9/25 - Eli's 3rd birthday & the Hoyt's visit

It's been a while since I posted so I need to catch up. Here is Eli doing exercise (squats) on the boss ball. He cracks me up. He loves jumping on it.

Brad is super busy in school but when he's home and not reading, he's very interactive with the boys. Here he is giving them a ride. I have no idea why Aiden is wearing a penguin hat but it's pretty funny.

The boys were insistent upon playing chase with luggage (I think they were calling their luggage "puppies" although they would have killed it if it was a real puppy). They were doing laps around the living room and kitchen for quite a while. Aiden was wearing his jacket (no it isn't cold outside).

Eli was just thankful to have something on wheels to pull around.

Aiden said he wanted an "animal pancake" the other morning for breakfast. I thought he was referring to these animal shaped skillets Nana gave us and told him we didn't have time for that. He said "how about we make an animal out of a regular pancake? You can make some eyes, a nose, and some ears. Just ask daddy how to do it." He  cracks me up. Brad is gone by the time the boys eat breakfast at about 7:15/7:30am so I just improvised. Here is Aiden's ... bear pancake. He was okay with it an ate it all. I tried to make a bear pancake for Eli too and he flipped out and fell to the ground in tears because he didn't want his banana cut up.

I forget sometimes how easily entertained kids are. Here are Aiden and Eli throwing soft things at the wall to try and get the sticky frogs and lizards that they threw up and got stuck on the wall. It was so much fun watching them try to get them down.

The boys are playing so well together for the most part. Here they are playing legos. As long as we divide the platform up, they do well.

Here is Aiden helping me put red sprinkles on the cupcakes for Eli's class at daycare. He enjoyed putting the sprinkles and really wanted to help out in any way in the kitchen.

Here are the boys playing with a tub of random animals. They are such sweet boys.

This picture of Eli sleeping cracks me up. He is laying his head on his mickey mouse and has little bag around his wrist. He's so precious. He didn't even wake up from the flash in this picture he was so tired.

Grandma Jo and Grandpa Dave came to visit from Iowa and arrived on the afternoon of Eli's birthday (Sept. 18). We picked him up early and brought the boys home to play with their grandparents. In the evening, once daddy got home, we opened presents. Although Aiden was so gracious to offer lots of help opening presents, Eli opened them by himself. He had a blast. Next year we are going to have let him have a big birthday party with his friends. Here he is wearing a birthday hat he got at daycare.

Eli did a great job sharing his toys with Aiden and let him play with them too.

I love this picture of Brad giving Eli raspberries on the belly. Eli's face is so stinking cute and they were having so much fun. 

 

The boys even let me take a picture of them with grandma and grandpa. Eli wouldn't let go of his new helicopter though.

The day after Eli's birthday, grandma Jo made a cake for him using a race car tin someone had given us. She even decorated and let Aiden help. Here is Aiden helping put on the frosting. He did a pretty good job.

The cake looked great (and tasted great).

Eli enjoyed us singing Happy Birthday to him but felt he needed to sing along too but was unsure of what to do when we got the part where we said his name. It was cute.

The rest of last week went by as usual except that the boys left daycare early so they could come home and spend time with grandma and grandpa. On Thursday night, Brad and his dad picked up a playground set to put together. Here is Aiden actually snuggling a bit. This is a rare picture! He didn't nap and was pretty tired so he laid down on grandma's lap for a bit.

Brad and Dave (Brad's dad) worked almost all day on Saturday and little on Sunday. We told Aiden he couldn't go out and play on it until Eli woke up from his nap. Well, Eli woke up from his nap and wanted to snuggle with grandma so he took Aiden's place and Aiden headed outside to play.

Here is what it looks like. Here are Aiden and Brad swinging. There are still a few minor things that need to be done like putting the canopy up over the clubhouse and adding the picnic table but it's useable now. 

I'm taken on the role as Director for the Cubbies program at our church. I wasn't expecting that and have spent lots of time over the past 2 weeks trying to catch up and get things organized. Grandma Jo has helped out getting me ready by helping prepare the arts and crafts for this week and the awards chart for the year. Here is Eli being all cute on Sunday night. He goes in the nursery (he's 2 weeks too young to be in Cubbies) and loves it on Sunday night.

Aiden saw Eli and I taking a picture and he wanted to get in on one too. I love these boys. 

On Monday at daycare, they had a trike a thon to raise money for St. Judes Hospital. Aiden brought Eli's bike (I'm not sure why he didn't want his). I didn't let Eli take a bike because he won't use the pedals and I'm tired of buying him new shoes because he drags his toes on the ground rather than using the pedals. I stopped by the daycare to see if they needed help and to see my little boy in action. Here is Aiden. It was a tad chilly this morning so Aiden wanted to wear his jacket ... and apparently not take it off during the day. He's so silly. He's even got the hood on under his helmet.

