Wednesday, June 24, 2009

A Day at the Zoo





Last weekend my mom and I took the boys down to visit my sister, since she lives close to St. Louis we decided to go to the zoo- the FREE zoo!! The boys had a great time, even though it was like a million degrees outside. Rowan got soaking wet in a waterfall pretty early and he actually felt pretty cool most of the day just from being wet. I'll try not to bore you with pictures of the animals, cause really I'm sure you all know what an elephant looks like right?







My mom, my sister, and my kids








Abby and Rowan



Rowan in a tunnel






Eli underwater- kind of



Eli naps!!





















Eli LOVED the primate house he was going crazy pointing and screaming, I think I got a video I'll have to post later.















Eli made a friend- and guess what his name was?? You're right it was Eli!! Actually Elijah, but they call him Eli.






Notice how the giraffe is looking at the camera!






Monday, June 15, 2009

How Old is This Kid?

Oh Eli, my sweet, smiley, super cute almost one year old is going to make me crazy. Recently Freak passed down some outside play stuff to us (Thanks Freak!!), a swingset and a climbing cube with a slide. At first Eli would try to climb up the slide, of course he is only 11.5months so he barely moved up and then slid back down. He thought it was hilarious and I was able to sit back and enjoy watching him safely play (from the comfort of my swing). So last night we're watching him again and all the sudden he just keeps going at first he gets like half way up, but it didn't take him long to figure out how to get to the very top. Of course once you're up there and go in the cube it is a ledge, that he could fall off of- so no more relaxing for me outside! After the slide fun he decided to climb the kiddie picnic table....stay tuned I'm sure there will be more!

See the diaper falling off? I was actually trying pins so he could go w/o a cover- the pins SUCKED, I obviously couldn't do it right. Thank goodness for Snappi!







All the way up, the next time Rowan wasn't sitting there.








going down













Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Pictures

I don't really have much of an update so just thought I'd post some random pics from the past few days. I feel like we have been so busy, but at the same time like we don't really do anything- still job searching...
I can't believe Eli is almost 1! He's developing his personality more and more everyday! I didn't say that was a good thing though ;) He seems to be trading in his 2 crappy naps a day- but, is (so far) replacing them with one decent nap!!!!!!! We've had a few 2-3 hour nap days! Very Big news for my formerly non napper, and a change I will defeinetly take! Rowan drives me absolutly CRAZY at least a few times a day, but he usually knows the right time to crawl on my lap and say "I Love You," so I can usually forgive him.










He walks!!











He sleeps!!




He hugs trees!!




Thursday, June 4, 2009

SCORE!!!!

We are finally getting food from the garden (ok it is early June, but I have been really wanting something fresh). Unfortunately someone else- possibly the birds..- are also excited about our strawberries, so we are now picking them when they are half ripe, hoping they will ripen up and we can enjoy them. They actually taste really good like this so we shouldn't really have to wait to eat them.
We are also getting sugar snap peas! We love these so much they never make it inside or to an actual meal, we usually just pick them and eat right off the vine. We are really hoping to not waste any of our garden food this year. It gets hard, we get busy, its hot, and we just don't pick stuff for a few days and then go out to find a bunch of rotten tomatoes, but hopefully not this year. We will either eat it, freeze it, or give it away.

Earlier tonight I went to some garage sales with my mom and got somne great deals. I made myself a little goal this year to try and not buy the boys any new clothes this year, so I'm trying to get stuff for now and winter at garage sales (In case you're interested I do not think I have bought any new clothes for them so far this year..).


One of the sales we went to looked my boys' closets- there was a lot of clothes that we owned in different sizes or colors!
I spent $24 total and got:
Rowan- 2 shirts
- 1 pair Spiderman croc like shoes
Eli -5 shirts(including 1 super cute sweater)
-1 pair of jeans
-2 pairs of shorts
-1 set of pj's
Me-(I hardly ever shop for myself) **all for only $4!!!
-2 sweaters
-3 shirts
-1 pair of jeans
-1 pair of pants
Mike- ( I NEVER buy Mike anything)
- 1 shirt (ok so that's still not much...)




I am so excited, I tend to be pretty picky at garage sales, because I think the stuff really should be DIRT cheap, I mean it is used! A lot of the boys clothes I got are Gap, Old navy, and Children's Place- which I don't really care about, but that shows me how much they actually cost.





Oh and the big thing we got- Rowan's 1st bike!! We were planning on getting one for his birthday, and we'd tried one out at the store. I thought it would be great if we could actually find one at a sale, but didn't really think it would happen. One of the first ones we went to had this bike for $10- it's in great condition. The only problem is that it's a Winnie the Pooh bike (I hate Winnie the Pooh), but its Tigger and I can live with Tigger. There is not a picture of Pooh, and I think only one of Tigger (it just says Tigger), but it is orange and that is Rowan's 2nd favorite color so I think we did pretty good! And we found a helmet for 25cents at the next sale we went to. And in case you're wondering the $24 I spent was including the bike- pretty good!!
Of course the last sale we stopped at had a bike the same size for $6- damn!! Oh well I figure a new bike and helmet probably would have cost $45-55 at least so I think we did pretty well.



