Fly Sweater

Adam's afraid of flies.  Like need to be held afraid, we keep telling him that they're harmless and won't bight him, but he see's one and he starts yelling to be held.  And with the combination of warm weather, playing on the deck and a broken screen has allowed a couple of flies to come in our house.  Grandma talked about buying us a fly swatter so we can take care of them when she was here.  Well this morning Adam came out of his bedroom holding his "fly sweater" wanting help to put it on.

Shoe fly Adam has his fly sweater and he knows how to use it!

PS- I purchased a real fly swatter from Ace Hardware this afternoon.

Matchers

Sometimes it's just too cute and I can't help myself.  We were shopping at the baby/kid consignment shop at the mall when Adam spotted PJ's that looked just like his in 12 month size!  Perfect.  And now we can have matchers at night.  But you better believe that if Eli is wearing his ball jammies Adams's better be clean, because that's the only thing he'll want to wear.

Shower

Sometimes it feels like life just repeats itself.  Two years ago Adam was nearing his first birthday when I helped my mother in law plan Ann's jungle animal themed baby shower for James.  Today I brought my almost 11 month old to my cousin Rachel's jungle animal themed shower that I helped plan.  Again I had visions of taking pictures and mingling with guests, but it's hard to wrangle an almost 1 year old.  But the shower was beautiful and we managed to cram both sides of baby Owen's family in my grandparents small farm house for the party.

Rachel's sisters are extremely talented.  Jenny handled the decorations and Hannah made some of the best cupcakes.  I wish I had more pictures of the really cute decorations.  They had pom poms and I loved the map pendent flag.  I have to make one of these for the two special birthdays we have coming up.

I did the games and made really cute onesie cookies that I forgot to take a picture of.  Rachel is due April 28th, so maybe her son will share a birthday with Eli?  And Eli helped open presents, which I did get a picture of.

In Eli news that third tooth is finally broken through on top and his rash/hives finally started to fade.  I found out that several of my aunts and uncles are allergic to Amoxicillin, so sorry Eli but I think we'll have to find different antibiotics for you to use.  (Since Eli's rash actually got worse Friday I took him with to my appointment to see our family doctor.  She thought the rash might be from a viral infection, so we'll run an antibody test at his 1 year appointment, but I'm expecting the results to find no antibodies = amoxicillin allergy for Eli)

Kissing

Adam caught Dave and I sharing a kiss, so he walked right up to me and gave me a kiss too.  Then I asked him if he wanted to give dad a kiss, so he turned and gave Dave one too.  So the I said do you want to give Eli a kiss?

And Adam paused and then said, "Eli kisses with his whole mouth."  

Which is totally true.  When Eli gives kisses he comes at you with his mouth wide open.  

Nice Picture Daddy

One of my favorite things is to be flipping through pictures I took on my camera and find a ridiculously cute picture that Dave took.  The other day I found this surprise picture of Eli.  Those blue-blue eyes are so vibrant and the smile so perfect, because he loves playing with that remote and for the most part he doesn't get to.

Eli is changing so fast now days.  He can push himself up to standing from sitting.  I can't believe it and I catch him squatting when playing now.  I'm not sure why he hasn't started walking yet, but that's okay.  He likes to wave goodbye and jabber like he's involved in a conversation.

Eli woke up on Monday with a fever and so Dave took him to urgent care.  He has his second ear infection and we literally had just given Adam his last dose of antibiotics for his ear infection that same morning.  So Eli got amoxicillin and then today he woke up with hives and a bright red rash everywhere.  So Dave took him back to urgent care and found out he's allergic to amoxicillin.

Tomorrow's Friday and we have a busy weekend planned.  Dave and I are going to the community theater play tomorrow night, then Saturday we have Adam's Open House for his preschool (what Adam's starting preschool this fall?) and then we're going to the cities for my cousin Rachel's baby shower.  And I can't forget (mainly because he's addicted to everything baseball and it's still just the preseason) Sunday Dave has a Fantasy Baseball Draft party.  So yeah busy weekend.

March Madness

I'm not talking about basketball- it's this crazy weird warm weather.  60's then 70's now 80 degree weather in the middle of March.  Honestly I really dislike the lingering cold weather once the snow melts in the spring and before the snow comes in the fall, so going from skiing a week ago to shorts this weekend is awesome!

The boys have gone for two runs with their mamma in a double stroller, we played at the hard park and yesterday Adam and I went for our first bike ride of the season.  Adam passed out in the Wike (our bike carrier brand) on the way home, because he's been skipping his nap lately.  I'm not ready for him to give up his nap and I don't think he is either.  We also pulled out the patio furniture and Adam and Eli got to play in the sand box and on the deck.  Several nights last week Adam played on the deck while I cooked dinner.  He was super good at staying on the deck and only left a couple of times to get his ball.  This deck thing is awesome!  We've gotten to do lots of our favorite things that we don't normally get to do in March.

Helpful Big Brother

Michigan Tech made it to the WCHA Final Five here at the Xcel Energy center and so we decided to buy tickets to the whole turney (unfortunately Tech lost in the first game).  Thursday we took the boys to both games and got home at about 11:30 PM.  Then Friday we took them to the early game but Grandma and Grandpa took them to their house for the late game.  So we picked them up around 10:30 and got home just before midnight.  Then for the championship game Dave and I went alone again and left the boys with grandma and grandpa.  We stayed to watch the awarding of the trophy so it was even later when we picked up the kids.  So Eli was sick of being carted around late at night and we were struggling to get him down to bed at midnight last night.

