4/14 - Easter and the past week

Last Saturday (the day before Easter), I took the boys out to the beach in the afternoon. Eli slept long so we left late and didn't even get their until about 4:15/4:30pm. We went down to the beach for about 45 min and just let the boys play in the sand. Of course Eli got a little wet, but I didn't even have his swim suit on him. We went back to Sue's beach house and I fed my boys dinner and we just played for a bit. We left pretty late and didn't get home until 8:15pm which is way past their bedtime.

Better late than never ... so here is my post about Easter. The boys woke up to little easter baskets in the living room with their name on them. Here is Eli inspecting his new flashlight that dispenses candy.

As many of you know, I'm not a huge fan of giving my kids candy/sweets. The boys got matching bubble blowing hand machines in their easter baskets and here is Aiden giving it a try.

After they took the 3 presents out of their baskets, I told them there were eggs hidden throughout the house. They had a blast going around and finding them. We play scavenger hunt all the time and we always put 2 tokens in each space so each child can get one. I did the same thing for the eggs because I was fearful Aiden would just run and get them all or find all the easy ones and then all the hard ones would be left for Eli. The strategy worked out great.

After they found all the eggs, I let them open Grandma Jo and Grandpa Dave's presents. They enjoyed doing that!

While I made breakfast, Aiden counted and then sorted his eggs. Then he organized them. And then continued to organize them in different ways (robot type, color, etc.).

We would have normally headed out the door for church at this time but Eli was still sick (he got sent home from daycare the Friday before) and had a nasty cough still. He said he was "sick" and just laying around and was just feeling yucky still. Aiden didn't mind laying around for a bit but then he was getting a little restless and wanted to go outside to find eggs. We got some and I hid them and then they went to go search for them.

There were hard ones and easy ones to find and I told Aiden to be considerate and leave some for his brother. Aiden did a great job and would even call Eli over to eggs he would find but knew he should give some to Eli. Aiden is such a sweetie.

Aiden wanted to hide the eggs for Eli and did a pretty good job but he got tired and asked me to do the rest. Aiden then wanted Eli to hide them but Eli is 1) not feeling well and 2) pretty little so this was Eli's version of hiding them. He dumps then all out and looks at me and says "done." It was too funny. Aiden says to him, "why did you put them all in the same place? You are supposed to spread them out."

Eli had a really long nap (about 3 hrs) and then when he finally woke up, Aiden wanted to go back outside to hide eggs with our neighbors. Eli went with us of course but he fell while in their yard and his eggs went everywhere. He almost started crying but then make a pretty quick recovery.

It helped that Ms. Jen also came over to assist Eli in his egg recovery process.

Eli wasn't feeling well so getting the picture with Mr. Ryan and Ms. Jen didn't work out as well as I was hoping.

They really just wanted to play with their bubbles and eat massive amounts of jelly beans.

That is the one thing that did make Eli smile, candy and chocolate. 

 

Eli actually wouldn't even take a picture with me. He was just feeling really yucky that day

I'm not sure when I took this picture. Eli had a few rough days because he was feeling so yucky. My patience for dealing with this at night was very limited over the past week.

Aiden had his last OT appointment this week which was sad for him. Here is is working on drawing/writing. I had to use this picture because he insisted on fixing his socks and unfolding them and pulling them all the way. It was an awesome look!

Here he is with Ms. Lisa, his Occupational Therapist. He has become quite fond of her and said in a prayer that night the he can see Ms. Lisa again. I remember starting OT a few months ago thinking it would be totally awesome if we could actually achieve the "long-term" goals that were listed for him. I also thought that would be impossible. I'm so glad I was wrong. He is dressing himself, touching more things, using his fine motor skills in general more, mostly brushing his teeth by himself, and sometimes using a pen/pencil/marker correctly. My next arts and crafts project is to make him a sleeve that goes on his forearm.

Here is a random picture of Eli using his cash register. He loves that thing and was carrying money around the house for a few hours.

On Thursday, Aiden had a hearing appointment. We waited forever!!!! Here are the boys enjoying their snack. Eli has been in a mood to wear sunglasses on his head. It's so cute. I have no idea where he even gets that from.

We waited so long that the boys were going into the bathroom and getting wet paper towels so they could clean all the chairs in the waiting room.

