Best friends forever???

Elio LOVES the Doodle. I'm not sure the Doodle reciprocates, but he's being a good sport about all the attention.

8 Months Old!

Yesterday was Elio's 8-month birthday. He's two thirds of the way to being a year old. Neat, huh? In honor of the event, here are way too many pictures ...

Pure glee:



Sporting ridiculously cute Marimekko overalls:



Playing with the little yellow block, check out the eyelashes!







All bundled up to go out:



Being generally cute:





It's been slightly warmer here this week, so yesterday I bundled Elio up and took him for a walk in Colonial Williamsburg (or, "CW" if you're in the know).



Practicing his drumming skills some more:







Eating one of Dan's rejection letters:



Elio and me:



We've been working on solid foods. He's refusing to eat anything I try to give him on a spoon, but seems pretty interested in feeding himself. He's not efficient at it, but he sure is intent. Here he is chasing after a slippery piece of mango:



And, eating his absolutely favorite thing, a 'teething biscuit.' He's a (breast)milk and cookies kind of kid.

More more more

It's hard when he looks cute and I take twenty pictures in a row to narrow it down to a reasonable number to post here...







With his new adorable elephant friend from Kyle:



In his cute new robot pjs (on clearance at Old Navy for $3.50!!!), Elio rolls himself under a couch, laughing the whole time:





The maddening thing about the cutie in the robot pjs? That was at about 10 pm -- way way way past his bedtime. But does he look tired to you? Not a bit. Doh.

Mad skillz

Elio's mastered rolling around! He's on the verge of crawling, but who needs crawling when rolling gets you where you need to go? He can cross a room in the blink of an eye.





The main motivation for all the rolling? Trying to get to the cats. They have absolutely no idea what's about to hit them when he starts crawling.

Miscellany

Elio's totally a big boy these days --- he loves riding around in the grocery cart. Now I take all the time in the world at the store, going up and down every aisle for his amusement.



Dan went for a job interview recently. Elio was very helpful getting him ready to go.



We hosted playgroup here yesterday. Elio started learning some valuable lessons about sharing his toys.



The little reader:





We love a baby in a basket:



In the interest of keeping harmony in the household, we bought a second litter box for the cats. Before getting it set up, Elio checked it out, taunting the Doodle in the process.



Working on some drumming skills with Dad:

Winter break part 2

Here are a few more photos from our holiday travels:

We went to Portland, and Elio got to experience classic Portland-in-December weather...



Kicking back in the bean bag...



Dan and Elio and I went out for brunch with my mom, and Elio was on his best restaurant behaviour...





My cousin Lisa loaned us an exersaucer for the little guy to rock out in...



With Grandpa Dan...



Learning secrets from Great Grandma...





Elio got to meet some of our friends. We had lunch with Amy, and we stopped by to visit with Lucas and Jina. Elio demonstrated his music skills...