on the way home, call my mom to fly into the rescue. She did and it was a lifesaver!  Nonna to the rescue to deliver nebulizer treatments, help with Elijah while Mommy was on the mend and cover me while I was at work and Matt was out of town.

Sadly, within 48hrs of Nonna's exposure to me and my household of virulent GI germs, Nonna was sick. And for the record, Nonna has not been "sick" in at least 10 years. It was bad. And to top the night of Nonna begin sick, Elijah developed a 104 temp, due to a wonderful ear infection that brewed in less than 4 days! UGH.

The entire experience pretty well summed up the entire month and has resulted in finally meeting up with the ENT doctor for Elijah to get tubes. It's about time! Come April, we're going in for tubes and hopefully that will end this run of ear infections.

Anyhow, Elijah is finally better, along with Matt, Nonna, Sara Elise, Ms. Carol and me. Whoa. We're grateful to have survived and as a result of missing work and other things, I am now part-time, allowing much more flexibility in my schedule. It has allowed us to accomplish a great deal of tasks and projects at the house and we're all happier for it.

Elijah helping me clean up all the GI bugs in the house

Bringing us up to date, today we had a great time enjoying our first bit of sunshine in over 4 days. The temps got into the upper 60's and Elijah and Daddy has some quality running-around-time. As I'm now 23 weeks and getting bigger by the day, I do a bit more of the picture taking and such, but it was great being a spectator.

Hope the updates are enjoyable. I can say I'll be better at updating from now on, but no promises. Baby #2 is coming in June....let the countdown begin for our last 17 weeks as a family of three.

Turkey Day and then some...

This Thanksgiving was a very special one, as it was the first one Elijah could participate in and the first in our newest home. Plus, Nonna and Grandpa Kensill DROVE all the way here from Indiana to share the weekend with us. It was so much fun and Elijah's personality was really shining.

Elijah has really blossomed in the past several months, being exposed to other children daily and spending so much time with Sara Elise and Carol, the two wonderful women that keep him in the afternoons. Each day is packed full of learning, dancing, making artwork and just good old playing. I think Sara Elise has really done a great job teaching Elijah some new dance moves too ;) We are very blessed to have all of the All Saints teachers and the Spinnazola women in our lives. We are very thankful. 

Our extremely smart and handsome little boy

Elijah working his iPhone magic with his messy post-nap hair (now that he has a little more) 

Our beautiful home :)

Elijah rocking out to Michael Jackson's "Thriller"

Daddy is just so fun to attack

Play date at the neighborhood park

Elijah checking out the treehouse

Just cute

Our little man, enjoying play time and the beautiful South Carolina weather

Couch time with Grandpa Kensill

Merry Christmas!!!!!

Fall is Here & Happy Halloween

Oh yes it's fall time in South Carolina and Elijah is loving the weather. We've been spending a lot of time playing in our beautiful yard and playing at the playground just two doors down. We absolutely love our neighborhood and feel so blessed to be here.

The other day, in an effort to coach Elijah into his Halloween Costume, we figured we would try it out around the house:) He has been working very hard on learning what sounds animals make and his favorite is, "what does a puppy say?". In reply, Elijah will make this little squeaking noise that actually sounds like a puppy bark. SOOOO cute.

Elijah has also been getting into more and more (go figure). He loves the bookshelf in our ....well someday it will be our study. As I was working on my chair reupholstery project (which is finally complete and looks awesome), Elijah helped himself to some light reading. 

These were buried behind the books....Elijah earned them for that afternoon :)

As a side-note, check out those molars!

In an effort to be super prepared for Halloween this year, Matt and I waited until the week of Halloween to carve pumpkins with Elijah. Thankfully, we found the perfect pumpkins for our beautiful front porch and Elijah even participated this year. 

So as I'm catching up the blog once again, we're back to present time of Halloween night. Elijah put on his puppy costume and set out for the park. Our neighborhood HOA, which maintains the private park in the neighborhood, hosts a Halloween party in the park. Children are invited to come to the park in costume for pizza, fun and candy. It's a great activity for the younger children that may not be eating the candy, but who would enjoy running around and participating in the dress up fun. Elijah really seemed to enjoy it and had a great time chowing down on food he normally doesn't eat. Big surprise, he ate 2 1/2 slices of pizza and a ton of cheetoh/cheese puff things. 

A puppy ran off with Sara Elise's iPhone

Elijah found another puppy just like him

A perfect little pose for our wonderful little puppy

Trying to go down the slide without daddy

SLIDE TIME

Thank you for this picture Sara Elise

Elijah was watching out for those trick-or-treat'ers :)

Dance Machine

Elijah has been practicing his dancing skills more and more as of late. He'll start dancing around to anything from a phone ring to the music from his toys, however if you want a sure fire opportunity to capture this amazingly talented dancer, I recommend turning on Chuggington. Even I want to tap my foot to the song while it's stuck in my head all day. Life is so great. Enjoy it as much I we do.