Fall 09 Part 2

Fall is moving right along.  Elias is 16 and 1/2 months old.  He's becoming quite the little man.  He is all personality.  Below is our sad attempt at a family photo on Thanksgiving day.  Elias desperately wanted to play with the big kids and wanted nothing to do with his mom and dad.

Here he is at the "little kid" table drinking out of his "big kid" cup.

One thing that hasn't changed is Elias' love of the outdoors.  More than anything in the world he loves to be outside.  One day he was at his Papi's house and Papi and all his uncles and auntie were outside doing yard work.  Elias was in heaven having all the big people outside with him.  He especially loved his Uncle Jake's work gloves which he put on by himself.

When Elias grows up he wants to be just like his Papi.  He is constantly grabbing the pool skimmer and dragging it around the backyard.

One morning our condo association decided to remove all the bushes outside our place.  I have no idea why but one day they were there and then the next they weren't.  Elias has figured out how to open the sliding glass and screen doors.  Luckily they need some WD40 so I could hear the door squeaking open as I was in the kitchen.  When I went outside this is what I found.  Such a boy!

"What Mom?  I'm just playing in the dirt."  He had taken a bucket from his water table and was digging in the dirt within a minute.  Although Elias is "all boy" in so many aspects, one thing he hates is having his hands dirty.  After a couple minutes of digging in the dirt Elias started whining and showing me his dirty hands.  It's very easy to be this little boy's hero when all it takes is brushing his dirty hands on my pants.

Elias has a new found love of somersaults.  Here he is in his "ready" position.

I am doing well.  I have had two rounds of chemotherapy.  It is given to me every two weeks.  Things are going well with it.  I feel sick about 2 days and then it will take me a couple more days to fully recover but it isn't as bad as I thought it would be.  We are thinking treatment will last a total of 4-6 months and we already are 1 month down.  Since we didn't know how it would be, the weekend before it started we had the uncles and aunts over for Wii game night and slumber party.  It was Alemu's first sleepover and he was extremely nervous but in the end he had a great time and said he wanted to do it again.  Elias loved having everyone in his domain.  He was dancing around and spinning in circles all night.  My guess in maybe someone slipped him some soda when Brian and I weren't looking.

Elias and Israel are the best of buds!  Here they are playing with sticks at Alemu's soccer game.

A stick and a soccer ball...life doesn't get much better!

Elias loves all things electronic.  I think he mostly like feeling like a big person.  He even knows how to scroll the mouse properly.

Elias loves ranch dressing!  And ketchup!  And anything else that he can dip himself.

Yes, that is a bottle.  Still.  My boy loves his "ba" and asks for it all the time.  He refuses to drink out of the sippy cup the majority of the time.  I know we probably should have nixed the bottle a while ago but he loves it and I love snuggling with him when he has it.  So, I'm thinking it will be our family New Year's resolution to give up the ba at the end of the year.

Just hanging with Uncle Kevin.

This cutie pie just got tooth #7 yesterday and #8 is around the corner.  He loves to smile his cheesy squinty eyed smile when you ask him to smile.

Right now Elias is in to repeating everything that is said.  It's a dangerous place to be. :)  He puts two words together.  He says thank you (dank do) occasionally on this own but most the time he has to be prompted to say please (peeees) and thank you.  He will say things like "help Mom" and "no Mom."  

Here is Dad, Brian and Alemu at Alemu's last game.  They had a great time coaching and will all be part of the All Star team in January.

Here is Elias standing in line with all the team after receiving his first medal!

He is still completely obsessed with Elmo.  I hear cries and chants for Elmo ALL day long.  He understands everything we say and will start the melt down as soon as I say "no more Elmo" or "we are all done today."

Elias is so much fun.  He is still very strong willed and smart!  His favorite thing other than being outside are dogs.  We got to be around a number of dogs when we visited Brian's family after Thanksgiving.  He loves to "woof woof" and pet the dogs.  I'm not the biggest animal fan but Brian and Elias are so it looks like there may be a dog in my future.  I'm holding out for a backyard before I give in though!

We are super excited about Christmas.  It is crazy to think back to last Christmas when I was SURE we would have our son with us and how hard it was to make it through the holiday knowing baby Besufikad was in Ethiopia.  Now we are all together and I couldn't be happier!!