Journey to Eliana Grace and Beyond: Keep on Groovin...

Okay, so there I was like so many other weekdays, waiting to check out books at the library with my little posse, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw it. Vicki Lovine (author of the Girlfriends Guide to Pregnancy- which I love and use as a frequent gift for the "I'm finally preggers!" crowd) has another book called Getting Your Groove Back: Loving your family without losing it. Well, it is pretty obvious that I am not so groovy anymore. So, I picked it up. I am only about 1/4 of the way through it, but so far I feel as though Ms. Lovine has had hidden cameras set up in my home and somewhere in the back pocket of my mom-jeans. I highly recommend it to any of you other "girlfriends" out there who feel like their groove has been lost somewhere between early marriage and Kindergarten orientation. She is hysterical and calls it like she sees it- like any true girlfriend does. Now, I am not saying that my groove is going to be resurrected anytime in the near future. The task is still quite daunting for me, but I will say that I am serious considering getting some highlights. So, if you are looking for a quick read and a few good laughs, pick up a copy.

Speaking of where my groove has gone, the kids are doing really well. Somehow, the boys have really been getting into their own "groove" with school lately. That makes my job much easier. We moved our "classroom" out of my kitchen and into our front room which allows me a little it more sanity. The clutter of school when I was trying to prepare meals as well as the take-it-out/put-it-back every day nature of my classroom was making my recovering type-
A personality a bit crazy. Now, the trick will be keeping that front room from becoming a Just-leave-it-out-until-next-time disaster. So far so good, but I am a firm believer in Newtons Laws- You know that whole part about order moving into chaos and not visa versa.

Eliana is continuing to cruise around on the furniture. She is still far from walking on her own in my opinion as her feet sort of behave like pill bugs. She curls them up into little balls and rolls around on them. She is getting pretty efficient at crawling which makes life a lot more interesting - not to mention dangerous. She made her first ever attempt at stair-climbing when I ran upstairs to switch loads of laundry. Unfortunately, the attempt was unaided and had been initially successful-- in other words, the little stinker made it up a few stairs before somersaulting back down right as I hit the top of the staircase and was hurtling down to grab her. Bad mommy! No permanent damage done, but I am secretly hoping it scared her enough to keep her from trying it again in the near future. Gates are so tricky when you have other kids that are too small to get over them to get where they need to go... still figuring that one out.

I have a few pictures today. Eliana's new favorite place is the rack we use for magazines (intended to be for firewood, but we have a gas fireplace). She climbs in and hangs on like it is her own little sled. In one of the pictures, I sort of imagine our dog Cooper pulling her alone. I also just loved the little red outfit especially because her tiny little shoes peek out from under it.