thank goodness he's washable

The dogs got a much needed bath yesterday, on the back porch with dog shampoo and the water hose. Eli loves playing in water and I had a hard time sharing the hose with him during their baths. Due to cinch (spelling?) bug issues, we have no grass by our cement porch area, so it doesn't take much for it to turn into a mud pit. I couldn't resist letting E play with the hose for a little bit - and of course taking pictures!

Bubbles, Bubbles, blow away your troubles

We love to sit on the driveway and blow bubbles. I think maybe mommy likes it more than Eli. I really find it relaxing! I love the oversized long bubble wand where the wind can blow and the bubbles just flow, no blowing by the adult required. Does that make me sound lazy?! Oh well! anyway, here are some pictures. I really wanted to try to capture the moment, the peacefulness, the enjoyment of the simple things - it's so hard to capture all of that. Hoping these pictures will help me remember.

I snapped quickly and set the camera down so I could get the big hug that was coming my way!

Still doesn't quite have the "blow through the wand" technique down....

Never could get a pic of him chasing the bubbles! Of course he chased them before I had the camera out.

So fun to play in spilled bubble juice!

Easter festivities

Well, Easter weekend has come and gone. We did an Easter egg hunt at our friend's house over a week ago, went to the church's Easter celebration on Saturday, and of course church on Sunday. Eli finally got the idea of putting eggs in his basket, so he did find eggs on the egg hunt on Saturday. It was so cute, watching him carry his basket around! We even managed to get a decent family picture on Sunday. I set the timer on a tripod before church and we got one or two reasonable pics; I brought the camera to church and had a friend snap a few after church (I returned the favor and used her camera to snap a few of her family after church too!). Mom came over for lunch - mom actually brought the entire lunch with her! yay mom! With Doug just getting back from Scotland, we hadn't had time to grocery shop and such. Enjoy the pictures!

My two boys!

I love Eli's new shirt. Easter means new clothes - I like to think of it as, we are a new Creation in Christ, as Easter celebrates His rising from the grave and forgiving our sins.

Cute family pic after church. Wish you could see my jewelry better. Doug brought back a beautiful matching set of earrings, necklace, and bracelet for our five year anniversary (he was in Scotland on business on our actual anniversary and got back in town the next day).

Picture with camera on tripod and timer. I'm always impressed when Eli actually looks at the camera when nobody is behind it trying to get his attention.

Re-arranging the cones at the egg hunt at the church festivities.

Finding eggs at the church's egg hunt, it was held on our property - hopefully will start building our church building there in a couple of months!

I love how he enjoyed carrying his Easter basket around! I made it last year. It's holding up ok, but a couple of the cute 3 dimensional stickers have come off.

Digging in someone else's Easter basket at our mom's group egg hunt.

Now getting into his OWN basket!

More squishy face kisses as mommy tries to get a picture with her baby!!!

the Great Imitator

I know children learn through imitation. Seeing it happen in real life though - it's pretty funny. E is at that stage where he is imitating everything - including trying to make burping sounds. Guess that part is his Boy Gene coming out. Anyway, some of his imitations are pretty cute, and I am glad to have a camera on my phone to help me quickly capture those moments, like this one:

He loves to try to put on my shoes and walk around in them. This particular pair is easy for him to get his foot in and keep it on - he was actually able to walk and push his little block wagon.

Here's another one, from today:

We had corn dogs for lunch after church (yes, healthy eating habits should be in a whole other blog post, I know I know). I cut his corn dog up for easier eating, but he watched me eat mine from the stick. He kept pointing at the stick, so I let him have the last little bit. He didn't do too bad getting it off that stick either.

I didn't get a picture of this, but he did walk around for a few moments terrorizing Lucy by trying to hit her with a dish towel. He watched me try to get a fly off of her - I swiped the fly with a towel and then proceeded to whack at the fly (that was now away from the dog) until I killed it. I guess E just saw the "hit the dog with the towel" part. Poor Lucy. Don't worry, I rescued her.

A few days ago though, was a priceless imitation. Our friend Philip had been over to play, and unfortunately his mom had to put him in time out for a minute. We grabbed one of the little chairs at Eli's table and faced it towards the wall by the stairs for a time-out spot. The next day, my mom was over, and as we talked in the den area, we could hear Eli in the play area huffing and puffing, doing something but we didn't know what. We rounded the corner to see what he was doing.....and.....

...there he was, putting himself in time out! I'm pretty sure he didn't know this was a "time out" spot or punishment, he just knew that the day before, his friend had sat in this little chair in the same spot! Eli had pushed the chair from his little table around the corner and moved it to face the wall! I grabbed my phone as quick as I could to snap a picture before he got up. And made sure I sent it to my friend so she could see how Eli was remembering his time out!

My precious little imitator. Makes me realize how important it is these days to make sure I am providing a Good Example for him to imitate! Actions definitely speak louder than words.





