Colors

One thing that we have been talking about a lot around here is colors. Believe it or not, Eli already has a favorite color. He loves the color green and has been able to pick it out for a while now. He talks frequently about his green ball, green peas, green beans, and the green grass. :) He will also say blue (most often in reference to the sky, saying "blue sky!") and purple. He will kind of say yellow and others if you say it right before him, but for the most part he just says those three as of now. He can identify a bunch of colors when I ask him. Just now, Eli was playing with the toy you see in the pics below. I asked him to find each of the colors, which include blue, green, yellow, orange, red, and purple, and he was able to push down the lever for every one the first time and got them all right! I guess it is settled then...this kid is a genius. :)

*Update:  After I wrote the above post, I thought that a few videos of him talking would be a good addition.  Yesterday, we were playing outside in the front yard (one of Eli's favorite things to do right now) and he was just talking away to me.  I recorded a few little segments of this.  He is definitely still talking like a toddler where Mommy understands better than anyone else, but hopefully you can follow what he is saying.  This is such a fun stage and he continually impresses me with how much he knows!

 

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Hello Fall

Here is what we have been up to lately, in pictures... :)

We made these acorns for fall.  Hershey kisses with mini vanilla wafers and tiny broken pretzel sticks, all held together with peanut butter.  Fun seasonal craft that is delicioius! :) 

We went shopping to find Eli his second Halloween costume.  Last year he was a cow.  Here, we are trying on costumes at Kid to Kid.  This dino costume was pretty cute, but a little big as you can see it falling off his shoulder.

I didn't get a picture of the first costume that I actually bought.  I bought what I thought to be the costume for Woody from Toy Story.  I was excited because I thought it was precious and had a cute little cowboy hat to go with it.  When Ethan got home, however, he informed me that I did not buy Woody's costume, but the costume for Jessie the cowgirl from Toy Story 2!  Oops!  Go figure, Ethan did not want me dressing his son up in a girl's costume.  :)  We took it back and exchanged it for the costume you see here (minus the pants).  I found this cute fireman's costume to be very manly indeed. :)

Ethan and I had the chance to go out for an excellent dinner at Papa's Brothers Steakhouse for my birthday.  It just so happened to be Parent's night out at our church, so we got super cheap babysitting...the perfect birthday gift!

A little blurry, but you get the gist.  The whole meal was fantastic and we had a great time.  This was our dessert to commemorate my 30th birthday...a blonde brownie with white chocolate and macadamian nuts, topped with ice cream and all the other deliciousness you see there.  It was even better than it looks! :)

"I want to try some Mommy!!"  Sorry kiddo, there were no leftovers. :)

With the gorgeous weather lately (and our standards have been lowered dramatically...nice weather is now qualified by less than 110) we have been playing outside a lot.  Elijah LOVES being outside, which I also enjoy.  Who needs pants for a game of catch? :)

"Play Ball!"

"Get ready Mom, it's coming your way..."

Love these memories of playing outside with my sweet little boy!

With school in full swing, we put on our learning caps and stuck some letter magnets on the fridge.  We actually met some people this past weekend who live across the street from us and have a 2 year old little boy.  We met them because Eli was at their front door looking through their window...ever the curious one. :)  It worked out great thought because Eli and Carlos got along great.  Both of his parents are teachers, so she sent me home with a huge bag of these letter magnets.  We are looking forward to playing with them again soon.

First, Elijah decided to move all of the magnets to one side...

Then he decided that instead of leaving them on the fridge, he should pull all of them off and onto the floor

That is one way to clean the fridge, at least.  Now for that floor...

Such fun learning your ABCs!

Done with the letters, suddenly very interested in the camera.

Today I shared my first apple with Eli.  In other words, Elijah slobbered all over and then confiscated my apple. :)

Taking a break to watch a plane go by

"This is delicious!"

"Thanks for letting me have your apple, Mommy!"

"Since Mommy was so nice to share with me, maybe I should share with someone too."

Going about his chores still gnawing on the apple core.

