Eli Find's a Familar Face

Yesterday I was trying to put Eli down for his morning nap. He normally doesn't fight me on this, but today he decided to. I walked around the house trying to put him to sleep. When I was walking down the hall I walked past a picture that has been up since before Eli was born, but today he saw it. Eli looked back like was that what I thought it was. I stepped back and let him look at it and he smiled. Then I said Jesus Eli he started to laugh and sat up. I quickly got Jacob to get the camera and catch some on tape.

Today I walked by the sign twice and showed Eli again. He still gets very excited. This is such a neat thing, because I know Eli knows who he is!

The Newest Toy & Funny Pic

I love going to Target. There I find things for EVERYONE!! On Friday I talked my Mom and Debbie into coming with. We had such great adventures playing in the store. It started out with my Mom putting Eli in the race car boots. If you look closely his legs are so fat they do not allow him to put his feet in the bottom!

Then we went to the toy Eli to see if there was anything Eli would love. We found this ball and started playing this game with him. He was started laughing so hard to Debbie got video of it. I then walked around the store wondering if I should buy the ball that was only $2.50. Eli saw the ball in my hand right before we left and he went crazy with excitement and I knew I had to get it.

When we got the ball home this is the face Eli made when he saw it at his house(look at how big he has opened his eyes), and the laughter that followed.

Eli and I are becoming Zoo Rats

Ever since Eli and I received or Zoo pass from Jacob we have gone at least one time every week! Eli greatly enjoys the outdoors and I enjoy changing things up. Each time we have gone we have invited a new little friend along, because we can get them in for free. So far we have gone with Ethan, Aly, Cecil, Katie, Jordan, Carson, the Ray's & a few of Ale Ray's friends. Here are some pictures of our trip with the Gilmore's.

Eli does not have all of his hair yet so I got him these cute little baseball hats to protect his little head from getting burned. They are still a little big on him, but I love how cute he looks in them.

Aly & Ethan petting the Sting Rays. Eli liked this exhibit then hated it and now likes it again. He now reaches out for them all by himself...then are too fast of course, but still he tries.

We stopped by the water park to play. Originally Aly and Ethan were going to be the only kids to play in it, but I noticed Eli really wanted to get in. So I told Aly to walk around with him. Eli LOVED it he kept smiling and he noticed the other children would scream in delight so he copied them!

The three littles...look at how happy Eli is!

I promise he is still smiling in this picture. I love how big he looks in little Aly's arms.

Although I have gone with a lot of people my favorite trip has still been with the Gilmore's just because so many neat things happened. It started off with us getting this little squaril to eat from out hands! It was so cool and he stayed for a long time. Also Ethan could not reach the sharks in the tank in Sting Ray Bay so I had to hold him so he could reach way down. His face was maybe and millimeter above the water, and he finally reached the shark. Then and Sting Ray came up to him and wiggled all around his face and arms! IT WAS SOOO COOL, and Ethan loved it so it made it even cooler. We had a blast.

I'm a Big Kid Now.....OR SO HE THINKS!

Linda (also known as Nana to Eli) bought Carson a fun little toy that he can play with whenever he comes to her house. Eli saw Carson playing on this and became very interested. So I decided I would let him sit on it (with me holding him of course). Eli LOVED IT. He was smiling and going crazy. I quickly learned that he could sit there by himself and he quickly learned all the buttons he could push. After a little while I started pushing him around the room fast. At first I think he was like what the heck is going on but soon he thought it was fun and loved this toy.

New things

Since Eli has been changing so much lately he has a few new trick or things he does.

• The first new thing is he started to pull himself up to a standing position by himself. All the sudden one day Jacob and I were watching TV and we look over and Eli is standing up at the couch. This is when we realized what he could do, but this all kind of started about a week before today. Whenever Jacob or myself were sitting on the ground he would try and crawl over us....always funny to watch. (the pictures of Eli standing up below are hilarious because he got stuck under our ping pong table and didn't know how to get out. I love how worried his little face is.)
• Eli normally nurses for a few minutes before he goes to sleep well since I play volleyball on Wednesday nights now obviously Jacob can not use this little trick to put him to sleep. One night I got home and asked Jacob how it went he replied, "Wonderful. He would just play on the ground look at me and smile then once I noticed him rubbing his face in the ground I knew it was time to put him to sleep. I just put him in his crib and closed the door." Jacob also said that even when he was tired and rubbing his face and eyes he would still look up and smile at him...SO CUTE.
• Like I said before Eli has out grown his little bath, and honestly he has outgrown the entire sink. So one day I put him in the tub to see how he would do in the big tub all by himself. Eli did and great job now every bath is in the tub complete with bubbles and toy! Jacob also likes bathing him now because he doesn't cry and he isn't too big for the bath.
• The final trick is the video of Eli fake coughing. YES FAKE!! Now that he eat A LOT of what I do (whenever I eat something he thinks he needs to be eating too) sometimes he chokes or coughs a little. Obviously he noticed how quickly he gets my attention and so now he does a fake little cough every time he realizes I am not looking at him!

