Sometimes, it is the simple things that keep us happy. Eli loves bubbles and has since he was a tiny little guy. Now he likes to entertain Linden with them.
Here he is with his new bubble wand from our friend Beth the organist.

And when you're a big 3-year-old, you can have cupcakes in your class with your preschool friends.

And in other news, KEVIN IS FINISHED WITH HIS PHD!!! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we have a doctor (of philosophy) in the house!!
He celebrated by taking a nap. I put Linden in charge of making sure he didn't get up to quickly.

Happy Birthday Eli!!

It is so hard to believe that Eli is three years old. When he was born, three years could have been a thousand years for as far away as it sounded. But now it is here. He is getting so big and he is so much fun to watch. This year, I put a little more creativity into his birthday party. Kevin had the idea to have a kite party. So I bought some really cool kite-making kits from Kites in the Sky. I highly recommend the company and the product. They were fast and so friendly. We got the Frustrationless Flyers that kids could decorate then take home to fly on a nice day (it was raining cats and dogs the day of the party).

I made a kite-shaped double doozie cookie cake and had a great time doing it. We hung delta kites form the ceiling and mini kites from the chandelier. One of the great features of our new house is the great wide central hallway where we set up little tables (borrowed from the church) for the kids to make kites and eat. It was barely-controlled chaos but so much fun.

Portraits with a ruffled bum.

We really love our neighborhood and for some reason, this summer I've especially really loved it. Maybe because Eli is getting bigger and we can appreciate it even more, maybe because of the new house, I don't know.

A few weeks ago, there was a big bicycle race in our park. The riders went around and around while we stood by and cheered and played on the sidelines. Our little buddy Rybolt brought his tricycle, just in case. Kevin and Eli played soccer, which Eli is getting quite good at. It was a great afternoon! The next day was the neighborhood festival, which is growing in citywide popularity. Eli, Linden and I went while Kevin was teaching. I had my hands full so there aren't too many pictures, but this is one of Eli getting a newspaper pirate hat.

I do not doubt she will be giving him this look for the rest of their lives.

We've been busy here at the Rumpus. Kevin and I are both back at work after a delightfully long family-filled summer. We have a great nanny, Cristina, who watches Linden two mornings a week while Kevin is teaching and lucky Daddy gets to be with her the rest of the time. Eli continues at his school where his teachers report that he is a great classroom ambassador and is really growing up into a smart boy. As if we didn't know that!

Eli has always taken an interest in housework which pleases his mother to no end. He especially loves running the vacuum cleaner and using the swiffer mop. I have a funny feeling that this infatuation with cleaning will wane just about the time when he is old enough to do it unsupervised.

Anyway... this morning, I mentioned I was going to clean the bathrooms and Eli enthusiastically exclaimed that he wanted to help. We suited up with rubber gloves and paper towels and I gave him a spray bottle of vinegar to clean the sink with. I figured that vinegar is non-toxic and won't damage anything if he starts going haywire with it or gets it on his clothes. Bathroom #1 gets cleaned beautifully with my little helper on sink duty while I did toilet, floor and tub. We moved into bathroom #2 and just as I lean over to scrub the toilet, Eli starts to scream. He squirted vinegar IN HIS EYE. So I put him, fully clothed, into the bathtub and start flushing his eye under the faucet, practically waterboarding the poor child, meanwhile hollering to Kevin "Google 'vinegar in the eye... VINEGAR IN THE EYE!!!'"

Thought traumatized, Eli was fine after a good eye flushing and actually wanted to go back to cleaning the bathroom. So we dried him off, changed his clothes and went back into the bathroom to continue.

A few minutes later, Eli says to himself, "Now I'm not going to squirt it in my eye 'cause I've already done that."

He. Is. So. Weird.

People ask from time to time where our children got their names. Kevin and I thought long and hard about what to name our kids. I grew up loving the fact that my name has a good story attached to it. I know where it comes from and why it was chosen. I wanted to make sure my kids could know about the stories behind their names, too.

Eli's given name is Ellis Justus. "Ellis" is for Kevin's great grandfather, Ellis Washington Mills. Grampa Mills was a wonderful person, from what I hear, and his legacy in the Simmons family is all of the furniture he made by hand. We have a few pieces in our house. We wanted to give our child a biblical name, so we nicknamed him "Eli" after the prophet. "Justus" was my great grandmother Pearl's last name. The Justus family founded Rabun County, Georgia, I'm told. Justus is also biblical. He was the runner up to fill in the apostle chair left open after Judas defected.

Linden Holly is named after her grandmothers. Kevin's mother Linda died shortly after Eli was born. We really wanted to name her granddaughter as a tribute to that amazing woman, but recognize that she's not a carbon-copy, but her own little person. So we came up with Linden. The linden tree is also known as the tree of justice since it was where court was held in Germany in the olden days. Guitars are made of linden wood. Her middle name is Holly, after my own mother. "Holly" has been one of my favorite names (and favorite people!) my whole life and I am glad to have a daughter to pass that one along to.