Downtown Mesa

We are settled into our new apartment in Oklahoma, but we have spent much of the last week seeing family and friends... and Eli caught a pretty bad cold in the middle of everything. Because of him being sick, we didn't get to see my Grandparents last Saturday, but we were able to drive up and see my parents on Sunday and Josh's mom on Monday. Rachel and Scout and Rhuey were able to meet us in Tulsa on Monday, so we spent the day with them too! 

Unfortunately, I'm horrible at remembering to take pictures when we visit family... I need to work on that. But I managed to snap a few while with Gram and Gramps.

Gramps reading a truck book to Eli.
At the bottom of the picture is an old cash register that I played with;
that was the toy Eli spent the most time playing with while we were there.

Playing on the iPad with Gramps (Eli would push his hand away if he tried to 'help')

Playing with Gram

He did more than just play on the iPad the whole time, I promise, but that's just the only time he would hold still! Even though he wasn't feeling quite himself, he was still busy, busy. 

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Catching up on some pictures from Arizona! These are from an afternoon walking around downtown Mesa. Soon, I'll try to get the Easter pictures up!

Downtown has statues on almost every block... Eli found most of them interesting. The first one, he went up to the boy reading a book and looked at him, then looked at the book, trying to figure out what he was looking at!

This book doesn't have pictures!

He laughed at the pig one, but he refused to touch it!

Resting with Daddy.

There were also a few fountains and water features, this one was his favorite because he could touch it and play in it!

The water ran into the grate on the ground... "where'd it go?"

We told him not to put rocks in the water, so instead he picked the rocks out of the bottom of the pool and dropped them back in. I guess it would have been better to remove the rocks altogether, but at least it was better than putting in more rocks. :)

After our downtown walk, we went for a treat at In-N-Out. Eli and I 'shared' a strawberry shake. Meaning, I took a few sips, then let him take a sip... and I never got it back.

This is his don't-even-think-about-taking-my-ice-cream-away face.

These last pictures are from the little water park we went to a few times. There is also a video of him running around in the water, but it was too large to put on the blog, so you can head over to Facebook and check it out! 

Not too sure about it at first...

As warm as the day was, the water was pretty chilly.

At first, he would run in, feel the water, turn around and run out!

Then he became more brave!

Stomping the water coming out!

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!