Duluth! and other developments...

We took a little girls only road trip last weekend to visit our friends in Duluth. Myself, Ellie, Lindsey, Allie, and Jen all drove together in my car.

Eloise ready to roll.


It was a very packed ride, and we were there for less than 24 hours!! Lindsey and I had grand plans to have the little ones napping for most of the ride but of course they didn't do as we hoped (imagine that!). Luckily we had Jen "the entertainer" wedged between two car seats in the back. I'm so glad she was back there! At one point she was giving both girls a bottle at the same time. We made the trip safely and were able to hang out with Kate and Hendy. We also got to see our friend Sara who is expecting her third baby this fall! Confession, we didn't even leave the house. That was okay though, we had a lot of catching up to do, babies sleeping at random intervals, and Kate was the most gracious host.

Here are all the kiddos playing (Ellie 8.5 months, Allie & Hendy about 7 months)



Allison and mommy reading a book


And the cutest bath time ever...trying to get all three babies to look up at the same time was ridiculous. The funnier photo would have been of the three moms putting on a circus act to try and achieve this.

Best I got, Allie is smiling at least!

What a scene!


And for some crazy reason that makes zero sense (mommy-brain?) we took a photo the morning we left instead of when we arrived and were a bit ummm, more fresh faced? But oh well, here we are, moms, babies, and Jen :)


Eloise is continuing to change at an astounding rate. The last few weeks she's gone from creeping to semi-crawling (she goes back and forth a few times on her hands and knees and then slumps to her stomach), moving from laying down back to sitting up, and now pulling up to standing on her own. Just tonight I put her down for bed and 45 minutes later she STILL wasn't asleep. I had to take a photo of this:

It's the first time she's pulled herself up to standing in her crib! (it's a little blurry because I used my phone and was trying to not disrupt bedtime TOO much) I have a feeling that now instead of walking in to her sitting up in her crib, she will be standing up. I'm still not over the fact that she's not laying down in her crib after naps and now she's standing?!

Eloise is also using her pointer finger a lot. It's kind of funny. She points to our faces, points to her food, points to Parker, and then ever so gently touches the object with her pointer finger before grabbing what ever it might be with her hand. We really think she is about to pop some teeth too. The drooling has become intense and it looks like you can see a little white in her gums. She has also been waking up crying and not in need of really anything but soothed with biting on a finger! Hopefully these teeth come out soon so she can get some rest (and by she I mean me).

We decided to finally change our dark and serious dining room walls to something a little more bright and refreshing. This had been our plan right when we moved in but seeing as I was slightly pregnant at the time (only about 9 months) and we had a lot of other organizing to do (get a baby room together), the painting was put off.

Before-I forgot to get a real before with all of the furniture in:



After-Ta-dah!



And this...this...hole.


That continues to get bigger.

I'll talk more about this later.

It only took Eloise 2 hours of standing to fall asleep...will she be standing tomorrow morning? Or worse, sometime in the middle of the night?!

Busy Little Bee

*Note, this post is kind of random. Just a fair warning.

The latest eight month development includes moving from laying down back up to sitting. This was funny, I went to check on Eloise after I put her down for the night and when I peeked in to her room she was sitting up in the middle of her crib. She was happy-shrieking and staring all around. It is quite a view change going from staring out through those bars to being upright. I let her enjoy her new vantage point and tiptoed away. I told Tom about the development so he went and checked on her 10 minutes after that and she was still sitting in the middle of her crib (she's usually out within 10-15 minutes tops for bedtime).

As I've mentioned she loves to grab onto our hands and pull herself up to standing with a little help from us. She finally realized that she can grab onto other things to do this as well. She pulled herself up to standing (all on her own) in the bathtub the other night! Unfortunately this is probably the most dangerous place for her to practice this new skill. I let her do it because I was curious if she could but now I need to make sure standing in the bath is not a regular thing. No doubt, once she figures out she can do this trick with furniture, I'm sure she'll be pulling up all over the place.

I'm really happy, I think Eloise is taking after my love of reading!

Well, reading and eating...


and reading and eating...



Other happenings with the Thompson's...Tom and I have been trying to go on more bike rides together. We chose one of the most hot and humid days for a ride from our house to downtown Excelsior. Actually, our original plan had been to Excelsior and then to go around lake minnetonka but that was ruled out once we realized how long it took to get there and how tired we were! We also tested out a new route to our friend's house in Chaska (still being built) and were able to take paths almost the entire way there. It's nice to know that even all the way out west we can still ride our bikes to a friend's house :)

Eloise attended her first concert this week. It was kind of intense.
Crazy fans rushed the stage.

Charlie passed out...

Brayden pulled himself up to standing so he could rock out...

The girls were a little more calm...





Before my parents headed out on their road trip west, they spent some quality time with their one and only grand daughter. Boy does she have them wrapped around her little pinky finger (I told Eloise that NOW is the time to be asking for stuff because surely the novelty will wear off by the time she is 16 and wants a car).

Some photos from the 4th of July weekend that I forgot to post.
Tom and Eloise at the Chanhassen parade! What a fun city :)



Attempt at a photo with everyone looking...or not.

Attempt #2


Colin was missing his mama so Tom told him some jokes.


