Monday, August 23, 2010

Happy Baby


Until the next post about our amazing trip to England and Scotland, I'm cleaning out the archives and posting this a month late! This is Brody almost a month ago down in SC doing a little bit of talking. His happy talkative moods are a lot more impressive now, so I'll have to get a new vid sometime soon!

Sunday, August 8, 2010

UK Trip Highlights Part One

Highlights of Our First Day Touring London
--Pret A Manger--this amazing sandwich shop in London that uses all natural ingredients and donates their daily leftovers to local charities. I got a lemon chicken sandwich and it was amazing!
--Hearing a little kid yell at us for saying the word "kiss." As we were walking away, he started calling for his mom, presumably to get her to lecture us.
--Watching two geese attack each other in St. James Park.
--Cuddling with Brody on the tube.

I knew if I waited to post on our trip until we got back, I'd be overwhelmed and not get around to writing anything! So I'm hoping to jot some short posts as we go along, and then a slew of pictures when we get back!

We were very thankful Mom didn't know about the first adventure of our trip: almost missing our flight out of DC. We encountered the craziest day of traffic ever, and so what should have taken 4 and a half hours, tops, ended up taking over 6 and a half hours. So we got to the airport less than an hour before our international flight--we (and our bag!) made it on, but we got a dirty look.

Once we got in Saturday morning, we hopped on the tube to the town of our friends Brad and Sarah Belschner and discovered that our international phone coverage wasn't working as planned, so we bumbled our way to their house. They weren't home, but as we were sitting on their front step wondering how we would ever find them, they drove up!

We spent our afternoon in the town of St. Albans, touring the gorgeous cathedral and windowshopping among the cute shops. We hit a fantastic pub for dinner (The Snug or something like that) during "Happiness Hour" and got two cocktails for the price of one (I got Mai Tais).

Today we went to the Belschners church and had a great fellowship lunch afterwards. Then Brad and Sarah, along with Maria and Alex, two of their friends from church, rode the tube downtown! We headed to the British museum and then Picadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square (my favorite!), St. James Park, and Big Ben and the Parliament Building. Tomorrow's our long day, and we're hitting Covent Garden for some shopping! Can't wait!

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Brody's Animal Noises



I say he sounds like a pterodactyl or velociraptor....Ellis pointed out that I have no idea what that actually sounds like, but Jurassic Park pretty much sets the standard across the board. So we all know what we mean by a pterodactyl sound.

Hoping to get a vid of his kitten sounds soon. (video taken July 21)

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Brody grows up--1 month


Newborn/ One month


I'm sure I'll be saying this again and again for the next 20 years, but where did the time go? How can Brody possibly be a MONTH old? Those first few days are still vividly in my mind and the present....but all the in-between weeks have melted together and flown by! Now I understand why even people who don't like to take photos all of a sudden take tons of pictures when they have kids--because they don't want to forget anything. Not only do I not want to forget anything, but I want Brody to be able to see what he did when and where he went before he could remember.

When he was born, he was a floppy little noodle, and now, as my sister-in-law Cora says, he is an al dente noodle. He's becoming less noodle-like every day. As soon as he discovers a new muscle, all he wants to do is practice using it. He now frequently gets annoyed when he's held in the convention cuddly rock-the-baby pose--instead he prefers any pose where he can hold his head up and stare at people. And he likes to exercise his legs too--we hold him up and he will do "mini-squats", kind of like Jazzercise for babies.

He's moved beyond the new-newborn stage of being able to fall asleep anytime anywhere with no effort. He still can fall asleep anywhere and pretty much at any time, but sometimes he needs a little help. I've noticed he's started to get fussy right before he goes to sleep instead of just effortlessly sleeping whenever he feels like it. That's actually been really convenient though, because now I feel like I know when he's tired and can seize the opportunity to put him to sleep and establish kind of a sleeping ritual. I swaddle him in a velcro swaddler (the most amazing baby "gear" EVER), and sing the Lord's Prayer to him. Ellis and I wanted to pick out a hymn for him too, to be his lullaby--we never really picked one, but I've kind of been doing Be Thou My Vision by default. We'll see what we end up with!

P.S. I'm gonna try to do this more often :)

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Broadus Edward Eifert



On June 11, our baby boy was finally born! In true Littlejohn fashion, he ran a little late, but he arrived in time to meet his Uncle Brad, Auntie Rache, and cousin Soren before they had to return to Scotland! And that's the important thing!

Ellis and I have both always loved the idea of using family names to plug our kids into the context of their families and also to give relatives a warm glow, hehe--Brad says this makes us the ultimate suck-ups. So we decided back when we first got married that we wanted to name our first boy Broadus Edward--Broadus is my dad's, grandad's, and greatgrandad's first name, and Edward has been the oldest Eifert boy middle name for 4 generations now. It took Ellis a little bit to convince me on Broadus, since it sounds really old and distinguished, sooo we decided on a more kid-friendly nickname--Brody!



Here he is with his dad, minutes after being born!



First family pic! We love his surfer blond hair! My OB told us that in his 20 years of practice, he has never seen a blonde baby with a head full of hair--every blondie he's seen has been bald or just a little bit fuzzy. But I guess since he decided not to share his birthday with his Grandad Littlejohn, he would at least copy his blond hair!



Cousins!! Soren didn't seem to know what Brody was, or what to do with him--but we're certain they'll be great friends!





Broadus Edward Eifert
born June 11, 2010 at 3:44 AM
6 lb, 11 oz & 19 inches long

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Baby steps

Since I'm always posting pictures of things that I WANT to do, I thought I would just put up a couple pics of some things I actually finished! I've always been the girl reading 6 books at once and never finishing any of them, so when I finish something I get SO excited! And little though my projects be, I think I'm gradually getting a little better at finishing!

So first off, here's a little vest I made for my friend Christine's little boy, Evan.





And I've got just enough yarn left over to make one for Haymitch too! And then they can be matching sweater buddies together! Ha!

Then...I got a little sick of yarn this spring and got a new obsession in fabric...a couple friends of mine have been helping me sew, so this is the first of my simple sewing projects.


Just a simple white flannel blanket, but I love LOVE the birds on the other side! I've made a few other easy sewing projects--gotta get some pics on the computer!


And then finally, I crocheted a couple of baby blankets for a couple friends of mine. Here is my friend Allison's little cutie Benaiah posing with one of them!




OH.....
P.S. I just had my last day of work EVER last week! I'm sooo excited!! I'm so excited to get to stay home with Haymitch and go on walks and hang out with people and pick up tons of new hobbies!

P.P.S. In just 3 days we are hitting the road for Idaho and Washington for the summer!! Can hardly wait to spend the next 3 months with family and college friends!!! Now I'm gonna go to bed so when I wake up it will only be TWO days! :D

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Ali's Awesome Giveaway




My crafty inspiration friend Ali always has these awesome giveaways on her blog. This time it's for a super cute little lamb....which I totally want as a unique stuffed toy for Haymitch! I totally don't want him to be the kid--like Emily used to be, haha--with a huge hammock full of stuffed animals, but something fun and homemade like this--esp. by someone I love--is totally different!
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