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.

1/26 - Chuck E Cheese & St. Pete

Eli has been doing a good job of trying to play on his own. The sad thing is that now Aiden doesn't like to play by himself He is always trying to get Eli to come play with him. I've started intervening more and telling Aiden he has to play by himself because Eli doesn't always want to play with him.

Aiden is getting used to putting together the marble run but it's definitely a learning process and much harder to construct (correctly) than a train track.

Last week, I took the boys to the gym with me for the first time and rewarded them for sitting in a small little room for 40 min with 40 min at Chuck-E-Cheese. They had a blast. Aiden loves skeet ball but he is horrible at it. He likes watching the balls come back down.

As you can see on the scoreboard, Aiden has zero points. He can roll is just hard enough to make it over the little ramp for .... 0 points. He's gonna be so excited when he wins more than one ticket when he gets strong/bigger.

Eli just likes walking around with 2 or 3 tokens and not spending any of them. He's so cute by saving them. He has fun just watching the lights and sounds on the machines at this point.

I taught Aiden about the ticket chomper that counts your tickets. He and Eli were a little nervous to get their fingers close but they eventually found that putting tickets in was really fun. When they found out the could get a piece of candy for their tickets, they were REALLY excited.

On Saturday, we went down to St. Pete. It was fun for the boys to see their nana. It was a smooth drive and Eli started yelling "Nana's house" the closer we got. I let the boys play for a bit and then it was naptime. Aiden didn't nap at all (he tried) and Eli was starting to go down that same track. I eventually put Eli on Nana's bed with her and he was out like a light. He slept for about 1 or 1.5 hrs.

After Eli and Nana woke up from naps, we just hung around and played for the rest of the day.

The boys just having fun rolling up in blanket and sitting in special chairs at Nana's house.

Aiden is getting better about blowing bubbles and actually blew a few really big bubbles once Nana taught him how to blow nice and slow. He was excited about the huge bubbles he could blow.

Here are the boys and I at the park by my mom's house on Saturday night. It was a gorgeous sunset.

On Sunday, I took the boys over to my dad's for naptime and then he took them for the afternoon so I could go to my cousins babyshower. Dad took them to go see Great grandma Hagan which was good.

It was a busy trip. We left papa's on Sunday morning and went back over to my mom's to get the rest of our stuff. I got a run in while my mom watched the boys and then we all went for a long walk/bike ride to the bridge by my mom's house. This first black and white picture is Eli staring out over the water.

This is the picture that you get when you take a helmet off a little boy who loves his helmet. No "cheese" for me.

I had to stop taking pictures at this point because if you look very closely, Eli is in the background and his little feet are off the ground. I had to go be a better parent and make sure he didn't fall off the bridge.

This isn't the best picture of Eli and I because my face is so red from running an hour before but Eli's face is so cute.

We had a good visit to St. Pete even though it was pretty short. We'll be going down to visit more often when Brad is actually deployed.