Like Papa, like baby

If you ever wonder who Elliot takes after, and maybe why he's such a cutie...Well, let me just tell ya, the baby pictures don't lie. He looks like this man right here. This is a picture from our anniversary in the mountains. I just thought it was cute and that others might want to enjoy it, and him...

New favorite food

Elliot has discovered chocolate cookies. I think he would eat them for each meal if I let him. He's not the neatest eater. He also seems to be gulping down as much milk as possible. Sophie, our Korean exchange student, has taught Elliot to say "Cheers" as he toasts your glass with his milk sippy cup. Of course he'll do it 4 or 5 times in a row.

Our friend Jeff told me yesterday that when he recently took Nana to the vet, she weighed 72 pounds. This is a big dog. She can clean the remainder of Elliot's snacks off the floor faster than any three kids, or any one vaccuum cleaner I have ever seen.

Just an update

No picture today; just an update. Michael completely wiped out the guy that used to own this computer yesterday. This is a good thing. After all, I'm not lwestphal. I am cgordon. With it went all my pictures onto a CD. And unfortunately I haven't taken many lately. We are surviving here, with lots of help. Michael is in the middle of a very busy week and we haven't seen much of him in the last couple of days. We always miss him on Thursdays, and most of Fridays. And Saturdays.

Some good news is that Elliot has finally come out of his long bout of various illnesses. The last couple of days he's really seemed more like himself. This morning he didn't take a morning nap, so in the afternoon he slept from 1 to 4pm. I can't tell you how happy this made me. If we could keep this trend going, it would be a great thing. His new favorite activity is climbing any and everything. He particularly likes to climb ON the dining room table WHILE we're eating dinner. The stairs are also still a favorite, and he loves to giggle at me while he starts on the bottom three, as he knows he's not supposed to do this. Who knew disobedience was so funny?

He and I are really looking forward to next week, when some lovely redemption breaks into cold, grey January in St. Louis. Elliot and I are flying (this will be interesting) to Tampa to stay with my parents for a week in a condo on the beach. I envision lying in the sun while Elliot and grandma play games in the living room. At least for a few minutes.

The Georgia trip

Well, it was 650 miles from St Louis to Griffin, GA, with a very capable husband driver who unfortunately only drove about 150 miles because his wife gets so motion sick UNLESS she drives. Also traveling was a 16 month old who isn't thrilled about the car in general. Let's just say that we won't be doing it again ANYtime soon. Elliot often looked like his car picture here.

However, many good things happened once we got to GA! Here you see some of Elliot's Christmas presents. Here he is modeling his new cowboy boots with no distracting clothing. He also enjoyed some chocolate yogurt. (Who needs a spoon?) The highlight of the trip was definitely the mountains. Michael and I left the kid with Yaya and Big Papa and drove to the mountains near Helen. We stayed in a great cabin and hiked to this beautiful waterfall on our anniversary day.

It is good to be home. Nana is bigger, as is Elliot. We both think he gained weight this week. Maybe he put on holiday pounds. He's been thrilled to see a couple of friends here in St. Louis again.

In other news, we are excited to welcome De Le Chung, a student from Korea studying English at UMSL who will be living with us for a few weeks. We hope to see her Monday night. We'll keep you updated. I'm sure we'll have funny stories about trying to communicate with each other.

Christmas at the Gordons

Needless to say, we had a little cleaning to do before we left for our Christmas trip to Georgia. Nana and Elliot had a good time destroying this room.