They were letting all the kids take turns on the bikes so here is Eli riding a bike. Of course he didn't use the pedals but I made him wear his shoes that already had holes in the toes.

Here is Eli with his teacher, Ms. Erica. She is such a sweet woman! 

After getting picked up early from daycare, the boys came home and played. Here they are out on the playground trying to find different ways to have fun. Brad lowered the swings all the way down so they can push off the ground while sitting in the swing but Eli is still figuring that out.

Here are both both in swinging action.

Needless to say, they really like their playground set. Here is Eli playing picnic with grandma. She took the boys for a bit on Monday night so Brad and I could both get some work done.

Here is Brad playing with Eli in the laundry basket. Eli was having so much fun and giggling hysterically.

And finally, here is grandma Jo reading the boys a story before night-night time. You can see Brad and his dad in the background. It's been great having them here. They have been working hard on various projects and the boys loving spending time with them. I was feeling very under the weather towards the end of last week and it was great that they were around to help out.

 We have a few more afternoons to enjoy with grandma and grandpa before they head back to Iowa.

9/13 - Mowing the yard

So this might be a boring post for some of you but I felt like I needed to post it. I was mowing the yard last week and was dreading mowing it. Our yard is huge and we even have a self-propelled mower which is pretty new ... but our yard is huge. Did I mention we have a huge yard? Anyway, I started mowing the front yard and a few minutes into the mow, God really spoke to me. Rather than being annoyed I have a huge yard to mow, I should be really thankful I have a huge yard to mow. I should be grateful for a yard, and a house, and a mower, and a body that works and can push the mower. My dreaded mowing turned in to an hour of talking with God and being grateful for all the things I do have. We are so blessed and fortunate to have what we do and while sometimes it might seem like a curse or we focus on the negative aspects of things, all things can be a blessing depending on how you look at it. Thank you God for providing for us!

9/7 - Bamboo Forest & Science Museum

We decided to go check out a local bamboo forest last weekend. Yeah. That seemed odd to me too that Alabama has a natural bamboo forest. It was really neat and reminded me of Maryland. The downside of the forest was that it was very small. We planned to be there hunting around the entire morning and it took about 20 min so we had to come up with another plan.

I did give the boys index cards with pictures on them of some things they had to find during our walk. They had fun doing it. Eli collected everything (that leaf he is holding is about as big as his head) in a little pencil box he carried around and showed it all to Nana later in the day when we skyped.

We decided to check out a new playground in Millbrook which is a neighboring small community. It was pretty cool and very similar to the castle park (aka Pratt Park) here in town. They had a blast running around and playing hide and go seek.

Here is Aiden walking the moving balance beam. He's getting pretty good at it. Saturday was the first day of college football so we were all decked out as a family. Needless to say, we got many weird looks at the park with people everywhere wearing Alabama and Auburn clothes.

We had a great time at the park and shockingly, the kids didn't wear themselves out enough because neither napped. Little stinkers. The boys had fun setting out all their Matchbox cars fold ups and playing for a few hours this week.

When eventually resorted to half naked jumping ... it's their new hobby and they are getting pretty good at it. Here are both boys taking their turn and getting some air. This was in the evening - check out Eli's huge belly from all the food he just ate!

Now that we finally got clothes on the boys and are getting ready for bed, Eli decided to play monster trucks by himself. That seems relatively harmless unless you have a crazy little boy name Eli in your house. This child eventually falls onto the corner of an end table and bonks himself square in the forehead.

After about 30 seconds of crying, he moved on and was fine. I felt horrible that I told him to brush it off seeing how immediately this huge bruise showed up on his forehead. Such a little trooper!

Brad has been very busy with schoolwork for the past few weeks. This is what he looks like for a good portion of most nights although sometimes he actually has to read textbooks rather than computer articles. You can see Twix in the background keeping his daddy company.

On Sunday, we decided to take the boys to the Science Museum in Birmingham on Monday. It was the last day of the Diego/Dora exhibit and they were even going to be there!! After getting stuck in a few accidents and some rain, we safely got there at about 10:30am. The line to see Dora and Deigo was huge!!! Thankfully, our boys really don't care. They were having so much fun wondering around on the 3rd floor which is where the exhibit was at.

Brad and I had a hard time keeping up with these boys. The place was crazy busy and the boys stayed together for about 30 minutes. We all stayed together and saw everything together and then the boys were too excited to wait for each other so Brad and I split up and each took a kid. These first couple pictures are of the boys in Pirate Ship. Aiden was putting coins in, they both played with the telescopes, and then Eli played with the coins for a bit.

