Making money

Eli likes to talk about working and making money. His job, if you ask him, is to make money out of leaves, trees and sticks.

He often can't take part in some other activity because of his work.

Earlier this month, I told him I was making a chore chart for him so he could do jobs around the house. He said, "Yeah, but I have an important job to do to make money out of trees, leaves and sticks and that is a lot of work, so I can't clean the house."

How do you argue with that?

He also uses that excuse even if the alternative is a fun activity. Today I told him that we might go to a friend's house and play in their sand box.

Eli: "OK, but when will I do my work?"

Mama: "Well, you can do it before we go or after you get back."

Eli: "Yeah but I have to work about 15 hours today and that's a lot of work. Maybe another day I can play, but today I have to get my work done."

Too bad his "work" doesn't include picking up his clothes or toys!

Ewan is 1!

My dear sweet Ewan,

You are one years old. Mama can't believe an entire year has gone by already.

You have the most infectious laugh, and I love to blow raspberries on your belly or tickle your knees to hear it.

You love to wrestle with Mama and Daddy. You squeal and climb all over us, especially our heads. You'd love to wrestle Eli also but we worry about you getting hurt.

You are a swift crawler and you've mastered going up stairs. You are just starting to go down the stairs safely, i.e. NOT face first! Even though your knees are SO sore that you crawl with knees off the ground in this awkward way, you aren't trying very hard to walk. You will walk if Mama is holding both of your hands, but you don't much like it. If you are distracted by toys in both hands, you will stand unassisted for a few seconds -- once you realize what is going on, you quickly sit down.

You've got two teeth on the bottom and four teeth on the top. Your top teeth are still pushing through and you've got big spaces between them. Your smile is as cute as ever -- a big wide grin that even makes most strangers remark "what a happy baby!"

In some ways, you are even more strong-willed than Eli. You get very frustrated when Mama feeds you; you want to do it yourself! You get very frustrated when you are taken out of a room that is unsafe, namely the bathroom. You get very frustrated when you can't go outside and play in the mud with Eli (you tend to eat the mud!) You scream and cry very hard, and Mama believes it is a sneak peak into what your tantrums will be like...

You are super happy to be playing with Daddy, but you still feel most comfortable with Mama. If you are in a room playing with Daddy and Mama comes in, you will cry until Mama picks you up. If Mama leaves without you, you cry very hard!

You don't like to be in your highchair eating very much, but you LOVE to drink from a cup. We still hold it for you as you tend to spill all over yourself but you don't even mind us doing that. If you are very hungry, you will still wave your arms while eating.

You are talking a lot more now, babbling away and looking at people intently when you talk. You are especially conversational in the morning, unfortunately Mama is usually very tired. You sleep much better than you did at 8 months, but you sometimes wake up hungry in the middle of the night. You are still an early riser, sometimes waking at 5:30 a.m. -- but if Mama is lucky she can get you to go back to sleep until 8 a.m.

You are quite independent, wandering off to play with toys by yourself in the playroom if Mama is doing something boring like making dinner. You like to play with anything Eli is playing with at the moment so playing with your brother alone doesn't work too well.

But Mama and Daddy can tell how much you love Eli and how much Eli loves you. One time when you were crawling on Eli to wrestle him, Eli said: "Baby can pull my hair or poke my eyes. It's OK Mama. I just love him!"

Summer solstice

We don't dare say it out loud, but I thought it would be OK to blog about: Summer is here! After too much rain -- and too many false starts to our beautiful, dry Oregon summers -- I think the summer solstice brought the summer along.

The boys celebrated at their friends' house -- with pools, sprinklers and popsicles. Ahhh, summer!

Frogs on Father's Day

The family went frog hunting on Sunday, in honor of Father's Day. Mama and Ewan left early since Ewan wanted OUT! of the carrier, at which point he scooted super fast, and headfirst, into the mucky pond. Yuck! But no worries, since frog hunting is such a perfect activity for a boy and his dad.

Eli caught a frog. Then a fish. Then he fed the fish to the frog. (Some might say "force-fed). He named the frog "Icky" or "Icthy" (it changes every time you ask!) Eli had a blast stomping around the shallow water with his rainboots on. And Daddy had a blast spending the afternoon in the woods with his big boy.

When Eli woke up on Monday morning, he asked Daddy brightly, "Is it Father's Day again?"

A party for Ewan

On Saturday we celebrated Ewan's first birthday with a party at home (we would have had it in a park if the weather had cooperated!)

Ewan ate his first cupcake! He devoured the icing, and nibbled at the carrot cake.

He had a blast with all of the people in our house. He crawled a mile-a-minute into all the rooms to check people out and he loved watching all the kids in the playroom playing.

The pig pinata that Daddy made will wait for a sunny park day! (Somehow, swinging a bat in our living room filled with kids and parents seemed like a ridiculous exercise :) )

Water play

After getting a water table from Grandma and Grandpa in California, the boys are set for the summer. Ewan loves to splash in the water, and Eli loves to put his animals and dinosaurs in it. This is a great example of how their 2 1/2 year difference is nothing at all!

All boy!

I just can't keep Ewan inside anymore when Eli is outside playing. So yesterday, I took the laundry outside and tried to fold it on the table while the boys played. In mud. Ah yes, Ewan is ALL BOY!

Dinosaurs!

ROARRRR!

Eli is very very obsessed with dinosaurs. We read dinosaur books almost exclusively (thank you Salem Public Library for your wide selection of dinosaur books). We play with dinosaur figures (I have my eyes on a huge brachiosaurus at Toys R Us for Eli!) We pretend we are dinosaurs (sometimes too many times for this poor Mama who gets eaten by a T Rex, an allosaurus or a velociraptor multiple times a day). And at night, when I pull my covers back to fall into bed, I am greeted with plastic dinosaurs (and their sharp tails!)

This morning while reading a dinosaur book, Eli asked me how dinosaurs got sick.

Mama, being silly: "I don't know. Many people were coughing on them."

Eli: "That's a good theory, Mama. But people didn't live with the dinosaurs so they couldn't cough on them!"

(LOVE that he told me I had a good theory! He can't really say "theory" so it comes out kind of funny too!)

Then tonight at dinner, while he pretended to be a brachiosaurus who was eating trees aka broccoli (and LOTS of it!), we had this conversation:

Eli: "Do you know why brachiosaurus had lips?"

Mama: "No, why?"

Eli: "To keep their food in their mouths when they are chewing."

Mama: "Oh. Is that why people have lips?"

Eli: "No, people have lips for kissing."

Mud!

On Thursday, the sprinkler was on in Bush Park and it created the most perfect little mud stream for Eli, Ewan and Eli's friend, William, to play in! Eli and his friend built boats, ran through the mud and just generally got super messy.

Brothers

These boys look so alike to me here.

Pants?

Who needs pants when you've got your mud boots on? This is a look we like to sport more often than Mama would like to admit.

I want to be big!

Eli has to spend at least part of his day outside, even if it is pouring rain. On this particular day in early May, Ewan wanted to be outside also. It was such a sweet moment to capture -- Ewan watching Eli build with sticks in the rain. But so sad too, because Ewan SO wanted to be outside with his big brother. (And yes, my backdoor is THAT dirty!)

Climbing trees

Eli loves to climb trees. In the park the other day, he met a new friend, who was 5. This friend had never climbed trees before... until Eli showed him how. The two of them were climbing trees for the next 30 minutes.

The photos are of Eli climbing the cherry blossom tree in our backyard in early May. When he got in the tree, he needed me to hand him his chain saw so he could cut it down. (We didn't get into the fact that you might not want to cut down a tree that you are in!)