That's it for now.  Hope all of you are doing well!  We are abundantly blessed and so thankful for this sweet season in our lives.  Children are truly a gift from the Lord and we couldn't be more happy or more thankful for the joy of being parents.  Thanks for sharing our sweet little man with us!

Cancun

Even though fall is upon us, our tans are still fully intact (truth be told, mine always is :).  We recently enjoyed one more beach trip to round out the season.  This past week, we went to Cancun, Mexico to the beautiful waters of the Caribbean!  We met my parents down there and had the best time vacationing together!  Here are some pictures of our 3rd and final beach trip for the year. :)  

Nana and Eli, reunited at last!

Not sure which one is sillier :)

Elijah with his Nana and Papa, although he didn't get the memo to smile in this picture

After we returned from Florida, I reasoned that the normal drawer where I kept his bathing suits didn't make sense and moved them to a "better" spot.  Sure enough, I forgot where I put them and couldn't find them before we left.  When we went to Walmart for groceries, we found this little wetsuit/floaty that worked great.  My favorite part is that it makes him look a little bit like Mr. Incredible. :)

Mr. Incredible and Nana

Helping the Sea Turtles to hatch!

I got one!

Nana with the little baby turtle

Papa digging up more turtles

And finally Ethan helping them out.  The mounds have about a hundred eggs in them, so there were plenty to go around.

We dug up the baby turtles in the morning, but they didn't release them into the water until evening to protect them from the birds and other predators.  This was quite the experience.  They told us to return at 6pm to release the baby turtles, only to find out that it wasn't yet dark at 6 pm.  We waited around for a while and they explained to us that it was very important to turn of all camera flashes or "the turtles will be blind" and not to step on the turtles or "they will die."  Then the guy told us that we would wait "10 minutes for the night, or maybe more."  I don't know why, but we found this quite humorous, maybe because of the way things were phrased.  Finally, it was the "perfect time" and we released the turtles into the sea.  This was a pretty neat experience and I feel like I learned a lot more about sea turtles.

Elijah LOVED playing with Papa on his IPAD.  He learned all kinds of fun games and got pretty good at naming the animals and shapes on some of the preschool apps that Papa loaded special for him...we are sure he is a genius! :)

"No time for pics, Papa, let's play!"

The beach...no, that water is not photoshopped!

Our umbrella and beach chairs

The water was just unbelievably gorgeous the whole time we were there.  We couldn't seem to take it in and were in a continual state of awe of how beautiful it was.

View from the pool...not too bad :)

Our balcony.  We had a "lock off room" with my parents where we could open our doors and make it one big room.  This was absolutely the perfect set up.  They had a big room with a full kitchen and large patio, so we spent most of our room time over there.  It was especially nice that Eli was able to nap in our room, while we enjoyed hanging out on the balcony on my parents' side.

Another shot of the view from the balcony...never gets old

A view of the resort from our balcony

So beautiful, and the pictures hardly do it justice!

"Sweet, Dad's glasses!"

"Do you put them on like this?"

"Sunglasses, diaper, I'm ready for some more beach!"

Mr. Incredible on the beach

Our little Aggie, soaking up playtime on the beach

Daddy and Eli playing in the sand

"Here you go, Daddy, check this out."

Love these boys!

What I was doing during Daddy/Eli play time...ahhhh

We found this giant chess board and brought Elijah down to check it out.  We weren't sure what he would think about it, but he loved it.  As soon as he saw it, he ran over and began moving each of the pieces around and off the board.  It was quite the workout for our little guy since the pieces were almost as big as him.

Check.

From Nana's iphone

Eli loved time with his Nana and Papa.  We got back on Saturday and he is still talks about Nana and Papa all day long.  We can't wait for ya'll to come visit soon!

At the airport, we had lunch at Bubba Gumps.  Here is Forrest...I mean Ethan...waiting for our table.

The popcorn shrimp kids meal.  I thought it was so cute the way they put it in the boat.  They were delicious too and Eli enjoyed his first shrimp experience!