I tried feeding him, giving him a nuk, taking him outside, rocking him, bouncing him, but every time we set him down in the crib he would scream and scream.  We finally realized he just needed to cry it out.  Dave was standing outside the boys room listening in and he heard Adam say, "Eli, stop crying.  It's okay, Eli."  And then Eli settled down and went to sleep.  So I guess Eli didn't need mom and dad, he needed help from big brother.

Hair Like Clay Matthews

"Mom you have longy hair just like Clay Matthews."  I'm going to take that as a complement I think.

Little Personality

My baby is turning into a big boy more and more each day, which means his personality is really showing.  He loves to play peak a boo and it was just my luck that I tried to take a picture of him playing, but couldn't get my camera to work.  He tells us when he isn't happy by smacking his head to the ground.  And he'll point to stuff all the time.  Especially his brother and doggy.

Bath time is just about his favorite thing.  That and finding Brockway's dishes left out- especially the water dish or playing in our pantry cupboard.  When the dishwasher is open or the fridge you can hear the hand smacking on the linoleum floor pick up speed as Eli crawls faster to get there before the door is closed.

He likes to talk and answer us when we ask questions.  We don't really understand the answers, but he gets what we're saying.  Today he told me all about why he had a new shirt on when I picked him up from daycare.  I'll have to open up the bag to really figure it out though.

Mary's Little Man

Tonight as I pulled the enchilada stack (thanks for the recipe inspiration pintrest) out of the oven for super Adam saw it and made an excited noise.  Then he said, "oooh, I'm going to need the fancy bib!"  He almost never wears bibs at home when eating, because when we try to put them on him he throws a fit.

The fancy bib is a towel bib that looks like a little tuxedo.  When Adam finished eating and took of the tuxedo bib he told us that it wasn't his wedding, because boys don't have weddings.  We explained to him that boys do have weddings and get married because daddy married mommy.  After convincing him that boys do have weddings he told us that he was going to be Mary's husband.  We asked Mary who?

And he responded, "Mary had a little Man, little Man, little Man."

So Adam is Mary's little Man and he's going to follow her to school one day.  Oh kids, they really do say some awesome impressive things.

Bubbles

As I've mentioned before sometimes I think Adam is clairvoyant.  On Thursday I picked the boys up from daycare and on the drive home Adam was asking if we had bubbles at home.  I told him I was pretty sure we did and he asked where and I told him I wasn't sure.  When we got home after struggling to get my two year old to come in the house, "Mamma I want to shubble, mamma I want to shubble (shovel)!"  We went downstairs to play while I started some laundry.

Both Adam and I had completely forgotten about the bubbles when Dave came home with a surprise for Adam.  Dave brought home bubble wrap for Adam to pop that was around the part he was getting modified right before he left work.  Maybe Adam isn't clairvoyant, but seriously this is getting strange!

Standing, Climbing and Bowling Oh My

I love the fact that he was practically doing "Ta-Da" with his hands when he would stand up

Friday night we took the boys to their first musical.  It was the musical that the third graders put on every year and this year it was based on the book The Quilt Makers Gift (My coworkers wife is the music teacher at the grade school and she actually wrote the musical herself, that is so cool!).  It was only an hour long and it kept Adams interest completely.  Eli was immediately interested at the beginning with pointing and lots of saying "da", but after a couple of songs and dancing he would loose interest during the narration.  So I would let him stand and play in between my legs and then pick him up to watch the singing and dancing.  It worked out great.

This weekend was a little rough for Mr. Eli.  Saturday he started to push himself up to standing and then balance for a few seconds unassisted.  This of course leads to falling and for the most part he is graceful and tough, but several falls did not go so well and he has the bruises and cuts to show for it.

He fell while I was taking pictures, so I snapped one last quick picture and then there was lots of mommy cuddling to make it better

Saturday night my parents babysat the boys here in Hutchinson and Dave and I went out for date night.  We had a wonderful 2 hour dinner at Zellas with a bottle of wine and dessert!  And then we met up with some friends for bowling.

Sunday Eli found yet another new skill to work on- climbing up the stairs.  I knew this day was coming.  Dave and I never put up the gate I purchased for the bottom of the stairs because Adam mastered safely going down the steps shortly after he figured out he could climb up them.  So I guess I have a project for us to work on!

I went skiing with Adam and my parents at the Crow River golf course on Sunday morning.  Adam skied with his skies at first, but then agreed that he was tired and wanted to ride on my back.  We were blazing our own trail and Adam suggested we go down the hill.  I never liked the hill leading to the green on hole one and now I have even more reason to despise it.  I fell big time with Adam on my back.  He didn't cry, so I don't think he got hurt, but I could tell he got really nervous when I even got near a hill the rest of the time we were skiing.

After what should have been naptime we went to a family bowling event put on by our work.  (Adam's getting older and today he didn't sleep at all for the 1.5 hours he was supposed to be napping).  Adam got to bowl for the first time with his buddy Nathaniel.  He loved bowling and cheering for the ball as it rolled down the lane.  At the end of the session they turned down the lights and did cosmic bowling.  Eli loved watching the crazy lights and Adam and Nathaniel both danced and danced to the music.  It was an enjoyable family activity.