Eloise & Brayden

It's been fun watching these two grow and comparing notes with Nicole on an almost weekly basis!

Newbies 1-1.5 months



5-5.5 Months - placed in one spot and most likely to stay there



7.5-8 months - can barely contain them for a photo!

The Creep

Eloise isn't quite crawling but instead she is creeping. She is very motivated to get any non-toys. It's like she has a built in radar for these items. Her favorite non-toys include Parker's bone, Parker's rubber chicken, Parker himself (see a theme here), the computer cord, drawers in her room, cabinets with knobs and any string/strap/wire attached to something that is definitely not a toy. I've been taking lots of video of her full body creep, it's so cute. Normally for naps during the day she has to be put down fully awake and then puts herself to sleep but with all of her moving lately I think she is exhausted and has fallen asleep while I'm still holding her - not a common occurrence for the busy Eloise!

The Windy City

So I finally got out of the house, and I mean really out of the house. I was able to enjoy a weekend in chicago with some of my best girlfriends. It was a lot of prep to get on the road but once on my way I could barely contain my excitement! Of course I was sad to leave Eloise but she was in good hands on Friday with her aunt Lani and then the very capable hands of her dad for the rest of the weekend. Every now and then a little thought of Eloise would creep into my mind but as long as I didn't think about her too much I was okay.

On Friday I didn't feel too far from home as we hung out with baby Liam all afternoon. It feels very normal to have a baby around constantly! I can't believe I didn't take any photos, Liam has baby hair to die for! Then it was a low key evening at a bar and a good night's sleep in a hotel bed! I did kind of feel like we fit into the saying "you know you're getting old when...everyone is cool with turning in at 10:30pm on a friday night." We had been enjoying adult beverages since the afternoon so technically we'd been out for hours.

(I am very greasy in all photos...it was hot and humid in chi-town)

Court, me, Kate

Linds, Clark, Strong

On Saturday we enjoyed the Cubs fans in Wrigleyville. Again, hot and greasy...but fun.

Love the Thomsen sisters and of course strong.

This bar had cans of summer shandy, perfection on a hot summer day.

And then, the celeb sighting. Well, no one that I really knew but Kate is apparently a huge fan of the show Reno 9-1-1 and this guy in the white shirt is one of the stars (??). You could tell his group thought they were pretty special but they were funny nonetheless!


We ended up at a bar with this:

After that the photos got even greasier and aren't quite blog appropriate.

A long fun day, a slightly rough morning and back home to celebrate Father's Day on Sunday afternoon. One more photo (where I am a bit more refreshed) with my travel buddy!


All in all a successful first weekend away. A tad bit crazy and not really a restful two days but now I've had a good dose of baby-free girlfriend fun to last awhile. Thanks ladies!!!

6 Month Photos by Sally Gruman

Better late than never, here are some of my favorite photos from Ellie's 6 month photo shoot with Sally Gruman. There are a lot of photos but I'm pretty sure I won't ever print and frame every single one so I must show them off somehow. She captured a lot of cute expressions and considering this took place on the 3rd day of the bottle face off, I'm surprised how wonderfully Eloise performed and that we even got some smiles! We almost canceled due to a massive neck rash that popped up from all of the milk Eloise kept spitting out as she refused bottle after bottle. It had toned down enough the morning of the shoot that it's not really visible in the photos. I learned this much, never assume your child will look or perform exactly as you want them to!! Also, who knew how much fun a baby could have when placed in a bucket?!

Rolling, rolling, rolling

Eloise is literally on a roll. She figured out how to be mobile and is exploring new places. Well, not really "new" but new to her. She's obviously been in the hallway outside of her room numerous times, but last week was the first time she rolled out the bedroom door and into the hallway. It's fun to think about how new things still are for her.

I'm not sure how she maneuvered under this chair!



It's been raining a lot recently so we've become more creative for playtime at home. Eloise is practicing her standing skills amongst some cushions. She loves this independence!


I realize I say this practically every post, but her legs are getting so strong! She is really good at holding herself up. This little video shows some of it (but not her best because that happened in the 10 minutes BEFORE I pulled out the camera) and it's also a little of her goofy laugh. It's confirmed, there is snorting in the laugh and it happens a lot. It's really darn cute for now but perhaps later on we'll work on encouraging the full out laugh versus the snort :)

Love how Parker is too cool for school.

Lately, Tom and I haven't been "getting ready" for a night out since the rare free nights we have are pretty casual. The other weekend we were able to break that cycle since we had a wedding to attend. Tom dresses very nicely for work every day but I, on the other hand, had to reach way deep into the closet for something a bit dressier than normal. We had a fun time at the Maruk wedding but realized about mid-way through that if we wanted to have a really fun time, then we should have gotten a babysitter for the next morning.


We have a busy week leading up to my first weekend away in a loooooooooooong time.

7 Months!

Hi, I'm 7 months old!

We're working on a wave but this photo was just by chance. Each month it's harder to contain Eloise for photos! She is rolling all over the place. It's definitely not safe to leave her in the middle of the bed and now it's risky to leave her in the middle of the floor. She is starting to work on her crawling motions but hasn't quite figured it out yet. She starts to lift up her behind when she's on her stomach but doesn't know what to do from there. She still loves to be held in the standing position. Her legs are getting really strong and she can support herself if she's leaning on something. Moving to standing position is an easy way to get a smile!


She has this funny smile/laugh that she's started to do. Tom calls it the "edstam" laugh (whatever THAT means...). She squints her eyes, smiles a big gummy smile and breathes really fast. That description does not do it justice, hopefully I can catch it in a video sometime.


Like I mentioned, hard to keep her in place! She's showing some of her potential crawl moves though, lifting up her belly!


Still monkey like :)

We've been giving Eloise a few actual solids to start testing. She is pretty good at mashing things in her mouth until they are gone (i.e. she hasn't choked yet - thank God!) but she doesn't actually seem to really enjoy the food. She really likes to throw the little "puffs" onto the ground where Parker promptly eats them. It's a good system for cleaning and now Parker has a new post at meal time.

Notice the intensity of Parker, he is just waiting for something to fall on the floor.

Eloise is sleeping on her tummy pretty regularly. This seems to really knock her out. She had a long, deep-sleep kind of nap the other day and I found out that she must like to lay her face on her hands. The one hand mark really shows but there is also another mark from her other hand by her nose and mouth. I thought it was kind of cute, hence I took some photos.



We've also discovered that if Eloise doesn't like the music we're listening too, she will not hesitate to change it.



Why is it that the most random things are fascinating to babies? Forget the colorful toy that lights up and sings songs in French, hand over the dial on the stereo...

AND, just because.

She looks like she's either going to punch her teddy bear in the face or she's singing "for he's a jolly good fellow" and swinging her arm to the tune (I'll go with the latter).

Go Twins! I love her baby chub thighs!