Lost....

Wow,

It has been almost four (now five, it took me a month to finish writing this post) months since the last post. You could say that we were lost for a while. The past months have been full of huge changes and events in our family's life. Of course Elodie, our favorite first daughter, is growing and developing at an amazing rate. She has gone from turning over to pushing herself up, to crawling, and pulling up to standing.

She even likes to visit mom at work. Turns out she is very good at 100's (a super-mean ab exercise). The above picture is a morning when Bryn-Erinn, Molly (a friend of ours and Elodie's baby-sitter when Bryn-Erinn is at work) and Elodie spent some time at the studio in a very involved workout.

As Elodie grows and develops, so do our strategies to keep her safe and from breaking things. We have spent quite a bit of time putting "childproof" locks on the low cabinets and drawers. This has been a good move, because it didn't take too long before she decided that the living room floor and crawling under the piano weren't the only cool places to be in the house. She also has a penchant for finding electrical cords. We are trying to get rid of as many cords as possible, and we are tacking the rest to the walls. All the outlets have plastic covers over them, which Brett finds difficult because he can't get them out to use the outlets. Of course, our fear is that we will find her with her hair standing on edge, like the Bride of Frankenstein, with the slight smell of burnt hair permeating the room, and she would probably have a big smile on her face, as if she had done something good.

Bryn-Erinn has taken on the task of feeding Elodie solid foods. Not surprisingly, Elodie has some strong opinions about the types of foods she does and doesn't like. Some of the more tart foods have proven to be great photo opportunities.

Elodie's favorite culinary pastime is avocado squares as finger food. For the most part, she is a pretty good eater (likely due to Bryn-Erinn's great baby food cooking). However, despite what seems to be a thorough post-dining wipe down, there always seems to be a bit left her in nose and behind her ears. The best are the bright green avocado eyeboogers that somehow surface hours after her last solid meal.

Early in the summer, we had an adventure with the whole Gourley family. We met everyone at Grandma and Grandpa Gourley's house. From there we drove 6 hours with four infants under the age of nine months to Ashton, Idaho. Where we spent time in a huge cabin. The sleep, eating and other cycles were all thrown to the wind, but the grandparents enjoyed time with their family. After a week Brett returned to Minneapolis to continue his work, while Bryn-Erinn and Elodie spent some time with Gramsy

and Bryn-Erinn's grandparents (Elodie's great-grandparents) in Spokane.

Way back in June, the fellowship (sub-specialty) match took place. We found out that we matched into the Dartmouth Hematology and Oncology program. This fulfills a commonly held dream of Bryn-Erinn and Brett to live in New England. We know the grandparents wanted something closer to home, and we are ready to get back out west, but after so many years away, another three will fly by. Brett will be finishing his internal medicine residency this coming June, and Bryn-Erinn has already begun looking at rentals, DMV information and utility information. She has found that New England is remarkably fashioned and archaic in many ways (e.g. car registration has to be done at the county clerk only, and it is different for all of each of the 10 counties, and is apparently so complex, they don't even bother to post details online. Never mind the garbage removal system...more on that later). In spite of the difficulties that the move will present, we are still excited to see a new place and move on to the next and final step in Brett's training.

Spring has sprung...

Believe it or not we have already had a 85 degree day here in the frozen of prairie, so really we haven't been frozen for some time. It was great sleeping with the windows open that night. However like spring time weather in most places I've lived it is back into the 30-50's. Bryn-Erinn and Elodie went to Spokane to visit Gramsy (Grandma Pipes) and the great grand parents, while Brett was moonlighting and traveling for interviews. They had a great time and Elodie did quite well on the plane. Brett was a little sad that the first face Elodie gave him after his return was a big frowny face, but she had been traveling for some time with out her nap. Brett is all done with is interviews and we will be discussing as a family about his ROL (rank ordered list). Match day for hem/onc is in June so we still have some time to wait. While Bryn-Erinn was away Brett decided to surprise Bryn-Erinn with a life time membership to Magnatune.com (an independent music label, which for a small buy in fee you can have unlimited download access to all their artists). Their goal to have more money go to the artist, and they have some great music that is expanding all the time. Of course as many have requested here are some more pictures of Elodie and our great life.

Elodie and Great Grand Mother Oliphant

Bryn-Erinn, Gramsy Pipes and Great Grand Father Gibson

Elodie looking good in a rain jacket

Going out for a stroll

You are never too young to ride on daddies shoulders

Looking at you

Elodie reading to Mom and Dad

Three and a half weeks...

It is hard to believe that we have had Elodie for three-and-a-half weeks! Even more amazing is that we haven't yet made any major life-threatening mistakes. Three weeks seems like a short amount of time, although Bryn-Erinn states that she can recount every second, as she has been awake for most of that time. She did however get a good chunk of sleep last night and she now says she feels almost human.

It is hard to see what physical changes are happening in Elodie on a day-to-day basis, but we do see developmental changes. When we look at her newborn photos we see big gains in her size. At her two-week weigh in, which was done by Brett's clinic staff as our peds clinic wanted to charge us a visit for just the weigh-in, Elodie had re-gained her weight, and then some (6lbs and 1oz to 7lbs and 14oz). Elodie is having more awake time now, and she is becoming more and more vocal. We have been lucky to this point as she fusses rather than cries. Much to her Gradma Gourley's pleasure Elodie is now making spit bubbles.

We have had "Gramsy" (Grandma Pipes) here with us this last week helping out, as Brett had to return to work. Other big milestones included Elodie's first bath at home (she did not like it), and her first walk outside, even in the Minnesota winter (it was 35 degrees that day, a real warming trend).

With the exception of her reluctance to sleep in the bassinet, Elodie is an easy baby, and we are all very proud of her.