Lots of Love...

Grandma Lewis was visiting last week...hence the silence on the blog. We had lots of fun PLAYING, shopping, and resting. And, of course, we had lots of extra loving, so here are just a few shots of all those lovey dovey moments:

Preparing for Grandma...

Today we begin a month full of visiting and visitors. First among these is my mom's visit, which commences today. In preparation for "grammy-wham's" visit, we've been cleaning, tidying, and cooking as much as a baby and a toddler will allow. My mom would probably prefer if I prefaced the next portion of the entry by saying that she does not care what my house (or my children) look like, she just wants to visit, but I like to try my best to create a clean, welcoming environment for our guests, so we've been working toward that end.

Monday (Day -3): Clean cars and bathrooms.
Tuesday (Day -2): Do laundry.
Wednesday (Day -1): Sweep floors, clean kitchen, and pick up toys in yard. Burn candles in rooms with diapers to overshadow diaper smells.
Thursday (Day of mom's arrival): Quickly reclean bathrooms and kitchen. Give up on resweeping floors laden with a day's worth of toddler crumbs. Clean children so they smell good for grandma (the children were particularly not on board with this mission...Will had to have FOUR baths this morning because he pooped in the first THREE!...then Elliot got out of the bathtub and pee'd on the floor...reclean floor...). Rinse out poopy cloth diapers (Elliot's "helps" by flushing between diapers...unfortunately, he became impatient waiting for the toilet to refill so he could flush again, so he began shutting the toilet lid on my head to pass the time...hmmm...reconsidering cloth diapering now...). :)

After all that, we're ready for grandma...the house, children, and myself are clean and tidy...I'll just need a nice long nap after she gets here... :)

The BEST reality TV show...

Let me preface this entry by saying that Jeff and I don't usually get into reality TV shows. Sometimes we'll watch an episode here and there for comic relief and turn it off it gets too boring or complicated, but we just watched one of the BEST ones we think has hit the screens...it's called "The Baby Borrowers." It's airs on Wednesday's at 9/8c on NBC. Here's a truncated excerpt from NBC's website:

"The Baby Borrowers" is an intriguing social experiment wherein teenage couples fast-track to adulthood by setting up a home, getting a job, and becoming caring parents first to babies, then toddlers, pre-teens and their pets, teenagers, and senior citizens (all on loan from real parents watching on closely nearby) - all over the course of three weeks.

The first two episodes (last week and this week) were on the "pre-baby" and "baby" stages (we couldn't have donated Will because he's too young...and probably too sweet). Next week begins toddlers (can we still donate Elliot for the sake of social reform?!?...just kidding, he's probably too sweet, too). :) In any case, it's somewhat comical to be a happy yet exhausted parent in a good/normal/planned season of life and watch the difficulties of parenthood displayed on TV to the end of reforming teenagers who think they're "ready" or that parenting is "easy." Good comic relief for brain-fried parents of young children if nothing more...

Anyway, here are our a few pictures of our little sweetnesses smelling sweet after their baths (ahh, how I wish you could smell my bathroom after bathtime...baby soap is intoxicating...).

Sometimes too much of a Good Thing...

...is just about right. We've been experiencing this in several areas of life lately. In particular, I have been realizing that we just need to get back to the basics. These are such fun years in life and I don't want to lament how I spent my time during them when I'm older. We need lots of Jesus (Bible studies, church, worship music, prayer, ...), lots of hugs and kisses, lots of family time and play time, ... Lots of other things, too, but those are the ones I've been slacking on lately. The boys have been enjoying lots of good things lately, too.

First off, they've been enjoying lots of time in their new double stroller! It's amazing and works wonderfully for strolling and jogging. Yesterday, it even magically put them both to sleep (much needed sleep, I might add)... Come to think of it, I think that all Will does is sleep in the stroller. :)


On a related note, Elliot has been enjoying swinging in our tree swing lately, too. One afternoon (when he thought he had successfully eluded a nap), he fell asleep from "too much of a good thing." :)
During his waking hours, Elliot has been enjoying lots of "bubbies." He likes them in every form...bubbles in the bathtub, soap suds from the kitchen sink, blowing bubbles in the yard, ... you name it. He even tried to get me to steal the bubble machine from the church nursery when I picked him up the other day...silly boy...here he is popping bubbles in the back yard...

