Eli loves his Grumpy. Grumpy loves his Eli.
There are the two in their matching outfits (though Grumpy is admittedly not sporting Spiderman) watching the Masters after a great Easter meal.

The fam, with strategically placed Easter basket.

Happy Easter everyone!

We had a great Easter yesterday. I was at church all morning (ahhhh, the life I lead...). Kevin brought Eli for our family-friendly service. He behaved beautifully and even took Communion like the big boy that he is.

Int he afternoon, we went to Grumpy and Grandmaman's house. The Easter Bunny, aka Grandmaman, hid a bunch of jelly-bean-filled eggs around the house and Eli had a field day looking for them. This is a previously untested activity but he took to it like a duck to water (there's candy involved, what did we expect?).

Laurie getting krazy with the krazy glue.















Beth made little baby t-shirts with animal decals.



















Laurie made thank-you cards with fancy envelopes--pre-stamped!!
















The spread-- yum!


















Courtney's French onesies














As part of my education into the world of little girls, Erin made a bow holder. Eli, lover of all hair clips is definitely going to be jealous.


Erin made leftover bags to take home. Lunch the next day!



Conventional wisdom divided on the subject of showers for second babies, but when my friends Erin and Courtney suggested a small "craft night" baby shower for me, we all agreed it'd be a great opportunity to get together some of our overworked mommy friends for a relaxing night of friendship and creativity. Courtney and Erin did a great job pulling it together and everyone had a fantastic time. The crafts were AMAZING. What a talented bunch of friends I have! Thanks, everyone!

G'daddy gave Eli a Mr. Potato Head for Christmas. Eli calls it Mr. Tato and has recently taken a real shine to it. He often (thought not always) gets the face parts in the right places.














I asked him to show me what face Mr. Tato was making.

In the car recently, we were listening to music on a rock station. Eli, constantly asking questions about EVERYTHING, asked what the song was about. My edited version of the storyline was this: "Well, buddy, he's singing about a woman that he loves very very much. And he is singing the song so she'll know how much he loves her."
"Oh," he replied, without missing a beat, "she's his mommy?"
I think there are still little pieces of my heart on the floormats of the car.

My boys.

When did Eli go from being a baby-child to a real kid?

I love our aquarium membership. It is only getting better since we figured out it is really easy to take the bus. We met our friends the Millers there a few weeks ago. Truthfully, I think Eli was much more interested in whatever Baikal was doing than in the fish.

Now I'll back up.

Shrove Tuesday, aka Mardi Gras, is a big deal at our church. We have a big bonfire for the burning of the palms the ashes from which are used for Ash Wednesday, the next day. After the bonfire, we eat a pancake feast to symbolize ridding the household of "luxuries" like sugar and fat, pointing to the austerity and asceticism of Lent.

Eli, of course, remembers the fire and the pancakes.

Note: He's sporting this year's "special hat" in these pictures. I'm wondering how many more years I have while he tolerates me making these things and putting them on his head. He is such a good sport.

Looks like I'm headed for another record. I completely missed blogging the month of March!
Ah, well. here's the update: I've got 5 weeks of pregnancy to go. It is unlikely that I'll be posting any pictures of me. For some reason, I'm particularly sensitive to how HUGE I am this time around. I'm really not much bigger than I was with Eli but I feel enormous and blobby and uncomfortable and I think it shows in pictures. So instead of pictures of me for which you will need your wide-screen settings, you'll have to just use your imagination.

I've taken a couple of days off work this week to get some ducks in a row and get a little rest. I cracked a rib a few weeks ago and it makes it really hard to sleep (and drive and cook and yawn and breathe...) so I figured in stead of becoming a complete basket case, I'll get a little bit of rest before the craziness that is Holy Week and Easter. After Easter, I'll be at 37 weeks and she is more than welcome to come any time!

Midwives tell me that Baby Girl looks, sounds, measures and feels happy and healthy. Eli tells me that he's REALLY ready to see her and has begun to pout about how long she is taking to join us. Really, you have no idea, kid!