Eli wondered what the heck the faucet was at first.

Sunday Afternoons, and Sunday Naps

On Sunday Eli and I went to my cousin Donnie's babies blessing. Raylee is only a few weeks older then Eli and I am so pleased the he has cousins so close to his age on both sides of the family!! Anyway we went to an earlier church and Jacob still had to go to ours so we decided to stick around my parents house until Jacob was done with everything he had to do. Since church was so early we were both tired and decided to take a nap. OK lets be honest EVERYONE took naps. Eli feel asleep and then woke up like 30 minutes later I was super tired so I decided desperate times call for desperate measures so Eli nursed and slept just so I could get some sleep....oh it was bliss!!

After about an hour and a half I heard Eli's little voice. I had a pillow of my head (this is my new thing I do when I sleep) so I peeked out the bottom and Eli was looking up at me. It was so cute, because it was obvious he was talking to me and was so happy I woke up to play with him. I couldn't resist that cute face so I woke up and we had some fun. Buddie was also taking a nap in the bed and Eli found him after a while he was done playing with me and after poor Buddie!

I love it when Eli lifts his eyebrows like this!

Lions, and tigers and Bears...OH MY!!

For over 2 years Jacob has been trying to get me to go to the Zoo. I have on the other hand have been trying to avoid the Zoo at all cost. I have used every excuse in the book, it is too cold, it is too hot, we don't have a baby, or baby is too little...blah blah blah. Eli I think is still a little too young for the Zoo, but he gets so bored and loves being outside that I figured it was time to get to the Zoo. So on Saturday Jacob finally won the Zoo battle and we went with some friend. Preston and his little Emery joined us, and we rode out there together. When we got there we met up with some other friend Wyane, Rachel and their little girl Regan.

The Zoo if not played right can turn out to be very expensive. We figured it would be smart to buy a year pass so that I could come more often with Eli, and we could save money! Jacob bought me a year pass so I can get into the Zoo with a guest for free for an entire year. Children under 3 get in free so I basically could go to the Zoo with most of my friends for free now. I am very excited, and I plan on going as often as possible.

The Zoo has a new petting exhibit where you can pet sea creatures. I was really excited about this then I saw that actually cost more money. Everyone wanted to do it, and since I was a Zoo member it only cost I dollar so we figured we needed to do it. This part was so cool. We pet Sting Rays, Sharks and some sort of swimming sting ray crab thing. It was so cool! Jacob loved it and turned into a little kid so it was so much fun just watching him. Eli liked it too at first and then shortly later he had enough and didn't like the cold water, but he did touch 2 stingrays!!

The rest of the time at the Zoo we spent just walking around looking at the animals. Eli slept for about an hour of our 2 1/2 hour trip, but when he was awake he loved everything and was so cute. He loved the petting Zoo. I don't know if it is because Eli is around animals a lot already, or if he just isn't afraid of them, but he just loved trying to pet all the animals. I have to say Jacob is the best to go places with. He has such a positive attitude and he makes things so much fun. A lot of us joked that Jacob was enjoying it way more then everyone else.

These last two pictures I took because the first is of the pink bird. For a while it's head was hiding and we all wondered if it was Cotton Candy or food for the birds. It was CRAZY!! The second if of this Monkey. Jacob heard the trainer say he was going to feed them shortly so we sat there and watched them for a while. It was funny to watch them and these one was so hilarious just relaxing on the edge annoyed the trainer wasn't feeding him yet.

Pay if Forward

Here is what you do...
the first 3 people to leave a comment on this post will receive, at some point during the year, a handmade gift from me! What it will be and when it will arrive is a total surprise! The catch is that you must participate as well. Before you leave your comment, type up a pay it forward post on your blog to keep the fun going. Then come back and let me know you are going to play! Then sit back and anticipate the arrival of your gift! (Please leave your e-mail address in your post to me!) On your Mark... Get Set... Go!!!