Burgess Baby Shower!!!

Our very good friends, Bob and Jennifer, are expecting a baby in March! We went up to Baltimore on Saturday, January 26 to celebrate with them at their baby shower! Jennifer is currently unable to travel, so their friends and family brought the shower to them! There were tons of presents for them to open! We had a great time visiting with them and we enjoyed every minute! Elijah had a good time too and was very well behaved! As Chris says, "It's discipline!!!" Yeah, ok!

Bob and Jennifer decided not to tell anyone what the sex of the baby is (they know, they just refuse to tell!!! Sneaky devils!!) so everyone had to guess the sex, birthdate and size. Chris and I think it's a girl. Besides, Elijah needs another girlfriend!!!!!

Elijah Rolled Over...Again!

He rolled over again!!! Technically, he's already rolled over from his stomach to his back, but yesterday, he rolled over from his back to his stomach!!! Yeah!! Let's see how often he does it now!

Elijah's first snow!!!

Ok. So this was not the first snow since Elijah was born, but the last one didn't count since it barely left a dusting!!! This time we've gotten about 2 to 3 inches and it's only 11:00 a.m!!!! Well, at least I think it's 2-3 inches! I took Elijah out this morning and put him in his Bumbo seat so I could get some good pictures of him. He's sooooooooooooooooooo cute!! He loved it!

Ohio

While we were in Ohio, we decided to make the best of the circumstances and we were able to visit with Chris' family. John, Hope, Aubrey, Beth and Sean were able to come up for the funeral, so we were able to visit with them as well. Elijah got to see his Great-Grandma Scheetz and some of his cousins and Great-Aunts. Chris and I even got to go on a date!!! Wahoo!!! Dianne watched Elijah for us while Chris and I went to a movie (National Treasure--very good by the way!!). Yeah!!! A date!!! It doesn't happen often, so we took advantage.

Probably the most exciting thing happened to us as church. Yes, church. Right after the homily, the man decided to walk down the center aisle, NAKED!!! Yes, you read that right, NAKED!!!! This guy in a gray sweatsuit walked to the front of the church right after the gospel. After the homily, he took off his clothes and walked towards the back of the church in his birthday suit! (You know I could NOT make this up!!) Chris and a few other church members escorted the guy outside and he was arrested. Apparently he is a schizophrenic (sp). So a very interesting church service!!

Sadness

We got called to Ohio last Wednesday because a very close, very dear friend of the family passed away. Frank Harbol was a wonderful husband, father, neighbor and friend. He lost his battle to cancer. He was loved and will be missed. We were blessed to know him.

It is January, right??

What is up with this weather?!?! Why is it 74 degrees in January???? I'm not complaining because I got to take Elijah outside, but come on!! What's so bad is that it's supposed to be in the 50s tomorrow. Still not bad, but not winter weather. Apparently it's supposed to snow this weekend!!!! One last ray of hope...

Lazyness.....

Yeah, our son is lazy! He rolled over for the first time a week and a half ago. He's done it about 4 times since. He just lays on his back and kicks his feet. When he's on his stomach, he just cries. Come on!!!! I know you can do it!!! Now, while I'm still a little glad that I can leave him on my bed without the fear of him rolling off, it's good, but, it would be nice to have him roll!! But some good news, he's sitting up on his own (sort of!!!). He leans forward a bit, but he doesn't have to be supported!!! Sometimes he just topples over, but he's getting the hang of it!

5 Months old!!!

Elijah is 5 months old today! I can't believe it! He's probably pushing about 20 pounds too. Chuncky but! He is FINALLY rolling over...on occasion anyway! And he's also finally found his feet. Which he only seems to play with when we're trying to change his diaper! But that doesn't surprise me. I think most of you are aware that he's officially on solids now. He seems to like all of the veggies we've put him on. Peas, Green Beans, Carrots, Squash and he started Sweet Potatoes today. He's doing so well and growing up so fast! It's so hard to believe!

(01-01-08)

Happy New Year!!!!!

Yup! 2008 has officially begun! And since Chris and I are now parents, we did nothing last night! We crawled in bed and watched Shrek 2 and attempted to stay up and watch the ball drop, but since we're sleep deprived, we barely made it to 11:00. Which is probably a good thing since Elijah decided to get up at 5. 2007 was a great year for us and we're really looking forward to what 2008 will bring!

(01-01-08)

Wahoo!!!!

Finally!!!!! Elijah rolled over this morning!!!! He was laying on him stomach and he just rolled himself over! Twice!!! Of course, he hasn't done it since, but he did it!!! Now if only he could go from back to stomach. He's soooo close though.

