Our block builder

Alli's great joy lately has been to build castles with blocks and put together puzzles.

She also LOVES to pose for the camera and get pictures of her creations :-)

She was so proud that she put this puzzle together by herself

(Eli was still sleeping so she was able to work without little hands "helping") 

Of course, her all time favorite thing to do is still color.  Her recent masterpiece . . .  

Such a creative little gal our Alli is!



ouch!

My sweet little Alli is quite opinionated (as I suspect is true of most 4 year olds!) and has life figured out. 

Here was our recent conversation (to preface, I've been working tons of hours lately):

Alli:  Mommy, when I grow up, even if I have to work, I'm not going.

Mommy:  Well sweetie, it doesn't really work that way.

Alli:  Well, when I'm a Mommy, I'm never going to work because I'm going to stay home all the time with my kids.

Mommy:  I hope you get to do that if it is what you want.

Alli:  I will!

Mommy:  You will have very lucky little ones.

Alli:  Mommy, I wish you never worked.

Mommy:  Me too!

Growing up, and even in my 20s, I never thought of myself as a stay at home mommy but boy does that little girl know how to make me feel like I should! Funny thing is, I know many, many moms who have jobs outside the home, but Alli doesn't. Every.Single.One of her friends has a Mommy who is home full time so she cannot understand why her Mommy works. How do you explain that to a 4 year old???

By the way, I'm writing this at the airport . . . yet another aspect that she doesn't understand.

Fun at the beach - finally some sunshine!

Today was an AMAZINGLY PERFECT day at the beach!

The sun was shining, the skies were blue, the water was a comfortable temp . . .

 and both kiddos were on their BEST behavior!!!

We got out to the beach a little before 10 a.m. this morning and were excited to find Barbie Gramma and Pop Pop there already.  Soon we were headed down to the beach where Mommy, Daddy and Alli all jumped in the water (okay, Mommy and Alli waded up to our waists, while Daddy jumped in!).  Eli is still working on getting comfortable on the beach so he stayed on land and threw rocks before begging to go back up, which he did and played with Barbie Gramma, Pop Pop and Great Pop (who showed up while we were swimming).  Soon, we all went up for some lunch and then got quite a show . . .

Look who decided to sun bathe on our dock while we were having lunch!

Eli, Alli and Barbie Gramma were very exicted (as were the rest of us!) 

According to our neighbor, it is likely that little seal pup was born the day before! 

We even caught him having a little lunch :-) 

Once the seals jumped back in the water and swam away, the kids decided to run through the sprinkler. 

This handsome little man had his 2 year check up yesterday and is up to 35.5 inches and 27 lbs. 

He insisted on going shirtless to be like Daddy ~ too cute!

Alli was shirtless because she wanted to run through the sprinkler too but didn't want to get her shirt wet

(her suit top was cold and wet from swimming earlier and she didn't want to put it back on) 

Great Pop loved snuggling these two and they were so excited he was up from his nap!

So here is our former introvert . . .

She now performs her very own songs and dances 

If you need any entertainment, she's your gal! 

Just check out those moves. 

The grandparents all left in the afternoon and we enjoyed the rest of the day heading back down to the water for some rock throwing before heading back up to play in the yard, pool and sprinkler.  After dinner and baths, we made our way home.  Not surprisingly, Eli was out within 5 minutes of leaving the beach.  Alli stayed up but crashed as soon as we put her to bed.  It truly was a perfect day!

Dinner with Dr. Lynch

Although we are desperately missing our Lynch gals, we at least still have a tie to them since Joe

(or Dr. Lynch to the kiddos) is still in the neighborhood for another week or so.

Tonight, he joined us for dinner and a fun game of catch in the backyard.

The former football star was a great sport catching some very wild throws from two excited little ones :)

 And giving Eli some pointers!

 I think G was thrilled to have someone there to actually catch his throws without ducking :-) 

 Alli was beyond excited to have Ainsley's Daddy at her house to play and she even got to video chat with Mrs. Lynch and the girls from Dr. Lynch's phone ~ life was good!

 Both kiddos were enthralled with his bear and bird (he's a hunter).  Eli kept wanting to see the bird!

We're hoping to see the whole Lynch family (reunited!) again for a fun play time,

since we would love some warm sunshine, probably means we need a book a trip to CA!!!

Garrett's Promotion

With the excitement of Eli's 2nd birthday, I forgot to mention that at the end of the day on Friday (July 15th), Garrett received a promotion from Honeywell to Operations Manager (essentially the second in charge at the Renton site).  A couple weeks ago, when the Operations Manager resigned, management and HR approached G and asked him to apply for the position.  After about 4 or 5 rounds of interviews, he was offered the job.  In addition to increased responsibilities and a raise, he gets an extra week vacation each year ~ the biggest plus and a very nice surprise!!!  We are so proud of him!

Quick Snapshot of Eli's 2nd Birthday Party

Eli had a FABULOUS time at his "ball-themed" 2nd birthday party!

The decorations were fairly simple ~ lots of blue and green stripes and dots.

We decided this year to start by showing pictures of the little man each year he's been with us,

I loved this and plan to add on each year!

Rather than do a cake (E's not a huge fan), we made a cake pop cake of baseballs.

