Back Again

Eli here.  I'm back again since my run-down of last week went over so well.  Mama figured she'd let me fill you in on what's been going on around here. She promises to post about other stuff more another time.  Maybe.

On the weekends, I love playing with my brother...as long as he isn't trying to wreck whatever I'm working on.  Or trying to steal my toy.  Lately we have been playing a lot of chase.  (I let Jude win all the time.)  I wish he would sit down in my lap more.  I like to read him books.

We went to the book store and tried on funny hats.  Aren't they too crazy?

Hmmm....what else?  Oh Mommy got her super cute green slippers in the mail....FINALLY.  She picked green ones because green is her favorite color.  She wears them all of the time.  I keep telling her that it is too hot for slippers right now, but she doesn't listen.

Mommy did NOT want me to show you this picture of our house.  

She says to tell you that it NEVER looks like this.  But I'll tell you the truth: Jude and I made it look like this while Mommy was tutoring one night.  Daddy was out winning a chili competition (for real!!) so Mommy put us to bed and cleaned it up by herself.  Isn't she awesome?  I didn't even have to help. 

Last Friday night, I got to watch The Empire Strikes Back for Movie Night.  It was soooo good.  I think I liked it better than the "first" one.  I may or may not have cried when Luke finds out Darth Vader is his dad.  There were some pretty scary parts, but.....I loved it.  I have spent a lot of time playing with all of Daddy's old Star Wars toys and figures the past few weeks.  I love opening new action figures.

Jude likes to play too.  Mommy says he is the cutest Darth Vader, but I think I'm pretty cute too. 

Jude gets to do all kinds of fun things with Mommy when I'm at school.  One day this week it was windy and rainy, so she let Jude play with water INSIDE.

Isn't she crazy?  I guess she did a good job keeping all of the water that he poured and splashed off of the carpet because it wasn't wet when I came home. Good job, Mommy!  I wish I was home when you did that.  It sure looks like fun.  I wonder if I would fit in that tub?

When it wasn't icky outside, it was warm and sunny.  Jude always wants to play in the sandbox.  That's OK. I like it too.

And that brings us to today.  Today is what we call Friday Funday around here.  Daddy took me to get a doughnut before school.  While I was at school, Mommy made this word search with foam letters for me to do when I got home.

We took our lunch to the park for a picnic.  It was a perfect day for the park. We did lots of swinging, running, and climbing.

After practicing the monkey bars a few times and finding lots of mud to dig in, we came home.  I found the word search.  It was so much fun to work on, and I got to practice reading the words as I hunted them and circled them.

Mommy told me to tell you all that Jude has been cutting his molars and not sleeping well.  Naps and nighttime.  But he took a good nap today, and I got to do all kinds of fun stuff while he slept.  I love Friday Funday!  

I played vet, made cookies, and got to watch a Scooby Doo.  Tonight is pizza night and movie night.  I picked Return of the Jedi for our movie tonight.  I am so excited.  I wonder if Yoda is in it?  Will Yoda fight Darth Vader?  I'll let you know next time Mommy lets me tell you about our week.  

Have a good weekend!  Bye!

A Week in the Life

Hi everyone!  Eli and Jude here.  Wanna see what we have been up to this week?

 We dressed up as rockstars!!  Mama helped us do our hair, and we each got our own guitar.



Don't we look AWESOME?

 
Found Daddy's shoes.  Did you know that these things are really fun to try on?  They are super hard to walk in though.

Mama dressed us in Broncos colors to watch the game Saturday night.  We were rooting for Tebow, but only because the Steelers (and Bucs) already lost.  Now we don't know who to root for anymore.

We stayed in jammies whenever we could, played superheroes, and drank hot chocolate....all while Mama snapped pictures of us with her iPhone.

We sported shorts and short-sleeves (or at least one of us did...) on Monday to go ride bikes, take wagon rides, and explore down the street in the cul-de-sac. It was a beautiful day to play outside and to honor Dr. MLK Jr. Gotta love winters in Florida. A very nice lady watched us playing from her window and came out to offer us a picnic table her grandbabies had outgrown.  SCORE!

When Mommy cooks dinner, our favorite place to be is in the kitchen with her, of course!  She tries to get us to play somewhere else, but it never works.  

