Eli at eight months

Hello everybody!

I'm Elijah! But you might know me as Eli, or Beli Brown, or maybe Twisty Pete.

 















 
Yeah, don't ask me, my parents are crazy. Anyway, I just wanted you to know that I am eight months old now! Yup, time does move fast, doesn't it.

 
For a while there, I was a pretty little guy. I mean, I just wasn't growing for a few months! We were a little worried, but now I've got a nice round tummy, just like a baby should. And I looove to eat! Graham crackers are cool, and I'll even try stickers, paper, and rocks, if my brothers and sister leave them out for me. Speaking of which....mmm, grass.




















I love being outside, even when it's windy. I think the wind is sooo funny!
 


I also love rolling around the house.  Whenever mommy tries to get me to crawl, I spread my arms out to the side, lift my feet off the ground, and wiggle on my tummy as fast as I can! I just know one of these times I am going to lift off and fly over to her! I can't wait 'till I figure it out.




















I can do some other cool stuff now too. I use my tongue to talk a lot, so I sound like I'm saying real words. Mommy swears that I am saying "This" and "That" when I hold toys. The other day, I even said "Hi" more than once when I was smiling at Mommy!




But my favorite noise to do is an elephant! I make my lips just like this, and blow! Ha, ha, it's great.



I love my family. Jonah always makes me laugh; I especially like to come with him when he uses the potty! He likes to show me he's a big boy. (Josh is fun too, but he didn't want to come to my fancy photo shoot, so his loss.)



I don't get to see Elora as much because she goes to school, but when she's home she gives me LOTS of attention. Maybe a little too much, but I know that's because she loves me a lot!


 

Hmm, not sure what else to tell you...





What's that mommy? Oh, okay!

 


Goodbye, and thanks for coming!

Strange skies

When we first moved here, I posted lots of sunset pictures. I'm still amazed at the wide expanse of the sky here, so different than the mountains and trees that obscured the view at our previous homes. Most of the time, I watch the sunset from our kitchen window in the evenings while cleaning up dinner. In the winter this white house obscures the sun, but as the world inches toward summer the sky is shifting so that I have a better view again!

Sometimes I will still snap a picture but I can be too busy or lazy to go out, so I just capture the view from the window, like in this shot from a few weeks ago.

Notice the reflection of the kitchen in the shot? Yeah I shoulda turned the light off.

The other day we had been under a heavy cloud cover all day, and it was just around sunset that the sun finally peeked through. It looked so weird, I just had to step outside to take a few pictures.

These pictures may look like they are out of focus, but it really looked like this in real life! The sun was barely peeking through the haze,

casting its feeble light upon the plains as it sunk down to the horizon.

As the evening deepened, the sun turned a more firey orange and I took one final pic. But when I turned back to face the west I saw that I had been missing some beautiful sky in the other direction as well!

I don't know why, but these colors and the stillness of the evening really struck me.

 It just looked so surreal with the sky touching the ground, almost like a stage set with a matte painting behind it. Or maybe a scene from the beginning of time before the world was full of cities and people. Well....except for that random metal think there on the ground. But still.


















 What do you think it looks like? Does it speak to you?

Easter Family Pictures

What do you get when Grandma sends the boys new Easter suits? And we're running a little late for church, but we need to take  pictures before-instead of after- because we're changing clothes later to go to someone's house? And it's really sunny and really windy and a little bit cold? And mommy forgot to check if everyone's shirt was tucked in, and Jonah has to go potty, and Elora has no idea how to hold Elijah while standing up?
That's right, you get these hilarious Easter family pictures!

These hay bales are just across the street from the church, and they were the perfect spot for our traditionally too-sunny shots on Easter. Enjoy.

Daddy, your tie is askew

What's up with Josh's face?

I got him, mom! He's not falling!

cheese! No, I don't have to go potty.

peekaboo- where's Eli?

standing so nicely, but where are the smiles?

I guess I do care.

When I was in middle school I had a friend who never had an opinion of her own. She would change her mind based on what the people around her thought. This drove me nuts, but sometimes I'd mess with her just to see what she'd say (I'm such a jerk.) She might say, "My favorite color is yellow, " so I'd reply, "I hate yellow, I like blue." She would quickly agree that yellow was a horrible color, and blue was definitely better. I'd roll my eyes and smile to myself.

So, I was thinking about how I said in my last post that I don't care what other people think. And I realized that it was sooo not true. No, I don't care so much what people think about my clothes, or my body type, or my hair. But I've come to realize that I do care what people think, in that I don't ever want to make them upset about anything on my account.

I don't think I'm as bad as my middle school friend- I don't change my opinion based on what others think, or say what I don't believe- but I do go to great lengths to avoid conflict. Does that make sense? I think it has to do with my self-diagnosed mild social anxiety. I have a few good friends with whom I don't worry about voicing my opinion, but with the majority of my acquaintances that just doesn't happen. Sometimes it's so they don't feel bad, and sometimes it's just to avoid unpleasant interactions.