After we spent a solid 20 minutes at the boat, we moved on to the spaceship. They boys both had a ton of fun "flying" the spaceship and pressing the buttons and moving the levers.

They had this huge section of hard foam blocks. It was so cool. The boys played on those for a while and Brad helped them build a cool little area. Because there were so many kids, the structure didn't stay up for long until kids knocked it down and started stealing pieces. Here is Eli rolling a cheese wedge thing in a canal he made.

Aiden had fun walking on the canal pieces for a while.

On the first floor, they have a really cool kids play area. They also have hands-on stuff for the kids to play with. Here are the boys in the house that is created for an illusion. The floor is slanted and the painted floor changes to make you appear like a giant towards the back of the room and tiny towards the front of the room. The boys are both looking up at the tv screen that has their picture on it.

Aiden moved on to the play area (and Brad went with him) but Eli was fascinated  watching himself in the tv. He was hysterical. I almost videotaped him. He was entertaining many people by dancing all around and laughing at himself on the tv screen. We stayed there for a while so he could dance around and laugh. I was smiling and laughing the whole time ... it was great.

The only way I got Eli away from watching himself on the tv screen was to mention bubbles. They had a whole section with huge bubble blowers. This particular blower that Eli has, was one of the smaller ones and he could fit his entire head in it. He thought popping the bubbles with his face was great. He's such an odd but adorable kid.

We finally got reunited with Aiden and daddy over in the kids area on the first floor. Here are the boys at the water table. Aiden lasted here about 2 minutes and of course, Eli could have stayed all day.

Aiden found a water toy that was less wet .... a water gun encased! He liked that for a bit.

Aiden got bored from the water stuff and wondered over to a different area and asked me if he could play with the sand. I got so excited. My OCD scared of dirt and sand child asked to play in the sand. It was awesome. The only thing Eli perhaps likes better than water is ... sand. Needless to say, we could have stayed in this area all day.

We finally got some lunch and Eli had a small breakdown. We were skipping naps so we weren't sure how Eli would respond so a breakdown was not really a surprise except that it happened at meal time and Eli normally loves food. Aiden wanted to take the steps back up to the Dora/Diego floor and Eli didn't so I took the elevator with him. Eli parked himself by this stack of cones and rings and played for about 10-15 minutes. He was having a great time. Such randomness.

We went to go find Aiden and daddy. We had to stop and trying and pump up the car tires. You actually had to be pretty strong to work the pump. Eli was doing his best to pull it up but couldn't budge it without help.

While still looking for the other half of our family, we went by Diego's wildlife hospital and took care of a tree frog. We x-rayed him, washed him, and here Eli is drying him off (the dryer worked via a pedal on the ground). He then took the tree frog over to his cubbie to feed him. It was a cute little area they had set up with all different kinds on animals. 

I eventually got Eli to go this giant screen that was pretty cool. Eli is the kid in the yellow shirt on the right. The bugs fall down and the computer program or whatever runs the bugs on the screen, can sense images and the bugs go around. As you can see, the bugs are stopping at Eli's head and falling off to his right. It was so cool.

We finally found Aiden and daddy so Aiden decided to try the bug screen too. His image is pretty cool. That's him below with his arms wide open and the bugs falling into a pile and then trickling off his left arm.  

We went back to the area with the big blocks and the boys built stuff for a while. The boys had no interest in actually meeting Dora or Diego so we didn't pursue that given the outcome of seeing those types of characters at Disney. :)  The boys built quite a few masterpieces but it was getting too stressful for both of them because their stuff would get knocked down by other kids. Aiden finally found a group of girls to play with. Eli continued to just roll over blocks and squares. I eventually gave a stern talking to main older boy who kept knocking down everyone's stuff. Thankfully he responded  well. Seriously though, shouldn't a parent be watching him and have to tell him to stop knocking down everyone's stuff. I told him "a good general rule of thumb is that if he didn't build it, then he can't knock it down."

Brad had to distract Eli from getting upset a few times with some tickles. He also finally found a way that Eli was content .... to build some Eli-size dominoes.

I'm not sure who was worn out more, Brad and I or the boys. We had an uneventful and rainy trip home. It took about 75 minutes to get home which wasn't too bad. We all had a blast and I'm thankful we could spend the day together as a family since Brad was home. We ended up buying a year membership at the museum because it would pay for itself it we go back one more time this year which I'm sure we will do. The kids had such a blast and we didn't even take that much time to look at the fishes downstairs and at the dinosaurs on the 2nd floor.

My college class has started and I don't have that many students to far this semester which would be nice. We'll see how enrollment looks as the end of next week though. I'm exhausted and need to get to bed since I have to wake up early and go to Awana training tomorrow morning. It starts on Sunday night but the Cubbies part of the club is no where ready to begin. We'll see how it goes.