5/26 - Eli & the hippo and Aiden & the turtle

We've been trying to get Eli to learn to walk with his hippo and he's only mildly interested. He keeps his legs straight as a board and won't bend them; therefore, he cannot walk. Above is a picture of our straight-legged Eli getting ready to face plant (although I caught him before that happened) since he won't bend his legs and won't let go. Below, you can see a video of Eli not really caring about walking and Aiden just wondering around in the background.

Eli has tons of fun when daddy plays with him which hasn't gotten to happen too much over the past week since Brad had his surgery (vasectomy). Although he was very sore for a couple of days and couldn't walk, he is doing much better now.

Aiden and Eli have been cute lately. This is Aiden laying on the activity table that is Eli's to play with. Aiden sometimes has a hard time understanding that while these used to be his toys, they are "baby" toys now and still wants to play with them (and not let Eli play with them).

As you can see at the very beginning of the video below, Eli is having a blast playing with Aiden ... until he fell over. Eli is munching hard on his spoon rattle as you can see too.

Ms. Michel, Aiden's daycare provider, came over the other day with a huge table for him. When she showed up at the door she pointed out we had a visitor on our porch. We went out and fed the turtle and petted him. The turtle turned down the lettuce and tomatoes but Aiden really wanted him to have them and made it almost impossible for the turtle to leave.

You can see the huge table she gave us. Aiden LOVES it. We put it downstairs and he has a whole area to play with all his trains. He just goes downstairs and plays by himself whenever he wants which is great. I LOVE not having to worry about baby gates and steps and I don't think that will have to change unless Eli gets really motivated to crawl (I'm not counting on that to happen). I'm glad Aiden was exposed to steps because he learned how to go up and down them safely and we don't have to worry about it. I'm nervous Eli won't get that exposure and will be reckless with steps. We'll see.

Aiden and I have gotten some bug bites lately and he had one pretty bad on his arm. I had to put his boo boo buddy on it which he hates so I taped it to him and begged him to leave it along while he watched an episode of Thomas the Train! He looks less than thrilled to say the least :)
We went to the playground this morning and Aiden had fun. You can barely see his busted lip which he got yesterday at daycare running into a chair or falling off a chair ... something involving a chair. It's his worst fat lip so far!!

He's still adorable though!

This afternoon Eli decided to wake early from his nap. He hasn't been sleeping well because he is teething again. We thought he got his 2nd tooth in but we were wrong. It's about to pop through any day. It's come flying out when it breaks that gum. It took Aiden's tooth about a month to get as tall as Eli's has gotten in less than a week.

Back to Eli, he loves laying by Pouncer and grabbing his hair. He smiles at him as he walks by. I can't wait for Eli to see Bronco again and get used to him.

In the picture below you will see the boys, myself, and Betty. Betty is the lactation consultant at Calvert hospital and has helped all of us immensely. Aiden had no idea how to suck and Betty helped with him a lot and Eli and I have had problems with thrush and she's helped us get rid of that too. She's an awesome person and I am sad not to have any more babies that she can help me with! I found out today Chunky Monkey weighs 19 lbs, 13 ounces.
Tonight we went to base and saw the USMC Silent Drill Team perform. They were great. It was pretty warm out even though it started at 6:00pm. Aiden kept himself entertained which I was excited about and Eli was good too.

It was a nice family event and I can't wait until we do things that they are really interested in and keeps their attention. Aiden did find the marching band to be entertaining.

Hopefully Eli's tooth will come through soon. We are 31 days out from leaving Pax and still have no orders (they were promised by Friday but they said that last week too). It looks like our renters are going to be out without a problem (praise the Lord) ... now all we need is orders. Please pray for them. We can do nothing (set up a move for example) without them!

5/23 - 8 mo comparison & Brad is "fixed"

The picture below with the white card is Aiden at 8 months and the yellow card is for Eli.

Eli is doing pretty well. He cut his second tooth yesterday so we now have the bottom two teeth. Hopefully he'll be a little like Aiden in the sense that Aiden always cut 2 teeth at a time. I am now on a hunt for Ibuprofen because since Tylenol recalled all their infant medicine a few weeks ago, I haven't been able to find any ibuprofen. Tylenol/acetaminophen doesn't work well for Eli so I need to find ibuprofen soon. Chunky monkey is starting to stand for pretty long periods of time while holding on to something. We've tried walking with the hippo but he's not so interested in moving his legs (at all) so once the hippo starts moving forward, Eli just hangs on until he almost face plants (that's when I catch him). He's thought about getting up and trying to crawl but hasn't even tried army crawling yet. Eli still LOVES his jumping johnny. He loves to just roll around on the floor and play with various items that Aiden has let fall off the table in the living room. He likes to stand at his activity tables too and play. He'll get moving pretty soon. I'm trying to not be in a rush for it to happen because when I think back to Aiden, I had to focus on him a lot more when he got more mobile.