When it was finally time for Aiden's test, he wanted to be a big boy and do it by himself. Eli and I waited right outside and Eli played on the iPad. I'm not sure why he has 2 fingers on the screen since it won't work that way!

Yes, I know my kid is naked and playing with the iPad. It was actually a really cute moment because Aiden was doing such a good job teaching Eli how to use this letter app game. I got a video of it too that I will eventually post.

I've been beyond exhausted and haven't taken many pictures over the past week. Here is one of just me and the boys. The little boys are quite amazing and are growing up so fast.

These final two pictures are from this morning. They both wanted to wear hats today to go grocery shopping.

Aiden wanted to wear a hat but didn't want me to take a picture (hence his face).

This last picture is the boys flying the helicopter at the playground on base.

I need to go to bed. I also still need to post about Aiden's IQ and anxiety testing. Maybe in the next couple days I can do that if I have the energy.

4/5 - A trip to the fair

I took a couple pictures on Tuesday when Aiden was at therapy. In the first picture, he is playing swords with Ms. Lisa. 

He's been doing so well in therapy and it's helping so much. I told him on the way home that we won't be able to see Ms. Lisa much longer because he's doing so well and she has other kids she needs to help. He got so sad and said he wanted to keep seeing Ms. Lisa. He said, "we can call her and ask her to keep seeing me." It was so cute and grown up. I told him "we'll see" because I felt like I was breaking his heart. He asked if he still got to see Ms. Shannon (his speech therapist) and I said yes but then he replied, "but I really like Ms. Lisa. Can I start to talk to Ms. Lisa?" The kid is too cute and smart for his own good. In this second picture, he has weight on both hands. Ms. Lisa put the weight on his forearm and hand and the little booger decided to use his right hand so he had to find a weight to put on that. It was pretty funny.

On Tuesday night, I took the boys to the fair for the first time. It would have been much easier/better to go as a family when Brad could go so we'll have to go next year in AL.

We got there a little later than I wanted and missed the pig races which Aiden was excited about. We went to see the K-9 unit but the boys were not as interested as I was. We took the family picture while we were waiting for them to bring the dogs out. We hadn't even walked that far and Aiden's face was all red from walking. The first two pictures of Eli are him not even paying attention to the cool and smart K9 dog.

Eli is actually facing the OPPOSITE direction of the dog.

After we walked around for a bit and looked at the rides, I told the boys we could get a bag of cotton candy. We sat down to watch the frog jump contest and the boys enjoyed some yummy, colored, sugar.

The man hosting the frog jump contest was a little crazy. The boys mainly stayed entertained and Aiden even raised his hand twice to be chosen to pick up the frog. That cracks me up. The kid can't stand touching slimy/wet things and I have a hard time getting him to just try touching new surfaces/animals so I can only imagine what would happen if he tried to pick up a frog.

We didn't ride any of the rides because I wasn't sure Eli and/or Aiden wanted to go and I Aiden wanted me to ride it with him but Eli didn't want to go and I couldn't figure out a way to magically duplication myself. My God's mercy on my sanity, Aiden was a little sad when I told him we were not going to ride the rides because it was too hard with just mommy and that we could do rides when we go to Disney in a couple weeks or next time we go to the fair and daddy can come with us. He said, "awww" and then just moved on which was so awesome of him. We went to look at all the animals and the boys had fun doing that. They found a huge bunny to pet in the picture below.

In the collage picture, Aiden is sitting on my lap watching the frog show and Eli has slid completely out of his stroller and his bottom is on the ground while eating cotton candy and watching the frog show. In the bottom collage picture, we are sitting in a cazebo that had a swing eating dinner (sandwiches and apples) and getting one last taste of cotton candy. I was shocked when I told them that this was their last bite of cotton candy for the day the they could have some more tomorrow but I didn't want to hear anyone ask about for the rest of the day. They both complied!!! Extra awesome.

Grandma Jo and Grandpa Dave brought this jello/cookie animal mold cutout thing last time they were here. My mom made some jello and we used it for the first time. They didn't actually get to have an animal for the first time until the other night though. The first picture is Eli showing me his elephant jello. They are such thick pieces that I just put it on a plate for him with no silverware.

