Happy Valentine's Day from Zue-Zue

The Saturday before Valentine's Day, we went over to Zue-Zue's house for supper. When we got there she gave Eli his Valentine's Day present. He was so excited to open it and discover that he had a fun new toy!



We went right to work and opened the box to assemble it. It didn't take long and soon Eli was playing and building things to his heart's content.




Daddy couldn't help himself and ended up playing with the toy as well. I think he enjoyed it just as much as Eli did!



Here are some of Josh's creations. He's usually not very right-brain oriented so I was very impressed with his building skills!

A windmill

An Adirondack chair and footstool

All that building and creating left Eli very hungry so Zue-Zue found some raisins for Eli, which he promptly put in his handy dandy raisin holder. A little background on this particular container...During the summer of 20o3, Josh and I were surprised with a Caribbean sailing trip from his dad. We flew to an island named Tortola and then spent a week sailing around to the various islands on a boat (Josh's dad was our captain!). On our last day there, we went back to Tortola and did some shopping. They had lots of wooden vases, bowls, and trinkets that were locally made and we picked up several of these things for our family and friends back home. Zue-Zue ended up with this bowl to be used as a decoration in her house. Well, in the past three years this bowl has proven to be more useful as a raisin holder. =) Jonah, Nicki's son, loved raisins just like Eli does. Anytime he visited Zue-Zue, she would give him raisins and he would put his raisins in this bowl...just like Eli! Who knew that this bowl would prove to be so useful to not just one toddler but two!

Later that night, Eli was showing everyone how well he knows his body parts, when he got stumped on finding his belly button because he was wearing a onesie. Mommy fixed this and undid his onesie so he could find his belly button. Daddy thought he'd be funny and snapped the onesie on the OUTSIDE of Eli's pants. It was funny to look at that's for sure! Eli knew he was cute no matter what though, so he didn't let this minor fashion faux pas bother him at all. What a cutie!

Eli's Valentine's Day Gift for the Grandparents

For Valentine's Day, I wanted Eli to do something very special for his grandparents. I decided to go the homemade route this year and make something I knew they would be able to treasure for years to come. I took pictures of Eli in his heart shaped glasses and created a bookmark using them. Then I painted Eli's hands and he used them to make a handprint heart for the front of the cards. Painting a 15 month old's hands...that was definitely interesting and surprisingly not nearly as messy as I thought it was going to be! Eli was so good! I wrote a cute little poem to go on the inside, laminated to card to help preserve it, and stuck the bookmark inside. It turned out so cute that I made one for Josh and me, too!

The Blizzard of 2010 (That's what Louisiananians are going to call it!)

For those of you that haven't heard, last Friday Louisiana was blanketed in a strange foreign white substance called SNOW! I have to say it was quite a sight to behold. What's funny is that Eli has seen about as many snow days in Louisiana in his short 15 months as I have in 28 years. Global warming?? I think not!

Because of the enormous amounts of snow (HA HA!), all the schools in our parish-and probably most in our state-were closed for a SNOW DAY! I was so excited! My four day weekend (we got Monday and Tuesday off for a Mardi Gras holiday) had just been extended to a five day weekend!

Eli and I had so much fun playing in the snow. Mammy and Uncle Clare, Zue-Zue, Mrs. Dara, Mr. Whest, and Molly all came down to visit us and to enjoy the snow with us. It was a great day! Eli kept pointing to the snow, or "no" as he called it, all morning long as it was falling. How fun! The only thing that would have made it better would have been if Josh could have been home with us :( Poor thing! He had to work, but I made sure to take lots of pictures so he could experience the snow vicariously through us. Look at all the fun we had!

My most favorite picture of all. I don't know why, but I crack up
laughing every time I see Eli's silly face in this one. We've definitely got to
work on catching snowflakes on our tongue!

Molly giving Eli some love :)

What a sweet little man!

Molly's dad, Mr. Whest, built this cool looking snowman.

Molly saying, "Peace out!"

A Valentine Surprise for Eli

Thursday Eli had a special package waiting for him by the door when we got home from school. It was from Grammy and Pop! He quickly grabbed it and brought it inside so we could open it.




Like a good boy, he opened the card first. Grammy and Pop got him a Toy Story Valentine card because the last time he went to visit them he watched Toy Story for the first time and LOVED it.





He loved the card, but was even more excited about pulling out the paper that covered his present. We couldn't wait to see what it was!



It was a Valentine monkey! Whenever you press his foot he says, "I go coconuts for you!" and "I'm bananas for you!" Eli thought it was quite funny and even tried to impersonate the monkey as it waved it's arms and said "Ooh, ooh!". I was also really impressed that he figured out make the monkey talk so fast. I showed it to him once and he had it! What a cute and fun Valentine gift! Thanks, Grammy and Pop!