And, from sweet Will, we've been enjoying lots of smiles lately. He loves to be talked to, have his face and head rubbed, and usually rewards you with one of these sweet things in return...

Did I mention the sweet smiles...

...ahh...praying that you're enjoying too much of a good thing in your life today, too!

I love...

...the look on their faces when they sleep...

Summer Days...

After our trip home to visit friends and family and our Bible study cookout (which I highlighted in the last two posts), we've settling into a more relaxing summer schedule. This past week has been pretty warm, so Elliot has been playing in the lawn sprinkler a lot. He likes to fill up his sand buckets with water and dump them on my plants (which are much obliged I'm sure since it's so hot and dry here). Recently he's also discovered how to turn the hose faucet to get more water to come out (and thus raise the pressure in the sprinkler zooming water over the fence into the neighbor's yard...sorry Jim and Ann!).

We also got a new sprayer head for our hose (since I broke the handle off of the last one). Of course, Elliot wanted to test it out right away (I only got a little wet in the process). :)

Here's Elliot in his new surfer shirt walking on the rocks lining my herb garden. We thought the surfer shirt would be a good purchase since it dries quickly and he kept drenching all of his other clothes playing in the sprinkler. I think he likes it too, when it arrived in the mail along with a few other clothes, it's the one he wanted to put on right away.

He's also been enjoying our tree swing lately. My arms are getting a workout because he likes to "wing, Mama, wing" a lot. Will obliges him most of the time by napping or laying quietly by the tree.

Being outside so much has also meant that we've been eating a lot of homemade popsicles lately! I've really enjoyed trying out some healthy recipes...so far we've had strawberry-orange mint, blueberry yogurt, mango-orange, and chocolate pudding...okay, so maybe the chocolate pudding weren't all that healthy, but they certainly were tasty. :) After all that, at the end of the day, I sometimes look like this...

Did I say that summer has been relaxing? Okay, so maybe not so relaxing, but certainly a lot of fun! Jeff wins the "Best Husband Ever Award" because he went into work late this morning for the sole purpose of letting me sleep in after a rough day yesterday. It's a good thing too because before 10 a.m. we found a cockroach in the bathroom, both kids were screaming simultaneously as they were getting out of their baths, Elliot pee'd on the floor, and they were both ready for naps. The extra sleep (and God's grace) propelled me through the drama until I got them to sleep then I played "Slow Ride" on Guitar Hero a few times to recover. :) Then Elliot woke up and asked to poop on the potty (which he did), God is good, isn't He?!?

Elliot Self Bathing

We had a Bible Study cookout Thursday at our house (despite gale force winds...no exaggeration...we ate inside for the sake of our hair...welcome to Texas). :) Anyway, in preparation for the cookout, I had some extensive cleaning to do in my kitchen (as a result of some extensive cooking...strawberry pie, chocolate cream pie, homemade mint chip ice cream, and homemade vanilla frozen yogurt...yummy). Back on track, when I have extensive cleaning to do, I give Elliot a little more freedom to explore than I usually do so that I can accomplish the tasks I need to in a reasonable amount of time. Well, Wednesday was no exception, while I was cleaning the kitchen, he decided to bathe himself in the kitchen sink. Here's his mischievous grin celebrating my acceptance of his exploration or just the pride of it all together (zoom in on the leg...those are genuine blue dish soap "bubbies"...aka "bubbles" or "lather").

Here he is having his foot soak and deciding which kitchen brush will best exfoliate the dead skin cells off of his feet (his daddy would not be overly impressed with the male foot primping but would be proud that he decided to get the toddler stink off of his feet). :)

Rinsing, blessed, rinsing. Elliot loves to rinse and rinse and rinse and rinse. Water is fun.

Elliot's independence is bitter-sweet. It saves time sometimes and takes more time others. The self bathing episode fell into the latter category. I just couldn't handle the smell of a dish soap laden toddler (especially on his head...which smells like J&J baby soap for about an hour after a real bath and then quickly returns to the "wet puppy" toddler boy smell thereafter...I've heard this is not so with baby girls...sigh), so, anyway, we had to give him a "real" bath after his self bath to return things to a predictable scent at least.

Anyway, the post wouldn't be complete without a picture of sweet baby Will doing what he does best...

Oh, and one day left to vote...don't be afraid to vote for Jeff...he would like to make the point that his birdhouse is more "artistic" because he painted birds on it...your call...let us know what you think...