Aiden is also doing well. I can't believe he'll be 2 years old soon. He knows LOTS of words and will say the first syllable of any word you ask him to say. His knows all his colors (he can say them) and many of his shapes. He only talks using one words but he pronounces pretty darn clear for a 23 month old. He refuses to string 2 words together but it will eventually happen. His understanding vocabulary is crazy awesome. He can build train tracks although sometimes he needs help with the curves. He knows dozens of animals but his favorite are fish and turtles. He loves his cars and trucks and trains. He won't go to bed without 2-4 cars/trains/trucks. He takes them for nap time and night-night time. I can't complain because he normally goes to sleep without any protest as long as he has a car/truck/train. When he wakes up from sleeping, he turns his own sound machine off and comes out the living room. He's a great helper and puts his shoes away and usually helps out with Eli. So far he is a great big brother and he's finally understanding our rule of "before you take a train/car/truck away from Eli, you have to give him one he CAN play with." We have no idea why Eli is allowed to play with a certain train one day and not another.

This picture of Brad is after a dose of Valium!! Brad had a vasectomy last Friday to make sure that Aiden and Eli are the only children that we will have. Babies don't like to stay in my body and we seem to always have a rough start in the beginning. A small part of me is sad because I would LOVE to have a baby and enjoy the first few months. With Aiden, the first 3 months were horrible and I couldn't stand him. With Eli, the first few weeks were great and then it turned into a horrible nightmare with multiple hospitalizations and colic until he was 6.5 months old. I yearn to experience that love that I see so many women have with their babies. With both of mine, for a period of several months, I hated life and wondered why I had such horrible/sick babies. Part of me wants a third baby hoping that I can enjoy the baby part and cuddle them and look into their eyes and be in love. That said, our history suggests that we will not have such a baby and I would be lucky to make it to 30 weeks without going into labor and being on drugs and bedrest for the next 1.5-2 months. We are very thankful that God has given us 2 boys and they are great NOW. I will have to enjoy other people's babies and be glad when I hear that my friends have these angel babies that they enjoy and not be jealous. Brad's procedure went well although he is having a very hard time walking right now and we might be calling the doctor tomorrow morning to see if things are healing as they are supposed to. Until next time ...

5/21 - In-laws are gone

Aiden and Eli have had tons of fun with grandma Jo and grandpa Dave. We have had a few nights of good sleep now that Eli is done cutting that first tooth. I think the other one will come in any day now. In the picture below, Brad gave Eli his first mohawk. He actually looks pretty cute with it.

In the video below, Eli was being cute and doing this new thing with his mouth. He rolls his lips in and looks like an old man with no teeth. He looks pretty cute. Eli is doing a pretty good job eating although now he just cries when I put puffs on his plate because he knows he is not so good at getting them in his mouth.

I took the picture with the boys and Pouncer the other day. Aiden really wanted up on the bed to pet Pouncer too but I wanted Eli to enjoy him a bit. Pouncer has gotten so good at letting the boys pet him. He really misses Bronco bathing him and roughing him up some but the kids are pretty good substitute.
Aiden was getting a little too friendly with Pouncer. He doesn't realize he can't lay on Pouncer like he could Bronco. We have just a few more months until the boys can see Bronco again. Bronco is doing great at my mom's place but I'd like the boys to be able to see him now and again to get used to dogs (and just to see my Bronco Boy).

I wanted to make Aiden a birthday card to send in to Sprout (a TV channel for pre-schoolers). With grandma Hoyt in town, we did an awesome card. I cut out pictures and decided on the wording and she brought it to life. We will find out on June 2 if they will show it on TV!


Below is a video of Eli taking his 8 month pictures. I'll post those tomorrow but this video is pretty good.

Finally, we took a family picture the other day for a church request. We needed a picture of Brad in his work uniform.

I'm tired. I want to type more about the boys tomorrow and the milestones that are happening. I also want to compare 8 months pictures.

