A walk in the woods

One of our favorite things to do down in Delaware (aside from the beach, of course) is going hiking in White Clay Creek State Park.  It’s very close to my parents’ house and has a nice, wide trail that goes along a creek.  We find beaver dams and in the past we have seen ducks, but this time the only wildlife we saw was the tiny kind.

 

There were lots of beautiful dragonflies!

Hiking with Auntie Denise, he says, “Auntie Denise, I love you.”

The main attraction is where the trail gets close enough that we can go on the riverbank, and throw rocks.  Oh, we could spend hours doing this!  Eli is getting in on the action now too. 

He yells, “Big rock!  Splash!”  He went splash too one time.  Oops.  Oh, Auntie Denise, I see you on your iPhone!  Busted!

But to be fair, Auntie Denise is the one who found the fish and pointed them out to the kids.  They were tiny but we could see them!  Finally we turn around and head back to the car.  The kids were exhausted even though it was mid morning and this was how we left the park:

These kids are getting too HEAVY for this!

Brian’s Birthday, part 1

We celebrated Brian’s birthday while we were down in Delaware so that family and friends would get a chance to wish him a happy birthday.  In reality, it turned out to be more of a social event for the grown ups, but hey, there was swimming and cake, so he was happy. 

Blowing out the candles on his enormous ice-cream birthday cake!

Meanwhile, Eli was clowning around with his best friend, Monty. 

From Auntie Denise, he got a Tickle Monster Laughter Kit…

And it delivered laughter, all right!

At the beach

Does Eli like the water?

Oh yes!

Brian was "making a faucet". Don't ask, I don't know.

And he drove his jeep around, just like last year.

Happy Father’s Day!

We had a wonderful time today celebrating Father’s Day.  Not only was Calvin home all weekend, but my parents were here too, so we were really able to all enjoy the day; a nice breakfast (meat and potatoes, of course), a walk along the canal and a picnic lunch, way too much tricycle riding, naps all around, and a steak and corn barbecue followed by ice cream pie.  What a great way to say, “We love you dad!”

Graduation 2011

Today was Brian’s preschool graduation, a term I’ve always found funny.  He did complete a year of preschool, but back in my day, we didn’t have a graduation after every year of school completed.  Really, it’s more of an end of the year party, and just like last year there were the inflatibles, and once again Brian really wanted to go on them, but this time so did Eli!

Of course, Eli did not get very far on the obstacle course, and he got frustrated that I had to keep taking him off so that the big kids could go through.  I was relieved when it was time to go line up for the graduation. 

Brian did great waiting in line and going up when his name was called.  It might not sound like much but I was proud of that; there were plenty of kids who did not want to stand alone or go up.  I imagine the whole thing made very little sense to them, and in retrospect I probably should have explained what was going to go on ahead of time, but it all worked out well.  Here’s my little graduate:

He looks pretty excited, eh?  I think he was trying to figure out what this piece of paper was:

Eli sat in the amphitheater happily for a while.  I sat him on the bench and he started yelling “choo choo!  choo choo!” so clearly he thought he was going for a ride. 

It eventually became clear that was not happening and he got antsy, but when he saw Brian go on stage, he started yelling “brother!  brother!” and he wanted to go down where Brian was.  Fortunately, Brian was toward the end.  Here’s the whole class (or at least everyone who showed up today):

My graduate:

Me and the boys:

Running over to lunch:

Apples were all we found to eat, not that surprising.  I wished I had packed a lunch!

Brian says, “Now I know what’s a graduation.”  Yep.  Goodbye school and hello summer!

What we've been up to

For those of you who are dying to know what we've been up to this past week and can't wait till we get home, here are some iPod pictures to keep you going. Our first day we went to Desert Ridge shopping center (I wanted to stop by Joann) and the kids played in the fountains while I shopped happily without them.






Another day we went to the railroad park, a perennial favorite of the boys.



We bought some squirty toys for the kids to play with in the backyard. Eli wanted to play with this mister but when he finally figured out how to squirt it, it was pointing the wrong way:



Today we went to the Arizona science center. I don't have many pictures from the morning, but after Eli went home for a nap, Brian and Ian had a great time playing with this elaborate magnetic marble ramp:



Then they went to build a tower:



But made little progress until uncle Kermit stepped in as the foreman.



After that, a fairly elaborate castle was built.









So, that's what we've been doing, or at least that's what I've been able to take pictures of!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPod

Brothers

It’s funny, today I was showing Calvin pictures of Ian holding Emme and Brian hadn’t seen them and didn’t know what we were looking at, but just then, he asked to hold Eli.  I swear sometimes he is psychic.  Anyway, Eli is not as small as he once was and it’s not as easy to take this kind of picture anymore (especially without a real camera).  But here they are, Brian holding his baby brother. 

What a proud big brother!  (Eli had just woken up from a nap and was amenable to the idea but not thrilled about it.)  They really do play nicely most of the time. Here are some videos of them together!

On our garden tour in Delaware, Brian took Eli around by the hand in search of waterfalls.

And Brian took Eli for a little ride on the hippo at grandma and grandpa's house.

I walked in to Eli's room to find the boys sitting together reading books... so sweet! Eli says lines from Hop on Pop, then goes looking for them. Brian is reading There's a Wocket in my Pocket.

One of Eli's first phrases: "I'm coming!" He's always bringing up the rear and is often reminding everyone he is not far behind. :) He keeps up with Brian pretty well these days though!