Kites, bubbles, and slides

My friend Traci, her husband John, and 11 month old baby Matt came down (from Porter) to visit us on Sat evening! We thought it would be fun to have a picnic dinner and let the kids play in a park. Now I wish we had started our evening a little earlier so we would have had even more time to play! We ended up keeping the kids up a little on the late side for them, but it was all good. I learned my husband has never flown a kite before! It's been so long since I've flown one, I couldn't really remember the best way to get that thing up in the air. Traci and I still think we were able to get it up higher in the sky than the boys did, ha ha. Maybe it was too windy. Or cheap grocery store kites just don't do that great. Or we're incompetent kite flyers. Either way, the kids didn't seem to care how high the kite flew anyway....

Happy baby eating his fruit!

You can't really see the kite in this picture. Which I guess is a good thing cuz that means it flew kinda high for a few minutes! I just liked how Eli looks in this picture so wanted to include it.

Go Doug Go! (yep, it's a Cars themed kite from HEB)

Well shoot, we didn't really capture how high the kite went when the GIRLS were working on flying it! Here I am in all my running glory; I'm actually holding a kite string, not just running like an idiot across the field or doing a Little House on the Prairie impression.

Stomp those bubbles!

E loved this slide with rollers - since it rolls, no friction and you go really fast!

18 months and some words from my heart

I want to record what Eli's doing at age 18 months, and if I don't do it right now, I will forget! This is one of those posts that is really more for the Mamma than for anyone else reading it. (and will help with my scrapbooking once I get to these pictures in his book!). I'll add some pictures from today at the end of the post. To my dear blog reader who might be well not exactly fascinated with what Eli is doing at 18 months, I did spill a little more of my guts heart in the last paragraphs!

In the past two weeks, he has really starting verbalizing a lot more, and trying to imitate words. Here's our vocabulary so far:
Up (with a good "p" on the end; Up now means I want up, out, down, go)
Da/Do for Duck and Dog (they sound real similar. :)
car
attempt to say 'truck'
spontaneously starting signing "more" and saying "muh"
ball
da/daddy
uh oh
no
shakes head no, which is really cute actually
attempts to repeat a LOT

He's at such a sweet age; brings me things he picks up off the ground (no matter how tiny!) - loves to hug us and his other favorite people like grandparents, putting his head on our shoulder, that kind of thing. I love when he hugs me and pats my back or neck.

He can follow simple directions, such as bringing us items (go get your diaper), or throwing away stuff. He actually likes to throw away things and I've had to rescue more than once a sippy cup, bowl, that kind of thing.

I was surprised the other day when he actually played the "find your body parts" type game, and he pointed to eyes, ear, nose, mouth, hands, feet, tummy, belly button, and teeth. And hair. He will point to items in books too, and tries to say several of them, like "boat," "tree," "key." I love hearing him say words and try to say words!

I love that he is trying to communicate now, and that it's a little easier to understand what he wants. I can give him choices for snack items, because now he is showing preferences. He doesn't say "drink" consistently, but we do try to get him to say "drink" or "milk" when he wants his cup and not just point and make noises. He doesn't imitate "thank you" or "please," or "bye bye," so hoping those come soon. He waves "bye" about 50%  of the time.

Favorite items continue to be cars and trucks (the play kind and real ones!). He loves to watch cars go by when we walk outside, and points to them. It's a real treat to see the school bus go by, and the driver always slows down and waves at us.

We go for a walk every day, down to the mailbox to get the mail and play on the little playground by the boxes. Our neighbor Philip almost always joins us. Eli loves to go to his door and knock on it. The two boys are very close in age, and tend to always want the thing the other one has (matchbox car, riding toy), but you can tell they enjoy playing around each other. Philip comes to knock on our door too; he's so cute, saying "hi! Hi! hi!" repeatedly when he sees Eli and waving at him.

Eli seems to really like his daily routine. He is sleeping from around 7:45 pm or so until 7, 7:30 in the morning, sometimes a little later, and takes a 2 hour nap during the day. He's also really getting into books, and likes the same ones read over and over. I'm pretty tired of Hop on Pop and Goodnight Gorilla, but that's ok. I love that he is loving books and I really do enjoy making them part of our nap and bedtime routine.

Our couple friends watched Eli last night for us while we went to a meeting. I can't tell you how much my heart swelled with pride over my little boy as our friend kept telling us how incredibly sweet and good he was! He just played with his little cars, watching the Cars movie (his first real movie to watch by the way, we just bought it last week), ate some of the dinner she had - he wouldn't go to sleep for her, which I didn't expect him to - but other than that, was just perfect. I was (and am) so proud of him! It's such a neat feeling. You see other parents talk about their kids and how they feel, and it's like yeah yeah, I gotcha. But when it's your own kid - you GET IT. That feeling you can't explain, how much you love the child, the pride when he does something, how cute and adorable he is - no one else gets it just like the mamma and the daddy!

