Elias - One Month

 

Elias is a wonderful baby! He is so well tempered that this newborn stage has been way more fun for me than my first rodeo 😅. He is calm and chill and only cries when hangry. He eats all the time and has chunked up quickly! Love that! He was born at 8lbs even, and 20.25 inches long. At one month, baby boy measures 11lbs and 22 inches long. 

Elias loves being outdoors and looking around and listening. He naps best in his Moses basket outside. We take long stroller walks and have been playing on the dock with Ellie a lot on the pond. He laughs in his sleep with the biggest grin and it is adorable! Ellie loves being a big sister and they already have a precious relationship going!

We sing and bounce to a lot of our Kindermusik of Greenville songs from when Ellie was an infant and he really enjoys it. Ellie enjoys interacting with him and singing her old songs to him and clapping his hands in rhythm. We do lots of exercises together to help him grow stronger every day so he can soon catch up with big sister! 😘 

Elias has already been getting into adventures with his fun loving family! He went to an egg hunt for Easter at my parents house where he met all of his cousins and Aunt and Uncle! 

He went with us to take Ellie to an Easter egg hunt and event at the unicorn farm and met the Easter bunny. He celebrated his first Easter just a week after being born.

Elias has been strawberry picking at Hunter Farms with Ellie and lots of friends!

He has gone to his first big monthly family dinner with my friends and their families where we cook out and all the kids run wild and free happily! 

And Elias has had his first hike with us and some friends to my favorite upstate hike, Brasstown Falls! He enjoyed laying on a towel in the shade and in the arms of friends and his Mimi who also came! 

He had his first photography session having newborn photos taken by our precious, Anna Bargeron Photography. Here are a few snaps she took (including the very first photo at the top of the blog)!

He naps well, and sleeps well too. He sleeps 3-4 hours straight and with Eric and I taking turns with feedings, we usually only each have to get up once in the middle of the night - although - getting up physically and then waking up mentally because of the tiniest sound and being on full alert are totally different and so we are still in those early newborn night stages where we literally jump out of bed or become wide awake if even a false alarm cry from down the hall happens. 😅😂 

He is a sweet little treasure and having this sweet boy makes me wish I’d had him sooner because choosing to complete our family with him is one of the best decisions I have ever made!

Mini Upstate SC Wine Tour

One thing Eric and I have always enjoyed doing together is going wine tasting and visiting beautiful venues and views, and supporting local wineries. We have enjoyed wine touring in Victoria, Canada, Washington, Michigan, North Carolina, and Georgia. We have a couple places we enjoy to visit here in SC. SC wine is not our favorite if locally sourced grapes because we prefer dry wines and down here those sort of grapes just don't thrive. However, we still enjoy the adventure and sometimes our local wineries actually get their grapes from CA where there are dryer grapes. 

For a while now I have been wanting to tour some of the more North Greenville area wineries but I was pregnant the last 9 months and before that we had the blessing of a travel filled summer. So with Elias born and us moving away in a matter of days, we decided to have a relaxing family adventure day and check out three wineries in Travelers Rest. 

Winery #1: "Kennington Family Winery"

Our first stop and our favorite of the three! It is a new establishment settled on a quiet mountainside road with great lawn seating, (or indoor), lawn games, live local music, and really awesome wine with grapes sourced from CA. We got a flight of 5 wines to try each. Besides the wine and atmosphere, our favorite detail was how it was easily a family spot. Being able to do something we enjoy as a couple with our kids is so great. They had a juice list for Ellie to select 5 juices to try as her own "juice flight!" They came labeled and on a little board and she felt so included and happy. Elias camped out in the shade on a fuzzy blanket in the grass and napped. We got a charcuterie board with really great meats and cheeses, grapes, and jam. My favorite wine is a Cab Franc and they had a great one on the list. Ellie and I played cornhole. They also have a large Connect 4 lawn game. The sun was shining and beautiful and Ellie rolled down the hills of grass and we were all just soaking in the vitamin D and fam time. Great spot for fams couples, and friends! 

Winery #2: "Wellborn Winery"

The charming part about this winery is its location and its family owned and operated staff. Tucked away in the mountainous woods of TR, Wellborn Winery brought instant joy with blooming flowers, gardens, trees, music, and smiling faces. The family runs this out of their own beautiful wooded backyard. They are Italians moved here living their dream growing their own grapes as well as sourcing a local neighbor and friend's to make their wine. Now their wine was way too sweet for our tastes but nonetheless worth visiting and supporting and enjoying their beautiful site. We got to try 6 wines each, served on a silver tray! They are so friendly! Ellie enjoyed playing with their dog, Lily and exploring the woods a little bit (I wouldn't let her adventure too far on someone else's property of course.) It was a sweet little spot!

Winery #3: "Eagle Mountain Vineyards & Winery"

This was a special spot to be sure! What a gorgeous location! This is a great spot for all! Beautiful, mountainside, good wine, kind personable service, music, and something for the kids. They are a newer establishment as well and I am so happy we got the chance to try them out. They have a great wine list to choose from. They have a list already created for tastings and the list was excellent. I enjoyed them all. My favorite there was the Cab Sauv. Their labels and glasses were pretty to go right along with their venue. It's a good place for cute pictures to be taken with girlfriends have a girls day or couples. Just a pretty little spot. Now, they did not have any drinks besides water for kids (which Ellie kindly asked about in her big girl voice), but they did have a neat idea to include children by giving Ellie a cork and markers. She got to decorate a cork and then they let her put it in a glass top display table for all to see. She worked hard on this and was so proud of her cork. She wants to bring Mimi and G-Daddy back there to see it she told me. We ended our day here relaxing, sipping, talking, Elias napping in my arms. then we went into town for dinner. Which is another great point to the location of these wineries - DT TR is close by so when you're done, hit up town and grab dinner at one of the great local fares!