Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Eli the 4-Year-Old

 Last Friday my oldest child turned four. FOUR! How can Eli be four already?? We celebrated by taking the world's longest scooter ride for a four-year-old and a two-year-old - from our house to our favorite cupcake place, 1.3 miles each way. The boys were tough and at the beginning, Eli exclaimed, "This is the BEST birthday ever!"

Then after we had been going for a while, he said in a discouraged tone, "This is the WORST day ever." :)

But he perked right up when we finally made it to the cupcake place, which has a bucket full of little animals that the boys love to play with every time we go there. Charlie was funny and refused to take his helmet and sunglasses off when we were inside. 
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On the way back, we scootered past our friend's house and her son spotted us from the front window (shown in bottom left picture below). The kids were home with their dad at the time so we didn't go inside, but a few minutes later, Krista called and said she was running behind us down the sidewalk (she had been on her way home and saw us walking). She snapped this picture of me with the boys. It was a warm, humid morning, don't mind my frizzies and lovely exercise clothes.  Looking at this picture makes me think about a neighbor that I met earlier this week who thought I was the babysitter because I looked so young. Hmmm. I should probably try to dress my age? But what does that look like, anyway?
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When we were nearing the end of the scooter ride, the boys spotted some tiny bugs on the sidewalk and stopped to take a closer look. I'll post more pictures soon from Eli's birthday weekend, but here are some fun things about my birthday boy:

1. He secretly is the third parent in our house. Or third adult. Tonight Eli and Charlie were upstairs, and all of the sudden Eli started crying. I called up to ask what was wrong, and he said Charlie pushed him (keep in mind they were up past their bedtime and Eli was super tired/oversensitive). I said I was sorry that he did that, and Eli responded, "It's not your fault mom. It's Charlie's," in a very serious, mature voice. 

2. Eli is constantly building towers or other creations with blocks, legos, whatever he can find. He calls the creations up in his room on his table his "Batmobile," which is ever-changing and evolving. He is very possessive of this Batmobile and does everything he can to keep Charlie away from it.

3. His favorite tv shows are Jake and the Neverland Pirates (on Disney) and Word World (PBS). 

4. He is my child who likes to be on time. I may or may not have given him a complex when we're always racing to get to swimming lessons on time... when I say we're running late and need to hurry, he'll say, "It would be better if we were on time, Mom..." Why is it so hard to get to those darn swimming lessons on time, anyway??

5. He has a vivid imagination and loves telling stories about whatever he's playing with. 

6. He's obsessed with Angry Birds on Ben's iphone and loves playing in the evening if he stayed dry all day (meaning he made it to the bathroom every time). 

7. He's a sweet big brother to Charlie and always calls him, "Little Buddy" when he's helping him with something.

I love my Eli! He is a sweet, snuggly, little guy who is obedient and bright. He is a wonderful kid and I am excited to see how he grows and changes in this next year. 

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Scooter Kids on Mother's Day

I had a wonderful Mother's Day this year! Especially when I think back to last year when Ben accidentally gave me some expired bacon as a part of my breakfast in bed, which made me so sick. It's pretty comical but I'm glad this year was more normal.

Ben, Eli and Charlie were so sweet to me. They brought me breakfast in bed and sang some cute songs... later I ran over to the Mother's Day Housewalk put on by the historical society and enjoyed seeing some beautiful homes, one of which is the house where I had nannied at, so that was extra fun. I'll post pictures sometime soon.

After church, my family came over for dinner and the boys had fun showing off their scooter skills. Here is a video with some funny clips of the boys scootering and some pictures from that afternoon. Eli was in a bad mood at the beginning, but his mood improved as he scooted along.


And just for fun - here are the recaps of previous Mother's Days: 2010 (halfway down the post), 2009, 2008.


One of these days I'll actually get caught up on blogging... 