(12-28-07)

Merry Christmas!!!!!

Elijah's first Christmas went off without any problems! Not that we were expecting any, but you never know! Saturday morning (December 22) we drove down to Burlington, NC to spend Christmas at my brother and sister-in-law's house. My sister and her family came in from Tennessee and my parents came as well. We had the first "LeMieux family Christmas" in four years. It was AWESOME!!! Yes, it was loud, but that was the best part!! But what can you expect with 8 adults and 5 kids in one house for 4 days!

On Saturday, we drove to a city park where they had a merry-go-round and a train running with Christmas lights and we saw Santa and Mrs. Claus. Afterwards we saw a live Nativity and got to feed camels and sheep. On Sunday we got family portraits taken and took the kids bowling. That was great! Especially since we got to have the bowling bumpers up!! So I did pretty good! We had a great time on Christmas Eve too. Just hanging out and going to the park with the kids.

I forewarned everyone that if Elijah got up early on Tuesday, I was waking up all the kids. Well, he woke up at 7. And if you can believe it, none of the kids had gotten up yet!!!!! I woke up Adam at 7 and then all the kids went downstairs. It was mass chaos!! But I loved every minute of it! Santa was very good to Elijah, as well as to Chris and I. Hopefully we'll still be on the East Coast next year, but we're not sure. Either way, Elijah will be 16 months old, so he'll be a little more active, but still probably won't care much! We had a great Christmas and we hope that everyone had a great one too!!!

(12-26-07)

Happy 32nd Birthday Chris!!!

Yup! Today (December 20) is Chris's 32nd birthday. Yup, I'm with an older man! (I'm still in my 20s!!!) I like to rub that in! He got to sleep in this morning (almost 7:00!!) and was home early from work. Elijah and I took him out to dinner for his birthday to Famous Dave's BBQ. Actually, we met mom and dad and they took him to dinner! We had to cut the evening short because it was close to Elijah's bedtime, so we had to put him to bed, but overall we had a great time! They even sung to him really loudly and obnoxiously! I love it when they do that! And his free dessert was three scoops of vanilla ice-cream with chocolate sauce. Yummy!

(12-20-07)

Tami and Devon

On Saturday, December 8, one of my college roommates got married. It was such a beautiful wedding and Tami made a beautiful bride! Devon is a great guy and we wish them all the best! The reception was great and I had a great time! Of course, I'm sure the 4 glasses of wine helped too! Becky, one of my other roommates was a bridesmaid and she looked beautiful too! We had a good time. Some pictures will not be getting posted on that! Tami and Devon hit Mexico for their honeymoon and I'm sure they had a great time!

(12-19-07)

Solids! Solids! Solids!!

Yes, it's official! Elijah is now on solids! He started with peas, went to green beans and is now on carrots! So far he's done really well on everything. He's getting so big now too! He's 4 1/2 months old and is just about 18 pounds. CRAZY!!!! He's getting really heavy to lug around now.

(12-19-07)

Let it Snow! Let it Snow!!

Yep, that's right!! The first official snowfall of winter. Yeah, it barely stuck, but that doesn't matter. It still snowed!! Elijah was oblivious about the whole thing too. But whatever. IT SNOWED!!! Chris is hoping to get off of work tomorrow. Or at least be able to go in late. And it being Northern VA, it's entirely possible, since I'm sure there is no bread or milk left on the shelves in the stores!!! Usually when they even call for snow, they close everything!! But I don't think he'll be that lucky!

(12-05-07)

Four months

Wow! Elijah is four months old. So hard to believe! He weighs 15 pounds, 12 1/2 ozs! He's in the 75% in weight and in the 70% in height (he's 25 inches long). He's starting to roll over a little. He can get to his side, and that's about it right now. He also started solid foods!!! He's ped had me start him on veggies today. We had our first taste of peas. Yummy! He actually did pretty good. Even opening his mouth for the spoon! So cute! He even sat in his highchair. He's getting bigger and bigger.

Last night (December 1) we took him to the Fredericksburg Christmas parade. We left early because there was no organization at the end of the parade (where we were sitting, everyone just stopped and unloaded their trailors right in front of us, which actually caused back ups on the parade route!) and Elijah was getting a little fussy. But what we saw was pretty good. And we got candy too!

