Strawberry Picking with Brady

Late March to early May is strawberry season around here, and this year, I decided to take Brady strawberry picking.  He absolutely loved it and we've been eating the strawberries he picked for days.  He is so proud of himself and everyday asks to eat some of "his" strawberries.  I loved watching him go up and down the aisles picking only the best red berries.  He is a pretty big rule follower, and when the people at the farm said to only pick the red berries he was on a quest for just that.  And he kept telling everyone else there to only get the red ones, too. :)  Every time he'd pick one he'd run to me and show it to me for my approval before it went into the bucket.  I sure do love that sweet Brady and I'm going to be so sad when he goes to kindergarten everyday!  Thankfully, I still have a year with him!

 Brady is such a good big brother.  He stopped picking long enough to take a picture, then went right back to it.

Major slept almost the entire time, which was great!  That means more mommy-Brady time!

Bill's 35th Birthday

We celebrated Bill's 35th birthday the Saturday before the 26th so that his sister, Kam, and her husband, Devin, could be there.  We started off the day with the usual showing off from the boys.  This year, that included Major, who showed up as Captain America. :)

Then we had games outside, all entertainment was provided by Eli.  Since it was Bill's birthday, that meant that we had to have a party, and since we were having a party, there must be games, so I told Eli that he was in charge of games.  Here is Major holding the blindfold for the "pin the teeth on the cheetah" game.

Next, was Eli's obstacle course.  First, you had to zig zag through the cones, then you had to jump with both feet into the circle on the ground.  Then you had to tight rope walk on the two jump ropes on the ground.  Then you had to ride one scooter to another scooter, and ride the second scooter to the horse Eli made for school.  Then you had to ride the horse around in a circle and go backwards through the obstacle course.

Winner of Eli's obstacle course: Daddy!

Our second game was, "Pin the Teeth on the Cheetah".  Eli made a cheetah face and then a separate mouth.  He blindfolded each contestant, turned him (or her) around, and then the person and to put the teeth on the cheetah face.

Winner of "Pin the Teeth on the Cheetah": Aunt Kam!

Our third game of the evening was a football toss.  The football had to be thrown into the center of a ring drawn by Eli, on our back fence.  We were put into 2 teams for this event.  Eli, Mommy, and Aunt Kam in one, Daddy, Uncle Devin, and Brady in another.  Since we were all playing this game, I wasn't able to get any pictures of it, but Daddy's team won again!

The fourth game of the evening was a bird race.  Each person pretended to be a different kind of bird and raced across the backyard (the picture with Bill, Brady, Eli and Kam with their arms out is of this game).  Winner: again Bill

And the last game of the night was just for Bill - Hide and Seek Present.  He had three presents hidden throughout the house and the boys yelled "hot" or "cold" to let him know if he was getting close.  Eli had such a great time getting games together for Bill's birthday.  In fact, the night before his birthday Bill went to go check on the boys and Eli was just laying in his bed staring up.  Bill asked him what was wrong and he said, "I'm just thinking about all the games I'm going to have us play tomorrow.  I want you to have a good birthday."  What a sweet boy.

Eli also made "money" for Bill with a picture of him in the middle.  The money was a gift card of sorts for him to go and get a new video camera.  Our old one is no longer usable, and Bill really wanted a new one so that he can video all his boys!  Especially little Major who is doing all those wonderful baby things right now and is just starting to crawl.  My parents, as well as Aunt Kam and Big Daddy and Gran Betty all chipped in for him to get his camera.

The birthday boy blowing out his candles!

This last picture is of his actual birthday on Monday, March 26th.  We tried this new restaurant, Grimaldi's.  It was DELICIOUS!!  It may be our new favorite birthday location!  Happy Birthday, Bill!  And many more wonderful years to come!

A Horse Named Rodeo

For Eli's newest kindergarten project...a rodeo horse.  Luckily for him, his father is extremely crafty and creative, so he helped Eli make this awesome horse.  Eli aptly named him, "Rodeo".  It really is pretty awesome, and Eli says he won the race!

Eli's First Baseball Game

Here we are!  Eli is finally playing baseball!  My first sport love was softball, and whenever I used to imagine my children playing sports, softball/baseball was the sport I'd picture.  I've waited so long to be able to sit in the stands and watch my child play, and the time has come.

 Sweet Brady is his brother's biggest fan! 

 Here he is at second base, ready to take off for third!

Brady showing off his throwing arm.  He can't wait to get to play sports.  Just a couple more months and he'll be 4...the magical age when you get to start playing organized sports!

The Dodgers!  If you look closely, you can see Eli's name on one of the baseballs.

Crossing home, his first ever run scored!

In this league, they want the kids to learn all the positions, so they spend one inning in the infield, and the next in the outfield.  Here he is playing 3rd.  He has a great arm, so he stayed at 3rd/left field the whole game.

His very first at bat!  First pitch was a great hit to the short stop!

Eli was 2 for 2 batting, with 2 RBIs and 1 run scored.  It was a great first game!

8 Months Old

Today my baby boys turns 8 months old!  He is very mobile and communicative and is just a good baby in general.  He is still doing the "army crawl" throughout the house, but occasionally he gets up on all 4's and takes a few real crawl steps.  He is pulling up on everything.  The day I lowered the crib, I came in there at nap time and he had pulled himself up on his crib guardrails.  Good thing I lowered that, or he would have gone tumbling out!   And he is "talking" constantly.  "Dada" is still his only word that I can understand, but he is constantly cooing and squawking.  He has 3 meals a day of different baby foods and cereal.  He is not a fan of any sort of vegetable, so I have to mix it with fruit or cereal to get him to eat it.  He will either curl up his tongue so he can push all the vegetables back out, or he will spit it all back out at me.  A bib is needed for both mama and baby during feeding time!  He is very animated and gets into everything.  He likes to crawl into his room or his brothers' room and play with the toys.  Major especially enjoys the Star Wars light sabers and the bats.  I couldn't choose just one picture of my sweet Major, so I had to go with 3!

Cowboy Brady and Fossil Cookies

Brady had Cowboy Day at Sunshine Class on Tuesday!  He was so excited to get all dressed up!  Look at this cute little cowboy. :)

 Then, on Friday, I had an idea.  What if we made fossil sugar cookies?  So I let the boys pick out some dinosaurs and imprint them on the sugar cookies when they were fresh out of the oven.  Actually, I had them imprint the cookies before they went into the oven, but when the cookies baked, the shapes disappeared.  So we had to re-imprint them when the cookies came out of the oven.  Now we have cookies with dinosaur footprints, faces, bodies, and all sorts of fossils.  They had a really good time and really got into it!  It was a lot of fun.

Special Note: Just in case anybody was wondering why Eli and Brady are dressed they way they are it is because they unveiled their new super-hero alter-ego's: Red Man and Blue Man!

Baseball Season Kick-Off

Eli started his first experience with little league baseball this spring.  On Saturday, March 3rd, they had a season kick-off with a parade and games and they had team pictures and practice as well.  We got there at 8:30 am, and left at 3:30 pm.  Bill was in Austin for a coach's clinic, so it was just the boys and me.  This was a  very long day, but a very good day.

Eli in his uniform...the Dodgers!

 Eli and Brady goofing around.

Here is his team in the parade...

Sugar Land has a new independent baseball team...The Sugar Land Skeeters!  (As in mosquitoes) The mascot, Mo, threw out the first pitch of the season.  We plan on attending a game soon, although the season hasn't started yet.

Eli and a boy on the team were playing "rock, paper, scissors" while waiting for their team picture.  I thought it was cute, so I took a picture of it.

The Dodgers!  Eli is on the second row, second from the left.