Friday, May 13, 2011

Eli's Imaginary Animals

Today I sat down with Eli and asked him questions about the growing number of dogs/friends that he mentions on a regular basis. Here are my notes from our conversation. He has a very vivid imagination and the best part is that the details are always the same - Jeanie the Dog is always as big as Clifford and Eli the Dog is blue with blue spots. He is such a funny kid and I love him to pieces.  

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Chocolate Milk Dog: Doesn't need to buy milk from the grocery store because he makes milk out of his tummy and then pours it into his cereal every morning. He makes it in his tummy, then opens his tummy up, then he pours it out into a cup. I've got one more new dog, but he is a really great at playing basketball... guess who he is?

Basketball Dog! He loves to play basketball. And he pours basketball milk into his cereal. He can play any basketball game. 

Eli Dog: He likes to play with me. He's blue with blue spots. He loves to build towers with me. 

Jeanie the Dog: Dog that is as big as Clifford and red and yellow. Jeanie likes to dig really deep holes. 

Jack the Dog: He is orange - he's about a foot big. He likes to race and loves to chase cats. 

Super Dog: He doesn't do much stuff. He can play video games on his computer. (Sarah's note - Super Dog appears with us quite a bit though and Eli really loves Super Dog)

Bad Dog: I won't tell you about him because he's not my dog. He does bad things. He's not nice to people. He steals beds, so people can't sleep. But he usually does that at nighttime. He just swipes the bed away and hurries and gets out the door. But he can never know which door will lead to my room. So he thinks, "Hey! Maybe I could go into the middle one. And he only found Charlie's crib. He said, "What? That's not a bed, that's a crib. I'm going to throw myself on the ground." If he sees a crib, he will say that. 

Stripe Dog: He's a really new dog. He has stripes on him - orange and light blue. His tail is striped (Eli smiles). Do you know he has armor on him so if a guy bammed into him, it would bounce right off. The armour is striped. Sooooo. Do you know I got a little friend that's a mouse?

Gice the Mouse (name rhymes with Mice). He's gray like usually mice are. He likes to play hide and seek. He's really good at hiding because he's little. 

I know the best new dog. Ever. He's even gooder than striped dog. He is... Hmmm I need to see what title he's on, what his name is. Kachow! I got two video games now. Let's get rid of this video game. There, that's better. His name is...

Pirate Dog. Arrrrr. Instead of saying Arrr, he says Rahhhhh! He lives on a pirate ship. He's a mean pirate because he is mean too. But he's nice to me. But he's mean to Bad Dog. We make a good team. There's Pirate Dog right now. Rahhhhh. Pirate Dog come back! He's just swinging around. Now he landed on the bed. So what's your plan today? Okay, gotcha. His plan is when we go outside, we're supposed to fight Bad Dog with our good shiny swords. I've got one in my treasure chest. Pirate Dog has a flat curved sword. I've got an oval one. But Pirate Dog has the same one that is just like Jake's except it has the word, "Pirate Dog" on it. 

Crocodile Dog: You need to be realllly careful with him. He might run faster and faster to get you. But he never gets me or froggy. 

Robot Dog: He's too AWESOME! He can do anything. He can wash the dishes without getting rusty. He can clean up his room all by himself. He can play Go Fish with only one robot dog.

Sunday, May 08, 2011

Muddy, Rainy, Sometimes Sunny Spring

It's been such a rainy and cold Spring.
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We've gotten lots of mileage out of those frog rain boots.
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Sometimes though, the rain just makes you want to yell :)
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Thankfully we've had some sunshine peeking through too.
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At playgroup a few weeks ago - we had a great turnout because everyone was so stir crazy after days and days of rain.....
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And last week after my mom's piano students' recital, the boys had fun running around outside and smelling the flowers -
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Happy Mother's Day Mom! She's a fabulous piano teacher - we had a great time listening to her students' pieces and it's fun to see the kids' progress from last year. My boys are lucky they will be able to take lessons from her when they are a little older.

Wednesday, May 04, 2011

Senior Shoot

I have lots of personal pictures to post soon but have been busy editing a recent photo shoot of beautiful high school senior Mikaela and her family. You can see more on my photography blog.
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