Eli

Now that school has been in "session" for a few weeks now, Eli and I have been able to develop a "routine". We walk the kids to school, come home, and Eli picks a movie. The one that usually makes the cut is, "The Spear Carp Project". Now some of you may not have heard of that show before, but in our house...it's a HUGE hit. It's about a guy that goes 'fishing'. Eli L O V E S fish and we were given this amazing film to preview from the producer, himself... Coleman/Uncle Coley.

Here are a few more examples of Eli's obsession with fish:

*He brings me a piece of paper and pen so I can draw him a fish. He then takes that sketched fish and puts it in a pan. (Guess we're going to have fish for dinner!)

*He goes hysterical, and I mean hysterical, whenever we go to Cabela's to see the fish tank. He makes sure EVERYONE gets to see THAT fish.

*He has broken ALL of our fishing poles because he climbed up to where they are kept in the garage and tried to go fishing in our front yard. I have had to make him a "non-destructible" pole (I thought) in which he found a way to break it!

*He has a stuffed animal fish named "Bish the fish".

*And then there's this picture!...

Eli, Bish the fish, and the in-destructible pole.

First Day of School

So Mykael and Jaden started school a week ago and Ashton started pre-school today.

I've been so excited for him to go and Mykael and Jaden have been excited to "walk him to school".

As hard as it is to see your child go off to school for the very first time, I am looking forward to spending more one on one time with Eli.

*Sorry about the quality of pictures. I'm still learning and trying new things.

Why, I Love This Family!...

Butterfly bushes are DEFINITELY worth the investment! I caught this one flying around the bush for a good 10 minutes. PLENTY of time for a photo shoot!

Hey Blue Eyes!

Everyone of my boys has inherited their dad's blue eyes. (Although Ashton's are turning green now!) I love how icy they can be. (like Eli's) And i love how dark they can be. (Like Dylan's)

Dumpster diving for a good cause...

With summer winding down. (ONE week to go till school starts....... Do you hear that?....... The choirs of Heaven are singing......... Halleluja!) But I'm not off the hook yet when it comes to being creative as far as keeping kids entertained ALL day long!

While I still had all the boys and Mykael was having time with her grandma. I had the thought of going to a construction site where they were building a new house and ask to take the scrap wood. Fortunately for us, Bonnie works for a company that does just that and had a list of places to go to scrounge for this awesome loot.

I remember as a child, Tom and Brian building things in the wood pile on the side of our house and them building a rather "cool" (child's definition of cool) club house with scraps from jobs my dad did. Now that i had boys of my own, we needed a wood pile!!! The house we were sent to had quite the gold mine. Jaden saw 'potential', I saw "quiet-time-while-my-boys-sat-outside- nailing-all-day-long"!

After we got home with our newly aquired 'wood pile', we needed nails. Once all the boys were furnished with the essentials. Hammer, nails, Lowe's apron to put nails into... I started to show them exactly how to do it. Apparently they needed more than just showing them how to hammer a nail. (They're born knowing how to do that!) I had to help build walls and then nail them all together so they wouldn't fall down. So, it turned my "quiet-time-while-my-boys-sat-outside- nailing-all-day-long" into sweat time. They had a great time and I actually did to.

It's not quite finished. Jade is having his turn with grandma meow now. But we have till next monday to get it done. Summer projects are meant to be finished in the summer, right?

We've got a climber.

He loves this truck so i let him climb it.

I didn't realize that he was going to be this good and balanced, so of course i had to capture it. He'll do this in the car too. Goes straight for the stearing wheel and climbs on up.

Didn't fall once.

It actually works!

Some time last year I recieved a speeding ticket and was given the option to go to traffic school to keep it off my record. I accepted and it turned out to be the best thing I could do in becoming a more responsible driver. (As I'm typing this...I'm totally making myself sound like I'm this erratic crazy driver which I am NOT. I'm just saying that there is stuff out there they don't teach you in driver's ed.) With this class I learned that, much thought has gone into deciding where what speeds limits should go. The speed in which the car is going in relation to first impact (lets say, a CHILD). At 25 miles an hour your child has more of a chance of survival. (Serious condition, but survival no less!) Even just 30 miles an hour will kill your child! What an eye opener that was for me. Since then I'm probably making the car behind me very annoyed by actually going the speed limit. (We need to slow down anyways....life is too short.)

I'm sure there are many mothers of you out there that hate the traffic that drives past your house when your children are out playing. They could be going 10 miles an hour, but that still seems too fast for my comfort. Unfortunately, my street is not a 5 mile an hour speeding zone, so I've taken it upon myself to bring those speeders down in gear. I live on a curve and for some reason, taking curves at a higher speed is prefered among the drivers out there. With a park across the street from our house there have been times when the kids have wanted to cross.

