4/28 - Together Again

So I made it back safely. I was enjoying being gone but glad to be back with my family. I got back at dinner time which is perfect. I got out the two star wands that light up that I got at Nationals and gave them to the boys. They loved them.
Monday went great with the boys and I was glad to be here all day with them. Yesterday Eli decided to just scream for an hour straight in the afternoon. I got him calmed down and then picked up Aiden who apparently didn't nap at daycare. He was horrible. He cried almost the entire way home and made Eli start crying since he was so loud. I couldn't even get dinner together because Aiden was trying to hang on me so I had to send him to his room until he stopped crying (which didn't happen until dinner was ready).
Above is Aiden loving on Pouncer. He really misses being able to rough house with an animal like he could do with Bronco. We'll definitely be making a trip to St. Pete soon after moving to visit with Bronco and my mom. Brad found a hat in his closet and put it on Eli. Eli wasn't so sure of it.
Eli LOVES being naked and he got so happy when I took his clothes off last night. I took them off to change him into his PJs because he was getting so grumpy but making him naked bought me an extra 20 minutes of smiles and laughs!

Below is a video of Aiden trying to jump again and then just being crazy at night.

Brad works late tonight and tomorrow I have an orthopedic appointment to look at my "mommy" elbow. Eli is starting to get sick and has been really stuff the last 2 days. Other than that, I'm so glad to be home with my boys.

Last full day with Mommy gone

It was raining today, and gloomy most of the day. We managed to get outside anyway and roam around. I am really just going to narrate pictures. Amy comes home tomorrow and she can take over the blog again. I am merely trying to keep her from missing us too much and allowing her to have as few worries and as much fun as possible.

Aiden had a big breakfast today. He broke off the top half of his banana, but couldn't leave without all of it. Eli staring at Aiden as usual.

We went outside and started off just playing under the awnings and overhangs. Plenty of room for Aiden on his bike.

We finally had a break and went over to Don and Kay's house. It is so beautiful with all the flowers in bloom. the following picture is Aiden playing with Don's car, which he loves.

The following video is Aiden's new favorite game. He started this in our yard, but really got into it at the Sidenspeiners. You can see dandelion seeds on the back of his head at one point from him throwing them so hard.

We got to skype with Mom which was awesome.

This last video is just after bath time, and it shows how much these two love to play together. Actually, it has no sound so you can't hear Eli laughing, and at the end Aiden just wants in the jumper, but trust me, they were having a ball, I got to the camera a little too late.

4/23 - more NCAA's pics

It's great to be back in g'ville. I went for a run this morning and we got to walk around campus a little before the meet today.

We had the reunion today and as you can see from the picture above, a good number of ex-gymnasts from UF showed up. It was fun chatting and catching up with people. Nini, the girl in the middle of the picture below, finally got to see some gymnastics last night. The three of us would watch gymnastics meets all the time in grad school. We had fun cheering on the Gators. The Gators had a really rough night and ended up not doing so well. They finished 5th but put themselves in a hole on the first event again and it was too hard to dig themselves out with the other teams being so strong. We did get to see some great gymnastics though.
To relieve our sadness, we went out for ice cream afterwards. We also got to play Candyland while we ate which was fun.

Tomorrow we have a stadium workout in store for us followed by potential pedicures and then more gymnastics. I'm loving it. I am hopefully also gonna Skype with all my boys tomorrow which I am excited for although it may make me miss them more. Brad is doing a great job. He's keeping up with the blog better than me!!

Friday - videos of Aiden jumping!

Today I had to go back to work. Aiden went to Michele's and Eli went with Cheryl. They both came home happy and told me great stories about their day. It was a beautiful day so we went on the porch when we got home.

Both, make that all three boys love the hammock. Everytime I go out there with Aiden he runs over and says "up."

Above is Aiden saying cheese and enjoying the Hammock. Below you can see that even little Eli was "chillin."

The bottom two videos are to prove to Amy that Aiden thinks he can jump. Unfortunately, he got his fathers ups and will be destined to play point guard! There is no sound because I have the old camera and basically haven't earned playing with the new camera. That is all for today!

In this one Aiden is giving me high fives when he gets to the camera.

In this bottom one you can see how Aiden made an obstacle course out of the two jumps. You can bet he made Daddy do it too!

4/22 - NCAA's

Here are a few pictures I took before I left for FL. Aiden got some new crocs at the leprechaun lilly sale. He loves them although they are a little too big for him. They have little mickey mouses on them which he doesn't care about because he doesn't know who that is.
The above picture was Aiden playing hide and go seek in the flowers. The picture below is little Eli just laughing it up.

