9/21 - Family Beach Pictures

In the first picture is Brad and I and my awesome cousin Rachel (blue shirt), and her partner (very cool as well) CJ. We had fun with them and they were so gracious with their very busy schedules.
Here are some of the pictures that my cousin Rachel took last week. Aiden isn't exactly a smiley kind of boy and he didn't change for this special day. He had his serious look as normal. Eli was his normal self too with lots of smiles.
We met Rachel and CJ out on Sunset beach at 8:15am. The sun was out and bright but thankfully it wasn't too hot yet. We played on the playground for a while but the equipment was casting shadows everywhere which isn't good.

This was the first time the boys have been to the beach and have had their toes in the sand. It was fun to get to capture that on camera. Aiden, who normally doesn't like to get dirty, did pretty well. I didn't even think he'd walk in the sand to be honest. He didn't mind walking and even touched the sand. He wasn't too fond of the water on his feet but he did put his feet in the water which I was also a little surprised by.

Eli loved it all. He loved the sand although I didn't ask him how it tasted even though he could have told me. Eli really just wanted to crawl straight into the water. He got dirty and wet pretty fast despite me trying to keep him clean. As you can see in the pictures, Eli is usually trying to get to the ground and just wanted to play. I can't wait to take him back to the beach and let him play.

I think we are going to try and get with Rachel again and do a shoot at a different time of day. I'm hoping we can do that before Brad leaves for deployment but we'll see. I love the picture of Brad and Aiden - it is so precious.
Next time we do pictures Eli should be able to walk by himself which I think will be good for pictures.
We let the boys with the Lightening McQueen at the end of the shoot. They are gonna be best buddies and hopefully that will last a lifetime. I know they will get into fights and argue but I am praying they are loving brothers.
We had a blast taking pictures and are glad we get a glimpse of this time in our lives right now.

9/21 - Eli's 1st birthday

We celebrated Eli's 1st birthday at my dad's house. We came to St. Pete on Friday and spent the day with my dad. On Saturday, we took some pictures in the morning with my cousin Rachel. Rach is fine tuning her photography skills and we wanted to give family photos a try in which we were not in a studio. We had fun and I'll post some of those pictures in the next couple days. Eli was really indifferent that he could face forward. In fact, I think he likes facing backward better.

The boys had matching green shirts on at the beginning of the morning but Eli got so dirty in the sand that we had to change him after we were done with pictures.

Eli got his own "smash cake" as Publix called it. He went for the cake right away which was a big contrast to Aiden's 1st (and 2nd) birthday. He stuck his hand in the cake with no problem and just put icing all over his face.
He ate quite a bit of cake and icing and then I finally had to pull the plug on the cake eating. He made a huge mess of himself but he had fun.

Despite the picture of Aiden looking so serious, he had fun eating cake too.

He wasn't really sure how to open presents but thankfully his big brother knows how to open them. I think Aiden had more fun than Eli opening presents but that's because Aiden understands about presents now. We were very excited to see family (nana, Aunt Becky, Uncle Bill, Jeremy) and friends (Carol & Doug, Cathy & Buddy).

Aiden even got a few presents of his own which he was excited about. Eli got a truck from Becky and Bill and Aiden kinda thinks it's his. This is a good lesson in sharing for Aiden because he gets mad when Eli wants to play with it so we explain that it's Eli toy and he was sharing with Aiden.

The UF vs. Tenn game was on right after Eli's party started so it was easy to all coordinate our clothes! We even shoved Eli into a 6/9 mo Gator outfit. We are on the lookout for a new 12 mo outfit for him but haven't found one yet.
It's pretty close to impossible to get all of us looking at the camera when you have 2 boys at this age. We still try though.

The boys did a pretty good job of sleeping while we were away. They don't room so well together because they want to stay up and play and they take turns keeping each other up. One day Eli went to sleep and Aiden was up playing and the 2nd day we were there Aiden fell asleep and Eli was up. Eli got some clothes for his birthday too. He loved playing with the bags on Sunday.

On Sunday, we decided to take our time rather than try and race back. Our only goal was to make sure the boys got a good nap. Eli took his morning nap fine and then we all went to a local playground. Aiden had a ton of fun and Eli crawled around the playground too. We stayed there about an hour and then came home and did an early lunch so we could do an early nap. We separated the boys to help ensure a good afternoon nap. It worked! The both slept like champs for 2+ hours. To make things even better, my dad hurried home from the family reunion he was at to be able to see us before we left on Sunday. I though we were gonna be able to see him for 10-15 min because he was gonna get home right before we left but it ends up he and my grandma drove straight from GA to the house and showed up at 12:30ish. It was awesome. We all got to talk for a while until Eli and then finally Aiden got up (I had to wake Aiden up).

Since there are steps at papa's house, we decided it was about time to make Eli learn how to crawl them. He can go up with no problem and we haven't started working on the going down yet. I need to spend time with Eli without Aiden around. I feel like Eli is going to be pretty behind in everything because I don't have the time to sit down and do stuff with him like I did with Aiden.