5/16 - The in-laws are here!!

So I've published the blogs from 2008 into a book. I thought this might be a good idea since I don't have time to scrapbook anymore. I just received the book and it's really good quality. I ended up paying $48 for the book. I ordered my 2009 book since I liked 2008 so much and it was more expensive because it was about twice as long. The pages are good quality and the color is great.
On Thursday, Brad and I (and the boys) went to Baltimore for Brad to turn in his paperwork for Brad's private pilots license. After the 1.5 drive, we thought the boys needed to get out. It just happened that there was a bounce house right by the FAA building. Aiden has never been to a bounce house except the one at the squadron christmas party which he kinda liked for about 5 minutes. Thankfully Aiden is getting pretty good at ladders thanks to all the playground time. He could climb up this little ladder and go down the slide all by himself.

Below the video of Aiden getting in the bounce house for the first time. Aiden didn't really like to bounce ... I think Eli will love to bounce eventually; he maxs out on the jumping johnny now!

BettyJo and Dave are here and we are enjoying his company. They got here on Friday night. On Saturday we went to Annapolis in the morning which is when the picture of Eli in the car was taken.

It was a beautiful morning and we ended up getting there around 9:45am. We did lots of walking and Aiden did a ton of walking and stair climbing. The picture below is where the academy students do their formations in the morning.

Grandma and Aiden had fun smelling the flowers.

Aiden also had fun trying to fit into the lockers in the rooms of students.
At dinner last night, Eli was having fun playing with grandpa. He had such an adoring look on his face. Too cute.
Grandma got to play with Eli last night and he enjoyed that too. Unfortunately, Eli kept staring at me and wouldn't smile and play with grandma like he was before the camera showed up.
We went to church today. Eli has been teething and didn't let us get much sleep last night. We drugged him (Tylenol) before bed and about 1:30am. We also gave him orajel but that didn't seem to matter much. He was tossing, turning, and whining (and crying) for a good portion of the night. This morning he was very congested and running a fever. I still think his bottom 2 teeth are coming in but they still have a while before they pop up. We'll see how he does tonight and tomorrow morning and then I'll decide if I should take him to the doctor. Aiden is stuffy as well but we don't know if it's allergies or if they are both sick.
We are having a blast with the Hoyt's here. We had pictures done at Target tonight although the kids although they weren't very happy. I might re-do them in a week or so ... we'll see.

5/12 - Aiden + corn and Eli + no sitting

The past few days have been pretty good although we are encountering some nap troubles with Eli. He is exhausted and decides he only wants to sleep an hour in his crib. He starts screaming (which will wake Aiden up - he is napping too) and won't start. I take him out to the living room and he promptly falls asleep in my arms. It's so adorable, but so frustrating. I think I'm gonna start making him nap downstairs in the pack and play and close the door so Aiden and I can't hear him scream as loud. He needs to figure out how to nap for longer than an hour. He'll sleep another hour in my arms or on the couch so he can do it in his crib or pack and play.
The above two pictures are from Eli going from crazy happy to upset and crying within seconds because it's getting close to nap time.
Eli has also started to do something new in the past 2 days ... he doesn't want to sit. It sounds crazy but as you can see in the picture above and in the video below, he won't sit. If I do happen to get him to sit, he throws himself backward so he can lay down. Never had this problem with Aiden. We have gone to just putting a tad of water in the bathtub since he insists on laying down.

We got Aiden some new shoes the other day which he really likes. Also, we've finally added bubble mixture to his bubble blower and he's been loving that. He has to walk fast in order for the bubbles to come out but he's got the hang of that now.
The picture below might seem like a normal picture: a little boy playing in dirt and rocks with a dump truck. This is HUGE for Aiden. He HATES to be dirty and has never just played in dirt or the rocks before. It was killing me he was getting his new white shoes dirty but great that he wasn't freaking out about the dirt. After we got upstairs, I proceeded to clean his shoes (jee, I wonder why he's so obsessive).

When I picked Aiden up from daycare on Tuesday, Michel was chucking corn. Aiden thought that was pretty neat so she gave us an ear to take home. We cooked it and peeled it together. He thought it was pretty neat. He loves corn but we haven't shown him corn on the cob yet.

After some trial and error of eating corn, he finally figured it out and LOVES it. As you can see in the picture below, he was trying to eat the end of the ear so we had to teach him to eat from the side of the corn.
I never knew eating corn could be so much fun. Sometimes we take little things for granted.

