The Adventure Continues...

Our time in Arizona is coming to a close, and with it, a new adventure approaches! Next stop Oklahoma City!

My next travel nurse assignment will be at OU Children's Hospital in Oklahoma City, starting April 21st. My last day here in Arizona is this Friday, April 3rd. We plan to spend Easter Sunday with family here in Mesa and head out Monday for OKC.

In the meantime, we are busy with packing this week! And since next week will probably be consumed with travel and unpacking, I thought I'd share some old videos that warm my heart. :) He is so big now and talks sooooo much more, but I just love to watch these videos and see my sweet little boy. I couldn't get it to upload here, but I recently put a video on Facebook of him running around a little water park. I know some people don't have Facebook, and I'm sorry I couldn't get it on here, but try to get on sometime and watch it on someone else's Facebook.

More Personality

He is such a goober some days... most days. He comes up with ideas for things that I just would never think of. Maybe it's partially because he's a boy, but also because he sees everything with new eyes; he doesn't always know what things were made for, so he makes it up on his own!

Playing in the bathroom cabinet

Oh, those eyes get me...

 Out at a restaurant... 

Looks like he is eating something amazingly good, doesn't it?

Nope!

He was just playing with the paper holding his napkin and silverware. Now it's binoculars. He would look around and tell us what he could see... "oh, bird!" "I see you Daddy!"

Eating ice cream...

The puppy thinks he should get some too. 

Eli is not about to share. He loves his ice cream!

... sometimes a little too much...

Accidents happen with any kid, and Eli is no exception. He always has a scrape or two and bruises on his knees and legs. 

Last week, he was running around at Aunt Diane's house and ran right into the counter top of the kitchen island. It was just the right height apparently. I was at work when it happened, but Josh and Diane patched him up like pros. When I got home from work, Josh told me I needed to show him how to get blood out of clothes. :) 

This was two days after.

This was six days after. No permanent damage, just a little scab!

He likes to hang around while I get ready in the morning, mostly just playing with his toys in the bathroom, but he loves to play with my water spray bottle. "In my mouth," he says. He will "drink" the whole bottle in about five minutes. 

Personality

Eli has been talking more and more all the time, but what has really developed recently is how well he puts words together. I didn't really notice at first, but he will have sentences 4-5 words long and put describing words in with regular objects. Yesterday he said something about a "scary spider" (it was just a picture in a book, and he was actually giggling about it, not scared). He's been doing it for longer with colors, like, "blue truck," and "yellow bulldozer." This afternoon, he wouldn't take a nap because (according to him), he saw a "dragon outside the window," and it "scared me." He said smiling. 

A few weeks ago, he had an argument about a car with Josh, but let me explain something first...

Before we made the move to do travel nursing, Josh had a black Jeep Cherokee. Eli loved that Jeep. I'm not totally sure why, but he loved it. He would ask to go for rides, but not in the car, it had to be the Jeep. And the windows had to be down, no matter how cold it was. He would put his little chubby hand on the window sill and turn his face into the wind like a little puppy. Or he would just play in the Jeep sitting in the driveway. He loved it! He begged for it! He still talks about.

He can spot a Jeep from far away, but every once in a while he gets confused.
He pointed out a Hummer and said, "Oh, look Jeep!"
Josh kindly told him, "That's not a Jeep, Buddy, that's a Hummer."
"No, that a Jeep."
"No, Buddy, it's a Hummer."
"No, it's Jeep."
"No it's not, it's a Hummer."
"No, it's Jeep."
This went on for a while, but Eli was not to be persuaded. He was convinced he saw a Jeep and no one could tell him otherwise (usually he is pretty good about telling the difference between a Jeep and a Hummer, no matter the model). Stubborn child.

It looks like he's doing "Thriller." but he is just in the middle of waving his hands to some music. Kinda like Thriller.

Train Park

Two weeks ago we went to the McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park in Scottsdale where they had a special event just for children 6 and under. There were lots of people there, I didn't especially check to see if all the kids really were under 6 years old, but many, many little children were running around, lets just say that. 

They had so many things to do! Bounce houses, face painting, game booths, a petting zoo, balloons (and a particular guy making balloon animals), and best of all, train rides!! Everything was free, except for the train rides, they were $2 a person with children under 3 for free. We could have gone so many times! But the line was so long we had to wait close to 30 minutes for just one ride, and Eli really isn't that patient.

