Eli has a few stuffed animals of his own, but the one he really likes is Josh's monkey. Josh had this monkey when he was little; he tells stories of when Beth decided the monkey needed some lipstick... Josh was not thrilled about this addition. Anyway, Eli has claimed it as his own now and plays with it all the time! He will 'feed' Monkey, give Monkey medicine (see below), have Monkey blow bubbles (he's not very good at it), read books with Monkey, and just generally tote him around.
In the video, Monkey is sitting in the chair next to Eli (he put Monkey there himself); he gave Monkey a book and he has a book, and they are 'reading' together. Eli's book has a silly turkey in it that keeps putting clothes on wrong (socks on his nose, pants on his head, that kind of thing), and when he gets it wrong he says "oops!" so Eli is saying "oops" near the end of the video as he is reading his book. Sorry the video is tiny, but I didn't want him to see me and stop!
I took this picture one morning; Eli was walking around, drinking his milk, and he decided Monkey needed some milk... and he was playing with his cars, so Monkey needed cars too. And then Monkey needed a hat.
There is a little story to this hat. You may not be able to tell from the picture, but this is the oldest, ratty, black felt hat. Eli 'found' it at the thrift store downtown and proceed to wear it around the store, so I was going to buy it for him (at $0.25 it was a good deal!), but the ladies running the store said he could just have it for free! I guess they thought he was really cute.... or they were just excited to get rid of the old hat. So we took the hat home, and after sterilizing it, he wore it around for a few days.
This one is from when we had a few days of cool weather (one morning was in the 40's!). He was riding his little car outside, with his boots and hat. He loves to be outside, no matter the weather. Everyday, he asks to 'go' or 'bye-bye' or 'shoes' or 'ouside'. I think he just likes to get out of the house. :) So we go to the store, or the park, or just run around outside. And he loves it!
