Traffic Jam

Elijah lined up all of his cars after dropping them down the ramp. 

AWANA Begins

Tonight is our first AWANA club night of the year. Elijah is officially in Puggles this year (and he'll be in there next year too before graduating to Cubbies). He's playing with his teddy bear before the craziness -the first night of AWANA- begins. Well, it's really my teddy bear that I made at Build-A-Bear, but I'm letting him play with it. Our room will be saying lots of 1 John 4:10 "God loved us and sent his son."

Study Up

Elijah had to climb up and stand on the couch to point at the flashing hot air balloons. I can't wait for him to see the glow this weekend. Hope we have awesome weather.

Balloon Bath

I wasn't able to post yesterday because our power went out on our street, but I did take pictures. Here's Elijah playing with his balloon. He loves throwing it and hitting it and trying to catch it. His face is so funny.

Tonight, I caught him with his bubbles and foam letters in the bath. His favorite bath toy is still a big plastic cup. He kept pouring water from his cup onto the star button of his toy shower. 

Singing Veggies

I let Elijah watch his new Veggie Tales DVD this morning. We watched the theme song about 7 times before I had to cut him off. He sang (like this) with it each time.

We put on bug spray and headed out early in the morning to play in the backyard before it got too hot outside. Elijah liked playing with his new loader. He pulled grass and weeds to put in the bucket, and then he pulled the loader all around our backyard by himself.

I was also doing laundry, so we had to play in the front yard on the driveway between a few loads. Elijah wasn't a huge fan of the sidewalk chalk. I'm not sure if that's because the chalk made his hands dirty or if he just doesn't like coloring. Usually when we color in his coloring books, he scribbles once and spends the rest of the time dumping out the colors and putting them back in their container.

Magnet Man

This is the way kids are doing paper dolls these days. Magnet man comes with a few outfits that you can use to dress him. Elijah is working on putting the super hero pants on him here. In other toddler news, Elijah was singing along with his digger video tonight. It was the dump truck video that keeps repeating 'dump, dump, dump, dump it' and he was singing that part as well as the auto-tuned part...ok, he was just making high pitched noises during that part. I've never heard him sing that much of any song before.

Play-Doh

Look who's finally old enough to play with Play-Doh! Elijah loved copying my Play-Doh sculpting skills. We made snakes and balls, we squished and pounded, and we ripped it apart and mashed it all back together. It was green fun that Elijah only tried tasting once.

Sleepy

After a long day at day care, a doctor visit, and an AWANA meeting, Elijah is going to sleep. He may have fallen asleep in the car, but he was too interested in looking out the window that Daddy rolled down for him. The nursery workers at church tonight said Elijah was smart for Puggles. Just wait until next year and he'll seem really smart doing Puggles all over again. That's what an August birthday gets you.

Grown Up

Elijah put on Daddy's boots. Love that grin!

He even uses the railing for going down the stairs.

Play Time

He's having fun with his glove and ball.

Elijah made a very tall Lego tower.

Green

Elijah is dressed up for church in his nice green outfit. This is the last time he'll be wearing this shirt...it's getting too short. It's the first 18 month size shirt that he's outgrown. My 2-year-old will soon be wearing clothes sized 2T.

Birthday Party

We had Elijah's birthday party at a nearby park today. It was digger themed because of this little guy's love of trucks. Many of his presents were digger related and several people pitched in so we can get Elijah a swing set for the backyard. Thanks to everyone for making this a great day. And thanks to God for giving us great weather today!

Gettin' Ready

Elijah's getting ready for football tonight by wearing his Chiefs jersey. I'm also getting him ready for Labor Day by looking at all the balloon pictures from last year. He likes watching a video I took of the glow twinkle from last year. He says the balloons are flashing. We also let him have some of his cake batter since I'm making his birthday cake for tomorrow. He said, "Happy day!" after trying it...I'm hoping that means he'll like the actual cake too.

Elijah is Two

This is Elijah on the night he was born. He was 7lbs 1oz and born at 1815 on 8-15.

