Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful family-filled Christmas this year in Texas. We spent Christmas eve at Bruce's mom's house with all his brothers, then went to his dad's side of the family on Christmas morning, and then to Morgan's family on Christmas evening. Whew! Here's just a few pics:


Elijah and Grand-dad (Bruce's dad)


Our 9-footer tree (at Grammy's house -- but we call it our own). ;)


Welcome Paige Hailey Tipton - born Dec 10th to Angie & Chuck (Bruce's brother).


Elijah opening some gifts


More gifts :) Love those cheeks!

1st Birthday Party

Saturday we had Elijah's first birthday party. It was a good time by all! We ate breakfast tacos, opened presents, played with Elijah's new toys and had pumpkin apple harvest cupcakes with cream cheese frosting that I made. We played a drawing game where everyone had to draw a picture of Elijah - you had 30 seconds to draw something then pass the picture along so that everyone drew part of most of the pictures. Despite some initial party-pooper comments about the game, I think everyone enjoyed it - especially laughing at the final pictures - we'll just say some lack artistic talent. Elijah was so pooped out after a long morning that he passed out on Aunt Crystal -- she gave him a "cool" hair style while he slept, pictures below.

Party decorations

You won't believe what he got the most excited about opening - SOCKS! But he loved unwrapping all the presents.

Birthday boy shaking his new rattles from the band set he got

Pumpkin apple harvest cupcakes with cream cheese frosting

He loved the balloons and balls we had put all around the house. He was exhausted after a full day and just about passed out in the high chair.

But he waited and fell asleep on Aunt Crystal (and got all sweaty). The combination of icing and sweat in his hair made for great styling. This is him when he woke up from his nap.

Happy Birthday Elijah!

Our little guy turns ONE today! I can't believe just a year ago he was a newborn and now he's walking and understanding a lot of what we say. We are having a little party with family tomorrow, so we'll be posting more picture soon!

For now, I'll leave you with some Christmas cheer:

Merry Christmas!

This is a regular occurence these days. Elijah LOVES balls and goes up to the tree saying "bbb" (his sound for ball). We say "no touch" and he's learned to just point at the ornaments. Every once in a while the urge to touch is too strong and he'll grab one, then look at us knowing that he did something he wasn't supposed to do. Sometimes he's just so stinkin' cute we let him get away with it.

Trip to Austin

We took a trip last weekend to Austin for Morgan's grandmother's funeral. She passed away at the age of 95. She had lived a long and wonderful life - and lived to see her first great-grandson. It was a lovely ceremony - about 20 people in attendance at the graveside. Elijah slept in the car at the cemetary through the whole thing! The funny thing is that when her husband passed away, Morgan was only 2 years old - and she slept through the whole funeral in the car too. And so the generations continue. Granny, you will be missed and are so loved!



Morgan's family


Elijah fed Uncle Grant olives with a fork



Aunt Milena got a new puppy, and Elijah was so excited the dog was his size. He followed the puppy around, pulling his tail and sticking his tongue out like the dog. The puppy's name is Sasquatch (I call her Sasha - they call her Sassy). The big dog's name is Ataya.



Elijah met his cousin Sophie, who is 6 months old. This is Morgan's older brother Raymond's new baby.


Elijah and Mom Elijah fell asleep while eating..yet again

Texas & Family

Here's a video of Elijah and Morgan's dads dog Toby. Elijah is pulling and abusing Toby and the dog is just taking it. What a good boy.

Some pics to highlight some of our time in Texas:

Elijah playing with Toby. See him sticking out his tongue doing his baby sign for "doggie"

We finally put Elijah in his Halloween costume (a little late) and took some pics. Our cute little monkey!

He usually tries to pull hats off, but he didn't mind this one.

Riding the horse at the park. He has such good balance.

Daddy trying to show Elijah the big fish in the pond at the park.

