We had a great day celebrating John! It started with a loud, chaotic breakfast that involved loud, hungry boys, waffles stuck to the waffle iron after I forgot to grease it, and bacon grease spilled on the floor. Just another day in the life for us. We just had to laugh, and John said that we would look back on times like that and wish for more. True! Then John decided he wanted to mow and take it easy at home. He let Eli and Jed wash his truck, which was a great idea. Then we watched nature shows during rest time and learned about sharks. To top it all off, John watched some of the NBA finals game with his boys. A perfect way to hang out with Dad! We are all thankful for the amazing Dad he is!
This is the collage of trucks and that Eli made John for Father's Day. If you know Eli and how much he loves trucks, you know this is a perfect way for him to show how much he loves his Dad.
Max hung out in the swing and watched all the action from a safe distance.
See my glittery pink toes? They are well deserved. I got a pedicure after surviving another week of single parenting while John was in Germany. They make me so happy! I had to bring a little more girliness into this household somehow!
So, for Mother's Day this year we went to a jousting tournament. I'm a mom of three boys, and I'm okay with this. I actually thought it sounded like fun family time. It was a real tournament with real armor and everything. These people were seriously into this competition. I thought it was going to be more like a renaissance festival-type setting, but it was more of a sporting event, so there weren't that many people there for people watching. However, the boys loved seeing the knights in their armor and watching them on horses. All in all, it was a fun Mother's Day with my boys!
Did I mention that Eli did t-ball again this year? He played through the YMCA once again. It was controlled chaos as usual. Eli did well and understood what was going on a little better than the other kids on his team. I think he was one of the oldest, if not the oldest on the team. We had fun getting to know our neighbors, who also had a son on the team, during the tee ball games. They also have 3 boys, all a year older than our boys. We'll be hanging out with them more often!
in the outfield w/ his new friend who lives down the street
The Phillies team picture. Isn't the little guy 3rd from the right the cutest little thing?
Eli has been a big helper lately. He especially loves helping out with Max. He feeds Max, reads to Max, gives him toys, makes him laugh, and distracts him when he's upset . Jed is good at entertaining Max, which can be very helpful as well.
They are great big brothers!
Eli reading to Max...fun for both!
Eli feeding Max and Jed cheering him on...Max loves it!
Here's Jed entertaining...he was doing this face to Max before I took the picture.
All of the boys' friends are girls in these pictures. They do have friends that are boys, but most are girls. I guess they know how to impress the ladies and treat them right!
feeding the goat at the zoo
beautiful peacock at the zoo
Max and his friends, Eliza and Harper. They are all 3 weeks apart!
Eli with friends from school at our after school playdate at Doc's.
playtime with all the Perkins boys!
Ninjas!
3 ninjas!
Boone "played" with Jed's Spiderman figures, and it resulted in this. It was very tragic! Jed was not happy about this!
A few weeks ago, while John was out of town, I took the boys to one of our favorite places, Doc's Backyard. We went to play on the playground there, then I decided it would be nice to sit and have a margarita. So, I snagged a table outside and got to drink my drink while hanging out with my three boys. They played, we had dinner and enjoyed the weather and each other. Plus, I got some good pictures. Perfect!
Wow, I haven't posted in a month! We've had a lot going on in May. The boys had activites with school, like track and field day and Mom's day and kindergarten graduation. Meanwhile, Max is the size of a toddler at 7 months old with three, almost 4 teeth and is rolling everywhere, playing with toys and eating like a champ. Eli and Jed are done with school and it's already summertime! My how time flies! I find myself wanting to enjoy every moment with my boys (even when it's loud and chaotic and I'm frustrated) because they really do grow up so fast and I know I'm going to look back and miss this. There's a good reason people say it so much..."enjoy it now because they grow up fast". It's so true!
the one picture I got before my camera died at Ei's kinder graduation
Eli and his teacher, Mrs. Lancaster, on the last day of school
Jed on his last day of school
SVE Track & Field day-funny story: That day, while John ate lunch with Eli's class, he taught them to flex their bicep and point one way when he asked "where's the beach?", so when the class won their tug of war game, John said, "Hey Mrs. Lancaster's class, Where's the beach?", they all pointed on cue with biceps flexed and yelled, "That way!". He got it on video on his phone, but I have no idea how to put it on this compter. It was priceless!
cute Max
Me and Jed at Mom's Day at Jed's school. The kids sing songs, give us gifts that they made (like the crown I'm wearing), and serve us punch and cookies. It's so sweet. Here are a couple videos of one of the many songs the kids sang. Jed was trying not to smile the whole time for some reason.