Above, Eli making a mess eating his mum-mums. He gets so dirty but letting him eat them on his own is the only way he's going to get the motor control to be a clean eater eventually. The picture below is Eli at the park in a swing for the first time. He LOVED it.
This is someone's swing set down the road from us and they let the boys use it.
Aiden walking over Eli while Eli is still trying to wake up from his nap.
Jess and I are having a great time at Nationals. We watched gymnastics from 11:30 to 10:30pm. That's a lot of gymnastics and my butt hurts from sitting on a bleacher that long. I'm going to get a run in tomorrow morning and then tomorrow I have an alumni function in the afternoon and Super Six (the finals) in the evening. On Saturday I plan on doing stadiums!!
Brad has done a great job taking care of the boys and updating the blog. I'm hoping I still make enough milk when I come back ... Eli and I might have some adjusting to do. Brad has been great and sent me a picture of the boys on Wed and Thur. I can't wait to skype with them on Saturday. Off to sleep. I'm exhausted. I'm not used to having a snoring person in the same room as me (love you Jess but I may sleep on the couch tonight!).

First full day without Amy here

Today started out so well. Both kids woke up happy and hungry. We ate and headed to Wal-Mart, mainly because we were out of milk for Aiden for the afternoon. The above picture was taken at Wal-Mart when we found a cowboy hat in the cereal aisle. It is proof that he will do anything when I say, "say cheese for a picture for Mommy." He refuses to wear any shoes other than his Crocs, pretty funny. 

Once we got home the feeding and the naps began. Aiden actually started his nap at 10:00 when he told me he was going to play in his room. I went to check on him about 5 minutes later when it was silent and he was laying on his bed hands behind his head, with all the lights on and asleep. I had to wake him up and he cried for awhile, but we played hard and he went down at the regular time.

Just wanted to add this picture to show how tired Aiden was before his nap finally started!

Eli and I were playing his favorite game, "Boo." he loves that game. Once everyone got done napping chaos ensued. Someone was crying from the time naps ended to the time I put Eli to sleep 15 minutes early. This included our walk, which is a loose interpretation of the word walk. We got about a block from the house before I had to turn back because there was just no pleasing either child. Aiden actually jumped out of the stroller before I got it stopped. I am not sure how much Amy is really going to like the stand-up part of the stroller. 

Just wanted to post this picture to show that once Eli gets in his Jumper, there is no stopping him. This was when Aiden was crying, he didn't eat until 6:15. Below I used the high speed function, notice the concentration in his face.

Tomorrow Aiden goes to Michele's and Eli goes with Cheryl Hartsfield. They will both have fun doing that. I have to go to work, but I will get to see them again in the afternoon. Now it is off to watch the draft and possibly fall asleep on the couch!

Amy has left the building!

Amy left for Florida this afternoon to cheer on her Florida Gators at Nationals for gymnastics. She is going to go with some long time friends, and she is extremely excited. She deserves this break, and I am very glad she is able to go, so it is just the boys and me.

Don't call child protective services yet, Daddy is on the scene! Ok, so that may not inspire confidence, but once I got home and took the kids from the Becky, I managed to feed them, bathe them, and get them into bed...almost on time. Of course in the process both Aiden and Eli cried, I cut my finger, and soaked my jeans. It all got done thought! 

The above picture is the boys playing after the bath. I had to put Eli in the jumper to keep him happy while finishing Aiden's bath. When Aiden was done in the bath, he wanted in the jumper. Of course what this picture doesn't show is Aiden playing "Push" with Eli after I took him out of the Jumper. The game really is what it sounds like. Eli was just watching him and then Aiden pushed him over.

This picture is to prove I did manage to get Eli to stop crying after the game of "Push," which only has one turn when you play with Eli. Tomorrow we have big plans which include Daddy surviving a trip to Wal-Mart. That should be lots of fun.

4/13 - Back in MD

These are pictures from TX still. Aiden "played" the piano for the first time and really enjoyed himself. I was gone from Wed night until Sat afternoon for the most part. I'd get home around 6:30ish and then leave by 6:15am so I didn't get to see the boys (Brad included) much. Brad would take pictures and send them to me on my cell phone throughout the day.
Lexi, the black lab, stayed very close to Aiden during meal times in case Aiden dropped anything. Eli, in the picture below was thinking about going down the slide.
I thought in the picture below that Aiden was wearing medals (Kassie is a pretty good basketball player). I was a bit surprised when I e-mail it to myself and opened it that he was wearing all of Kassie's necklaces. I'm hoping this is a phase! If you sneak back up to the top picture, you can see he is wearing a necklace while playing the piano.
Kassie and Aiden became good buds. She watched the boys for us a few times so we could hang out with Steph and Steve (Brad's sister and BIL).
Aiden even tried to do Bryce's homework oneday.
They went to a cool store (according to them) called Cabella's which had an aquarium. Aiden had fun. He even found a cot (it's a camping store) that he fell in love with. And yes, Brad let Aiden out in public with a necklace on.
On Saturday afternoon, I finally got to see the boys too. Brad dressed them in matching outfits for me! We went to the park after naptime and I wanted to get a picture with both of them. After I finally got Aiden to sit near Eli, here is what happened. Aiden is learning how to "push" things. He decided it would be fun to push Eli.
Eli, however, did NOT think it was fun.
We did get a cute picture though.
Eli is such a little ham. Look at that face ... so adorable. He's sitting up so much better in just the week we were here.