Of course I'd LOVE to go out there with the largest stop sign I could find, wearing a brightest orange vest, tooting the loudest police whistle that's made and paint lines across the road, but that probably wouldn't go over very well with the city. (And quite frankly, I'd rather sit in my lawn chair under my shade tree with a nice cold glass of coke and enjoy a good book.)

The compromise of these two is.... this!

I found this at wall-mart for about $5.00-$7:00. (A small price to pay for your child's safety.) I wasn't sure if it was legal to just go and place it out in the middle of the road, BUT...a police car actually drove by and didn't stop. I would assume that if it wasn't ok, he would've stopped and asked me to move it. After initially placing it, I stood in my yard to watch. To my great surprise, the first car that past saw it, the red lights came on and slowed instantly, and every car after that. They then would look around for children. My regret is that I don't have 10 of these things to space the whole length of the curve and down the street a little bit. Until I can do that....I am satisfied with this one. I HIGHLY recommend you purchase one.

Desensitized by Eli

I've come to realize that my tolerance/patience is improving, when it comes to Eli. Hence, being desensitized.

Lately, when he's done something 'wrong' I'd go to correct him and he instantly starts to run away. (The one downside of having a 'loop' in my house. I could run circles all night long if I wasn't faster than him. Not looking forward to the day that his speed exceeds my own.) Anyways....Once he starts his sprint, I start to smile. Because... he's laughing as he disapears around the corner. I have to slow my pace so that I have time to laugh and wipe the smile off my face before I make eye contact with him again as I cut him off coming in the opposite direction. (If he sees even the slightest upturn of a lip...it's a game. I'm still trying to perfect that aspect of this cat and mouse chase.I've never been good at keeping a serious face.)

The point of the story.... I had a friend over today and we had gone in my bedroom to go look at something when I noticed the pleasant smell of my oh-so-precious-discontinued-bottle of baby lotion......empty......on the floor/carpet.....in a rather intricate design. Apparently it had happened earlier because Eli walked into the room with us. Now, back up a short time, Eli enters the room we're in at that time and smells quite nice. He had taken and shower with daddy and i assumed that Jared took the time to grease him up afterwards. I didn't think anything of it, just enjoyed the whiff as he came in, butt naked of course. Fast forward to us discovering the "mess" and I say (in a very defeat-ish way) ...*BIG sigh* "Oh! Eli. You made a mess!" and he says, "mess?" "Yes. a mess." "There?" he says, "yes, right there. That was very naughty. Time to take a nap." I think he realized that this was not going to be something to run away from, so he, quite voluntarily, allowed me to be escort him to his bed. Then go back to clean up the greasy mess. I have concluded that when he went to grease himself up (no Jared didn't), he discovered that it squirts. Kids LOVE anything that squirts. SO....he squirt it on my dresser, on my carpet, on my bed steps, and in a tote (luckily that was empty.) I managed to salvage most of this very special substance back into the bottle. I don't know if I got it all. If a large dark spot appears over time....then I guess I didn't and will have to look up our carpet cleaning guy. (Yes, we have one. You can't NOT have one if you have a son named Eli!)



*Note: You may wonder why I covet this silly bottle of baby lotion. Well I'll tell ya. It's because it is the "old" scent of Playtex's baby lotion. They no longer make that scent and I've even gone so far as to call the company and ask them why. The person said it's been discontinued for unknown reasons! I was SO upset, so I went online to ebay and purchase 12 bottles of this fabulous stuff before it was gone. So, to me....every little drops, TRULY, counts.

When you're ready, you're ready...

When potty training Ashton I focused more on the 'day' portion. At night I bought the pull-ups and told myself that once he "mastered" the other I would focus on the night. (And I guess I wasn't wanting to do a lot of laundry that comes with night training.) Well a week ago, he told me that he didn't want to wear diapers to bed anymore. I figured since he wanted to stop, then we should try? I got out a pile of underwear and a pile of towels and went to bed expecting to be woken up in the night to him being wet. Of course I stopped any consumption of liquid by 6pm and made him go to the bathroom before bed. Surprisingly, in the morning he woke up dry as could be. I was so proud of him! But again that night, I didn't want to count too many chickens before they hatched and kept my two piles next to his bed "just in case". And again, dry the next morning. I was becoming more impressed. Well a week has gone by and my two piles of unders and towels are still there, unused. I'm thinking that it would be safe to put them away. He was definitely ready and I'm so proud of him for that.