The day Max turned 6 months old, I gave him his first bite of solid food. He had some whole grain rice cereal mixed with a bit of warmed breast milk...mmm! I'm not sure why they call it solid food because most baby food is really soupy and mushy. He liked it though. In fact he kept diving toward the spoon to eat it. He has gotten the idea now that he just has to open his mouth and I'll put the spoon in. So far, Max has only had the rice cereal and mashed bananas, but avocado and sweet potatoes are in the near future. It hasn't been too messy yet, but I'm sure that's in the near future, too.
I like when Jed gags toward the end of the video and says, "that is pretty yuck".
On Saturday, the morning of Eli's party, John discovered at tooth in Max's mouth! I guess Max wanted to add something else to the Easter weekend festivities. I was expecting his tooth to appear at any moment. It's tiny and you can barely see it, but it's there. He is proud of his first tooth! Eli says that Max must have got the tooth that he lost a couple weeks before.
We had a nice Easter celebration this year. The weekend was full of fun stuff. We had Eli's birthday party Saturday and then dyed Easter eggs that evening, the boys did their egg hunt Sunday morning, we managed to make it out to some bluebonnets to take some pictures, and Sunday night Max was dedicated at our church.
The Easter egg dyeing and hunting is fun and all, but I don't like the whole Easter bunny idea. I'm not really sure why. Maybe it's the fact that it's all commercialized and the fact that Easter is about Jesus, not the Easter bunny. Plus, I think the idea of a giant bunny coming to my house is kind of creepy. I originally bought some stuff to do Easter baskets for the boys, but I was feeling anti-Easter bunny and decided that I didn't want to do them every year and returned all the goodies. We ended up telling Eli and Jed that the Easter bunny came and hid the eggs, that way they wouldn't have to think that he came into our house to deliver anything. The boys didn't ask details about how he got the eggs we dyed. It's all confusing to me. So, next year, I think we the Easter Bunny may just hide some plastic eggs that he brought himself. I always thought it was gross to eat the dyed hard boiled eggs that were laying in the yard for hours. Anyway, I digress. Eli and Jed had a fun time finding the eggs and dyeing them, so I guess it was a success...except for the fact that there was one egg that we never foud. I bet a raccoon found a nice Easter treat!
To help explain to Eli and Jed why we celebrate Easter, I got some eggs called Resurrection Eggs. They're plastic eggs with little things inside like a loaf of bread or a linen cloth or a nail, along with bible verses and a little explanation of the Easter story of Jesus. They sort of understood what it was about. Eli liked the spear and talked about how much it would hurt, and he also thought he got jipped because the last egg was empty (for the empty tomb). It was a good tool to at least introduce them to the story of Easter. I like that way better than the Easter bunny and all the candy and Easter baskets!
Max's dedication was a special moment. At our church, children’s dedication time is a special time set aside to introduce kids to the community, pray for them, and let their families know the church community is there to support and encourage them as they strive to raise their children well and in our shared faith. I'm thankful Mammy and Uncle Dan and Aunt Lisa were there to share that time with us, and I'm thankful for our church community.
Eli turned SIX years old on April 10th. We did our usual party at Garrison park with snacks and cake. Eli first wanted a monster truck theme, then he changed it to a Lego theme, which is convenient because I couldn't find any monster truck decor. He requested a lemon cake with vanilla icing and no decorations on top except for some sprinkles and candles. Again, convenient...I can do sprinkles and candles. In reality, Eli didn't want any Lego decorations on his cake b/c I was going to put some of his Legos on top and he didn't want his Legos to get dirty. I love a low maintenance, low stress, low cost birthday party. It's all about the celebration with friends, right?
Eli's birthday celebration was really several days long. I took him to the Lego store to pick out what he wanted, and we also went to the Build-a-Bear store where he picked out and stuffed a longhorn. He named it Bevo (sigh), that's what we get for living in Austin. They had plenty of (Baylor) bears, but Eli didn't go for that. Then on Eli's birthday, I took cupcakes up to his school for the class to celebrate. After school on his birthday, we invited some friends to Locomotion jumpy house for a birthday playdate. Eli chose to go eat at P.Terry's for his birthday dinner. I think he felt the birthday love!
I can't believe my boy is six. He has lost his first tooth, he can tie his shoes, help with chores, help out his brothers, he can read and write, among many other things. He's in big boy territory now. As every parent out there says, "He's growing up way too fast!"
