Spewoom

Eli is still quite the happy baby. He makes the cutest happy sound - always with mouth wide open... It's kind of a scared, excited scream of sorts...

He still just has 2 bottom teeth. We are long overdue for the next round. I stocked up on Tylenol recently just in case. He is scooting backwards and in circles, but no forward progress in the crawling department.

Some Ben-isms from recent times...

Gra-no-no bar (Granola bar)

Spewoom (Spoon)

Muk or nook (milk - which he can totally say, but Ben chooses to say it in a silly way)

He walks with a skip in his step - every third step is the cutest little skip...

"Is this 'rock on'?" - holding up fingers in the 80's rocker fashion

He knows his birthday in on May twenty five and that he will be turning "free".

He has been quite snuggly lately

The boys and I got rear-ended on Thursday on our way to daycare. I stopped for a pedestrian (kind of quickly) in a crosswalk and the guy in the little pickup behind me couldn't stop in time. My neck is a bit stiff, but the boys seem to be OK. Looks like minor damage, but it will probably be quite extensive once they get the bumper off.

I feel like I can alleviate some of the mommy guilt about the past week's take out meals after seeing this sink-full of scraps after making a nice dinner last night...

Sweet potatoes, leeks, garlic, rosemary from my backyard= sweet potato gratin

Egg shells, lemon, parsley, red onion = egg salad sandwiches

Cantalope

One left over carrot from yesterday (found buried on the table)

Sad news

Sadly, Andy's dad passed away last week after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He will be missed. May he rest in peace.

Ben (from the other room): "Mommy, mommy, come quick Eli's standing all by he-self!"

I come in the room and Eli is pulling himself up on a toy bin - not quite standing, but is sitting up with a leg tucked under him. One step closer to having a mobile-baby.

Eli getting ahold of Ben's underwear. He-he

The weather feels like it has finally turned. We finally had a 70 degree day - and it landed on a weekend! We decided to make the most of the nice weather and packed up the fam and went to an Ag Fest at the state fairgrounds. There were certainly a lot of other families that had the same idea. We got in some animal petting, and saw some big tractors. Most of the hands-on stuff (planting a strawberry plant, riding a horse drawn wagon, etc.) had lines that were too long for a tired almost 3 year old to stand still in, but we still made the most of it!

Happy Easter!

Eli doing the pre-crawl fish flop...

We had a non-stop action kind of weekend... Guess with 2 boys this is what my future holds every weekend, huh?

Here are some Easter egg hunt videos from this AM... (requested by grandma)

Ben searching for one of those "Come find me" eggs that daddy hid in the bottom of the toy bucket.

And Ben sweetly stopping to feed Eli some puffs from his eggs.

Ben racing around finding eggs.

Drinking from a cup.

Think he's excited???

Other big boy news for Eli...

We put away the baby swing, bouncey chair, bumbo and thinking about putting the play mat away, too. Still have the Jumperoo out. We (hopefully) will be installing the big boy convertable car seat this week. Started finger foods - "puffs" - still a bit early, but he's doing pretty well. He loves giving his big brother hugs and kisses (term used loosely). This past week (last Friday) we started the sleep plan, and things have progressed to Eli sleeping from 8PM-6AM with no crying - just a bit of very quiet whimpering for two nights in a row. Of course, we'll have some setbacks (like last night - up crying twice), but we are on the right track for sure!

Ben: I am a baseball player.

Me: What position do you play?

Ben: Tuba.

Last weekend we were out and about - Children's Museum with friends Saturday and Andy's mom's place to celebrate Andy's birthday on Sunday. This weekend was laid back - taxes, laundry, Target and a trip to the skate park in the wagon (Ben pulled Eli the whole way there).

Cousin, wagon and tired trains

Here is one of Grant and Eli. Eli at 7 months and Grant at 4 months...

And video of Ben pulling his little brother in the wagon.

And another Ben-ism from the past week:

While driving past a large industrial train yard:

Ben: Are the trains going?

Mommy: No, they are parked.

Ben: Why?

Mommy: They need to rest - they are tired.

Ben: They can't be tired, mommy, they don't have eyes.

The sun came out...

For a few hours this afternoon. There's a 100% chance of rain tonight and 80% tomorrow. Glad we got out while the sun made its very brief appearance.

Here's Ben signing the University of Minnesota fight song (while eating nutella off his hand with a fork...)

Minnesota, hat's off to thee

To thy colors true we will ever be

Firm and strong united are we

Rah rah rah for sky-u-mah

Rah, rah rah rah

Hat's off to U of M

M-I-N-N-E-S-O-T-A, Minnesota, Minnesota,

Yeah, Gophers! (He usually loves the last few lines, but was a bit distracted by... well, everything)