Dads and kids at lake Waconia


It's hard work growing and having fun. Time to rest!

8 Months Old!

8 months old! The first year of growing is amazing. Eloise is literally a different baby from last month. I'm worried that I haven't been specific enough with updates and I won't remember when she did certain things (I'm already forgetting if something happened at 4 months or 5 months or did she do that at 3.5 months or 2 months? Mommy-brain in full effect). My parents didn't have a blog to keep track of me but my mom did a very good job with my baby book. There are nice monthly summaries of how much I was sleeping, eating, playing, moving, following meredith, etc... I have yet to go back and re-read all of my blog entries so hopefully I have been capturing enough Eloise detail!

This was the most active photo session yet! I just laugh at these photos because Eloise could not be kept still, she is all over the place and into everything!!!







After she wiggled right out of the chair, I tried a variety of props to get her to stay in place a little longer...







Okay so the 8 month details, perhaps a little boring but for the records...

Eloise sleeps about 11-12 hours at night. She usually goes to bed around 7pm and wakes up around 6:30-7am. The last few weeks have been really good, no random waking up in the night. Although Tom has also finally convinced me to just leave the darn monitor OFF at night so perhaps that is helping too. Her naps are semi-regular. They average 1.5 hours and are usually around 9:00am and 1:30pm. Of course, Eloise is not a little machine so there are many fluctuations to her "schedule". Just this week she took a 3 hour nap one morning. I never expect her to sleep that long so I didn't really take advantage of the time, I kept waiting for her to wake up! I was chatting with some girlfriend the other night and we all realized the depressing truth that even when your baby "sleeps through the night" there is always SOMETHING. Sure Eloise sleeps through the night but when she finally pops a tooth we may go through a week of bad sleeping? Or when she starts walking maybe that will lead to a week of waking up a night? Or the classic Eloise move, a random dirty diaper that occurs just after bedtime and we have to wake HER up to change it.

Food has become a more challenging experience. We're at a cross-roads of self feeding vs. spoon fed. The score is Eloise-1 and Mommy-0. She just doesn't want me putting a spoon in her mouth anymore. She turns her head and bats it away with her hands. She is getting pretty good at feeding herself so I'm trying to not worry too much that she is mainly eating the equivalent of baby cheetos (gerber puffs) and not getting a "well-balanced diet". We've just started trying to do 3 meals, breakfast being the last meal we've added. She's still not that hungry at breakfast but it's becoming part of the routine. She does enjoy eating the puffs, baby cookie-cracker things, pieces of cheddar cheese, chicken, cottage cheese, and for the first time yesterday, watermelon. As you can see, a very well balanced diet :) At first she practically inhaled whatever baby food we could get in her mouth so I can't help but worry that she isn't eating enough. I wish I could see into the future and know she will eventually eat a larger variety of foods but that can't happen so I'm trying to keep it all in perspective.

Eloise's main mode of transportation is her "creep" across the floor. She is really fast and I had to set up a furniture blockade to keep her from knocking over Parker's water dish. She gets up on her hands and knees and rocks back and forth but then slumps back to her stomach. I did catch her practicing her moves in her crib. She went from her hands and knees to straightening out her legs into a downward dog position! She hasn't done this outside of the crib yet, she must prefer to do her yogi training in private. Standing is still one of her favorite positions. She creeps over to me and tries to grab my hands. So then I put my two hands out, she grabs hold and pulls herself up to standing position (with a tiny bit of help from me). She also lifts her arms up to be picked up but she has been doing that for awhile...whoops forgot when that first started.


We've heard a lot more "words" the past two weeks. Lots of bababababa, dadadadada, and I swear the other day when the plumber was packing up his tools she said "all done". She likes to scream/sing and really likes it when her sounds are repeated back to her. I can tell that she understands some things being said to her or at least the intent. We have started saying NO at times, like when she heads for Parker's food, and she usually stops, looks at us, and then continues on her way. Pretty typical for her age! Tom and I are so excited for the first real words. I'm guessing it will be dada or pah-ka (parker, her favorite toy/beloved family dog).


Ellie and I have been going to an ECFE class in Minnetonka. It's especially fun because our friends Robyn and Charlie and Heather and Drew are in the class too. The class ends at 7pm which is usually bedtime for Eloise and apparently for a lot of the other little ones in the class, I like to refer to it as meltdown time. It's kind of entertaining to see all of the babies slowly start to unravel!

For entertainment, Eloise really enjoys opening and closing her bottom dresser drawers, unscrewing the knob on her drawers (it usually takes a few days of repeated twisting), pulling the door stops so they make that BO-IIIING noise, banging toys to make noise, following Parker and grabbing for his toy while he continually backs away, reading books (I swear she knows how to turn the page, just ask for a demo next time we're around), and studying small particles of who-know's-what that she finds on the floor. We've also noticed that she's starting to enjoy playing little games where she interacts with us. One example is she holds a toy and tries to put it in our mouth. We bite it (sanitary, I know) and then she shakes it around until she pulls it out. This repeats over and over. Peek-a-boo types of games have also become really fun and during bathtime she regularly looks for her dad in the mirror.

Overall Eloise is a really happy, inquisitive, busy baby. I think that about sums it up. On to the 9th month!