Aiden in training for the balance beam in the picture below.

I found some new toys to play with at my conference. My arm is still really sore so I could only take fitness classes that dealt mainly with the lower body. Needless to say, I'm just now starting to walk comfortably again. These discs that Aiden are on kicked my butt. I had to get some because they were such a good workout. I learned some neat stuff for the gym and some new knowledge about a couple of areas. I had a lot of fun and really miss being able to go and present and conferences. Look at the back of Aiden's head - yeah, that's a necklace.

We took this picture the night before we were leaving. It's part of the Smith family and all of the Hoyt family. Bryce took the picture and Kassie was still at her basketball banquet. We had a great time in Austin.
Kassie even woke up early the morning we were leaving to say hi and play with the boys for a while.

The journey back to MD went pretty well. We got in at 11:30pm and all slept in a bit this morning. We are back on schedule now. Tonight, Aiden and Eli took their first real bath together with Eli sitting on his own. He is growing so fast.

I'm exhausted and need to get to bed. Brad has the rest of this week off which is awesome although I'll be gone most of tomorrow. The video below is something Brad sent me while at my conference one day. It's Aiden on a frog.

The video below is one Brad took to show how Aiden is creative enough to find a swing even when we won't take him to the park. The ottoman is a versatile solution for everyday living! Of course it wouldn't be TX if Aiden didn't have a necklace on!

4/6 - Easter, Eli sits up, and in Texas

We had a great Easter. Aiden found eggs in the morning which had cars and jungle animals. He did a great job of finding them although needed help opening most of them.
We got Eli a new big boy seat like Aiden eats in. I think he likes it. He started sitting at the blog titled Eli's Firsts. He did it a few times that day but I thought it was a fluke. It turns out, he sits up now. We have to put a blanket behind him because he falls over often but he's gotten much better in the last few days.
The pictures below are from our plane trip. It went pretty well after we finally got through security. The boys tried to stay awake the whole flight but thankfully they eventually both feel asleep. Below you can see Eli (we had to cover his face so he would close his eyes) on Brad's lap.
Below you can see Aiden in his seat. He had no room between his car seat and the back of the other seat. He kept kicking it because he had no room. I felt bad for him and the woman sitting in front of him.
Aiden is loving hanging out with his cousins, Kassie and Bryce. Bryce has more trains than we could have ever imagined and really cool pieces. Kassie and Bryce built a really cool track for Aiden. He was having so much fun.

After they played trains for a few hours, Bryce got out a box of cars/trucks. Aiden really went nuts and hasn't stopped playing with them since. In fact, Aiden has pretty much taken over their living room with trucks and trains.

There is a park pretty close to Steph and Steve's house. We went down there yesterday and the kids and Steph. We had fun as you can see.
Bryce put together this helicopter. You pull a string and it goes flying. Aiden thought it was pretty cool.

We passed Eli around to keep changing the scenery for him. He likes Steph and Kassie.

Today we went down to where the conference is at so I can make sure I can find it tomorrow. We also went down to a park where Aiden had a ton of fun. He got to play in a fire truck and go on a real mini train.

There was this big playground and all Aiden wanted to do was play on the "track" which he kept repeating to me.
He was so excited about the train that we bought tickets and took the boys on a 20 min train ride. The picture below is Eli before the train ride ... he fell asleep on the way home.

Aiden thought it was pretty cool that we went under a bride but we were on a bridge still.

The picture was taken tonight. Eli was eating his toys while Brad was eating the remote. You can see Eli sitting up pretty well. Eli had to forgo his usual oatmeal cereal tonight because ... he's a little clogged up. We might have to take him to a clinic pretty soon. We have fed him prunes a couple of times but they aren't working. We gave him some pear nectar today. We'll see if that produces anything.

I'm exhausted. I am NOT big fan of sleeping in the same room as Eli. He wakes up crying every morning at 5am. I don't go back to sleep after that!! It's horrible. We might have to put him somewhere tonight. My conference finally starts tomorrow afternoon which I'm excited about. Hopefully I'll get the chance to blog again before we head back to MD.