What a weekend!

Well really, what a Saturday. Sunday was really spent sleeping to try and mend myself from the debacle that was the Balloonfest on Saturday night.

Boobeebooeebeeooobeeeboooo rewind to Friday night.

Got Eli's hair cut..... for the first time since, like, July. He was in desparate need. We went to that fancy Snip-Its place and he was more difficult and stressed out there than he is at Great Clips. And it was wayyy more expensive. Lesson learned.

Saturday we went to Cousin Ben's baseball game. This time Eli's Gram brought him a bat and a REAL baseball. He spent the whole game carrying that ball around and showing it to random people walking by. "BALL! BALL! BALL!"

This face was when he saw a bicycle riding by... he started yelling "BICYCLE!" (sounds like guh-di-guh) and singing our bicycle song. He was a bit mezmerized.

After the baseball game we went to Play It Again sports to try to get him a football since I could see how enamored he was with his new baseball. That was an adventure. He loved trying to pick up the weights, swing the golf clubs, and ride the skateboards. The staff loved us there.

Finally, we had our FOOTBALL!!

Next we spent the rest of the day napping and getting ready for the big trip to Statesville for the Balloonfest. Before we left I turned his carseat forward facing... It's a big deal!

Of course we had to take the new baseball with us to the Balloonfest.

We went to pick up Dad and Jack and set out. We got there within about 45 minutes, at around 4, knowing that the big launch was 4:30 to 5. We got directed to park in a "remote lot" because the usual lots were full. Well, it looked like a long walk but we had NO IDEA just how long.

*Literally* around 2-1/2 - 3 miles. With a toddler that will only let his mama carry him and refuses to walk on his own that feels like about 10. It was brutal. There were even people selling water and food on the side of the road, it was that long. BUT, both of us were in good spirits so I guess it could have been worse.

We got there JUST in time to see the balloons launch and it was really great. Around 50 balloons all took off, some great photo ops.

For the most part Eli was pretty scared of the balloons. He spent most of the launch clinging to me for dear life. It took all I had to put him 3 feet in front of me for these pictures.

We did not stay there long. The thought of the 2-1/2 to 3 mile walk ahead of us was looming over us. Kind of spoiled the whole thing.

Just on the way out Eli had his first meltdown of many. Total screaming, falling down on the ground awfulness. First it was that he wanted total control of Jack's new bubble gun, which I was not going to spend $15 for one of his own. Then it was the balloon that he was holding flew away because he would not let me tie it on his wrist. There were lots of other triggers but just writing about it is giving me anxiety from the memories. We almost gave several people concussions from throwing our new baseball at them. Ugh. Good thing he's cute.

Must be something about the Balloonfest that brings out the worst in toddlers. Here was Ben 4 years ago...

ANYHOO we finally all headed out for the LONG walk back to the car. Shortly after Eli suffered a head wound from taking a header to the asphalt a nice man in a golf cart stopped and carried us about a mile. He let us out and that's when it got really bad. Eli wanted to walk along the white line on the side of the road. And whenever I would pull him to the side because a car was coming it was fall-out melt-down central. At one point he was just lying in the grass screaming "MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY" but when I would get close to him he would say "NO!" and keep screaming. We were both tired. It was getting dark. I kind of lost it and all I knew to do besides crying was to laugh. So as he was laying in the grass beside the airport runway screaming his brains out I was laughing. This one couple with three kids stopped to say they would carry him and that just made me laugh more. He wouldn't even let his Pop-Pop carry him, let alone this strange man. I just said no thanks and they were like are you sure and I just kept laughing and explained that my dad was about 100 yards ahead of me and he would help if I needed it.

Finally after a LOT of screaming and crying we made it to the car. I was too tired to do much of anything on Sunday except nap. Next year we will definitely re-think the Balloonfest.

New stuff

Everyday I am amazed at the little things that Eli does and knows that are new or that I didn't know about. Like, last night while visiting our friends Deborah and Andrew, Eli did the following that I had never seen before...

- Picked up a train and said "choo choo".. the whole evening he kept saying "choo choo" whenever he would play with the train set.
- He said "helmet"... he has a little Wake Forest keychain that he is so proud of and he carries around showing people and saying "football! football!" It's a picture of a helmet and last night he actually said "helmet" instead of just "hat" like he had been saying.
- He calls dinosaurs "Rars". Deborah got this scary dinosaur out of the toy box and it lit up and made noise and he was scared of it. He kept wanting to make sure that the "Rar" was safely back in the box.
- He is very adept at the "If You're Happy And You Know It" song. He claps his hands and stomps his feet and pats his head. It's awesome.

