New Year - New Baby!

Introducing Theodore Lee Hawthorne! (12/29/10)

Elias loves other children, older, or smaller, he doesn't care, he just loves them (especially sticking his fingers in their eyes and pulling their hair)

His mommy loves babies too! In this picture Theo is 12 hours and 10 minutes old. He is so sweet, we look forward to getting to know him and watching him grow!

Rob and Mo met Andy and I in a small group at our church, Andy and Rob spent the summer building houses 4 lots apart from each other, and are now both fathers of beautiful baby boys just 7 months and 4 days apart. Congrats Rob and Mo!

Rob and Mo visiting us at the hospital when Elias was born

Christmas Marathon

We can not get enough of Celebrating Christ's birth, so we celebrate Christmas as many times and places as possisble.




We started with Breakfast at the Hawthornes on Christmas Eve:
Then we had Christmas eve dinner and presents at Andy's brothers home.
He got a sweet office chair. Elias loved eating as well as playing with his presents.




Christmas morning we had brunch with Andy's mom's side of the family


Then Andy's dad's side of the family came over.

And Lastly: on to my side of the family ;) Thankful for so many wonderful people in our lives!

We went to Zoo lights with some neighbors that we have been getting to know. its fun because they have a little girl who is one month older than Eli, and he loves to see her, and they baby talk to each other, which is quite cute!

Christmas Ballet

Both of my nieces (ages 3 and 4) are in the same ballet class this year.
We were very impressed by their talent at their performance in a different retirement home in Vancouver a few weeks ago. I couldn't resist seeing two nieces perform at the same time... (quite efficient)








My attempt at a "cousin picture"

Great-Great

Two weeks ago we ate Christmas Dinner with Andy's grandparents at the Retirement home. We had a great dinner, salmon or roast beef, veggies, and potatoes. Fore dessert we had eggnog bread pudding. We are convinced that they must put laxatives in the dessert to keep everyone regular, because, yes, we were way to regular the next morning. Despite the minor mishap, It was nice to visit Elias' great grandparents.

Nystagmus Part 2

About two months ago I posted that Elias was diagnosed with congenital motor nystagmus, which means his eyes shake. We have since gone to a few different appointments and have learned more about it. Basically his eyes involuntary shake. He doesn't know they are shaking or perceive shaking, it just makes everything a bit blurry.
Two weeks ago the Doctor examined his eyes, his vision is not quite as good as most babies, but it's not horrible either, She said that in a year glasses would probably help to him. We are very happy to know that there is nothing structurally abnormal with his eyes, which is common for people with nystagmus.

He naturally makes the best of nystagmus:
We also think we have found his neutral position, which is the position where he sees most clearly: head to the left, eyes to the right. It is a bit marked, but I think it makes him even cuter;) The Dr. said we would likely want to do a surgery reconnecting the eye muscles so that his neutral position would be straight ahead before he starts school. I could see the surgery being necessary before he starts driving for sure.
It is likely that even with glasses he won't see 20/20, but we will pray for the best.
You will notice in many of the pictures that I post that he often holds his head in his neutral position so that he can see better.

seattle

This weekend we went to Seattle to visit some friends!
First stop was dinner in Tacoma with one of Andy's friends from HighSchool (I didnt take any pictures)
Second Stop- hotel with a swimming pool. Elias loves the water and swimming kicking and splashing. We didnt take the picture until about 20 minutes after we started swimming and he was starting to get cold here, but still oh so cute ;)

Third stop: Breakfast with Krista and Jeremy! I have known Krista my whole life, we grew up going to the same church.

Fourth and Final Stop:
Beaverton Mall's playland to meet up with Colby, Andy's good friend who was visiting Seattle from California. He has 2 little boys, Elias loved playing with Reid, the older boy.

Gotta Love the Plug

Elias loves his pacifier, but has his own very unique way to use it.

6 month statistics

Elias had his 6 month check up on Monday. We'll he hasn't gained much weight since his 4 month check up, Ill blame that on his new ability to jump and scoot.
Height: 2'4" (91.69%) down from 97% he is still in the top 10% though!
Weight: 16 lbs 14 oz (36.64%) skinny dude!
Head Circumference: 17.76" (83.65%) perfect!
AT 4 MONTHS HE WAS
15 lbs 12.5 oz (70.78% percentile)
27.25" long (97.60%)

Happy Thanksgiving!

This years turkey king: Elias Benjamin Dryden
I hope you all had a nice thanksgiving and hope we can all remember to continue to be thankful throughout this next year!
Elias had his first few bites of rice cereal this Thanksgiving, and a taste of sweet potatoes. It was fun to watch him taste the potatoes, and try to eat the rice cereal, which of course ended up all over...I think I'm too lazy to introduce him to very much solid foods.
We spent thanksgiving lunch with the Hawthorne/Lee family eating chilaquiles, a Mexican breakfast food and then ate dinner with the Dryden family, eating turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes like good thankful Americans.

Tutoring

One night a week, Andy, Elias and I go and tutor a family from Burma. We do it through Catholic Charities Refugee mentoring program. It has been fun to get a taste of their life and keep my foot in the door of the ESL teaching world. Although the youngest (2 year old) boy of the family we tutor is quite jealous of Eli, I am sure some day they will turn out to be good friends.

Farm Part 3: family

We got to see Uncle Keith's new apartment and visit him at his new job. SouthHills Baptist Church! I guess my little brother is officially all grown up! Que Dios te bendiga tio!

Farm Part 2: Meeting Eva Jean

A highlight of going to the farm was meeting baby Eva Jean, who is now 2 months old.
She is my cousin Katie's 5th child... and 2nd girl! She is the sweetest little thing.

We also had a nice visit with Zack, Evas older brother, who will be a good friend to Eli some day.

Farm Part 1: Making Apple Cider

Last year our farm got a cider press, we have had some fun apple cider making parties. Saturday we had a few people over to make some cider in the pasture.

yes! The darker brown ring on the baby carrier is drool!


You can see it come out the bottom into my moms big pan. The whole process is rather labor intensive, it takes a few people to wash the apples, a few to cut, one to pour or throw the apples into the grinder, one to grind, one to turn the crank to press the apples, one to fill up the containers with the fresh cider, and of course one to drink it!

Scooting!

I put him down, leave the room, and he is somehow on the other side of the room when I come back.

Memorials etc.

So...we happened to be in DC the day of John Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity and Stephen Cobert's March to keep fear alive. Being the great sociologist I am, I thought it would be fun to stop be and observe some of the events....
well the rally to restore sanity was anything from sane! It started 20 minutes away from downtown at the metro stop near our hotel. The line to BUY a ticket to the metro was probably a half hour long, and then getting on the metro was a whole 'nother story! We were happy to have both a stroller and an aggressive baby loving women to protect Eli on the VERY crowded metro.
We couldn't even get near enough to see the stage, but we could hear it. Here is what we saw:


Library of Congress


Capital Building


Lincoln Memorial and World War 2 Memorial




Washington Monument

Jefferson Memorial- quite a walk to get to it!