Aren't we silly?  Silly is incredibly fun. (yes, Eli really talks like that...)

Mommy makes the best dinners....or at least one of us thinks so.  Couldn't get it in fast enough.  The other one of us would barely take a couple bites.

And finally, we have all been passing the sniffles back and forth.  Look which one of us has them now?

Mommy too!  Yuck.  But at least it is a good excuse to, once again, stay in our jammies all day.

And that's it.  Hope your week was as fun and silly as ours.  We hope you don't have the sniffles though.

Until next time....Bye bye!

All the Rest

I think that this is the last of the "must do" posts and my catching up so that I can start writing real-time, "just because" posts.  With the rest of our birthday and Christmas season wrap-ups needing to be done, I felt guilty about sharing anything else. 

Aaaanyways....Christmas was mild and really quite warm this year in Florida, so it only made sense to spend New Years at the beach. We woke up to beautiful sunrises, happy babies, and warm days to play in the sand.  I love my new (Merry Christmas to me!) iPhone for many reasons, but one is that it takes pretty good pictures.  As if I didn't take enough pictures already, now I always have my camera or phone with me to capture a moment. 

This was Jude's first trip to the beach as a walker, and boy did he love this new experience.  

He loved feeling and playing in the sand, became obsessed with chasing the birds, and went off on many adventures.  He would sign "bird" with both hands just as fast as those little fingers would move and run off pointing at them.  "Do you see them, Mama?" 

There were treasures to discover all along the island.

Each night, we made bonfires on the beach to roast more marshmallows and indulge in s'mores once again.

Eli was very excited as he has a new found love of campfires. Even though the days were warm, the nights were damp and chilly.  It got late, and Eli got tired.  The cold was too much for him.

 

Once the littles were tucked in and sleeping, the adults enjoyed time by the fire.  A little bit of pyro-mania by the big boys.  ....If only it weren't so damp.  Once the sun went down, the humidity was outrageous and everything we brought out with us was wet!  Those that were able to stay awake (I was one who dozed around 10:30, but rallied right before midnight.), rang in the new year with Prosecco toasts.

And then it was back home in time to watch the Gators end the season with a bowl win over Ohio State.

Jude and I were decked out in new Gator gear we got as Christmas gifts from Aunt Z and Uncle Matt B.  We were looking good....and maybe it was the good luck we needed to finally pull off a solid victory.

Eli still had another full week off from school after New Years, but the kids and I kept it low key.  We could be found many days still in jammies at lunch time.  I loved this week!!  A whole bunch of lounging around, trying out new toys inside and outside.  After Jude's fun in the sand at the beach, he has fallen in love with our sandbox.  Many days, he leads me over to the back door, points at the door knob, and signs "please!"  How can I say no? Once I open the door, he makes a beeline for the sandbox.

Eli tried out his binoculars from Pap Pap and Lil while Jude played in the sand.   Don't you love how big brother had to get himself into our picture in the sand?  Cracks me up!  When we did manage to get ourselves dressed, we enjoyed a few playdates.  One of them was a lunch date at Moe's.  Have I told you how much Jude loves black beans yet?

What a mug! And want to see what this little stinker did to my kitchen cabinets?

Guess he wasn't too proud of his work.  Actually, I think he was throwing a fit because we took away the marker.  It took Eli until his was almost 2 to color on the wall.  And he barely did.  Jude really went for it.  Thankfully it was a dry erase marker and the cabinets are laminate.  It wiped right off.

And then finally, Christmas season came to a close with the Feast of the Epiphany.  Eli was so excited to finally move the 3 wise man over with the rest of our nativity.  All week long, we had been inching them closer and closer.

Sadly, this meant it was time to take down Christmas in our house.  Eli was very sad to see the tree come down and begged to leave it up a little while longer.  I was actually ready to have our house back to normal, but Eli said the house looks sad now; empty.  I get it.  I really do.

So things are slipping back into a routine for us.  After a week of running everywhere--always feeling like I was late to be somewhere--we are back in a groove.  The house is slowly but surely getting reorganized after the birthday and Christmas haul.  I have projects planned throughout the house....now I just have to execute. Here's to a happy, healthy, productive, and blessed 2012!