3/27 - Nana is here!

Last Tuesday the boys found a mater costume that someone gave me last year at the consignment sale. They got it out and "towed" each other around for a while. 

Because of the timeline I was dealing with on Tuesday, Eli was forced to come to Aiden's therapy (OT and Speech) for the first time. Eli did a good job playing by himself for the majority of Aiden's speech therapy appt.  

Ms. Lisa was nice enough to let Eli do some stuff with Aiden. Aiden had a blast on the swing as you can see.

Eli thought the scooter board and did pretty well on it.

He tried to do some of the same things that Aiden was doing but he struggled a bit more with a beading activity and got a little frustrated.

Aiden is doing better with his writing. He is trying more but I almost always have to correct his grip but at least he's not completely breaking down and crying every time I try and fix his grip. Here he in OT with a weighted sleeve on his arm so that he has to work his muscles a little more and it provides some stability.

I went down and got my mom last week and brought her back up with me. Here are the boys eating a popsicle that I just bought them. It was Eli's first one and he wasn't really sure what to do with it.

Eli is such a little cuddle monster after his night/nap time and here we are cuddling after he woke up from a nap.

We had an afternoon park date last week. We met up with Sydney, Allison, & Jordyn. It was beautiful outside and the kids had a blast.

We got a group photo of the boys and I with Nana and Bronco. Bronco enjoyed going down the slides for the first time in a while.

I also got a picture of all the kids. They all get along so well. 

Aiden really wanted Nana to watch him play on the iPad last week and she happily ablated him. Eli tries really hard to use the letter program that Aiden likes so much but he's just not ready for the fine motor control that is needed.

 

On Friday afternoon, we went to beach at Amelia Island and met our friend Sue and her boys. It's been a while since we've had Aiden at the beach and trying to get wet at the same time.

It was a great time to go because it was low tide and there was like a small narrow river all along the beach. It was perfect because Aiden was much more relaxed because he knew the waves wouldn't get him and that the water wasn't too deep.

Here is Aiden posing with Nana.

Of course Eli didn't mind getting wet and sandy real quick. The water was quite cold but that didn't keep Eli from standing and sitting in it. Here he is showing me his sand castle mold that he filled up with the shovel.

I was so proud of Aiden. Sue told me beforehand that I should bring a big dump truck or something so we did. Aiden pushed it all over the beach after he got comfortable. Some places were deeper than others and he got a little panicked at times but did a great job. He must have done 20 laps back and forth with the dump truck before I finally convinced him to give it up and let one of Sue's boys borrow it.

It was a good trade in Aiden's mind to give up the dump truck. He then got to take the bogey board all over the place and he thought that was pretty fun. He carried that thing around for a long time.

Eli finally stopped playing with the bucket and shovel and got a bogey board too and thought he was pretty special.

Eli hopped on Aiden's board when he was in the sand but Aiden couldn't really pull him on the sand.

We told Eli that was a bad idea because he was going to fall over/off the board and into the cold water (and even though it's shallow, it's definitely deep enough for Eli to drown. The boys each got a board and walked around for a while towards the end of our stay and they had a great time. We ate dinner at Sue's house and then headed home about 6:30pm.

On Saturday morning, we went to Lowe's for the Build and Grow workshop. The activity this week was mini chalkboards. I pretty much helped Eli and my mom helped Aiden. They both did a good job of hitting the nails with the hammer.

I'm not so sure why Aiden is hitting his head with the wrong side of the hammer. I asked them to say "cheese" for daddy and this is what they gave me.

Eli really liked his chalkboard and continued to write all over it.

Aiden earned his Fish game on Saturday too. He had to go two nights in a row with no wet pull-up and then he could try a night in his regular undies and stay dry. He finally made it and his reward is this fish game. He gets it taken away  if he wakes up wet and can earn it back when he can stay dry (hopefully the next night). I've only had to take it away for a night and that's just because he wanted to wear a pull-up (it was even dry) but I need him in real undies. Regardless, here are the boys playing the game.

Here is Aiden working on the iPad again with Nana watching.

The boys do a pretty good job of sharing the iPad and taking turns although sometimes Eli is a little stubborn and wants to play the higher level/coordination games that Aiden can play. 

On Saturday night, my mom watched the boys so I could go to dinner with some girls from church and then we went to see the Peking Acrobats which was a lot of fun.

I had to include the pictures below to show that my kitties love the iPad too. Here are Pouncer and Twix playing with the Friskies free app. They love to chase the fish on the screen.

We've had a great time with Nana here so far. The boys love seeing her and it's great for me to have my mom around too. Here is Eli towing Nana.