It was a super bright and sunny day, and the pictures suffered from it. But you can still see all the fun!

At the petting zoo we saw piglets, a miniature pony, chickens, bunnies, and goats. Eli wasn't too sure about being in the pen with all the animals roaming freely. He just stood and watched for a few minutes, then started walking slowly around...

He is actually very good around animals, for the most part. He will slowly approach, sometimes crouching down to their level, and just hold out his hand. He was gentle with the little horse, softly petting it's shoulder and back, and slow with the bunny (who was almost at big as he is), carefully touching it's back. 

 He loved the cool bounce house in the picture above. They had about 5 or 6 different ones, but this was his favorite (probably the one most suited to his age). Second favorite was the big slide! He went down several times. 

Next, we went inside a big building with lots and lots of toy trains. They had all different sizes and types.

Eli really liked this little train car he could get in, he climbed all over and tried all the controls.

From there, we went to ride the train! It was getting later in the morning, close to nap time, and Eli was fading while we waited for our turn to ride. 

 It was finally our turn! We were in the very front of the line, so we choose to sit in the front of the train right behind the engine. But being at the front of the line and getting in the train first meant we had to wait a few minutes while everyone else took their seats, hence the sad faces below. 

"Lets GOOO!"

He's ready!

Watching everything go by

This is his, "really, Mom, pictures?" face.

Going through the tunnel! He was so brave!

After the train ride, I think Eli got his second wind when he saw the cool playground. He really liked this rock to climb up to get to the slide. He was pretty good! 

Fun day!

Old Pictures

I looking through some pictures and found several (okay, maybe a few more than several) that, for whatever reason, just never made it on the blog, so I wanted to share them with you!

This first one is from Thanksgiving I think, at Josh’s mom’s house. Eli and Scout must have been getting wild and/or cranky and someone put Daniel Tiger on a phone for them to watch. It was pretty cute to see them just sit, both trying to be close to the screen. I was a little surprised they didn't fight over who got to hold the phone. Cuties.

These next pictures are from our church’s annual Chili cook-off and fall festival. Basically a time to get together, play games, eat lots of food and just spend time together outside before it gets too cold.

 Eli found a tractor just his size! And, so handy, he also found someone willing to push him all over! Oh, the joy on that little face!

There were lots of other things to interest him, including some cats, dogs, ducks, geese and these turkeys. The turkeys, incidentally, were not anywhere near as interested in him as he was in them, and they kept running off if he came more than 10 yards from them. That never keeps a kid from trying.

These next two I think are from Christmas at Rachel and Vance’s house, which would have been the weekend before Christmas. We partied hard and wore Eli out! He loves playing with Scout and all his cool trucks and tractors, in fact, most of the time he lists them right along with the family; “Scout, Rachel, tractor…”

As tired as he was, he didn't really fall asleep playing on the floor… it was just a little rest!

And this, this is one of Eli’s very favorite people, Miss Debbie! She was his Sunday School teacher from just a few months old to 2 years old! Every week he would wait for her so he could go play cars and trains. One of my favorite moments was one week when he was watching from the front door, he finally saw her and a huge smile covered his face and he yelled, “Debbie!” Even when he was little, he always went to her without any fuss and was happy to see her every week.

Christmas Day.

This child is so loved. And spoiled! I’m pretty sure he received more presents than anyone else. Two of his now favorite books, Richard Scarry’s “Cars and Trucks and Things That Go” and “Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site.” They sound just like books a boy would like, don’t they? The cars and trucks one is a favorite for riding in the car, he will just look at those pages for minutes and minutes. And the construction site book is a bedtime favorite and has taught him all about “exators,” “boboz,” and "mixer” (excavators, bulldozers and cement mixers).

My mom was sick with the flu during Christmas week and didn't want to get everyone sick, so she wasn’t able to come celebrate with everyone, so instead we FaceTimed the present-unwrapping! Eli talked to Gram and Gramps on the iPad and gave them a cute little wave.

Aunt Abby was the designated (by Eli) present-unwrapper-helper. He would bring them over to her and she would help him open all his presents, even ones with little parts that may have been better to open at home... In her defense, he was being exceptionally charming and would ask very nicely, "please help Aunt Abby." And she would.