Together Again

Daddy's home! Here are they boys, having a jolly old time doing a piggy back ride. Or, as Elliot calls it, a backpack. Aren't they cute?

Here they are at the Honeymoon Cafe in Pismo after a trip to the beach. Elliot was getting pretty tired and squirrelly but he still had fun. Ah, so good to have the whole family together!

I just had to throw this one in of Elliot because he is so good-looking. I took this while Elliot and I were walking/hanging out on the beach watching Erik surf. Elliot is actually pretty into taking long walks and looking for shells, which is more fun for me than digging in the sand, so that works out well for all of us.

Erik is amazed at how much more Elliot can talk now. He's been using complete sentences more and more. The other day I came into the house and shut the door behind me quite innocently, not realizing that he wanted to shut the door for me. So, he said, "That's ridiculous, mom! You're getting a time out!" I laughed a lot at that one. Then, tonight, Erik was telling him how he might go surfing tomorrow morning. Elliot said, "Um, problem. I can't go surfing right now. I would fall in the water. Maybe just take a bath?" It was so funny! Erik says, "Oh really, it's gonna be a problem?" Elliot says, "Yeah, I think that's gonna be a problem." Who knows where he gets these things?

Also, for those who are wondering, Elliot is very excited and happy to have his dad home. For the last few days, he's been asking for Erik every time he needs help, and every time he wants to play. I am glad they are having some bonding time, and it's great to see them enjoying each other, together once again.

Junior Firefighter

Mary and Bill got a chance this week to do something Bill has wanted to do for a long time - take Elliot for a tour of the fire station! Bill used to be a volunteer firefighter back when that was all that existed in Arroyo Grande, and that's been an important part of his life, so it was really neat for him to get to share it with Elliot. Of course, being a boy, Elliot loves fire engines. Mary said he was a little scared that it was going to be loud, but then he got over it and had a great time checking everything out. They gave him the full tour, plus a toy fire hat, stickers, a coloring book, and a key chain that says, "Junior Firefighter".

Easter Festivities

Elliot went for a pony ride at Waller Park on the way over to the Saturday Easter picnic with Ann's church. At first he wasn't into riding the pony, but once he saw all the other kids riding, he wanted to. It was so funny, because all the other kids were completely silent and seriously looking, but Elliot kept yelling out, "I'm riding a big pony!", and when he would pass some of the other ponies that were just hanging out, he would say, "Hi, Pony!", as loud as he could. It was a long pony ride - at least five minutes, and he was like that the whole time. So funny! Next, there he is doing the easter egg hunt at the picnic in Waller park. I had to really encourage him to look for eggs (which were really just scattered on the grass) because he kept stopping to sit down and eat the candy that was inside the eggs. But then, "he" found the golden egg, and got a special easter basket as a prize! There he is getting into his easter basket stuff on Sunday morning. He was really excited about the candy and the Elmo train. I also got him a really cool preschool bingo game: it has a little thing that makes various sounds, and you have to match the sound to a picture on your card, and when you get three in a row you win. He can actually play it with me, which is so fun! It's the first game he's been able to play. Then there we are at Mary and Bill's house (the grandparents), with the really yummy easter cake that Mary made. It had Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Buttercream frosting - so delicious! It would have been perfect if Erik had been here, but we still had a wonderful Easter.

The many loves...

Actually, his true love is probably Emma Grace, but he apparently likes to hold hands with little girls. That's his friend, Debbie, in the top picture, and Emma in the picture above. So cute! On the way home from church the other night (Debbie goes to our church), he told me, "Mom, I need to hold Debbie and give her a kiss." He moves fast.

Easter Egg Dying

Elliot dyed easter eggs for the first time! He was really excited about it, and luckily I caught him in a good mood right after his nap. He followed instructions really well, and put the eggs very gently into each glass, then scooped them out one at a time and said, "Oooh!" when he saw that they were being colored. Then he really wanted to eat one, so he did. And then he wanted another one, so he had one. He wanted more after that, but I thought two eggs was enough for a little tummy. We had so much fun doing this together! It makes me realize that I need to have him do creative things more often.

B.B.B.

That stands for Big Boy Bed, and that's what Elliot got today! Bill and Mary came over for the afternoon and Bill helped me pick it up in his truck and set it up while Mary watched Elliot. It's actually a set of bunk beds, which I purchased on faith that I will have another child in the next couple of years, but for now, we only set it up as one bed. I think it would be fun to have bunk beds anyway, so that Elliot can have friends over and whatnot, and they will have a place to sleep, but due to lots of jumping experiments that have taken place recently, we decided to wait on that. :)

On a completely different note, I picked up the phone tonight and heard Erik's actual voice! It was awesome. He was calling from Singapore (cleanest city in the world, where they cane you for spitting on the street), and telling me that he will be home in about a week. That, and his sweet voice, were music to my ears. Elliot had a great conversation with him, too, where he told him about his new bed, and all about his Thomas trains, and at the end said that he loved him and missed him, and, "Okay, talk to you later, dad." So, maybe I told him what to say most of the time, but it was still really cute!

Fun with Friends!

My dear friend, Annie, told me the other day that I need to update my blog more often. I never realized that anyone was really checking it, but now that I do, I will try my bestest to update you all on our daily adventures as much as possible! Thank you, Annie!

This is Elliot and his friend, Elisha. They often take very entertaining baths together. After the bath, I was asking them to do faces like a puppy. You can see that they had very different interpretations of what kind of face a puppy makes. Elisha was doing the sweetest face he could muster, and Elliot was doing a sad whine/whimper. He definitely has the puppy dog eyes down in the second picture, don't you think?




The last two pictures are with our Elliot's friend, Devinne (they were born two days apart - Elliot was first), and her mom, my friend Melissa. We were lucky enough to have them come and stay with us for the weekend. Though it was a pretty busy weekend, we were all able to get some bonding time. Elliot and Devinne played really well together, and surprisingly didn't fight really at all, with the exception being that Elliot is a morning person and Devinne is not. He would wake up wanting to play, and she just needed a little time to wake up before she was ready for all that. Now whenever I have a hard time waking up in the morning, he says, "You grumpy like Devinne, Mom?", and I say, "Yes."

All in all, the past few weeks have been very fun-filled for all of us. Elliot is becoming more and more like a kid and less like a toddler as he learns to communicate and make choices. He knows the ABCs song, and several other songs, and now likes to make up his own lyrics to familiar tunes. One particular favorite is to replace the ABCs with a person's name said over and over. He also makes up new songs about whatever toy he's into on any given day. People always say childhood goes by so fast, and it's true. I'm so glad I've been able to stay home with him for this time in his life. It is just so amazing. Time flies when you're having fun!