A time to heal...

It is hard to believe that in less then 10 months we have undergone 5 surgeries. Jeff has been through three grueling procedures and I have been through two. A week ago Wednesday, I underwent laproscopic surgery to remove my gall bladder. I had been having muscle spasms in my shoulder since last December but it wasn't diagnosed as gall stones until June. Thankfully, it was a relatively simple outpatient procedure. Poor Jeff has had to pull double duty since then. He is still recovering from his last surgery and now has the added responsibility of taking care of Elijah. He is a great dad and Elijah absolutely adores him. They have also been taking good care of Mommy.

Elijah has had several firsts lately. His first tooth finally came in after months of drooling. He is sporting a pearly white in the lower right front of his smile. He was a little ornery as it pushed through but is back to his happy self now. Be careful to stick your fingers in his mouth now! We can't forget to mention that Elijah also had his first overnight away this past weekend. He stayed at Aunt Meredith and Uncle Amos's house on Friday night and then at Nana and Grandpa Tucker's house on Saturday night. It sounds like everyone had a good time and still managed to get some sleep.

Elijah is working on learning to crawl. He can get up on his hands and knees and has even taken a few tentative "steps" forward but then gets back down on his stomach and pulls himself along with his hands while pushing with his legs frog style behind him. It won't be long now. We have already invested in some baby safety devices in anticipation that he will be getting around on his own VERY soon.

We thoroughly enjoyed the visit from Grandma and Grandpa Rice. The weather was beautiful and so we took advantage of the great outdoors. Grandpa Rice helped out by mowing the lawn one day and had a good time on the John Deere zero radius mower. We also headed to an orchard do to pick some peaches and nectarines. Boy, were they ever good!