On Sunday night, it was pajama night at AWANA's. Eli found the tricycle in the kitchen because my mom was going to clean it while we were at church. Well, as you can see, Eli decided to ride it around the house and found some sunglasses too. This kid is full of personality.

We had to go to church early to help setup my computer so they kids played around with the microphone for a bit for the first time. They loved hearing their own voices. Eli was cracking me up. He kept stealing the microphone and wouldn't share with Aiden and he was dancing around as he was singing. I have a cute video I'll have to post soon.

I've been so impressed with Aiden lately. He know a few songs and doesn't mind singing them out loud. It makes my heart smile. He sang "Jesus loves me" when he had the microphone and then he busted into a melody of the ABC's.

We have a few more days left with Nana and plan to enjoy them. I've put a lot of work into get stuff ready for a consignment sale tonight. I'll update about that next time.

3/19 - Getting into a routine

I found a few more pictures on my camera from our visit with Papa. I'm just learning (and having the time to do so) how to get all the pictures off of my iPad and iPhone so that I can use them on the blog. I love this second picture of just Papa and Eli. I cropped Aiden out because he didn't want to be in the picture and was trying to run away.

Here are a few more pictures of Aiden and Eli playing outside while Papa was here. Aiden loves this truck our neighbor gave us and Eli is scared to death of it. It makes crazy noises and moves and Eli gets very scared. Aiden does a good job about turning the noise off inside but I let him play with it with the noise on for a little bit the other day.

Here is Eli playing with one of their favorite toys ... the air pump. Go figure. They could play with this thing for an hour and be perfectly happy. 

Aiden wanted to show me the "work jobs" in his classroom the other day. He really likes to do them. They are just little activities but I was surprised to see how many of the activities are things he does (or something similar) in occupational therapy. He loves to do little tasks/jobs.

Eli is such a little snuggle bug after he gets up from sleeping/napping. Here he is cuddling with me and Pouncer after he woke up from his nap the other day.

We went on a play date on Wednesday to the park with a friend from church and her little boy who is 1 day older than Eli. Eli wore his sunglasses the whole way there and back which surprised me.

Although I didn't take a picture of it, there is some new equipment at the playground that Aiden has been wanting to try out. He had fun exploring. We also took some food to feed the ducks. They all had fun feeding the ducks.

The boys have recently built a new train track on the floor. It's been up for about 3 days now and I'll let them keep it for another day or so and then we'll build a new one on the train table.

Eli hasn't been feeling great lately. He's been saying he wants medicine and his ear hurts. He couldn't even lay down to nap on Saturday because his ears hurt so bad. I eventually brought him out in the living room and laid him on me to nap. He did much better on an incline and slept longer than he would have if he was in his room.

At 3:00 on Saturday we had a birthday party to go to. Aiden enjoyed the bounce house which made me excited. He normally won't go in them if there is more than 2 kids because he doesn't like getting bounced around. 

Eli was pretty clingy and pouty at first. I thought I might have to leave with him and come get Aiden later. Thankfully after some food (and the motrin starting to work), he cheered up. He wanted nothing to do with the bounce house. He did find some balloons to play with inside though and he really enjoyed that.

I finally tried taking Eli in the bounce house myself. I'm back there in white shorts, green shirt and am holding Eli. He still wanted nothing to do with being in the bounce house. Aiden thought it was fun though to have mommy inside.

Aiden wore himself out in the bounce house and eventually came inside. He saw the other kids playing with the balloons and started batting them up in the air for a bit like the other kids. However, he then thought it would be best to go collect the balloons on line them up on the back of the couch. Aiden is too funny and cracks me up.

After lots of bouncing, balloon playing, and cake, it was time for the piñata. Aiden was one of the last kids to go and surprise ... he pulled the string that opened the bottom of it.

As you can see, all the other kids rush in to get the candy. Aiden gets mobbed a bit and starts crying. Look at his sad little face in this picture.

Too precious!! He was so upset that he didn't get very much candy. Thankfully, Maddie, one of his friends, came over and gave him a handful of candy for his bag. It was too funny. He knew he had to get the candy off the ground but the overwhelming amount of kids just threw him off I think.

Eli wondered over and eventually found himself a lollipop. He was very content with just that.

The boys played inside for a bit longer and then it was time to go.

This last picture is from sunday night at church. Aiden got to go to big people church because AWANA was cancelled so everyone could attend the ordination of Harold (Stephanie's husband). He loved singing with us. He then played with the iPad for the next hour while the service went on. He did pretty well.

I had some horrible migraines last week so I'm trying to catch up on school work that didn't get done because I couldn't read because it hurt my head so much. The boys are in daycare today and I'm grading, doing tons of laundry, and hopefully a few errands before I pick them up (including getting a workout). I didn't get to workout last week because it hurt to move from my migraines so a workout was definitely out of the question.