You can't see it in the picture very well but Eli's face and hand are all red from holding the jello.

After carefully watching Eli eat his jello, Aiden decided to try one eventually. He took forever to touch it but once he finally did, I think the taste outweighed the uncomfortable part of having to touch the jello. His hands and face were all red too and he asked me to leave his hands all red for the night. He cracks me up. Lucky for him, the red didn't come off even when we washed his hands.

I just got the results back from Aiden's IQ test and anxiety testing a few weeks back. Nothing completely surprising (I'll do an update in a few days) but I need to make some phone calls and start praying on what to do with our special little boy.

4/4 - Dropping off Nana

Here are the boys paling with their new toys from the consignment sale. Aiden got a lite brite (which he has used in therapy before) and Eli got a Thomas the Train small luggage on wheels.

Here are the boys playing with their Matchbox Pirate ship that they love.

On my moms last night here, we went over to Steph's and let the kids play and had dinner. The boys had fun in the bounce house which was great because when Eli got a chance to go in a bounce house a few weeks ago, he was terrified. This one was smaller which I think he felt much safer in.

Eli also kept busy playing the toy violin that Blaise has.

Here we are the next morning, all packed up and ready to hit the road to drive my mom back to St. Pete. Thankfully, it was an uneventful ride.

The boys were so overtired that when we got to my mom's house, they didn't want to nap. It's not a huge deal for Aiden; Eli is another story. He eventually fell asleep right by my mom but I only let him sleep for about 45 min because he fell asleep so late. Their napping/sleeping schedule was so off and horrible while we at my mom's. They wouldn't sleep if they were in the same room but then half the time they wouldn't sleep if I separated them either. I would eventually have to sit between them or in the room for them to stop talking to each other and/or quite moving around.

After the long car ride for the boys and a short nap for Eli, we came down to the pool for a bit which is heated. It felt great but it was breezy outside so it was cold if you got out of the water. They pool has water noodles there so the boys thoroughly enjoyed playing with those. Eli learned that if I put it up to my ear and he said something in the other end, I could hear it and he thought that was fun.

Aiden also played with noodles but in this picture, he is holding a disc of some kind. They both got in the water and swam for a bit with me and nana. I need to get Eli in swimming lessons pronto because he tried to jump of the step in the pool hoping he could float by himself with just a noodle. Craziness.

After getting some energy out, it was night-night time. Here is Eli reading a National Geographic magazine to Bronco.  Eli has been trying so hard to be friends with Bronco and Bronco is just not accepting him like he has Aiden. It's hard to watch the rejection of Eli from Bronco but unfortunately, I'm sure I'll have to experience rejection for my boys at others in their lives too.

Aiden found Nana's bibles and was completely intrigued by them. He loved the tabs and asked what they were for. He was going through each chapter and then all the pages closed on him and he started all over again. At one point, he was even turning page by page. He thought that Nana's highlighted text was neat and he also learned about the red text in one of Nana's bibles.

Once he found these bibles, he carried them around the entire time we were there. I was so nervous he was going to tear a page or something but he was so careful with them. I'm not even sure why he enjoyed it so much seeing how there are no pictures in Nana's bible. He can't even read text yet although he identify quite a few 'sight words.'

After the boys got up on Saturday morning, they helped Nana with her morning devotions. Here is Eli, again trying to befriend Bronco, reading a daily devotion to him.

We went to the park early in the morning and came back around 9:45am so that we could see Aunt Becky and Uncle Bill. It was beautiful out and we walked quite a bit.

We built a big fort and the boys had fun playing in it.

Eli misses daddy quite a bit so he decided to be lovey towards Uncle Bill. It was so great to visit with them and the boys had a lot of fun playing with them.

Here are Aiden, Becky, and Nana playing Cootie. Playing might be a stretch for a word to use though.

We did arts and crafts later in the afternoon on Saturday but didn't get to finish. We were dressing up pinecones and painting them with glitter glue and regular paint.

On Sunday morning, it was time to go back to Jax so we would be able to get home in time for AWANA. Nana was showing the boys a special kind of nut she saved (I forget the name but bet Aiden would know) that they had to break open with a hammer.

We had a great time with Nana as usual. The boys took decent naps and they had a good night AWANA. I'm plugging along just trying to get in a rhythm now.