Fun times on Spring Break!

This week I was on spring break and only worked 1 day for a couple of hours so I had a lot of Eli time :) I tried to come up with some more creative activities to do with Eli, so I googled and found some fun ideas that include (in case anyone else needed some ideas): pretend play with stuffed animals/puppets, play-doh, painting, cutting out & gluing shapes, numbers, letters, etc. and making a "What I Know" book, looking at photo albums, coloring, blowing bubbles, finger painting with food, putting stickers on paper, cutting sponges into shapes and helping clean, dress up (yes, boys can dress up too!), doing rhyming songs with actions, putting objects in a variety of containers for the noise and visual aspects, and taking nature walks. We managed to do a few of these ideas and some others...enjoy!

One morning while daddy was making Eli's breakfast, Eli found the kleenex box (that is usually out of reach) and had some fun:

Eli actually wore his hat a couple of times we went outside this week. He really needs to wear one to protect his little noggin from the sun (he has my fair skin) and keep the sun from his eyes as I don't see him liking sunglasses anytime soon. Here he is modeling it at home:

Eli enjoys sitting on the couch (or "coch" as Eli says) like a big boy but quite often must be reminded that he can only sit and not stand. He can be quite the stinker about standing which I repeatedly tell him this is unsafe and to sit. He then says "sit?!" and continues to stand. I then sit him down and he gets back up on the couch and stands and says "sit?". He's such a little stinker sometimes!

On Friday we attended my friend from grad school, Cheryl's, La Leche League Toddler playdate. She lives in the Brookside area so we don't attend meetings that way but met some new mommies & toddlers. Cheryl's little girl is named Lainey and she will soon be 2. Eli had fun exploring her house and all the fun things she has. I guess Lainey is good about staying out of things like plants, not breaking pottery, etc., so their house has a lot of things we could never have out at our house. Eli did pretty good and would just "pet" the plants and point at the pottery :) Here's a cute picture of the two (don't worry, Callie, she's just a friend ;):

Eli got a Sit-n-Spin from Aunt Sarah & Aunt Stephanie for Christmas but just now has figured out how it works:

Eli ALSO got a Mr. Potato Head from his aunts and mommy just now decided Eli was ready to play with it. He really likes all the pieces and calls it a "football" which is really cute because it does look like one!

The glasses for Mr. Potato Head are a kid favorite, but since Mr. Potato Head is much smaller than he used to be, so are the glasses. I remember loving trying to wear the glasses and as soon as Eli saw them, he thought the same thing. Unfortunately they don't fit very well on his face.....

.....but they fit perfect on his neck!

Eli continues to love the cats and chase them around numerous times a day. Shadow won't let him touch him very often but Mocha is warming up to him. In fact I would say she is TOO accepting of his love and will let him pull her hair, legs, ears, etc. and just meow and try to get away, but not really "escape" when she should. Eli has a few scratches on his hands because of this. Eli continues to try to get Mocha and Shadow in their "safe zone" on the stairs as you can see below:

One of the activities we did do this week was work with Play-Doh. Eli still doesn't really understand what it is, as he just kinda throws it around and pokes at it with his fingers. We got some animal cutters to use with the Play-Doh today and he seemed to have fun doing this:

Also today, we bought a booster seat for Eli so he can sit at the table to do fun activities such as Play-Doh. He LOVES it and he had the biggest smile on his face when he sat in it for the first time today. Here he is playing with his new chair:

We also played with bubbles. Eli loved dipping the wand in the bubbles and trying to blow, but he hasn't been able to blow hard enough yet. He makes the sound, but not enough air behind it :) He carried around the wand for almost the whole time we were outside:

He continued to ask for "bubbes" after coming inside so we said he could play with them at bath time. He has an amazing memory, which is wonderful, but sometimes it's not so great because he remembers EVERYTHING we do that he really loves and asks to do it several times a day. He knows where I "hide" the crayons and paper, that Baby Einstein DVDS are on top of the DVD player, the tent is in the guest room, etc., etc. so when he starts chiming "cower?" and goes to the side of the couch I know he wants to color. Can't put anything past this kiddo:

We also went to the park numerous times, made a shapes book, and colored in coloring books. I'll let you know what other activities we do from my google list....and please let us know of fun ideas you know of!

I added some new words this week to Eli's word list: couch, remote, sirens and puffs (Gerber Puffs). I know there are more as he seems to surprise me with knowing what something is called which really shows how much of a sponge he continues to be as he understands what we say, and each week more and more comes back out out his little mouth! Eli always stops when he hears sirens and says "siens"? and today woke up from his nap doing just this and immediately went to the window to see what was going on. They were too far away to see but he was very interested none the less. Another funny thing is that Eli for some reason says "fokee" for coffee no matter how many times we try to get him to say it correctly.

I'm back to school this week and we hope to meet up with some friends at least by Friday to "play". We hope to attend an activity at the community center on Tuesday around the book "The Grouchy Ladybug" and our parent educator visits us on Thursday. Aunt Holly & Uncle Chris will be here this weekend which we look forward to! AND Eli turns 19 months on the 25th! That's all for now!