Ummm...I'm done. Really?

I just sent my committee my final diss draft (pre-defense). Weird. It is actually incredibly anti-climactic b/c I am just sitting in my house quietly while Eli is sleeping (TG) with no one to shout/scream/dance around with. But ahhhhhhhhh! It's over. Mostly. Just the defense and then whatever they make me do to revise it. Please Lord, let that not be very much.


I guess my celebration will be Eli's new-found smileyness. Seriously, this kid is now crazy for the camera. I can actually make him stop crying (momentarily) if I take out the camera and aim it at him.
Of course, putting something on your head helps too.


Special thanks to these folks (and my incredible in-laws who take so many pictures of their own that, like a jerk, I don't bother to take my camera out when they're around!) who have made this all possible. Oh, Eli is excluded from the special thanks. He is special in a different way.

Not motivated at all

Where does one find the motivation to keep working on one's diss when no one will give her comments? Here's the situation: I gave my committee a full draft of my diss 2 weeks ago, according to the schedule I devised with G. I expected to have some comments, at least from somebody, on Monday. I got nothing. Now I have two weeks to revise before turning the final draft over to my committee. And, I gotta tell you, I do not care to do any more work on it. I fixed up the appendix tables that were messed and now...I just don't care. I feel like I could do a bunch of stuff, and then they'll have comments and stuff I have to change anyway at the defense. Maybe if I work on it more now, I'll actually preemptively fix some of that stuff up, but then again, maybe not. Also, I've got this kid, see, who wants a lot of attention. And I want to give it to him. What would you do?



(I had to show you that pic from Rosh Hashanah. Totally irrelevant, but, come on, he's wearing a sweater vest!)

Happy Halloween!

It was our first Halloween with Eli and our first time ever giving out candy. And apparently, people are bussed into our neighborhood for Halloween. It was crazy. We ran out of candy twice (I ran out to get more). I think the whole deal - and the hoards of people - overstimulated Eli, but he was really a good sport about the whole thing (see above).

We took him outside for a photoshoot with Cousin Mark before the craziness occurred. He is wondering why we did this to him:



We were trying to get a shot of his tail and his face and he wasn't being very cooperative. In fact, he had an uncanny knack of turning exactly when Josh took the picture. See below:


Cousin Mark is probably not a fan of this shot, but it gives you a good overall view of Eli as Eeyore (whoops, I spelled it wrong in the last post).

Here, he is admiring Mama's holiday spirit (orange shirt).


He also admired Daddy's orange sweater and was thankful to be part of a family of dorks.


And, finally, what I think it the cutest picture of Eli so far...not in costume but earlier the same day:


Are you dying from too much cuteness?