Family Hike

Last weekend we had beautiful weather, so we decided to take advantage by going on a family hike. The other side of the story is that Jed was sick and would not sleep during naptime, so we thought we could kill two birds with one stone by getting out and enjoying the weather while Jed slept in the backpack carrier. Well, one out of two isn't bad, right? Jed didn't sleep, but we had fun anyway.
We definitely need to take advantage of the Barton Creek Greenbelt more often! It's only 5 minutes from our house. It was a perfect hike for Eli and beautiful! I loved watching how happy Eli was collecting rocks and leaves and throwing rocks in the water. All boy! The fact that we can drive 5 short minutes to go on a hike in the greenbelt is yet another reason I love Austin!

Snow on 2-23-10!

I can't believe this is the second post I'm doing about snow this year. Last time, you could barely see the flakes of snow, but this time, there was accumulation and big giant flakes! (You can see the flakes coming down in the video.) It even lasted for several hours. The boys and I made a real Texas snowman...a tiny little guy full of leaves and twigs...but a snowman nonetheless!

Eli and Mia eating the snow

Twisty, Dancey Britches

I just has to get a video of Jed's twisty britches run:


The kid show, "Yo Gabba Gabba" was a favorite of Eli's and now is a favorite of Jed's. He loves dancing to it when he watches. In the first video, he's actually following the directions in the song to march in a circle and freeze, which I didn't know he knew!

Silliness

Do you remember that Saturday Night Live skit with Eddie Murphy as James Brown singing about a hot tub? Well, the song goes, "It's too hot in da hot tub! Gonna make me sweat-ah!" John included this song in one of his bedtime stories for Eli recently, and Eli thought it was hillarious. (It might be a "you had to be there" moment.) He does a pretty good rendition...


Here's one of Jed cracking himself up:

They Play

Eli and Jed have been playing together more lately. It's fun to watch and nice that they can entertain each other, but with that comes the hitting, crying, not sharing, etc. That's to be expected though, right? The other day they played together in the back room for 30 minutes straight...quietly, with no one getting hurt and the room not getting torn up! I was so excited that this is in our future! I've included some videos of the boys playing...

Chapter Books

Eli is really into listening to chapter books lately! I didn't think this would come until he got a little older, but I'm so glad he likes it. He's a great listener and is able to ask and answer questions about the story as we read. So far, we've read some classics like "Charlotte's Web" and "Stuart Little". We've also read a few others, including "Stories of Oz", which is pretty different than the movie. Soon he'll be reading them by himself!

Recent Photos

Sorry I haven't been keeping up the blog lately. I have some catching up to do!


















Recent pics taken by Eli. I didn't know about most of them until I saw them on the camera!

"Ee-yah-ee"

Here's Jed saying "Eli"

Jed sings!

Recent Pics

These pictures are some that Eli took:

Organization!

I enlisted the help of my friend, Amanda, this past Saturday to help me organize the play room. She started a business where she helps people get organized. She's amazing! We spent all day working on the room. It started with a trip to Target to get some shelves and bins and then we worked into the early evening sorting, re-arranging, and labeling. I am normally an organized person who likes things to have a place, but with two small children, things change! I got to where I would look at the play room and be overwhelmed. My mind was cluttered, and the mess was stressing me out! Now that the room in totally organized and everything has a place, I feel a weight lifted. I'm refreshed and feel so much better! It's amazing!
Here is the link to Amanda's blog where you can see pictures.

Daddy's Boys

Now I see where the boys get their handsome looks!

John (in the middle) at around 5...It's Eli with brown hair and brown eyes (and missing teeth)!



We know Jed has John's hair. John had lots of curls as a baby, like Jed, then they went away as he got older. I took these pictures of Jed, trying to duplicate the picture of John at the piano.

Fireman Boone

Super Dad!

Jed was asleep about 2 seconds after I took this picture.

Christmas at home

We spent Christmas at home, just our family of four. It was nice and low key...well, as low key as you can get with two excited boys! I think we're going to try to be home for Christmas in the years to come. Eli enjoyed making and setting out cookies and milk for Santa and then seeing the empty plate in the morning. He told me as he was going to bed Christmas Eve that he was going to wake up when he heard Santa and peek out the window to see the reindeer. No luck, though. Also, Santa got Eli and Jed's stockings mixed up somehow. Eli didn't tell Santa that he switched stockings with Jed. Oh well. Eli didn't mind and thought that was silly...whew!
I had a hard time deciding which pictures to post, so I did a slide show including most of them. Can you tell Eli was a little excited about Christmas by all the silly faces?...Jed just feeds off Eli and it's one crazy time!