We are actively pursuing adding to our family through adoption, just starting the process. As I think about these feelings for Eli, I constantly am thinking of our future child too - what will he/she look like, what will the personality be like, how old will he/she be.....and I can't wait. Now that I KNOW that "feeling," what it's like to have a child, parent a child - I can't wait to share this love with another one. To steal a phrase from a popular book - at least I think it's a book - this much I know is true, we are ready to add on to our family. How this addition is going to come about, well, that's still a little fuzzy as we explore these different routes. But as I lay out all my feelings of love, and pride for my child Eli, I also delight in the knowledge that I will get to have these same feelings for his sibling in the future! Doug and I both feel the leading of the Lord to go through adoption at this point, so it's just a daily step by step process of what to do next to continue following His lead. I am so thankful to the Lord for blessing us with this beautiful gift of Eli, and pray He will continue to bless and expand our family!

here are some pictures from today's visit to the park......

Hello there duck!

I like how you're flapping your wings!

Look, I can flap too!

I ran out of bread, sorry about that!

bye duck! see you next time!

Our bedroom and bathroom mini-makeover

It all started a little over a month ago, when the shower in our master bathroom just wouldn't turn off.

Plumber had to cut a hole through the potty room wall to get to the pipes to replace the shower handle.

We needed to have the wall patched, textured, and painted.....we really weren't in love with the faux texture in the bathroom that the former owners had done, so talked to our handyman about re-doing the texture. And why not pain the ceiling and the walls. And we've been wanting to paint the bedroom too (both were khaki in color, and not ugly, but it's nice to put your own stamp on your house, know what I mean?). And, if we're changing the bathroom paint to a lighter color, those darker, bronze-y colored mirror frames and light fixtures,well, they're not going to match. And I've been wanting new bedding for the bedroom.

Right before the worker guys got started, I took a few "before" pictures, and they are not very good, but it's all I got. Here's an overview of the Before and After of the bathroom (I'll go into more detail farther down):

(drumroll please as I enjoy my very own HGTV Reveal moment)

As you can see on the left, we tried out several paint samples, trying to find the right green (or blue, but went with blue in the bedroom).

I wish I would have gotten a better picture of the window and curtains. I liked how the former owner had used those knobs and hung the curtains, so for the past almost four years I have left them just like that!

Here's what we did: Had walls painted green, ceiling painted white; I used satin nickel spray paint to paint the mirrors and light fixtures, and changed out the light fixture shades to white; changed out towel racks to satin nickel ones (that I got at Home Goods for really cheap); also painted the curtain knobs and tie backs; had the sink and tub fixtures changed out; changed out the doorknobs from brass to satin nickel; changed the curtains from a brownish/rose color to a khaki with slightly lighter colored flowers on them.

I took all these pictures of my spray painting process - but can't find them on my computer!! So disappointed. I was (still am) very proud of how I used the existing mirrors and light fixtures, and saved a ton of money by simply painting them!

Another "before" view of the bathroom. Kinda nice how the toothbrush holder, trashcan, etc. match the new paint. Got those as wedding presents almost 5 years ago!

Tried to get a picture of the old texture; when they took down the wallpaper, the former owners did a faux treatment of stamping a trowel randomly on the wall. It was ok I guess, but having just normal texture sure is nice!

Close up of the new sink fixture.

Wish you could see the color of the curtains better! I really like them - so much so, I bought the same ones for the bedroom! Spray painted those knobs satin nickel, along with the curtain tiebacks. See the new tub fixture too?

Somewhat closer pic of the spray painted light fixtures (with new shades) and mirror frames.

Now for the overall Before and After of the bedroom: (disclaimer: it was the first work day, and I knew the workers were going to have to move stuff, so I didn't bother making the bed - also, we had already started taking things of the walls, it was pretty messy) 

Here's what we did: had walls and ceiling painted; changed out bedding; changed out bedside lamps (the others had a broken shade, and collected dust big time), changed out curtains, and ceiling fan (didn't get a good pic of the lovely brass deal in the 'before' picture). Yes, the bedding is quite feminine; bless Doug, he knew I had a hard time finding new bedding and he wasn't real fond of this, but he knew I liked it and he said he could live with it. He said it's actually growing on him. :)

We still need something for the space over the bed. As you see, we have hodge podge furniture; still have the dresser and nightstand from my furniture set from single days; the king size mattress was bought when we first moved in to the house, but we never did get new furniture. After viewing some cool do it yourself type websites, I am tempted to make my own headboard. We went antiquing today, and looked all over for something cool and big to hang there above the bed, but couldn't find anything that was Just Right.

One more random 'before' picture.

Well, that's it folks. It was really simple changes, but they made a big impact. It's quite a vulnerable thing, putting your bedroom and bathroom on your blog. But I really am quite proud of how it all turned out, so, here ya go! Whenever I get the head of the bed all fancied up, I will be sure to post that picture!

Thanks for taking the time to read this and check out my new changes!