The video below is another example of Eli not wanting to sit. He's too funny and is doing this all the time now. He has become so much more mobile by rolling around. He tried to get up on all 4's today and acted like he knew how to crawl. He was thinking about it.

The pictures below are from tonight. Brad put just an inch or so water in the tub since Eli won't sit now. He loved rolling around and splashing and chasing his toys.

We got a GPS unit yesterday which we are excited about. We will be using it to drive to Baltimore tomorrow to get the ball rolling for Brad to get his private pilot license. On Friday, the Hoyt family will be coming to town and on Saturday we are going to Annapolis. Fun times ahead.

5/9 - Happy Mother's Day & Eli's car seat

So Eli has a big boy car seat now!! He was starting to arch his back and go crazy when we put him in his carrier. Eli lasted 7.5 months in a carrier ... Aiden lasted only 6 months. It's much harder though to carry Eli everywhere so we still have the base installed and use it sometimes (especially when I know Eli is going to nap in the car). Below, Aiden wanted to wear my "yellow" shirt rather than his PJs. Too cute. I didn't realize I was that big!
Eli has started to do pretty good at night (knock on wood). It's been pretty warm here lately so we went to just onesies. He has to have something against his face to sleep normally so we leave a couple burp clothes in his crib. He has just started to figure out that he can roll over in his crib and is sleeping on his belly most of the time when I check on him before I go to bed.
Eli is getting stronger everyday and can stand for a while now. Here he is playing at one of the activity tables.
I took the boys to the library for the first time ever the other day. They both had fun. Aiden had ZERO interest in reading books (although he loves to read them at home). He found a train book that he played with for a while until he found the huge play center. After he found that, he wanted nothing to do with books.
Below, you can see the play center. Even Eli liked it.
Yesterday we had a MOPs (Mothers of Preschoolers) picnic. We took the boys and were having fun but then it started raining.
In the picture below is Aiden's friend, Kaden. They are a few months apart and are great friends. They see each other for sunday school, church, and MOPs stuff.
Eli has been experimenting A LOT lately with his mouth. He makes an "O" mouth all the time for the past few days and I finally got a picture of it.

Once it started raining, we had to pack up our picnic blanket and go under the pavilion. Aiden had fun pushing Eli around in between rain showers although he could barely reach the handle bar.
All the kids were playing in the rain and Aiden was no exception. Most of them were playing on the softball up the hill but Aiden stayed right by us and was just running around.
Today was a good day. Eli slept in until 7:40!!! He's NEVER done that before. It was a great Mother's Day Present. Unfortunately, Aiden doesn't sleep that long so we were up well before then. Brad made waffles which Aiden loved (as did I). In the picture below, we were using the automatic smile function on our new camera we got yesterday. You push a button and it won't take a picture until the subject smiles. It's pretty cool. Aiden finally broke the gum on his 2 bottom incisors and the top should follow shortly .
After church today, we went home for naps. Aiden decided to sleep almost 3 hrs until I woke him up because I wanted to go outside. Eli on the other hand, decided to almost not nap at all. We went to Solomon's Rec Center and walked around and found a playground.
As you can see, Brad and I enjoyed the playground time.
The boys did too. We were trying to get Eli to nap so we made him a cocoon with the sunshades but that didn't make him sleep. Here is happy as a clam as Brad checks in on him.
After playground time, we went out to dinner. We fed Eli before our food got there so we could eat. Eli loves his food!
Aiden did such a good job tonight. He actually ate his dinner ... most of it. He normally won't touch dinner if we get it out (we are lucky if he eats at home). He had chicken fingers and a juice box. He also sat in a booster seat for only the second time. Now that Eli eats too, we need Aiden to sit in a booster seat so Eli can sit in the high chair. Aiden forgets that sometimes but we can't have a booth with 2 high chairs.

Below is a cute video of the boys eating tonight. Eli has been getting distracted by everything that's above him lately. I even got a picture of him in the jumping johnny today staring up.

Tomorrow Brad will have to see if he broke his pointer finger yesterday while trying to throw a ball UP a curly slide at the playground. Also, Brad's parents are coming on Friday which should be fun. Hopefully I can post the day before they come. We are planning on doing some touristy stuff while they are here. Also, we are praying we will finally get orders soon. We are less than 50 days out and still don't have orders. Brad checks out on June 27 and .... we need orders to set up a move. Keep us in your prayers.