(Originally posted 12-02-07)

Thanksgiving 2007

We travelled to the "motherland" (Ohio) for Thanksgiving to spend the holiday with the Paes side of the family. We had a great time! We took Elijah to the zoo and he got to meet a bunch of aunts, uncles and cousins for the first time! Not to mention, it was his first ever Thanksgiving! Like any good eating holiday, he ate and slept right through dinner, much to my delight since I got to eat! Overall he did really good and we really enjoyed ourselves. Hard to believe that Thanksgiving is over (all the preparation for about an hour of eating!!) and Christmas is right around the corner!!!

(Originally posted 12-01-07)

Gettysburg

November 19 was the 144th anniversary of the Gettsyburg Address. So of course, Gettysburg had lots of things planned for the weekend. Chris and my parents (and Elijah of course!) decided to drive up to Pa for the day on the 17th to check things out. They had a rememberance parade and that night, they had luminaries in the cemetary. The pictures don't show up very well of that, but it was so pretty. They played taps and they read off the names of everyone in the cemetary. I believe that its about 3200. The parade was was really cool too. There were tons of reinactors that walked with their units. Good ol' Abe Lincoln and Frederick Douglas were there as well!!

(Originally posted 11-27-07)

Pitt Crew Reunion!!!

Ok, it's been a while since I've been able to post anything! Anywho, the Pitt Crew came to Fredericksburg for our sort of annual reunion. We had a great time! The girls (Becky, Christine and Rachel) got here on Saturday and we hung out with our boys (Matt, Elijah and Anderson). On Sunday, the weather was great and we took the kids to the park for a little bit, then Jessica and Tami came over and we hung out some more. A few bottles of wine later, we were still having a good time just catching up on everything that's been going on with us. A lot has happened since we've all gotten together! Both Christine and I had babies!! Here are some pictures of our weekend!

(Originally posted 11-27-07)

Marine Corps Ball

Well, Friday, November 2 was two very important things. First and foremost, it was mine and Chris' five year anniversary! It's so hard to believe that we've been married for 5 years now! When I think of how much we've done in the past five years, my mind gets blown away! Three trips across county, lived in two states, two trips to Iraq (ok, so those were solo trips for Chris!), a trip to Ireland, promotions, house and car buying, and last, but certainly not least, became parents! Oh, we've also gotten 5 years older! We haven't done anything for our anniversary yet except go to our Marine Corps Ball. Which brings me to the next event! The 232nd birthday of the Marine Corps is on November 10. Every November, the Marines celebrate with a big birthday celebration. This year, ours was on Friday. The day started out busy and ended busy!!! I had to drop off Elijah at Nana and Granddaddy's house at 8:30 AM! I had nails done at 9 and hair done at 11:30. I got home, packed up the car and we left the house at 2:00. Of course we had to stop by my parents' house to say a quick goodbye to Elijah! We got to the hotel at 3:45 and Chris has rehearsal at 4:00 (he was in the ceremony again). Our friends Donna and Jonathan came with us and we went downstairs at 6:00, just in time for cocktails (did I mention that it was an open bar?!) and pictures. The ceremony started promptly at 7:00 where they read the birthday message from General LeJuene and did the ceremonial cake cutting. The youngest Marine present was born in 1985!!! Our guest speaker was Lt. General Christmas. He was a pretty good speaker. After that, we had dinner. A choice of chicken or beef. The beef was really good! Then we danced and danced until about 11:30. I know, early birds! But it ended at midnight and that was way past our bedtime!! And when I say Chris danced, he danced. Splits and all! The next morning, we met our friend Rachel (my college roommate) for breakfast and were at my parents' house by 12:00. Then we did nothing the rest of the day! Just recovering from Friday! We are really gratefull that mom and dad watched Elijah, and we had a great time, but we REALLY missed him!!!!!

(Originally posted 11-04-07)

One busy weekend!!!

Saturday was a pretty busy day for me! Saturday afternoon, I was in Richmond because one of my college roommates is getting married adn her bridal shower was being held. Yeah Tami!!!! I had a really good time. I'm really looking forward to her wedding!After I got home from that, we had to hurry and get ready for our friends' costume party! We had a great time. Chris and I were ancient Greeks (yes, togas and all!!!) and Elijah was an adorable ice-cream cone!! Complete with a cherry on top! A bunch of our friends were there dressed as a little bit of everything. The food was great and everyone had a good time. Luckily we only had a few wardrobe malfunctions, but thank God they only happened at home!We had to cut the evening short because Chris had to get up early on Sunday to run his 7th Marine Corps Marathon and his 11th marathon overall. He did really well at 3 hours and 19 minutes. As usual, he wasn't happy with his time, but I think he did great!!! Normally I go up there with him and take a small tour of Washington, DC, but with Elijah, I didn't want to deal with the stroller, the metro and about 20,000 people!! So we opted to track him on the computer. So now we're settling in for a busy week and yet another busy weekend!

