Elliot Conversation

Elliot: (trying to put his coat on) Bye-bye, have a good day. I go to work

Me: Have a good day, see you later. What do you do at work?

Elliot: I mow grass. Daddy work?

Me: No Daddy is fishing. Do you know what daddy does at work?

Elliot: Eat raisins.

Well there you go.

Messy Projects

As spring comes and goes and we never really know if we are going to be able to get outside to run off Elliot's toddler energy, I've been trying to find new activities for Elliot. Keeping him quietish and in one area of the house during Preston's naps can be difficult. However we have found a few winners. My "Terrible Two Survival Kit" I got when E turned 2 had some window markers in it. I've been too nervous to let him draw on the windows with them since I can just picture all the frames and woodwork quickly becoming colored too. So we decided to give it a try in the bath tub. It's been great. He gets to color as high and low as he can reach in all directions. And as a bonus, it is a great motivator for me to clean the bathroom after he is done!

I also picked up a el-cheapo bird house paint set  in the Target dollar section. It was a great 1 hour, sitting in one spot and all mess is contained to the table type of project. He just loved it so much. Even drew some murals in the inside so when Mrs. Birdie goes in she can enjoy an Elliot original masterpiece!

Everything went so great. I let him down and told him to hold his hands up and not to touch anything because his hands were icky and we were going to go wash them. On our way to the bathroom, I had a momentary lapse of judgement and let go of him and in that split second he was gone. Across the cream rug, pass my cream colored throw pillows and towards my windows with white trim. But its ok because my white sheer curtains blocked his hand plant into the window and no paint got on the window. In that 2 second span of time I saw the life of all light colored fabrics flash before my eyes and I cursed myself for owning so many non toddler proof  items. 

Oh well, you live, you learn, you tell yourself you had 1 hour of him being ridiculously happy and contained!

Preston

My little one is 8 1/2 months old, and has completely lost his baby look. It makes me a little sad that he isn't my little tiny baby anymore, but so happy that he is learning so many new things. Cool things like sleeping 12 hours straight at night (it was a looong haul to get to this point but man is it lovely!), hanging out with toys on the floor by himself, and his newest is how to butt scoot. I'm not sure if he will ever crawl the traditional way since he hates laying on his stomach so much, but he is very determined to move so he is learning the scooting method. His smiles and hugs are just heart melting. He just loves to be held and grab your face, pulling it in for a huge slobbery kiss that leaves you laughing and reaching for a towel so mop off your cheek.

Anyways I took these photos the other day because I couldn't get over how grown up he looked. Just like a little boy hanging out with dad.

Love you little/big Mr. Looking forward to watching you grow and change some more!

7 month Pics

Both boys at 7 months, same sleeper, same bunny, but they are so very different in every other way. 

Sleepiness

Elliot has a new trick -climbing out of his crib. Oh happiest of days! Or not. He now doesn't take naps and his little body sure needs sleep. This is what happened at supper tonight.

He has never fallen asleep anywhere other than his bed and carseat so this was quite humorous to us!

So I did what any other mom of a normally wiggly/on the go toddler would do, picked him up and snuggled to my hearts content. It was wonderful!

Haircuts and Snukkles

This goofy guy got his first haircut. His hair was getting a little out of hand, in the most adorable sort of way.

Bryce was a trooper, cutting a 5 month old baby's hair is a wiggly affair.

Of course Mr. Copycat/Everything must be fair needed his hair cut too.

 Enjoying a rare and much treasured moment of Elliot willingly snuggling (snukkling as he says) with me!

And then I was replaced by a monkey and a cardboard box. Sigh.

Free Clothes For You!

So this is very unlike me to post something very un-family related, but I just thought I would tell you about a fun new website that I've gotten to love and you can get free clothes out of the deal! It's called ThredUp, it's a online consignment store that has tons of clothes and accessories for women and kids. They have mostly nicer brands (at least they are nicer to me) Express, Banana Republic, Gap and up to designer clothes like Gucci if you prefer. Everything is at great prices, 60-80% off retail. 

Anyways, if you want you can click on THIS LINK and when you sign up you get 10 free bucks for anything on the sight. That's it, no other little hoops to jump through. Just pick out a new sweater for your self and when you go to pay $10 will magically disappear off the price! Its awesome!! And then you pass the word on to other friends and if they link up through you and buy something- you get $10 again! 

