ELIJAH IS 1 YEAR OLD!!

I cannot believe how fast he is growing. It seems like the past month he has quadrupled his skillz!

STATS:
Weight: 24 lbs. (right between the 50th-75th percentile)
Height 30.5 inches (same as above)

He DOES NOT like the doctor's office. This was even before he got his shots.

After the doctor's office. He feels much better with his binky and bunny.

His biggest accomplishment since 9 months is crawling and climbing/ pulling up on things. He started army crawling around 10 months and then all of a sudden over the course of a couple weeks started doing everything! We've baby proofed just about everything. Here are some crawling videos:

This is his army crawl at 10 months

 

And here he is a pro at getting around 

 

Here are a few of Elijah facts:

-Loves to eat! Seriously he will just keep eating and eating and eating. I've had to cut him off so he doesn't make himself sick. He will eat just about anything when he's hungry!
-Loves to open and close doors and cupboards
-Says "mama" "dada" and signs "more" and "please" but he thinks the sign for more and please is the same sign- oh well!
-He has 7 teeth, almost 8! 4 on bottom and 3 on top (#4 is about to pop in any day now)
- Loves going to the pool, He loves going down the waterslide with us and going under the mushroom
-Is a mommas boy, which I don't mind, I love my little boy!
-Has had 4 colds and an episode of Hand, Foot Mouth Disease.
-Can crawl up the stairs by himself, but unless I'm behind him he turns around to sit and look around and nose dives to the bottom. OUCH! We're working on teaching him to go backwards.
-He is fascinated with the washer and dryer. He sits and stares at them going round and round.
-LOVES books. He flips through his big stack of books and jibber jabbers. So cute.
-He is perfecting the pathetic, tearless, fake cry. Silly boy!
-Is now drinking pretty much all whole milk from a sippy cup. With the exception of his morning bottle, I'm trying to finish up a can of formula. I cheated and started giving it to him everyday for lunch for a week so we could get used to the taste and temperature.
-Doesn't like the blender or the vacuum. I've been known to put him in his highchair while I vacuum and he screams the whole time.
-Take 2 naps a day, and sleeps 7-7.
-He gets to sit forward now! They now say wait til they're two- what is that all about!?

For his birthday we were going to have some people over for cake and ice cream, but Elijah got sick and then I got sick so we just had a little family party. See photos/videos below!

 Birthday Morning!

The cake

All  of the following videos are of him on his birthday present. There are a gazillion of them but I think they are all hilarious, if you can't tell by my laugh in the background :)

   

Look I can use it as a bike too!!

 

Diving into the cake

I cut him off a slice and he was in heaven!

My cake is all gone and I'm tired mom!

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to!

And here are some random funny pics:

I love corn!

Two peas in a pod

I call these my Asian Elijah. (And I realize it is very stereotypical just like Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's ) I get a kick out of it every time!

Catching Up

So I realize Elijah is almost 1 and I should update on the last month before I do his big birthday post. We celebrated Father's Day with breakfast in bed and taking Elijah to Relief Society with me and a requested dinner of steaks, corn on the cob, and potato salad. The following week was Matt's 29th birthday! Only one more year til the big 3-0! He gets so spoiled with it being so close to Father's Day! I made another requested dinner of Scalloped Potatoes and Ham. He also used his bday dough and got himself an iPhone. For the 4th of July we had the missionaries over for dinner and grilled some steaks, then on Monday we went to our friends the Ashton's for a little party with some other families. I was a little nervous about all the loud fireworks going off all weekend but Elijah slept right through them. And I'm sad to say he didn't get to see any this year. You see this child enjoys his sleep, and if he's not in bed by between 7 and 8, he becomes a monster the likes you've never seen before. So maybe next year little buddy!

 Matt's Birthday and Father's Day!

The weekend after the 4th we went and saw WICKED! It was AWESOME! I'm definitely seeing it again! We went to dinner with our friends the Knights and Crosby's to the Cheesecake Factory then we all took off for the theater. This was Elijah's first time actually being with the babysitter versus just being asleep when we go out. He was a mess. He has hit a phase where he DOES NOT like anyone but his mommy or daddy. We snuck out while he was eating his favorite Elmo soup hoping that would distract him and he'd forget about us. Yeah right! Melaina(the sitter) said he lost it and was inconsolable. I told her if that happened that they should go on a walk since he loves those. I, however; forgot to mention that he takes after me and the mosquitoes think he is a buffet. The next morning I counted 22 bites on his legs. 22! Elijah wasn't going to bed very easily so Melaina's mom Stephany- an angel of a woman- came over and put him to bed. He was out like a light after that. Thank goodness! I called right before the play started and he had just gone to bed, so I didn't have to worry anymore. Phew! I think we need to have the sitter come play with him more so he's used to her.

 (Me and Matt in downtown Houston)

Also in June Mom and Dad A. came to visit us. We LOVE having visitors! Elijah had fun getting to know his grandma and grandpa.We had fun playing and eating at some new restaurants while being there Hub to all their desired Texas locations.  We went to the Houston Space Center, which was pretty cool. It is really catered towards kids so that's good for future activities. 

 (reading with Grandma A.)

The Silver Jedi

Silly Grandma

I'm tired

On the way home!
 

  A fun little dancing video- And don't mind my huffing and puffing it's just for dramatic affect :)