Valentines

We picked Ben up from the train today, and when he got in the car, Eli noticed he was holding a package in his hands. I could tell that the package had flowers for Valentine’s Day, but they were wrapped in paper so Eli didn’t know what was inside.

“Is that a present for me?” Eli asked.

“No, it’s a present for Mama,” Ben said.

“A present for me and Mama?” Eli said.

“Okay, a present for you, Mama, and Charlie,” Ben said. “So what do you think it is?”

Eli’s face lit up. “A helicopter?”

“No…” Ben said, trying not to laugh. (Eli was being sincere)

“A train?”

“No…”

Needless to say, Eli wasn’t very excited when we got home and opened the package to find a bouquet of beautiful, bright pink tulips. I love them, especially since Ben’s not known for giving flowers. :) (He would say this makes it more special) It definitely was a nice surprise. Ben wrapped up a cookie for Eli after dinner as a consolation prize.

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, I’ve continued to try to get a cute picture of the boys together so we could send photo Valentines to family members. But nope, didn’t happen. I think the pictures are cute, but not what I was looking for (but who am I kidding??).
Both boys like to stuff cars in this cement mixer that we bought at our neighbors’ toy sale to raise money for Haiti relief.

But Charlie gets frustrated when the cars get stuck.

Mellow Charlie:

Doing play-doh together, sort of (more like Eli doing play-doh and Charlie playing with the tools):

We had a foot of snow this week. Thankfully, the sun has been shining and melting a little bit. I am embarrassed to say I have yet to take Eli out to play in the snow. It’s been cold (20s). Ben said he’ll take him out tomorrow and they can build a snowman. You can see below that I finally tried to put the cover on the sand table, but one of the bulkier toys was stuck, frozen in ice, and preventing me from closing the cover entirely.

I went to Eli’s little preschool Valentine’s party, where they decorated heart cookies.

Eli doesn’t waste much time decorating. He puts minimal amounts of frosting and sprinkles, then digs in.

He was in a silly mood…

Charlie and Ava were having fun watching the teacher’s dog running around outside. I can’t confirm or deny if Charlie ate any dog food while he was over there (yuck!!).

The preschool is taught by a Montessori teacher, so the kids use glasses and practice pouring with little pitchers.

Next – we have Charlie in the early morning (for the last few mornings, he’s woken up for the day at 5:30 a.m. – it’s wayyyyyy too early for me). He was climbing and getting into all sorts of trouble today. He is so opposite Eli in that way (since Eli has never been a climber).

But later, when Eli was awake, he kept running back and forth from the family room to the living room.

Doing his favorite trick along the way (downward dog, then sticking his leg out behind him)

Tonight I made sausage and lentil soup. My mouth fell open when I saw BOTH kids actually taking spoonfuls of the soup. I had very low expectations. Charlie really enjoyed it (though I’m not sure how much actually made it into his stomach).

Here’s Eli with his present – the cookie.

And cute Eli during bathtime tonight, washing off the cookie crumbs:

Charlie took really long naps today because he was up so dang early, so I wanted to keep him up a little bit later with the hope that MAYBE he would sleep later tomorrow. I kind of doubt it, but you never know… So instead, he kept running behind the couch over to Ben, who was exercising on the bike. Finally Ben picked him up and put Charlie on his shoulders. It was pretty funny.

Ben also tried putting Charlie on the handlebars, but that didn’t work very well (Charlie is too wriggly).

And finally, some random stats for the week:

• Funniest word Eli used this week - "wrangle" when he heard me asking Ben to wrangle Charlie (used in the definition - "to herd")
  
  
• Second funniest word Eli used this week - We've had lots of time together at the potty. We've taught Eli the correct terminology, but he has chosen to call his unit a "peanut" - it's all I can do to not start laughing every time he says he's pushing his peanut down (we've had some accidents where the pee was all over the place so now he's more careful. Sorry for TMI)
  
  
• Number of times I changed Eli's clothes yesterday (it was an especially bad day w/ potty accidents) - 10. Seriously. We started doing pj pants by the afternoon because I was running out of regular pants. I’m sticking with the potty training though, energized because…
  
  
• Number of potty accidents today - 0 (Yeah!! HUGE improvement over yesterday's problems) The highlight for me was when I was cooking in the kitchen and came in to the office to find that Eli had just pooped on his potty. Totally on his own volition, pulled his pants down and everything. Seriously, I could have jumped up and down, I was so thrilled. More TMI, I know. I think he might be getting it. I had him go pretty often... he probably sat on the potty 12+ times today.
  
  
• Favorite toddler potty/easiest to clean and use - Baby Bjorn potty
  
  
• Loaves of bread we consume in a week – 2
  
  
• Gallons of milk the boys drink in a week - 2 1/2
  
  
• Boxes of cheerios the boys eat in a week - 3/4 of a box
  
  
• Number of bananas inhaled in a week - 14+
  
  
• My favorite new cooking/recipe blog of the week – For the Love of Cooking