Cousins

Whirlwind weekend alert- we were in White Bear Lake Saturday so I could run a 10 mile race around Bald Eagle Lake, Minneapolis for a sorority sisters Baby Shower and then all the way to Green Bay for a quick visit for cousin time and celebrating Dave's good friends graduation from Med School on Sunday.

Grandma, Grandpa is the grass dry yet, can we play baseball? It's so much fun to get the cousins together. One more little Man in the mix is going to be awesome!

I got to listen to the boys play all Sunday morning while I sewed bow ties for us all to wear to Brodie's open house. Brodie doesn't wear ties and instead wears bow ties to avoid transferring anything bad to his patients. 

The boys doted on baby Scarlet- Brodie and Laura's seven month old daughter.

The trilliums were in bloom in the woods around the Marthaler house.

2 Year Old Check Up

Today David and I took Eli to his two year old check up. Dave picked Eli up from daycare and Eli asked if Ado was coming, too.  No Eli- this is a rare Eli 2 parents to 1 kid time. Our doctor was running late despite us having the second appointment of the day. We waited for 45 minutes and got to watch Eli be a total ham eating up having both parents attention. He ran around jumping and throwing a little bouncy ball pretending to shoot basketball.

Eli is just like big brother, speaking in full sentences- very verbally advanced. He's tiny 24 pounds 7 ounces just the 9th percentile and 21st percentile for length 33-1/4 pounds.  Same height and only one ounce lighter than big brother was at two.  It's so crazy to think I had a two month old baby when Adam was this age.

One thing I learned today is we need to make an effort to spend more time with our little man one on one or maybe even two parents to one Eli. Adam get's plenty of mom and dad time while Eli is napping, but it doesn't happen the other way around very often.

Pink or Blue? If Only We Knew?

My good friend Brooke threw me an awesome surprise baby shower four years ago and I knew when it was her turn to have a baby I wanted to return the favor. She doesn't know if she's having a boy or girl (which is how it should be with the first baby), so I decided to do a twist on a gender reveal party that are all over Pintrest.  I had a Pink and Blue Brunch shower.

I would have taken more pictures of the decor, but I was running late and didn't have time. We had pumpkin muffin-cakes with cream cheese frosting, melon slices, build your own fruit pizza on Onesie cut out cookies and egg bake. I love brunch!

The games were simple, but very Brooke. We played Dog Toy or Baby Toy? and Old Wives Tale Gender Guessing Game. 

The party favors were pink and blue iced onesie cookies. Each guest made a prediction when picking out the their cookie. Two blues and five pinks- her Junebug is due at the beginning of June and then we will know for sure.

 I started pinning like crazy for this shower a few months ago and had two friends send me messages that they saw all my pins about baby stuff and wanted to know if I was pregnant- ha! I got my baby fix holding little Noah at the shower.

2nd Birthday at the Farm

We started celebrating Eli's 2nd birthday a day early with a cute little cake Auntie Brooke brought for after dinner.

Eli's actual 2nd birthday fell on a Saturday, but unfortunately dad was working the weekend on midnight shift (have I mentioned Dave is doing shift work). So instead of a great big party I opted to go to my Grandparents farm house to celebrate with my mom's extended family. I remember celebrating our summer birthdays at the farm with cake (the pictures below are from Henry's 2nd birthday in 1988). It just felt right to bring my son their to continue the tradition while I still can.

Left to right- my aunt Bernie, uncle Charlie, Henry (2nd birthday), cousin Vanessa, Matt, Mom, Me

No clue who top left is, Me, Matt, Danny, Jonathan

In the morning the house was decorated when Eli woke up and we played with all of our farm toys that I had set up around the house.

My dad made hamburgers,  hot dogs, mac & cheese and potato salad for dinner. We ate at the large table my grandfather made. It feels strange that he isn't sitting at the head of the table like he always did my whole life. Several of my aunts and uncles and some of my cousins came over to celebrate.

I made a tractor cake using a friends molded pan and got my artistic mother and aunt to frost it.

The boys got to play on a tractor four wheeler. Adam even let Eli drive first.

Their favorite thing was just running around on the farm enjoying the freedom and space while being boys. Eli had a great 2nd birthday!