Saturday, May 30, 2009

Thursday, May 28, 2009

11 Months

One more month! WoW!! Big month for Eli- he traveled out of state and he's talking!!! Ok so he only says "go" and "cracker.," but it still counts and he is absolutely adorable when he says cracker! He is still walking a lot, but usually falls down after about 10 steps, he gets very excited about it though. He still has quite a temper and already seems to love fighting with his brother- yeah can't wait till they are older.







He has rediscovered his bouncy seat- you know the ones for infants. He loves to sit in it and stand on it and bounce and dance (another favorite of his), he thinks he's pretty funny, especially when he lays down and pretends to go to sleep in it. He's also learning how to undo the velcro on his diaper covers! Such a smartie!! So I am trying to remember to keep shorts or pants on over them at all times. He loves being outside and getting dirty, and eating sand and I'm sure every other gross dirty thing he can find do to. Oh yeah he tried to eat cat poop- yeah it's ok if that made you gag- I did when I was told about it, of course I wasn't here- that wouldn't happen on my watch....


































Tuesday, May 26, 2009

The Never Ending Weekend

Friday morning we got up and headed to Murfreesboro, TN for my cousin's wedding. It was a 6 hour drive (minus the many stops the children required!). Like always Eli wasn't to into napping in the car (shocked aren't you?) and he probably only slept 2.5hrs. total in the car (that's both his naps). I find the car to be exhausting and don't know how he can keep his eyes open so much.

The wedding was at 7pm so we had sometime to sit in the hotel and get dinner before getting dressed to go. Of course I didn't get any pictures at the wedding, but Eli had a super cute outfit. The wedding was beautiful! I am really not that into weddings (or maybe I'm just not into the extreme cost that goes into weddings- I just don't get it), but I really like this one, they did things just a little different (like the guys walking into the drums playing..) that made me really like it. SInce it was in the evening instead of having a meal they had a DESSERT RECEPTION- seriously genius!! Rowan really like that part, and it totally made up for the fact that there was no alcohol (I know, but it really was still nice). The boys did surprsingly well during the ceremony, Eli even clapped after they had a group of little girls sing (adorable). I probably should have put the oictures in more than one post, but you'll live.

Are you wondering about this picture? We bought disposable diapers for the trip and I couldn't believe how skinny Eli looked in them. I guess I forgot how bulky the cloth really are!



Eli was super tired at the reception (which was after his bedtime!), but he still managed to help me make my new ring sling look cute!



My cousins were in the wedding and helped clean up afterwards so we brough Rowan's cousin (2nd or 3rd cousin? I don't know..) back to the hotel with us. Rowan was so excited and just kept wanting to hug C- who was not as excited as Rowan, but did put on a happy face for the camera.


Eli loved checking out the hotel!













And he especially loved the fact that there was no crib, which apparently meant he didn't have to go to bed. He finally gave in at 11:30pm(almost 4 hrs. after his normal bedtime) and was up at 6:30am the next day. What is wrong with this child?! Seriously!?



So Saturday morning we got up and drove to Kentucky to a park just south of Evansville, IN. It was about a 3 hour drive (we wanted something half was home). After we got our tent set up we went for a hike.







Eli slept in the Ergo carrier, on my front since it was a short hike.










I thought it was cute when he folded his arms under his head.










The boys loved that there was so much dirt to play in. Luckily Rowan took a bunch of diggers so he was able to get extra dirty! It was really fun when it rained!















Eli liked the dirt too.








We bought a new tent since our old one was getting tight with Rowan, this one is great and has tons of room.


















Eli chillin' in Rowan's chair with Rowan's water bottle. He tumbled out of the chair right after I took this. Reminder- never leave babies unattended in chairs without straps- or something like that.













Reminder- The 3 year olds water bottle is NOT spill proof.











Eli's new favorite toy is this Barney handheld vacuum. He loves to clean with it.













What happens when you forget your backpack.










Sunday we went on a 3.5mile hike. It took us about 2 hours at Rowan's pace- ok so I was probably slower than Rowan. But there were a lot of hills and a lot of steep hills. Rowan walked most of it and just had Mike carry him a little. Eli rode on my back in the Ergo, he napped for a while at first and then enjoyed looking up at the trees. It rained the whole time, but we were in the forest so didn't feel most of it and when we did it felt really good.









We came around a corner and this deer was standing right there eating, just a few feet away. It looked at us and then kept eating, but didn't run. I was a little scared, ok terrified. Usually they run, I was convinced it was going to come after us.






Saturday night both boys seemed to be getting colds, but they both seemed fine the rest of the weekend. We were worried about Eli, since he is suppose to get breathing treatments as soon as his cold starts. Of course I didn't take the machine, although I thought about it. So we started it last night when we got home hoepfully he doesn't get too bad. I started feeling awful yesterday morning and felt like crap the whole ride home, then spent the rest of the day on the couch. I feel better today so I'm pretty sure I'll survive this cold. Eli is sleeping better already, he stayed up way to late every night we were gone, and hardly napped. SUnday we were all exhausted and all decided to take a nap in the tent. Mike and Rowan fell alseep right away, I nursed Eli hoping he'd fall alseep, but no. I kept dozing and he just kept crawling all over us like we were playing a game. Eventually Mike woke up and took him and Rowan and I napped. H efell alseep later in the stroller for 30minutes- maybe. I just don't get him at all!