At the Gwyn's House

I know this is my first blog in a loooooong long time. I won’t try to catch up as that would take an even longer time.
Since the last time I wrote, things have changed a lot around here. Eli was diagnosed as allergic to milk, eggs, peanuts, and borderline on wheat. So, we have totally changed the way we cook and eat. It has been a struggle planning and cooking Eli friendly. I miss cooking with butter and cheese. I hope to post some of my cooking adventures on here in the future.
Eli has grown up so much in the past few months. He’s walking, well running, all over the place now. He started walking just after his 13 month birthday whike we were at a church family meeting. It was awesome and I had to restrain myself to keep from screaming in the middle of the meeting. 🙂
He is also into climbing… This one momma could do without. One time I was doing dishes and it was too quiet in the family room where he was. You know the kind of quiet I’m referring to… The “he must be doing something super crazy or super messy to be that quiet” kind of quiet. Sure enough, I check on him and he is standing on top of the coffee table just dancing and having a merry old time. I’m not sure where he learned the table dancing thing but this could be an issue. 😉
Eli has also started to really enjoy his books. He sits in his adorable adirondack chair his “grandpa” Wayne made him and reads. He also takes one of his play cups with a spoon (or fork) in it to stir, and sits it on the arm of the chair so he can have it whike he’a sitting. Sometimes he asks me to read to him and will usually sit still on my lap for… Oh, about the first page or two. He also likes to rip the flaps off those lovely lift-a-flap books. So now most of those are no-flap books 🙁 we are working on this.
Eli has had a love hate relationship with the Christmas tree. When David and I first put it up, Eli thought it was pretty exciting. Then I thought it might be cool if he, Eli, put the first ornament on. Well… This did not to so well. Daddy held him while I got ready to capture a priceless sweet new Christmas tradition in the making. But, when David held Eli up to the tree with his soft stuffed ornament, Eli completely lost it. He screamed, writhed, and clung to his daddy with all his might. Then he tried to jump to me becsuse I was further from the tree. We tried to show him how neat t is to lay under the tree and look up at all the lights. He didn’t think it was so cool. He yelled and cried and couldn’t decide if it would be better to scramble out at top speed or remain completely still and hope the tree didn’t see him. After we pulled him out he whimpered and held me tightly for about 10 minutes. We decided not to force the issue anymore after that.
He has now accepted the tree. He doesn’t mind it as long as its safely behind the gate. We had it open for a while and he left it alone because he was horrified. But then he got brave and would play with the ornaments. Now, he has to have the lights turned on every morning when he comes in for breakfast and let’s us know if we forget. He also looks at the tree and says “ights” which of course means lights 🙂 Right now his favorite thing to do with the tree is to throw everything
in the room at it over the gate. I have my nativity scene shielded with presents so a well aimed book or paci missile won’t cause an early departure for a wiseman.
Just today, I noticed that Eli can now shake his head in response to certain questions. I asked him if he wanted his paci and he shook his head yes. I asked him if he would snuggle with me and he shook his head no. Little stinker. 😉

Eli loves to dance. Sometimes we have dance parties to to Toby Mac songs on daddy’s phone. The whole family dances like crazy people and laugh a lot. It’s a good workout. 😉 Lately though, We have been dancing to christmas music that we play on the tv through pandora. When Eli is having a very rough moment or anytime because I just love Christmas music, I turn it on. Eli spins around and steps back and forth. He looks to me sometimes asking me to dance. He is quite the partner. We dance, him in my arms, and spin around, dip, and glide across the room. He loves it and laughs like crazy. My sweet boy loves music and dancing. He is a boy after his momma’s heart. 🙂
Eli has between 12 and 14 teeth already. It’s hard to know for sure because he does not like me looking in his mouth.

I apologize for the choppiness of this post. I just knew if I didn’t get back into it, it’d probably never happen. I wrote this back at the beginning of January and hadn’t posted it yet…
So, I will try to keep up a bit better now… Shoot for every few days so its easier to keep up.
These pictures of Eli will be just some cute ones from various times since I’m soooo behind.