Sometimes I get so sad that he learns all these things at daycare that I don't know about. But still I am so happy that he is learning and growing :)

GO FOOTBALL GO FOOTBALL GO!

Another weekend of baseball, football, and pumpkins. Saturday night the whole family went to the Wake vs Va Tech game. Eli didn't have his own seat so he really wasn't feeling it. Since he won't let anyone else hold him for any long period of time and even when I was holding him he was irritated and restless, it wasn't a dream experience for any of us.

But it was still fun and the rest of the weekend was great. We watched Ben play baseball and Sunday went over to see our friends Deborah, Andrew, Kelly, and Conner, and we painted pumpkins!

It's all about Deborah.......

We need to stick our tongue out to paint.....

Our lovely pumpkin.... which we dropped later in the parking lot and lost forever. Oh well.

Also wanted to share this picture... Eli LOVES his football and cheering for anyone who's running, or catching a ball, or falling down, or whatever.

TGIF!!!!!

Wow I am so ready for the weekend! Tonight Eli and I are going to visit my nearest and dearest friend Sarah in Charlotte to celebrate her birthday with her and her family! We get to see her new house and I am excited for Eli to get to play with her neices and nephew!

This week was Fall pictures for Eli at school. He wore his best Tennessee jersey and pretty much ROCKED the picture posing thing.

I mean.... really? You can't pose any more perfect than that.

Another fave photo of mine from this week came from his daycare teacher. Here he is on the playground holding hands with one of his many girlfriends.

What a cute couple!!

Also wanted to share this.... last night we had a major traffic jam in the bathroom.... Not sure why he decided he wanted both of his " bicycles" in the bathroom.

Last night we went to another baseball game of Ben's. Eli cried more than usual because he wanted SO BADLY to swing the bats and throw the balls. Maybe next time we'll bring him some of his own to play with....

Happy Friday!

Another Fall Weekend.....

The weather was beautiful all weekend and for the most part we took advantage....

Saturday morning, Eli and I headed out to his cousin Ben's baseball game. Sitting beside us was actually a little girl in his class so they shared snacks. Eli was most interested in the game, standing right up at the fence watching the boys hit and run and reaching his little arm through to try and get the balls that came back to him. He kept saying "RUN! RUN!" and was mimicking swinging the bat. It was too cute. He really had a great time and his cousin Ben did great!


Here he is giving the coaches some pointers...

Someday......

Discussing the game with his Aunt Carrie...

Next in the day was the Wake Forest vs. Florida State football game with Dad, Jack, and Carrie. I was excited to take him because he LOVED it so much last time. This time he still had a great time and everytime the Deacon would walk by he would hold his little hand up and say "Five...Five"

Here he is cheering with his Pop-Pop...

Things got a little iffy around halftime and we had to break out Spongebob on the portable DVD.

...But soon after he was back for more and flirting with the girls in front of us and making friends with a little boy behind us. He was high-fiving everyone in the row behind and in front of us, it was too funny.

Sunday I woke up with an insanely awful headache but still decided to load us up for a quick trip to the pumpkin patch.

At first Eli was a little scared because there was this little chihuahua there barking his head off at him but then the dog left and all was good.


He liked the little ones until he started throwing them and I took them away.

This is kind of a bigfoot pose but I like it.

When I told him to sit on a pumpkin and say CHEESE he actually did it...

He really thought he could pick this up.

We didn't get this one.

I just love these shoes.

We ended up getting some green and white and bumpy pumpkins for the front porch. It's kind of a puny display but.. you know...

After the pumpkin patch the headache was back in full force so we packed it up and headed to mom's. I got to "nap" while she watched him. More like, I closed my eyes while he stood by the bed and said "Mama. Mama. Mama. Mama." At one point he wanted to actually ride his fire truck on the bed. But... I got the rest I needed and all was good.

Fave Photo Friday & The Fair!

It's been a busy week. We're pretty swamped at work and ... more importantly... the FAIR is in town! We went to the fair on Wednesday night with my mom and dad (kind of guilted Dad into it) and our dear friends the Burchettes! Little Logan Burchette is Eli's BFF since day one at daycare. Basically the fair was kind of a madhouse and I felt like I was trying to herd a crazed cat instead of a 2-year old. At first he was kind of in awe of everything but then after awhile he just lost his mind a little and wanted to run EVERYWHERE. At one point he was pushing his own stroller and almost mowed down several families.