Thankfully, G kindly agreed to do the decorating of the pops!

They were a huge hit! 

When E saw them this morning, he yelled "pop" as he grabbed one and stuck it in his mouth.

Way too cute ;-) 

We also decorated with pictures of Eli as a newborn and added decorations to the water bottles that said "Thanks for bouncing over for Eli's 2nd Birthday!" 

Party favors were bouncy balls and yummy chocolate "Sixlets" 

Eli could not have had more fun!  We got him a bag of 250 balls, which he LOVED!!!  He was ripping the tissue paper simply to show everyone how strong he was when he noticed the bag of balls inside ~ his reaction was priceless!  He then proceeded to share the balls with everyone ~ Ava getting the most.

We also made him a sandbox (with tons of help from Uncle Danny ~ huge thanks to him!)

At first, he wasn't sure what to think and when he got in, he informed us it was "dirty" ~ silly boy,

but soon he was having a blast with his new trucks and balls in the sand. 

He also thought the seat made a fun thing to jump from!



There will be a much longer post and many, many more pictures to come but the birthday boy is up from his nap so I must go enjoy my brand new two year old ;-)

Eli's last day as a 1 year old!

Two years ago this evening, I went into later.

Tonight, I am preparing for this handsome little man's second birthday . . .

Where has the time gone???  How is my baby already 2???



E.Z. spent his day helping Mommy get the house ready for his party

Snuggling and playing with his big sister

And, going pee pee in the potty for the first time!!!!  Woo hoo! 

Hoping that's the beginning of something very cool :-)

I still cannot believe it has been two years since Eli Zachary came into our lives,

we are so blessed!!!

Princess Fairy Camp

It's official . . . Alli is a Fairy Princess!!!

Yesterday was Princess Fairy Camp at her dance studio, which Alli participated in with 3 of her buddies,

Taylor, Lizzy and Amelia.  I was working but Miss Kaitlyn tells me Alli did great at the final performance, and Amelia's Mommy was kind enough to send some pictures.  A great time was had by all the girls as they danced, did crafts, had their nails painted sparkly pink, and got fairy dust ~ WOW!

What a cute fairy princess (even if she did refuse to wear her ballet shoes!)

Eli is turning T W O!!!

How is it possible that our sweet boy is almost 2 years old???

At least I finally got the invitation designed, with 4 days to spare :-)

I'm not really that much of a slacker but the original party at the beach was cancelled due to it not being Eli's favorite party spot and we decided to go much more low key so I needed a new invite . . .

Our 4th of July Weekend

We haven't exactly had much of a summer so far but it came in full force for the holiday weekend!

The entire weekend was warm and sunny :-)

Friday evening, we decided to go out to eat at Famous Dave's and then Alli and I went to Gene Juarez.

This was Alli's first real haircut and she was sooooooo excited!!!

She love wearing the little smock that was just like Mommy's and couldn't stop smiling.

Her stylist, Lisa, was fabulous with her and Alli did a great job of following directions.

She thought it was pretty cool to get her hair washed, cut and styled (hair dryer) while she sat on pillows.

Her appointment took all of about 15 minutes then she went in the mall to play with Daddy and Eli.

Sadly, we didn't think to bring the camera, but I assure you, it was adorable!

Saturday morning was gorgeous and Alli was begging to go to the beach so we packed the car for what we expected to be a weekend at the beach.  Didn't quite work out as planned and we wound up coming home that afternoon for naps before heading back out to stay the night.  Probably should have just stayed home but oh well ;-)  Sunday morning, the four of us participated in the Treasure Island Fun Run before heading home.

How cute is Eli sporting his little shirt???

Both kiddos slept for nearly 4 hours Sunday afternoon and we enjoyed a relaxing evening at home.

On the 4th, another beautiful day, we headed out to the beach again

where Garrett worked hard to get Eli more comfortable on the actual beach. 

It seemed to help, and what helped even more was having the Hubers out there!

 Although, he was still far more comfortable staying away from the water :-)

The girls had a blast decorating Ava's stroller for the parade! 

We were all thrilled that the Hubers were able to join us for the day and Eli kept saying "Aah Vah" when talking about Ava ~ it was ADORABLE!!!

Both Ava and Eli thought it was pretty fun to hang out in the decorated Mustang, even if it wasn't moving.

Alli was beside herself with excitement having her buddies there and she loved all of the decorations.

For the parade, Alli and Taylor drove the Mustang and did a great job! 

Fortunately, G and Miss Kaitlyn did a great job of keeping the two little gals in the Mustang in line :-)

At one point, they even did a 360, which got huge cheers from the spectators and they thought that was about the coolest thing they had ever done AND wanted to do it again! :-)

Lizzy started on the bike but decided to ride on top Ava's stroller :-)

Eli loved riding his bike and was giving the biggest smiles to everyone!

After the parade, we enjoyed yummy food, playing, swimming and lots of fun with family and friends.

 

We finally headed for home around 7 p.m.  Needless to say, Eli crashed in the car (no nap will do that!) but Alli was so excited and wound up from her great day that she would have stayed up all night if we let her ~ we didn't ;-)

Such a wonderful day!