For example, I may know that "Sally" has a low opinion of people who read or watch fantasy and science fiction; she thinks people should only be entertained by stories that can be "real". (I know more than one Sally). So when I'm with this person, I make sure not to mention that we have all the Harry Potter books/movies, my kids enjoy Star Wars, Doctor Who is my all time favorite tv show, and I find Stargate very entertaining. Most people know this about me, but I maybe I only see Sally once a week, and in that once a week setting, it doesn't matter.

Expeliarmus!

And because I really like Sally (despite our differences) I don't say anything disparaging when she mentions how much she likes Jack Weyland's novels instead. (No offense if you like them too.)


Example two. "Cindy" may be someone I admire greatly, because she is such a good person. She never says anything critical about anyone she knows personally, but as for herself, she's ultra-conservative religious. Cindy is very nice, but she might not be so interested in being friends if she knew I wasn't as much like her as she thinks. (I also know more than one Cindy) The fact that I was allowed to watch R-rated movies as a kid, or read Stephen King books at age 11 defines who I am today, even though neither practice is really a part of my life at the moment. These experiences help me see the viewpoint of a wide variety of people, but Cindy may be uncomfortable around me knowing that. So I don't say anything about it, even when Cindy rants about how horrible it is that some really lame, mild, vampire teen fiction (which I didn't read) is so evil to have been written by a church member. Really? I don't care that she  has no interest in the series (because I don't either), but it really bothers me to have the author's integrity questioned when she doesn't know her and has little information to base her opinion on. But I'll be quiet, because I like Cindy.

Okay, I saw the movies. Lame, but this is the cute one.

Then there are people like "John". Maybe John knew me when I was younger and I wore black wizard shirts, grunge plaid, and rings on every finger. John thought I was cool to be such a "rebel" in a conservative town; I must surely be liberal and outspoken today,and feel scorned by the religious right, no? Too bad for John, this is not true. But since John only knows me on facebook these days, is he gonna be confused if I post a link to a talk from General Conference, or a quote about young women and modesty? Sure, I'll "like" it if someone else posts it, but I'm probably not going to do so myself.

me being awesome in 1995

Speaking of Facebook, I have noticed that sometimes it can make this social anxiety worse, especially since where I live right now, fb is pretty much the majority of my interaction with other people during the week. Where else do you interact with people who know you from all facets of your life, and see you in so many different ways? I have ultra-conservative friends, and ultra-liberal friends, many of whom are not shy about voicing their opinions on politics and religion. Having always been moderate in most of my opinions, I am usually willing to learn why they have their opinions and generally will respect what they think, even if I don't agree with it. But I wouldn't think of posting anything on such volatile subjects myself. (Is anyone else like me in this, or am I just a wimp?)


And there are all the mommy issues of which I wasn't even aware before I had kids. Women get really riled up about things like pregnancy (homebirth vs. hospital vs. midwife, etc.), vaccinations (does it or does it not cause autism?), breastfeeding (one mom is defensive because it didn't work out for her, another is out to get all those uneducated fools who would use formula). Food dyes, processed foods, discipline styles, how much tv kids watch, how long you keep them rear facing in a carseat, the necessity of preschool, homeschooling vs public school vs private school, the list goes on an on. All of these and more pop up on my facebook (and in real life) quite regularly. I definitely have opinions on all of these things, but have made the mistake more than once of thinking I was in like-minded company only to unwittingly offend someone with an offhanded comment, or have someone talk down to me for obviously not knowing enough about the subject, if I have the opinion I do.

yep. We have these in our house. Shhhh.

Yeah, I have my friends on FB collected into categories- generally based on where I know them from- but I don't feel comfortable posting something that's blocked from view to half of my "friends": it feels a little like talking behind someone's back. So I just keep it to myself. Sometimes I annoy myself greatly on not talking out more, especially when I've become friends with someone online and realize we have tons of things in common, but because I never spoke up when we lived near each other, we were never good friends in person, and I missed that chance to have a good friend in life.

What's kind of ironic is that some people think poorly of people like myself who avoid conflict, calling them fence-sitters and saying they HAVE to pick a side on various issues. However, I'm the opposite in that I can't stand it when people are dogmatic and absolute in their opinions, in fact it's one of the few things that can cause me to start an argument to defend the other side, even if I'm arguing for the side that I wouldn't generally agree with! (This drives my husband nuts, by the way.)

So yeah, I guess I do care what other people think, a lot more than I realized. And don't get me wrong, I'm not constantly second guessing everything I say in life or post online. but occasionally I do worry about it. But I am thankful to have a few friends with whom I can really be myself..and with whom I can share this post! Hello? Are you still there ? :-)