When he turned one, we went swimming in our kiddie pool and played with edible paint. The look he has here is hilarious.

Today we went to Chuck E Cheese to play games, ride rides, and eat pizza for lunch. There were only a few other kids there, so we were able to do everything we wanted. This school bus was his favorite ride and his favorite game was basketball even though he was too little to shoot the ball. He was very interested in following Chuck E Cheese around the place, but he was shy when the mouse tried to give him free tickets. With our tickets, Elijah got a crazy straw, an orange whistle, and a few stickers.

Happy Birthday, Elijah!

My Baby

It's Elijah's last day as a one-year-old! I'll miss him being this little, but I'm looking forward to watching him grow. 

Bath Color

We put a red bath fizzy in Elijah's water but it turned pink. I'm guessing we'd need at least 6 red fizzy tablets to get the water to turn a true red. 

Here he is playing with his cups (his favorite bath toys) and telling Daddy that he doesn't want to wash his hair. 

Run Dance

I wanted to get a video of this but it didn't last long enough. When Elijah dances, he's usually just swinging his arms and running around in a circle or running into the couch. It ends with him break dancing...ok, ok...it ends whens he throws himself on the floor.

E, E, & Me

This is on our back deck: my kids and me. Silly baby girl is just hiding in my belly, and Elijah kept wanting to look at an airplane flying overhead. 

Couch Pile

Elijah put his blanket, glove, and several stuffed animals on the wedge of the couch. Then he squeezed himself under the whole group. In other news over the past week, he's had one major potty accident and two minor accidents. Still doing well.

Cousin Attack

Elijah's cousin, Dylan, is spending the night for his birthday. The boys managed to run around like crazy right before Elijah's bedtime. Our toddler did not want to go to bed after all that fun, but Dylan helped him lay down and all is well.

Shapes App

We put a few apps on an old phone and Elijah's good at playing the games. His biggest issue is putting just one finger on the screen at a time. 

Sharing Dinner

Elijah is good at sharing. He wanted me to eat his dinner, and he thought I should get an M&M every time he used the potty. Also, he had just one minor potty accident right when we got home from day care and we're still using a diaper for his nap and overnight. He's doing great!

Big Boy Undies

Jeannie, our day care provider, has been working on potty training about 4 kids this summer. Two weeks ago she said Elijah really liked the potty but he wasn't able to know when he had to go. This week he's been letting her know before he has to go and she's had him in underwear all week (both days!). At home, we're just following what she's set up and Elijah's been telling us when he has to go. He gets an M&M as a treat when he goes in the potty. Plus, we got him cute Justice League underwear!

Big Boy Bed

Elijah's new mattress came in the mail today. He was very excited about sleeping on it with his new sports sheets. Mommy and Daddy like how he can get out of bed on his own and how he has room to roll over. For the past few weeks he's been sleeping with the rabbit and glow worm. Tonight he tried to add a ball to his crowd but that didn't happen.

Double Sip

I guess one sippy just isn't enough. Elijah needed one with milk and one with water while he was playing in his new sheets. His new mattress should be here tomorrow, and we're all excited about that.

Bowling

For Grandma DeShon's birthday, we went bowling and then had dinner and pie at Katie and Chad's house. Elijah rolled the bowling ball a couple of times with Uncle Chad and Daddy, but he spent most of the time pushing buttons on the vending machines and climbing around on the steps, window sills, and chairs. He loved spending time with his family today and only fell down a few times at these new/different locations. By the end of the day he had filled my hands with vomit, had a scratch on his ear, had super smelly feet, and was bleeding on his knee and one of his fingers.

BBQ

We had BBQ for dinner. Elijah had some ham, ribs, mac and cheese, baked beans, and mashed potatoes. For dessert, we had free ice cream cones! Before bedtime, Erik taught Elijah to say "Kansas City" so if you ask Elijah where he is from, he could answer you correctly.

Dino Down

I never pictured him doing this when we got this dino walker that converts to a ride-on toy. I'm sure tipping the dino like this helps with his gross motor skills somehow.