Aiden was being goofy at pop's house (we started off calling him papa but Aiden has decided to call him pop so I'll use that terminology too). He was running around the house pulling his pants up and laughing. He loves the toy room at pop's house. I don't even bring toys anymore for him to play with. My sister and her 3 boys used to live there and left lots of toys behind because she doesn't have room for them. She has lots of Cars stuff and Aiden manages to find all it and borrows it while we are there.

Aiden absolutely adores pop and it's so cute. He talks about him for days after we/he leaves.

Here is a picture of great grandma Hagan and the two boys. Aiden wasn't really in a picture-taking kind of mood but Eli was game.

9/19 - Daddy is back

A few days after the last post I let the boys play in the pool naked and with the slide. The slide was a bad idea. It's really fast and the ground is pretty hard when you come down that fast. I'm omitting the video of Aiden going down the slide and crying.

Eli has learned how to blow on Aiden's train whistle. He loves it.

I'm also trying to teach Eli how to use the snack cup. He will stick his hand in there but doesn't understand he needs to grab the stuff in there. Instead, he plays with it and then takes his hand out and then tips the cup like he's drinking out of it. A few fall out and then he picks them up and eats them. I'm hoping he doesn't think this is how he eats out of it.
Non-napping Aiden fell asleep in Nana's arms. That little booger is killing me with the naps lately. I let him (and Nana) sleep for about 30 min.

The picture at Aiden at the dinner table with his arm over his head is his new thing. He does this when he thinks he is in trouble or not answer me. It's kinda funny and I have no idea where he learned it from.

Aiden was cracking me up last week. He put his chair in the recliner chair and decided to wear his sunglasses. What a special boy!

Brad came back on the 9th after 6 weeks away. I picked up Brad from base and then we went to get Aiden at daycare. Aiden was so happy to see Brad. He ran up to him and said, "daddy," and gave him a huge hug. It was so sweet. We then went to pick up Eli and he was also glad to see daddy. Daddy coming back = total success. We went home and enjoyed the rest of the day.

I bought Aiden a new Gator outfit and he didn't like it. He said the letters "hurt" and were "too tight." I washed it and he'll wear it now thankfully. I had to take it off and put on his Jersey so he could be in the gator spirit last week.

Both boys wanted Brad's attention and they got it. Aiden and daddy wondered around in the back yard. Our neighbor helped me put up

Daddy and Eli enjoyed some time together too.

Eli has been standing up in his hippo lately looking outside. There isn't much to see besides our neighbors house but he still likes to look.

Aiden spent over an hour playing with Play-doh the other day. He was having lots of fun and Eli wanted so bad to see what Aiden was doing. Eli eventually went back down to the floor and played with a car.

Brad was invited in to the pool by Aiden last weekend. Aiden really wanted Brad in the pool. They had fun playing with the hose.
Daddy also got to see the new nerf water gun Aiden has and was squirting him with it. All in all, good times were had by the boys in (and out) of the pool.
I thought it would be fun to take a picture of Eli in Brad's boots - no reason. It just sounded like a fun idea.
Aiden has the game Memory and has started to want to play it all the time. He plays a modified version and I'm not sure he'll ever learn a different version because he likes to play his own. He puts them all out on the couch and tries to find a match and puts the match in the box. It keeps him occupied for a while but he freaks out if Eli comes close to the couch and yells "no touch!"
I've been having a really difficult time with Aiden and napping lately. He wants to have his lights on all the time and wants to just play during nap time. I'm getting so tired of it. The other day, Brad found this in Aiden's room when he went to go tell him to lay down in bed. This picture is of a partial clean up already. He had powder EVERYWHERE - even on the walls. I had to vacuum powder out of his bed, off his curtains, inside his legos .... everywhere. I have started a prize box and if Aiden follows the rules during nap time and bedtime, he gets to pick a prize when he gets up. It's working at bedtime but not naptime yet. Hopefully it will catch on soon.
With my mom in town to watch the boys, Brad and I escaped to the Jags vs Broncos game. We were minorities of course even though Tebow had a decent following. It was so hot when we got there. I thought I was gonna sweat to death and I've been to dozens of games in G'ville and this rivaled for the hottest game ever. With the heat index, it was about 100 degrees when the game started. After about 1 hr in the blistering sun, some clouds rolled in and it was great...until it got really dark and started to lightening. They stopped the game and we decided to leave before we got soaked.
The second picture was taken on our way out of the stadium. I did spray paint my hair orange for Brad.
When we got home, Aiden wanted to go outside and take Bronco for a short walk. It was raining still but Aiden insisted upon going.

Eli is starting to feed himself some. It's great. We have to put food on a fork and then put it on his try. It appears, as of right now, we may have another lefty on our hands. We aren't sure of the statistics but it's got to be pretty amazing that two right handed people, who both have parents that are both right handed, have to left-handed kids!

When we went in to check on Eli the other day, he was sleeping and cuddling with his angel so I had to take a picture of it. Too precious.

We did celebrate Eli's 1st birthday yesterday and I'll post info about that in the next day or so. I've been behind with the blog since Brad has been here (which I am SO thankful for).