10/10 - An update for Brad

Aiden has started separating out his vegetables at dinner time. It was cracking me up so I had to take a picture the other night. He was separating his soybeans and corn. Aiden has started to play with blocks more and was building bridges the other day. He did quite a few (I helped him with some) and then pushed his cars under them.

I think bath time will always be one of Eli's favorite time. He's started to put his face into the water and he made himself a bubble mustache the other night.

I've been working hard with Eli on drinking out of a cup. Not a real cup because he doesn't have the hand coordination for that, but a straw cup. He's getting better at actually swallowing the liquid in his mouth and is doing quite well with a straw sippy cup.

Aiden has had a bit of a rough time lately. He's been getting really whiny and will not talk to me and tell me what he wants. He just cries and then starts whining but I can't understand what he wants. It's very frustrating for both of us. Many times, he doesn't like the choice that he has made and wants something else but he needs to learn how to live with his decisions. It's a rough lesson (for both of us again) but he needs to learn it.

Eli has been doing this leaning to one-side thing in his car seat lately. It's pretty cute. He just hangs out there resting his head on his hand.

The boys have had a lot of fun playing in the ball pit lately. Eli is just starting to climb into the pit and play. I think he mostly likes to try and terrorize Aiden from the outside though.

Eli got very made the other day when his truck attacked him and pinned him up by the couch!

Eli is starting to take after big brother and he enjoys having a blankie to bite on and carry around. There are worse habits that he could have. Which reminds me, I'm really hoping he gets out of the phase where everything goes in to his mouth very soon. If he doesn't have a paci in, then everything will go in his mouth. It's highly annoying because I can't take him anywhere because he'll put stuff in his mouth.

You can see in this last picture that Aiden is actually trying to pull Eli back into the ball pit.
As much as I referee around here, Aiden is becoming much more tolerant of Eli. The weather has been beautiful lately so we've been trying to spend some time outside. Eli has been pretty grumpy lately but I think he's starting to get his molars.

10/5 - Aiden's first Little Gym Class

Aiden had his first Little Gym class today. He loved it!! You can see a smile plastered to his face in most of the pictures. He really liked swinging on the bars and rings. I was a little surprised he didn't/couldn't hang there longer but .... that's just me. He had a blast and it was fun to see him to excited and running around trying lots of new things.

We are definitely going to finish this semester which lasts until mid January. Hopefully he'll get some more coordination (I would love for him to learn how to jump). I think it will take a few visits for the newness to wear off and for him to want to learn some rolls and stuff but we'll see. Maybe he'll surprise me.He definitely wasn't too scared to leave me to roam around but was still pretty safe. He was very interested in unscrewing the nobs and trying to change the settings. He actually cried pretty hard when we left because he wanted "more play time." How cute. We left and went to pick up Eli at Ms. Lydia's and then had lunch and some naps.
I decided we would blow up the ball crawl this afternoon. Aiden hasn't played in it for months and Eli had no idea what it was. Once I got it blown up, Aiden was REALLY excited about it. He was using the ramp for his cars rather than the balls.
Eli thought the ball crawl was pretty awesome. Aiden wasn't so sure if he wanted to share (the jury is still out on that one) but Eli enjoyed a peek in. Aiden is actually sitting in the center and Eli was crawling through the little tunnel.
I'm sure Eli will get some play time in it soon since I'll keep it up for a few weeks.

10/4 - Chuck E Cheese and the park

It was a little too quite the other day and I realized why; Aiden wasn't playing with cars/trucks - he was resting on the back of the couch. I have no idea how he even thought of that but it was pretty funny.

It cracks me up how much Aiden likes to make himself comfortable. He put his stool up for his feet to have his juice. Too cute.
Brad wanted to have a little wrestling with boys time in bed. I think fun was had by all although Aiden has a low tolerance for wrestling. I think little Eli could wrestle all day though. He loves it.
Aiden is getting so much better with Eli and trying to be gentle and definitely a lot more tolerant of Eli touching him and giving him head butts.

We took the boys to Chuck E Cheese on Saturday morning. They both had fun and it was Eli's first trip there.
We had to do some serious convincing to get Aiden to play in the hamster tunnels since he was having so much fun on the rides.
Aiden HATED the monster truck the first time he went on it. He cried and wanted out while the ride was still moving. Fast-forward a fews months and we could barely get him out of this thing. I love the picture with his tongue out - what concentration for all that driving he is doing! Eli was just hanging on for dear life to the coin return catch.

Here are a lot of pictures of Eli. He enjoyed his first trip to Chuck E Cheese.

Eli playing around the school bus and going down the slide on top.
Aiden kinda got glued to the monster truck but we peeled him away a few times. He normally asked for Eli to ride with him. How cute. I was surprised Eli didn't try and crawl out but I think he went at a good age. He was too little to realize what was going on so he didn't get upset (like Aiden did) on his first ride. Eli loved it.
We were really excited about a park in downtown Jax because we had read such great things about it and I remembered it being awesome when I went here with a friend 3 yrs ago. Well, a lot can change in 3 years. Part of the park was closed down which was sad but there was enough to keep Eli and Aiden busy for a while.

They had these little houses/stores throughout the park. Eli's favorite was the ice cream shop! He's getting so daring and starting to take 1-3 steps away from things now. I think he's finally starting to understand that he can walk. He lets go and stands and watches Aiden or tv for a while and even takes a step to re-adjust but then normally just drops to his knees to go anywhere. He's starting to take a step or two then drop. How exciting!
Aiden found a school bus he thought was pretty cool and played on that for a while.

We went to the library on Saturday and Aiden picked out a monster truck DVD. The construction truck part of the DVD was playing but he was very interested in it. Eli has never even been remotely interested in watching TV but he saw his brother watching so he decided to check it out too.
We had a great long weekend with Brad and he's gone again for 3 weeks. We will miss him as usual. I just want this deployment to come and go finally. Brad will have been gone for about 3 months to prepare for a 6-9 month deployment.