So happy shopping - hope you find something you love

FYI: If you don't know me and want to sign up, no worries I won't see your information. 

Baths, hair, and books

It's so fun to be able to put both boys in the tub together now. They have such a fun time together playing with toys!

Only when you are 5 months old can you get away with having hair like this and it is still cute!

They love reading books together

Attempting rice cereal. This face captures his feelings on the stuff.

Oh look, more reading books!

Terrible Two Survival Kit

When Elliot turned 2 earlier this month, he wasn't the only one that got presents. My mom put together a Terrible Two Survival Kit for me full of supplies to keep little hands and attention spans busy. It was based off of ideas from this website

It has been great to have a whole bag of ideas especially since I am not naturally a creative mom full of good ideas like this. I forget how simple activities can be to keep a 2 year old entertained.  We've tried out a few ideas and so far they have been a big hit!!

Dropping pom poms down a toilet paper tube into a bowl. When he got bored with this we added more to make fun tunnels for the balls to fall through

Threading pipe cleaners through a colander.  (Preston wasn't involved in this project, but Elliot staged the picture so it looked like it. They were promptly removed from his grasp after the picture)

Just this morning we placed contact paper, sticky side up, on the floor and made pictures with pom poms, pipe cleaner pieces, and googly eyes. Even though Preston can't participate he sure enjoyed watching his brother, so it was a win-win!

So thanks mom for keeping us all entertained!

Elliot is Two!!

I have a two year old! It seems so weird to me. Elliot seems to be just changing daily and growing up so fast. He is just starting to say "Love you" which is heart melting every single time. He loves to blow kisses and have dance parties. He is such a toddler, can be having fun playing games and then in the next breath is on the floor throwing a tantrum. He is very protective of his little brother, and makes sure he has a blanket and stuffed animal. When Elliot wants to dance, he makes sure someone is helping Preston dance too. He has such a big heart, and I can't wait to watch that grow.

It was sort of a weird day, knowing that it is a birthday but not having that mean anything to Elliot. It was just an ordinary day. But this evening we had all the family that lives in our town over for a low key pizza party. It was so fun to celebrate with family. Elliot got some fun new toys, but the clear favorite was the card that play the Chicken Dance. I didn't think we were going to get to any of the other gifts after he opened that card and started dancing! But we eventually did get them opened and he sure got spoiled by his grandparents!

The day started out with a brother hang out session in his crib. They were holding hands and Elliot was reading to him and singing "Happy" (his own version of You Are My Sunshine) It was so incredibly sweet!

 '

 We practiced all day saying "I'm 2!"

Showing off his cool new tool belt!

Bryce got in on the tool action too!

Love you so much Elliot! Thanks for being such a joy

Everything In between

There are lots of random pictures that I love, but have no clear category. So here are some of the things I've captured in the last month or so, that have nothing to do with each other!

Elliot tucked his bear into bed and brought the Kindle over to him so he could watch Veggie Tales

Cooking with Mom

Boy's only picnic

Always taking care of his stuffed animals!

Meeting Santa

Showing off his 2 teeth. That's right, my 4 month old has 2 teeth!! He's determined to be a big boy by 6 months!!

Helping Dad shovel the back deck

Just hanging out together

There really are no words to describe how hilarious I find this!

Christmas Day

Christmas morning we celebrated at home with just our little family. I love spending this time with just us. Having caramel rolls and coffee by the tree and just taking it easy. It is so nice that the kids don't really know what's going on so we can just take our time and give them a gift here and there.

The rest of the family has Vikings gear and Bryce didn't want me to feel left out, so I now own my very first piece of Vikings apparel. 

I am going to miss being able to hide Elliot's gifts in plain sight. We had this put together in a closet that he can open up but it didn't matter, he had no clue what he was getting!

But he loves his new tool bench. Now he can really help daddy on all his projects!

Preston was just content to hang out with us and enjoy Elliot running around!

For the afternoon we ventured out to my parents house to celebrate with my family. I apparently didn't think taking pictures was necessary so I only have a few.

Elliot enjoyed playing with his new train set with Auntie Liv.

What more could a little boy ask for, cookies, Ipad, and grandma... life is good!