Elijah fell asleep on Nana

Elijah with Grand-dad and the Texans bull

Elijah is officially a "toddler" now -- he's walking everywhere, only crawls about 5% of the time (if he trips while he's walking). But he has good balance and really doesn't fall much. He just walks around the house in circles, carrying his toys from one area to another, closing all the doors as he goes -- he sometimes closes himself in a room by himself. Good thing he doesn't know how to lock the doors yet. I have a video of him walking all around and following the dog but it won't upload for some reason - will work on that.

Raisins!

Because a few have commented (in real life and on the blog) about the raisins picture, I thought I'd share the whole sequence with you -- I know you'll get a kick out of it too. Be sure to scroll down and check out the 4 posts of our road trip extraordinaire (I added the pics from Nashville just now).

So here's the situation. Bruce and I are laying in bed trying to get a few more minutes of shut eye while Elijah is running around the room exploring and entertaining himself. He usually talks to himself as he runs around, but we don't hear anything for a few minutes, so we look over and he's literally taking handfulls of raisins and shoving them in his mouth. We grabbed the camera and snapped these pics.

Score!

Raisins...my favorite!

Ahh, this is the life.....

I think I may have overdone it.

Road Trip Extraordinaire (Part 1)

WOW! It's been a long time and A LOT has been going on here -- I'm planning on doing a lot of posts with lots of pictures here, so be sure to scroll down and see them all!



We left Boston on October 27th to drive to Texas for our big move. For those that don't know, we are moving overseas in February, but before we go we are spending a few months in Texas with our families. We won't post too many details on a public site like this as to where we are going or with whom for security reasons, but you can email us (morganteague@gmail.com, audiosq@gmail.com) if you want to know more.



We stopped at LOTS of places to visit friends and family along the way (and took lots of pictures) -- so I'll do my best to get some of them to you who have been missing us.


Our first stop was in New York City (specifically Brooklyn) to visit Bruce's childhood friend Reagan -- who was Bruce's "groomsmaid" in our wedding. We left at 5am and drove in the early morning hours so that Elijah would sleep - he did great. We stayed with Reagan for 4 days and did a lot of exploring in the city. We went to Prospect Park in Brooklyn and walked around, let Elijah play in the park -- it was a nice day, but kind of chilly. We walked over the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan and went to the "hot dog place" where they have bacon wrapped specialty hot dogs (yum - and I don't even like hot dogs!) And we went to Max Brenner's for THE BEST chocolate ever (Thanks Reagan!). We took Elijah to the biggest Toys 'R Us ever = and he had a blast looking at all the doggies and big colorful toys. We did some relaxing around the apartment -- after spending a week and a half at full force packing mode, it was nice to just be still for a little bit.



B&M about to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge - you can see the bridge and Manhattan in the background.



Bruce & Reagan walking over the Brooklyn Bridge




On the other side




At Toys 'R Us





Playing with the wall of doggies - Elijah LOVED it!

Road Trip Extraordinaire (Part 2)

On Halloween we drove just outside of DC (to Rockville, MD) to visit 2 of Morgan's college friends Helina and Mariam who are working in DC. We didn't dress Elijah up for Halloween except for this cute pumpkin hat and little black trick or treat outfit. We had a monkey outfit that we borrowed from a friend, but we were on the road and never had a chance to put it on. Maybe we'll put it on now and take some pics and pretend it was on Halloween.

Bruce and I spent a day touring around DC while H and Mar were at work on Thursday. We were so tired after a full day of walking - we saw the Washington Monument, the White House, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Lincoln Monument, Korean Memorial, WWII Memorial, the Capitol -- phew, what a day! Then we spent a lot of the day on Friday at the Zoo (which is FREE since it's a Smithsonian). Elijah loved looking at all the animals and he was such a trooper with the long days. It was so cute, he thought everything was a "doggie" - he kept panting like a dog (his baby sign for dog). Here's some pics from our time in DC:

We found a USPS Jedi Master! Bruce thought it was cool.

Elijah got tired of being in his stroller and would try to climb out! Then he fell asleep on Mar on the Metro on the way home.

Just a couple pics from the zoo - Elijah with Helina and the panda bear. The second one is us with the lion on the left in the background. We got to hear him ROAR and he walked all around, which I guess is rare because they sleep or lay around like 90% of the time.