He did get to ride the carousel and was terrified and thrilled all at the same time.

He hung on to those handles for dear life.

Next his brave Gram took him and Logan on this little bus ride which he did NOT like.

He did love the petting zoo, he fed carrots to all the goats that wanted some. He was loving it until a goat literally tried to eat his jacket sleeve and Logan's Dad had to wrestle it away. He didn't cry, he just has been talking about it ever since and would not take his jacket off later and even slept in it and insisted on wearing it again to school. He loves talking about the "bad goat".

All in all it was fun but something I only need to do once a year. At least till he's 12.

He hates my singing.

Eli's favorite song is "Wheels on the Bus". With the rather violent "Baby Bumblebee" a close second. He will start doing the wheels on the bus go round and round motion whenever he sees a bus of any kind. So I will start singing the song to him. But lately he will take his paci out of his mouth, look me straight in the eye, and say "STOP!" I act like it makes me sad and he puts both his little hands on either side of my face and gives me kisses. It's actually pretty fun, not considering the insulting aspect of it.

Wonderful Weekend!

Eli and I had a faaaaabulous weekend visiting a bunch of our dear friends in Richmond! We took off on Saturday morning and Eli had his best Tennessee football jersey on, in honor of football Saturday. Weellll, as soon as we stepped out of the car he threw up all over himself. Again and again. On himself and in the street. SO, we show up all puked covered and needing a change.

So we walked in the door and were immediately greeted with Juri's sweet smiling face and a beautiful spread.... AND all of our other good friends!! We had a FABULOUS day with everyone... we ate, played with all of Brady's toys (including a pretty sweet baby roller-coaster)....

.....ate some more, rested......

......and played in the bouncy house....

.....and just basically had an all-around great day. Eli had a low-grade fever during the day which put him out of commission for some of the festivities, but it was nothing that a little Tylenol couldn't fix. He was up and back to his old self in no time.

The bouncy house was a big hit for the kids and the food (and Sangria!) was a big hit for us adults.

The obligatory group pic was a chaotic and hilarious as expected...

At the end of the day we all left Juri and Roy to their once again peaceful house. Julie, Tanya, Rebecca, Chris, all the kids and I had to make a quick Wal-Mart run. Of course that was interesting. We spent the rest of the evening hanging out in the hotel room and letting the kids run WILD. They had a pretty great bed-jumping playground between the two beds and the sofa bed.

Jalen was the best jumper They all had their different techniques. Eventually they had had enough and setteled down for some Spongebob.

The next morning we unfortunately had to say goodbye to Julie and Robin. It pretty much took us ALL DAY to get motivated to get up and go out anywhere. When we finally did, Rebecca, Chris, Tanya, and I loaded up the kids and headed to PF Changs. The meal was awesome but unfortunately I had the worst case scenario with Eli. He had had NO nap and was not really happy with anything short of running all over the restaurant and screaming when he was put in his seat. Owen and Jalen were little angels.

After dinner we took the boys swimming at the hotel. I swear I think they laughed and had smiles on their faces for the WHOLE time we were there.

They all splashed and jumped and laughed and had a blast. Then, it was time to dry off and go get ice cream!!!

They ate their ice cream and played chase around the store. Next was time to go back to the hotel. They had yet more fun jumping and running and finally settling down to watch some Spongebob.

Getting the boys to sleep was kind of a chore after all the fun they had but once they were out, they were out.

This morning we had breakfast with Rebecca abd Chris and the boys got to run around and play one last time before we all took our loooong trips home.

All in all it was an amazing weekend with great friends and their sweet babies and I hope we can all get together again soon!!

Little Salesman

Eli's favorite things to eat right now are ice cream ("I Sheem") and these little Spongebob fruit gummies (thanks to Miss Tanya :) ) So whenever he wants the Spongebobs ("Ba-Bobs") I say "Ok, you can have ONE ba-bob" and he started saying back "Two". I thought it was so funny, here is a video...

He is my sweet little man. Sometimes I wonder how I got so lucky that someone so sweet and great and perftect loves me more than anyone in the world. This morning when I woke him up instead of whining and tears I got a "hey" and kisses and "nice touches". It was a good morning.