We had a great Mother's Day last weekend. We all went over to our friends the Millers' house for a Mother's Day cookout. The food was great and the company was the best! At one point, the mamas were enjoying a quiet moment eating ice cream when the daddies called us outside to see something funny: two toddlers and their toys in a pack-n-play made for one infant. Luckily, it didn't turn into a cage match.
After play time, the little ones had dessert: Eli with a popsicle and Baikal with ice cream in the nice evening sun.

Happy Mothers Day! Here's a big KIIISSSSS for all of Eli's favorite mamas, most especially his Granmaman. We love you, Mom!

There are a few of you out there who don't get to see Eli on an regular basis. It is for your poor folks that I post this picture. We've taken some really beautiful pictures of Eli. He is really photogenic and very pretty.

But this picture, friends, THIS is a picture of my son. The front part of his hair sticks up for no reason at all. He's perpetually losing a shoe because he loves to play with the velcro. He's holding tight to that silly bubble bottle. His nose is all scratched from a speed-of-light faceplant he took yesterday. He's a sweet, sunny little soul with a lot of energy. Gorgeous.

It has been a good day. This morning Eli helped me make banana bread and then he hung out on the porch with his new spill proof bubble dispenser (thanks Mose!) that he is madly in love with it. Frankly, I am madly in love with it, too, as it solves our nearly daily tussles over who gets to hold the bottle of bubble solution. Eli carries around for hours at a time, not even blowing bubbles, just holding it. It went for a walk with us today.









After we baked, Eli helped with the dishes, a project that ended up being, of course, messier than the initial dirty dishes, so Eli's portion of the project moved out to the porch where he happily played in dishwater and soap until lunchtime. Toddlers ROCK!!

While we're technically not "potty training" with any gusto, Eli has a little potty chair that he likes to sit on from time to time. He calls it "pobby". Without giving too many unsolicited details, I will say that he has used it several times successfully. We are very proud.
He likes his pobby so much that he will occasionally sit down on any other convenient, small round object and call it "pobby". Short stumps in the park, for example. A few days ago, we were in the front yard playing and Eli decided that one of my big flowerpots looked like... you guessed it... pobby. Luckily he is still in diapers so soiling the soil was not an issue.