We Love Grandma's and Grandpa's

After about 1 minute of walking in the door, Eli and Cade acted like their grandparents come over every day!

We went on an awesome train ride from Snoqualmie to North Bend.



A trip wouldn't be complete without a delicious concoction from Grandma Peggy. The biggest ice cream cupcake you'll ever see.

That's so Eli

The title of this post kind of sums up the picture, but the background story is pretty funny so I'll share...Eli and Cade have really been into hide and seek lately. It has started to be a little frustrating for Eli that there are no new hiding places he can think of in our little place. Well, he got creative and decided instead of hiding, he would disguise himself. I hear Jimmy counting in the other room, and Eli is calmly dressing in what you see above. I ask him why he's not hiding and he responds "this is my disguise so daddy won't know it's me", and he proceeds to dress and wait patiently on the couch for the counting to finish. Jimmy comes out and starts looking for Eli, but "can't find him anywhere". Eli grinning to himself at his trickery strikes up a conversation about how he is just visiting here, and his name is Mob Mobberson, and some other small talk. Then he goes into another room, takes off his "disguise" and comes back in as Eli. He was absolutely convinced he pulled one over on his dad.

Future Carpenters

Lowes offers a free class on certain Saturdays where you can take your kids and "build" something really cool. So far Jimmy has taken them to make a race car and a mini basketball hoop. The kids get pre-cut wood and a hammer and get to assemble the projects by themselves. Plus as Lowes surely believes in "safety first", they get goggles, an apron, and a patch to keep when they are done. Eli and Cade come home pretty proud of their handiwork.

So Proud

In nursery a few weeks ago, Cade got a classic object lesson. They had learned about faith being like a seed, and given the kids a cup of dirt, and planted a bean in it. In the past, I've thought "nice object lesson, but who knows if it actually grows". Anything of this sort always spills before we even make it home. But I carefully brought this cup home and had a lot of help and reminders to water it diligently. Within a week, to my amazement, it was actually growing. And it kept growing. I wanted to see how big this bean would actually get, but sure enough as soon as I was done taking this picture, Cade had broken the stem and the plant died. But the bean made a pretty impressive stalk, and Cade was proud!

Holy Cow

One of the conversations that are just fun to have with your kids:
It starts off with me proclaiming my love with something like "I sure love you boys a lot". Eli thinking to himself...hm, I wonder how much is a lot?. He incredulously asks "Not more than the alphabet"? To which my reply was "Yep, way more than the alphabet".
"Do you love us more than the store"?
"Of Course".
"More than places"
"Yes"
Then he really started thinking and asking. He wanted to get to the bottom of just how much I loved them. He asked "more than cars", "more than lamps", "more than van huge cars"?
My obvious reply was yes.
"Do you love us more than way up to the sky"?
"Yep, more than way up to the sky".
"Holy cow, I can't believe you love us more than way up to the sky. That means you'll never not like us".
He's starting to grasp the enormity of my love, but he wants to make sure.
"Do you love us more than all the way up to the sky mixed together with 20 mixed together with 100"? (Obviously an astronomical amount). And in his most enthusiastic voice proclaims:
"Holy, Holy Cow!!! That's a LOT!!!!"
And it's true...I love my boys more than way up to the sky mixed together with 20 mixed together with 100!!

You've got a birthday shout hooray!

Cade turned the big 2 on Sunday. Eli had a hard time sleeping the night before he was so excited to see what was in Cade's packages.





Cade is our little "ball boy" and loves balls of all shapes and sizes.
Now Eli won't have to share his spiderman towel with Cade anymore. (Although surprisingly, he often gave up the coveted towel to keep his brother happy)

Edward changed his mind!