8/18 - Eli is 11 months!

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Papa was here over the weekend and everyone enjoyed that. Aiden and papa had some play time outside. Although it was hot, Papa was a trooper and played outside with Aiden for a bit. We did get to go to the pool one morning. It was Aiden's first time in the pool since his earache and he had to wear his Ear Band-It. He didn't mind it since that is the only way he could go in the pool. Aiden enjoyed swimming around with Papa and even went down the slide a few times for him (not the big slide in the background).
Eli is trying to get into everything that Aiden can do and Aiden isn't too excited about it. Aiden is getting upset here that Eli can touch his letter train. We finally moved the letter train up and gave Eli 2 letters to play with. That's working for now but I think Eli's growing pretty fast.

Aiden had a fruit roll-up for the first time the other day. It's safe to say he liked it. His hands were all sticky but he definitely liked it.

Aiden is starting to get too upset to play around Eli so I offered him the option to go in to our room (which is right off the living room) and to play in there and we could put the gate up. He liked that option and it's working pretty well. Eli wants to play with his big brother so much but sometimes Aiden wants his own space. In the picture of the boys by the gate, Aiden wasn't even liking that Eli was touching the gate so he's trying to take his fingers off. I told him Eli was allowed to stand and touch the gate because he couldn't climb over it. When the boys do play together, they have fun and there are lots of giggles. Aiden crawls around and Eli thinks it's pretty funny. It's so cute to watch them play - I love it.

Eli has started standing and letting go of things lately. He'll even walk with one hand. I thought that was pretty good for him but then I pulled up one of Aiden's 10 month pictures and he was walking holding on to one hand then. I pulled up the picture of Aiden in the light blue onesie and plaid shorts to compare how the boys look. Eli definitely has much more hair. Brad says he looks like a hippy and he's gonna cut his hair when he gets home. I think I'd agree. I'm not sure how to cut it now until I bring my mom up in a few weeks. Someone has to watch Aiden because Eli will have to sit on my lap.

Aiden is really into doing everything his "self." He even wanted to brush his own hair after his bath the other night. Tonight, he helped me pack his lunch and even put all his grapes in the baggie. He thinks he can do more than he really can (I have to be careful what I let him pour). We got new books from the library the other day and he wanted to read them by himself. Too cute. He still needs "ma" so I don't mind it.

Eli is teething like a mad-man and biting on everything in sight. I'm hoping he's not going to be a biter and this is just a phase. He's been a little grumpy lately but I think he's got multiple teeth coming in so he's in pain.

After missing a phone call from Brad earlier in the week, I was totally devasted for a day. I did talk with him today for 15 min or so and it was great to hear his voice. I wanted Aiden to say hi (we were in the van with bluetooth) but he wouldn't take off his headphones because Thomas was in the DVD player. Maybe next time. It stinks there is no skyping or anything like that. During his real deployment, the boys (Brad included) will have to make little video snippets to each other that we can play on the computer.