Tiny Town 2009

Memorial Day has passed and you all know what that means - Tiny Town Railroad is open! This is our third visit to Tiny Town - our first since Eli can walk. Here he and Grace are checking out the goings on at the Tiny Town Rubber Co.
Waiting for the train to pass by...
Here it comes. This is pretty much where the day began to break down. The train let off steam really loudly and that put Eli into a funk. After that he stayed in the stroller until lunch.
After lunch he thought it might be safe to venture out. He checked out the Tiny Church.
Another bit of lunch...
Eli's friends: Christopher, Grace, Hanley and Hanley's Dad Shaun.
Christopher riding in the train caboose.
Eli crashed in the five minutes it took to get home, with his Tiny Town Train ticket in his sweaty little hand. Ahhhh, sweet railroad dreams.

A Bad Idea, A Big Critter, and A Puddle Walk

The bad idea. If my water breaks on this trampoline, it will not be because I haven't been warned. Get a look at that belly. I have three months...THREE MONTHS PEOPLE. I don't think I have three months of growing room left. Last Sunday an older man at church asked me if I'm having twins. And this guy is not a joker. He was serious. And I couldn't tell him no without a little smidgen of doubt. Yes, we've had two ultrasounds, and yes, they've only seen our one little guy - but, I'm putting it out there - if it's twins, I won't be surprised. My belly is giant and there's enough movement going on for at least two babies, so who knows.
The big critter. Caught us an elk! We had a friend over for homemade pizza and a bon fire the other night. During dinner he pointed behind me and said, what is that behind your shoulder? That freaked me out a bit, but he was referring to the elk in the corral. The corral has one open side, and critters like it in there. It's almost always full of deer, but tonight we had an elk. Eric and I also saw our first mountain lion on our way home last night.
The puddle walk. We have had more rain in the last two weeks than we've had since we have been in Colorado. It's been lovely. So today we pulled on the bear boots and slicker and went out to puddle jump.
Good times.
Eli loves to check the mail. It's our daily post-nap ritual.

Butterflies

Things have been going great here. Eli is stringing words together here and there ("achoo dada" when dad sneezes, "bye Christa" when Christa leaves the room, etc.) We've started packing a few things for our move next month, and the quarter is winding down in a couple of weeks. Here are the latest adventures of Eli:

Sitting on the wood stove, which is now accessible, since the gate is down. Hooray for spring!
Goober.
Not sure what's going on here.

Making a mess in his high chair.
Yesterday Eli got to take a very short ride in yellow Jeep. He had a blast. When it was time to get out, we had a good 5 minutes of "No, dada. No no no, dada. No." He loves it.

Today we took Eli to the Butterfly Pavilion. He was sleepy for most of the time.

He did perk up after a while.
We had to carry him a lot, to help him see the butterflies and to help him not squash them.

Eli is good at smelling flowers now.

This is the honeycomb exhibit. Eli is pretending to be a worker bee.
This thing made a mosquito proboscis (no idea if I spelled that right) go up and down. But Eli just liked spinning it around and around.

Here are some shots of flowers and butterflies.

Eli's 1st Real Haircut

We have reached a milestone around here. For most of Eli's 19 months I have sworn not to cut his sweet little curls until he's old enough to ask for a haircut. I caved. He's been getting called "her" more often than not lately, and when he doesn't look like a girl, he looks like a ratty trucker. So, we took the plunge and made an appointment to rid him of the shaggy mullet seen above.
"Sure, I'll sit in this cool jeep seat and drink my milk. No biggie."
"Wait! What's this lady doing to me. Nooooooo!"
"This is abuse!"
"Hmmm, but this sucker tastes yummy."
"Not yummy enough!"
"Mommy, how could you?"
Here we are post-haircut at the toy store. Doesn't he look handsome? The stylist did a wonderful job. She was undeterred by his wailing. And she gave us just what we asked for - we got to keep some curls and he doesn't look like he's ready to go off to first grade. He's still our baby, just without the mullet.
See? Still super cute.

A day in the life...

Eli and I have been taking full advantage of the back porch lately. Eli enjoyed his first otter pop today.
Done. Ahhhhh.
Nothing like a bucket of soggy pinecones to keep a toddler entertained.
See?
Vroom vroom. He's a little confused about the little storage space under the seat. He thinks that's where his hiney goes.
Shew, exhausting.
Master of the trampoline. He's thinking about shuckin' those britches.
Big jump!
Lolling about is fun.
And gives you a great hairdo.
Day dreamer...