Decorating the Christmas Tree

We had so much fun decorating the Christmas tree this year! Eli enjoyed hanging the ornaments on the tree and he enjoyed telling me where they fit and looked good... later after Eli went to bed I checked on the tree and found three bells on one branch... hummm. Overall it was good, Otto was somewhat interested in decorating, but not for long - and then he was away playing with toys.

Otto thought this glass ball would fit nicely in Papa's eye.

Eli rearranged a few ornaments once we finished.

Otto on Rody

Otto has a liking for Eli's Rody lately. He can't really go anywhere yet because his legs are too short, but he likes to climb on him and just jump.

Vintage Hot Wheels Service Center

I pulled out Brian's childhood hot wheels service center the other day. Eli loves it!

Otto likes it too!

Eli wanted to see how the rolly polly liked it, but it didn't go so well...

Otto Chatting

Otto is starting to say some words lately. In this video you can hear him give me an animal noise (which really isn't talking, but close), he begins to sing the Bob the Builder song "Bahhh da ???" and you hear a clear "hot" when he sees my coffee cup. "Hot" was also one of Eli's first clear words... I wonder why?.... lots of hot coffee and tea in this house.

Visiting Sunergos

We visit Sunergos a couple times a week. Eli just loves to get a hot chocolate, with an emphasis on the whip cream, and we all share a cookie. If we are lucky we get to visit Papa too!

Otto fell asleep on the way home and I had to snap a picture of the sweet little guy... and Eli decided he wanted to be asleep too, but he is smiling because he is playing. We got a good laugh out of it.

Early Mornings....

Otto is a very early riser these days. He is usually up around 5:30 am almost everyday. We sit around and play animals for a good part of the morning - while I drink coffee and wake-up. He is always sooo excited when Eli and Papa get up.... and actually one day he crawled upstairs and woke Eli up! This day we were playing animals and he heard Papa and Eli stirring upstairs.....

Sorry it gets so blurry far away - I had the camera set on up close focus.

Otto loves his Papa! Good morning hugs....

Eli Shares his Easel

Eli's friend Dorothy was over the other day and they painted together.

Pop Bead Fun

I recently reorganized all the toys into bins so we can rotate them and play with them all and not get too used to any one toy (and keep our living room from becoming a toy disaster!). Well, I pulled out these pop bead toys that had been hiding away and Eli and I had a lot of laughs suctioning them to our faces.

Otto takes some steps!

I just happened to capture Otto taking his very first steps! I had the camera out to capture Eli because he was bouncing sooo high on Rody and then Otto stood up and just decided to give walking a try! Please excuse my excitement - it is a pretty big deal seeing my little guy take a couple steps!

Eli is Growing Up!

This first picture has a story. Eli came in the house and said to me, "Mama, I need your keys!!" I inquired why and when he said he needed to open the garage door I decided to give him the keys to see what he would do. To my surprise he pulled the wash bin up to the door and really did give it his best try. Unfortunately the key is really hard to turn so he wasn't able to complete it "all by myself!!" as he likes to say.

This is a picture from our preschool group. We had a cookie decorating activity. It was lots of sugary fun! I think it is neat how Eli always chooses pink- that was Brian's favorite color when he was a little guy too.

Fun with My New Camera

Brian got me a new camera for my birthday last week and this next post is just me having fun with this new feature. I take a picture of a color and then I take a picture and only that color shows up in the picture. It has been fun.

My blue eyed boy....

Otto growling at me with his tiger- I wanted the green in his pjs to show up but it really didn't show very well- I just love though how he likes to give me a tough Otto grrrrooowlll!

Fall Leaves!!

We have had lots of fun playing in the fall leaves these days....

Where did Otto go??

Eli's Latest Painting

Here is one of my favorite paintings by Eli lately. It is of a water snake .... seems to be a common painting theme for him these days. The second one is a video.

Playing Blocks

Otto is just learning to build with blocks instead of tear down. He is very excited about this new skill.... I am too!

Halloween!

Halloween in the neighborhood! Grandma Kay passed out candy and Brian and I took the little guys trick-or-treating. About half way through trick-or-treating Eli decided he would rather pass out candy with Grandma Kay so we went home early and Eli helped Grandma. It was so cute- at about half the houses we took Eli to he made sure to let the people know his Grandma was at home! He sure loves his Grandma Kay!

Eli helping Grandma Kay pass out candy.

Our Punk Rock Zebra Otto

Grandma Kay Visits!

Brian's mom, Kay, came to visit over Halloween. We had so much fun hanging out, playing with the kiddos, raking leaves and of course trick-or-treating! The last picture is a video.