(Originally posted 10-29-07)

12 weeks old

I can't believe he's 12 weeks already! He's growing so fast. He's already 14 pounds! Of course, when I weighed him, he still had on his onsie and his diaper, but how much do they really weigh? He finally found his thumb!!!!! About a week or so ago, he discovered he could suck on his hand, but he couldn't figure out that his thumb could extend by itself until today. He's so cute when he sucks on it!! I have gotten his Halloween costume and he looks so cute. He's going to be an Ice-Cream cone. So cute!!
Elijah is doing really well and he's smiling and laughing all the time now. He knows our voices now and yesterday I kept telling him "daddy's home!!!" and he smiled so big! It was so cute. He's getting more and more alert everyday that it's amost scary! Now we really have to start watching what we say around him!

(Originally posted 10-24-07)

Elijah is 11 weeks old!

Wow!!! So much has happened in the last few weeks! I haven't had time to post anything, but that's ok, I'm here now! Ok. So the weekend of September 29, Elijah was baptized in the Catholic Church. We asked our very good friends, Ivette and Ozzy Perez to be Elijah's godparents. They even came up from Miami, Florida for it! Elijah also got to meet all of his aunts, uncles and cousins for the first time. He loved it! At the baptizm, he wore the gown that my grandmother was baptized in and all of my aunts, uncles, dad, some cousins and my brother, sister and I were baptized in. It was so neat that it was nearly 100 years old! He looked so precious in it! The ceremony was great (even the part where he burped really loud and got the hiccups!!!). Afterwards, we hosted everyone at our house for a cookout honoring Elijah. It was great!!!By Monday, everyone had gone home except for Ivette and Ozzy and we took them and Elijah up to the Marine Corps Museum. Elijah really enjoyed his first museum!This past weekend (October 13), Chris went up to Notre Dame for the football game while me and Elijah stayed at home. No worries, my mom kept us company! He did great! Both Friday and Saturday night, he slept from 9:30 to 5:30!!! He did wake up at one point, but he put himself back to sleep very easily. Elijah and I like to keep busy during the day so we usually take trips to the mall or something just to get out of the house! Besides, it gives me an excuse not to do housework!!! One day I'll figure out how to post pictures on my posts, so y'all can check out everything we've done!

(Originally posted 10-15-07)

Elijah is Eight Weeks old already!!

I can't believe it! Elijah is already eight weeks old! He is growing so fast! Yesterday we went to the doctor for his two month appointment and he got his shots (sad for mommy!). He weighs 11 1/2 pounds and is almost 24" long! He's in the 50% for weight and 80% in height. Obviously he gets that from daddy.
We're really excited about this weekend because he's getting baptized and his entire family will be here!

(Originally posted 9-26-07)

New York!!

On Friday, September 14, 2007, we traveled up to New York so Chris could run his 10th marathon. We drove to Jersey City, New Jersey and spent the night where we met up with some very good friends of ours, Sarah and Chad Coe. It was so good to see them! Elijah got to meet them for the first time and I think he fell in love with Sarah! He was so good for her! We didn't go into Manhatten because we got there really late, but we had a nice view of lower Manhatten from our hotel room.
On Saturday morning (my birthday!!!) we drove the rest of the way up to Schroon Lake, New York for Chris' 2nd Adirondack Marathon and his 10th marathon. The marathon wasn't until Sunday morning, so we just hung out on Saturday. Chris got his race packet, we checked into our Bed and Breakfast (The Silver Spruce, very nice!) and had a nice lunch with our friend Josh, and his girlfriend, Sheryl. There was a nice spaghetti dinner that was sponsored by the marathon that we went to on Saturday that was very good!
Sunday morning was very cold! The temperature was 34!! Chris loved it though, so it was all good. Chris finished with a time of 3 hours and 18 minutes! He knocked 9 minutes off of his time from last year! He finished 15th overall and Elijah and I are so proud of him! (His friend Josh finished in 3 hours, 8 minutes, came in 6th overall and first in his age group) Chris is now training for his 11th marathon, the Marine Corps Marathon next month in Washington, DC.
We left to go home on Monday and decided that we wanted to spend the next day in Hersey, PA. Hersey was so cool! The streetlights on Chocolate Avenue really are Hersey Kisses!!! Elijah took his first trolley ride and did great! Afterwards, the trolley conductor gave everyone Hersey bars, and he gave Elijah two of them (but of course, Chris and I ate them!)

(Orignally posted 9-22-07)