Happy Mother’s Day

We have already had quite a weekend! But it isn’t over yet. I plan to post more later. But until then, I thought I would share with you what Eli brought home from MDO last week. He was sooo excited to show this to me. He went on and on about how he painted and made the grass and how the teacher helped him put his thumb in the right place. Usually I have to ask a lot of questions, but that day he needed no prompting. It made my day! Well, I better get to cleaning up, we have special guests coming to dinner tonight. Check back for pictures from Great Gran’s house, Rough and Ready Days festival, Eli’s first time on a carnivalish ride and pictures from our Mother’s day dinner.

Our very own sleeping beauty

Yesterday Lucy took quite a nap. She was out cold and it was going on 3 hours!! She does this every once in a while, but it is not regular for her. So I went in to check on her and couldn’t resist taking a picture. She looked so peaceful. I was taking these in her dark room, so there was all sorts of flash action going on. After the 4th picture she began to stir and shortly after sat up ready to go 🙂 She is coming up on 10 months. My how time flies…………..we love you sweet girl. Try not to grow up too fast.

par-tay

Last night we went to a couples shower/party for Annie and Paul. It had a mexican fiesta theme. It was a great time!!!!! I can’t believe their wedding is just 3 weeks away!!!!!!

cake is yummy in my tummy

Eli and I made a cake last night. He hleped me pour the ingredients in and then he got the best job, to lick the bowl. This was his first time to get to do this. As you can see, he LOVED it. I got busy pouring the mix into the pan and then turned around to find Eli’s hair all spiked up. I assumed he had run his fingers through his hair, but then a few minutes later I looked over to find the bowl on his head. He wasn’t willing to let any of it go to waste! 🙂 He told me over and over “Cake it good, it is yummy in my tummy!” “I like cake, mommy” Lucy didn’t know what to think of all the excitement. She watches Eli so intently. It will interesting to see how their relationship changes over the course of the next year.

100% BOY

There is a spot in our yard that our tire hits every time we pull in or out and so has caused a rut or whatever you would call that. So every time it rains it becomes a mud hole and kids just can’t resist it, especially Eli. We were hanging out and playing and Eli spotted the muddy water. He has played in it before, so he started by casually walking through it, which was very exciting to him. I was on the phone with my mom and my first response was “Eli, get out of the mud!” I even thought about punishing him when he started to walk through it again. But as I was in route to punish I asked myself “Am I punishing cause he is inconveniencing me or because he needs correction?” Obviously by the pictures I decided not to and after he asked so sweetly “Please mommy I play in the mud?” I replied “Yes you may, thank you for asking nicely” My mom heard the whole conversation and was giggling at me and Eli. In the middle of him playing in the mud I put my parents on speaker phone and let Eli talk with them. He is always amazed to hear their voices coming through on the speaker. I’m not sure he really gets it, but he is usually happy to talk if it is on speaker, but you can forget him holding the phone to his hear. So they talk, he tells them he is getting muddy and wet and then my mom says something about wanting to hug him and without skipping a beat he gives the phone a huge hug. It was precious. And as if he wasn’t wet enough from the puddle he asked if we could wash the car, so we did and he was drenched from head to toe and let me tell you, it was chilly yesterday!!! Bottom line, we had a good time. Lucy slept through all of it!

catch up

I’ve been meaning to post for the past week, but last week was busier and went by faster than a normal week. So, last weekend we had a special visitor. Gramma Gari came to see us. She got in late Friday night and Sat morning we got busy working on our patio and in the yard. We started the process of screening in our back patio back at Christmas time. As you can see in the pictures below, the kids had a great time. Sadly these are the only pictures I took. I really got into “cleaning out” our back yard. We had sooooo many little baby trees from acorns that had fallen and tons of vines and weeds. Once I got going on that I didn’t pick the camera back up. Anyway, Gramma helped a little here and there, but her main help was with the kiddos. Nathan’s dad, Granpa, came in, too. He has been a huge help for Nathan with this whole patio project. After a full day of working outside, we cleaned up and headed to Pine Bluff to have dinner with Taylor and Lee Ann. It was a very productive, enjoyable, good day. Sunday we ended up working on the yard and patio again and then ended the day with my first homemade lasgana. We had my mom, mema and aunt Pammie come join us. It wasn’t too bad, the lasgana that is, and the company was awesome. Anyway, over all it was a fabulous weekend, Thank you Gramma Gari for coming. On several occasions Eli has requested Gramma for various things, like “I want Gramma to read me stories” or this morning he had a mini meltdown and started crying out “I want Gramma” Needless to say, he loves his Gramma. We miss you, Gari. Come back soon.

the many emotions of Eli

mad

sad

naughty

suprised

We read a library book about a month or so ago that was about a boy and his ball and a bear. It walked through several different emotions, like the boy was happy playing with his ball, then suprised when the bear arrived, then mad when the bear took his ball, then scared when the bear came back with other bears, etc etc..I’m not sure the exact order, but you get the point. Ever since then Eli will do somewhat animated expressions. I thought it would be fun to try and get them in a picture, so here is my first attempt. He was in the middle of playing with stickers, so he was only so so cooperating.