Rainstorm!

As I mentioned in other posts, we've had a TON of rain this year. So we've embraced the rain (when it isn't thunder/lightning/hailing) and not care if we get soaking wet playing outside.

Remembering that it was Warmer this Month...

We're having an unseasonably cold end of March. (Are you tired of me complaining about the weather?? When you live in Chicago, that's just what we do at this time of year! It's in the 30s and we may have snow this week... boooooo) Here are some pictures from St. Patrick's Day when it actually broke 50 degrees that day and we weren't bundled up in coats outside.

Oh Christmas Tree…

Ben and I debated whether we should go the live tree or fake tree route this year, but we’ve had a live tree every year since we we’ve been married, so we couldn’t bring ourselves to do the fake one yet. We drove over to the oh-so-picturesque Home Depot to pick out our noble fir.

When you have two kids two and under, the thought of driving super far away to cut down a tree is not appealing. Someday though, I’d like to do it that way.

There is such convenience of loading your heavy tree on a cart, wheeling it over to the check out. At least we didn't go to Wal-Mart. I really don't like that store. Why doesn't Target sell Christmas trees?? I love Target.

Christmas lights were 99 cents since it was Black Friday, so I stocked up on a bunch to decorate the outside of our house (we didn't have it in us last year, so this was our first time with outside lights). Home Depot even handed out free hot chocolate and candy to keep customers happy. See the tree positioning on the car? Ben put his kayak straps to good use.

Eli was super cute while we were decorating the tree (Charlie was napping). He put on his Eli santa hat from last year and sang Jingle Bells over and over. It was a different story when I went outside to put up lights around our house - he wanted to come be with me (Ben was off jogging), but he cried almost the entire time we were out there together. My solution was to have him watch through the screen door's window (the storm screen was down, so it wasn't too freezing). It was much harder than I expected to put the lights up outside. Seven hundred lights later, I feel like it barely looks decorated, but that's okay. It's good for now.

The next day, the magic of it all hadn’t worn off yet. Eli must have said “Ho ho ho!” about 20 times that morning. I loved it.

Yesterday afternoon I ran around a stretch of shops near our house to put up posters for our ward’s annual nativity exhibit, coming up this weekend. When I came home, I found Ben standing on a chair, blowing bubbles for Eli. I can’t believe it was warm enough at the end of November for them to be outside without jackets (well, it was a little chilly, but Eli had no interest in wearing his coat).

I love the magic of bubbles. Kids seem to have a universal love for them.

The picture below shows how skinny this kid is. I have to put his pants on the tightest option with the buttons in the waistband. He needs to eat more. But somehow his diet of cheerios, deli turkey, and fruit seems to keep him going.

Of course there’s always a little attitude mixed in with the bubble happiness when a 2-yr-old is involved. “No, I don’t want to wear my hoodie!” he kept saying, despite my efforts to have him put it on.

Gotta love the body language in this one. :)

My convincing strategies weren’t strong enough. The red hoodie stayed hanging on the back of the patio chair. I figured if he got cold enough, he’d eventually put it on.

With no hard feelings after our hoodie debate, he invited me to come play in his “house” under the playset. Ben was inside our real house at this point, getting Charlie who had woken up from his nap. This was Eli’s front door -

“Come on in, Mama!”

So I did. I love this boy so much.

Playing in the Snow

With all of the snow yesterday, we thought it would be fun to take Eli out to play for a little bit. He was getting a little stir crazy/cranky inside, so we figured a little fresh air might be nice. This was his initial reaction to getting all of the snow gear on:

Those pictures make me laugh - don't think I'm a mean mom for taking them :) He cheered up when we told him some of his favorite neighbors were coming to play too. Ben made lots of snowballs with the snowballer and Eli thought it was really fun throwing them on the ground.

It was still snowing a little, so Eli kept sticking his tongue out to taste it

Here's Sasha, who was cracking Eli up every time she threw snow up in the air

And Oliver, who made about 50 snowballs behind a snow fort that Ben built, and then he and Sasha threw them at Ben, who deflected them with Eli's sled

Sasha was sweet and pulled Eli in the sled for a little bit

Here's little Eli in his big poofy coat, sitting on the sled

Eli's nose and cheeks were pretty red by the time we came inside. I think he lasted longer because he was so entertained by Sasha and Oliver - they kept dropping snowballs and saying, "Oops!" and he would laugh and laugh

Hat Weather

It's definitely cold in Chicago. Tonight the low is 26 degrees. BRR!!! That hasn't stopped Eli from wanting to play outside every chance that he gets. We're now enjoying the fun task of bundling up every time we go outside... (and this is just minimal bundling up - I'm not really excited about the boots and gloves aspect to winter that is just around the corner)

I took these pictures on Friday, when Eli was sporting the dog hat my mom knit for him.

I love leaf pictures! Our front yard was full of leaves and Ben finally raked most of them on Saturday. I'm sure we'll have another load of leaves on our lawn in a day or so.
Whenever we walk from the garage to the house, Eli spots the balls out in the back yard and says the word over and over again... "Ball? Ball? Ball?" while I try to rush us inside because I either A) Have to go to the bathroom, since I currently need to go once/hour or B) I'm starving and feel like I'm going to pass out if I don't eat something soon or C) We're overdue with Eli's lunchtime/nap and I don't want to miss the window of time where he'll cooperate on either one.

Sometimes I give in and we play for a while first, like this time on Friday.

We had just taken a long walk with the stroller... I was freezing and felt guilty that Eli wasn't wearing gloves, because it was really cold. He didn't care that his hands felt like icicles. We probably stayed outside for another 20 minutes before I carried him in as he kicked and hit me, screaming because he did NOT want to go inside.

I know he would play outside all day if I let him. Sorry Eli, your mom isn't as tough as you in this weather!!