Frog and Toad

While Sadie and I were in the backyard discovering Frog who likes to hang out on the gigantic horseradish leaves in the garden.Eli was in the front yard discovering Toad.

They met and became friends. Then they hopped on home.

A Week with Grandma and Grandpa

After Eli's birthday party, grandma and grandpa took the kids home with them for a long weekend at their house. I'm not sure what all happened because they like to keep secrets but they sure had a blast! Here are some pictures that my mom sent me of their time together.
They had pioneer days at Bonanzaville, which is a historic museum with a pioneer village. The kids tried their hand at all sorts of old-fashioned fun. Here they are making tin can lunch pails:

What did Dennis and I do while the kids were gone for 5 days?? Not a whole lot. We went on five dates though and ran a ton of errands, and took naps and slept in and sat in the silence... It was a good five days, but we were happy to have them back. Thanks grandma and grandpa for the great time!

Eli's Race Car Birthday Party

We had a successful birthday party at our house for Eli's birthday. In the past, we've done large barbecues for Eli's birthday, but this year we decided to just do cake and ice cream and it was the best, least stressful party I've ever thrown. And when a party is less stressful, it also means that it was the most fun! Eli invited all of his classmates and they are a fun group of kids. They all know each other so well, it was great to watch them all play so well together. Here's the lowdown of what we did:

We decorated cars:

We tattooed:We parachuted:We zip-lined:

We opened presents:

We 'ooh'ed and 'aww'ed:

Grandma once again pulled through on the cake. Have I mentioned how glad I am to have her do this? She's so good.

We sang and ate cake:We had a blast. And when the party was over, we played with all of the treasures. Sadie tried out Eli's new scooter:Four adults attempted and failed at transforming a difficulty level 4 transformer:

For posterity sake, here are Eli's 5 year stats:

Height: 41 inches (15%)

Weight: 36 pounds (15%)

Happy (Belated) Fifth Birthday, Eli!

I didn't forget Eli's birthday, trust me, I remember his actual birth day like it was yesterday, I'm just a little slow to blog. I can't believe that I've known this little guy for five years now and have been in love with him since before that. It's been so much fun watching him grow and learn and become a person. I can't wait to see what the future brings for him.

Too Busy to Blog

OK. So that's only partially true. I've been having "dates with Don" as the third season of Mad Men is out on DVD. So my nights have been filled with the gang at Sterling/Cooper. But, truly, we have been busy. The only bad thing is that I have neglected to take pictures of our goings on. We spent some time with both grandparents. We went to Seussical the Musical, Auntie Paula took the kids to Sesame Street Live and we went to International Day at Concordia Language Village. We've been to the county fair, some free park events that included horse rides, free jumpy things and magicians. We've had visitors from the south and west. We've swam and boated, go-Karted and mini-golfed. Dennis had his 20th High School reunion so we reuninted and caught up. Busy, busy I tell you... Summer is coming quickly to an end. It's 66 degrees today and it feels a whole lot like fall. Hopefully, we'll have a few more fun summer days before fall is officially here.

A Couple of Eli-isms

While in the car:

Eli: Mom, I really like that car behind us.

Me: What do you like about it?

Eli: There's a really cute girl driving!

Ha ha, it's hard to pick up chicks when your mom is driving and you're stuck in the backseat in your carseat!!

Sadie and I were getting haircuts the other day at our usual stop, Hair Teasers, and Eli was tagging along. Eli was so upset that he wasn't getting a haircut. "Mom, why are you being so mean to me. All I want is a haircut!" The hairstylists were getting a kick out of it, but they knew that he just had one a couple of weeks ago (they all want to give Eli his haircuts because he sits so still. Seriously, he doesn't move a muscle.). They ended up giving him a "man touch-up". They buzzed his neck and styled his hair for him. He was perfectly happy with that! That kid just loves to be pampered.

In Uniform

I thought you might enjoy seeing Dennis in uniform. I'm finally used to seeing him as a soldier and I like it now. It has proven to be very helpful for laundry and wardrobe reasons and he's gotten out of a ticket too! I can't wait for the first time we have to go to the AFB for something and he has to wear his uniform. I hope he gets saluted a lot so I can smirk!!