Visiting Clayton and Cooper

After our trip to the zoo and the water park with Clayton and Cooper, we met them for another play date the very next day. Sarah and her husband recently bought a new house that they are renovating and it came with a swimming pool. She invited us over to swim the next morning. Before we left, Eli and I stopped at Jerry's Donuts for some wonderful sugary treats. Would you believe that my child didn't like donuts? What kid doesn't eat a sugar glazed piece of sweet dough? Mine, obviously.

We got to their house and the boys swam for a little bit, but since swimming can wear you out pretty quickly, they decided to get out for a little while and recharge. They ate snacks and drank juice at Clayton's poolside table that was a perfect size for them.


Cooper couldn't sit at the table with the big boys, so he decided to show them up by driving around in his car. Ladies, eat your hearts out!


Clayton and Eli, being the two active boys they are, quickly tired of sitting at the table and moved to the swing instead. The swing had more of a danger factor to it because of the motion. I guess the table was just too safe for those little daredevils. It was while he was on the swing that my child finally realized that those sugar glazed pieces of sweet dough actually WERE good to eat. Look at the face!


Then they upped the danger level slightly and moved to Clayton's custom swing set that his Daddy built for him. Eli had a blast on the swing. He loved going up high! (I can already tell that I might have an adrenaline junkie on my hands.)


Look at this sweet face with those big brown eyes! Clayton is such a wonderful friend to Eli.


Here is the back of Sarah's house. Isn't it nice? They have been working day and night on renovating and it's looking so good. I can't wait to see what it looks like when it is all finished. I bet they can't either!


I love trees like this. I wish I had one in our yard. On second thought, no, not really (don't want to deal with all those leaves in the fall), but isn't it pretty?


While Mommy was taking pictures of the house, Clayton and Eli were doing this...

Never fear! I was standing by super close, so I kept an eye on the little daredevils. Eli was so thrilled to be able to climb something so big and to not have his Mommy follow behind him. (The platform at the top was low enough that I could still keep a grip on him without having to climb.) Eli and Clayton slid down the slide, but on the second trip down Eli spotted a baseball bat, ball, and tee. Sliding was a thing of the past then. Baseball was the main focus now!

I know I'm his Mommy and all, but I really do have to brag. Eli has wonderful hand-eye coordination so far. He can hit the ball off the tee really far. Josh and I are always amazed at how far he can send the ball flying. Look at that great form! So far, he's a switch hitter, but he does so much better when he bats left handed. Josh, Grandpa E, and Grammy are all hoping for a lefty. E and Grammy are lefties and want another one in the family. Josh is a righty, but has dreams of Eli being a left handed pitcher and getting lots of scholarship offers one day.


I don't know about college scholarships, but I definitely am already looking forward to tee ball in a few years. He's going to be a fun kid to watch!

Thanks again, Sarah, Clayton, and Cooper for a fun day at your house. We had a great time!

Golfing with Daddy

Last week Eli got to have his first golfing experience with his Daddy. This is something Josh has been looking forward to ever since Eli was born. He is so ready to get Eli his own set of clubs so they can go hit the range together. It makes me happy because this is something special that they can share and do together. I told Eli that he and Daddy were going to go golfing when Josh came home from work and he went crazy. He was SO EXCITED! I didn't have any trouble getting him dressed in his golf clothes, but I did learn an important lesson...when telling your child that they are going to do something special and out of the ordinary for them, wait until the LAST POSSIBLE MOMENT or else you will face a barrage of questions about the event. I told Eli about 10 minutes too soon, so for 10 minutes while we waited for Daddy to get home from work, I had to tell Eli every time he said, "Mone, Mama! Dolf! (Come on, Mama! Golf)" that we had to wait until Daddy got home. When Josh finally walked in the door, Eli pretty much attacked his legs and kept saying, "Dolf! Dolf!" He was just a little excited :)


We go out to the driving range and he and Daddy posed for their picture. They're the two cutest golfers I've ever seen!



Eli's had lots of practice hitting "dolf balls" in our house, so he knew exactly what to do with his club when he got there.



He watched his Daddy to pick up a few tips from him.


And he was so excited to point to his Daddy when I asked who was hitting the golf ball.


After hitting a couple of balls on the range, Eli decided to be his Daddy's caddy for a little bit. He chose the right two clubs for his Daddy and brought them to him.



When he got tired of being a caddy, he decided to practice his form putting the golf tees in the ground. As you can see, that was easy as pie for him.


He wanted a bigger challenge so he grabbed Daddy's driver to see how far he could hit a ball.


But then gave up when he realized the club was taller than he was.


He moved on to golf that was more his size and we practiced hitting balls on the putt putt golf course they have set up for little kids. Eli decided that he'd change the rules of the game. Instead of hitting the golf ball into the hole, he decided he'd just drop it in himself. Hey, it worked every time!




Daddy tried to show Eli how he was supposed to play...


But Eli took his ball away from him and showed him how HE thought the game should be played.


The best part for Eli was the second to last hole. It was on an incline and he walked up and down it about 20 times. I couldn't get him to get down from it! That's all he wanted to do until Mommy convinced him that jumping from the smaller holes was a much better deal.



I can't wait to see more pictures of my two boys having fun together on the golf course together. It's going to be a wonderful pastime for both of them!

Zoo, Water, and Friends

Last Thursday my friend, Sarah, and I loaded up our boys and headed to the zoo in Alexandria. We had been wanting to take a trip with all three boys since school let out in May, but we're both pretty busy and this was the first week that both of us were free. The trip there wasn't bad at all. Clayton, Cooper, and Eli are all stair steps of each other. Clayton is about to be 3, Eli is about to be 2, and Cooper is about to be 1. They all sat by each other in the backseat of Sarah's car and played, talked, and snacked the whole way to Alexandria. We got to the zoo and took a picture of the boys before we went in to see the animals. As you can tell in this picture and in all the other pictures we attempted to take of all three boys, it's not easy to get 3 little boys to look at the camera at the same time.


The zoo in Alexandria isn't that big, but it's a good size for little boys who have short attention spans. Plus, there weren't a lot of people there so Clayton and Eli were able to walk around without bumping into people. We were able to keep those two boys contained in their strollers for about five animals, but then after that, they both wanted down so they could explore. Clayton was so good with Eli. He treated him like his little brother and would hold his hand as they walked and point out different animals to him. Eli loved being able to hang with a big boy!





The best part for the boys was feeding the HUMONGOUS koi near the train stop. Those fish go crazy for that fish food!



Next for us was the train ride around the zoo. Eli and Clayton both enjoyed getting to see all the animals from the comfort of the train. Cooper also woke up and loved getting some time out of the stroller for a little bit.














The weather was incredibly hot, so we made sure to keep the boys very hydrated the entire day. This bear seemed to have the right idea to keep cool!


Before we left, we attempted to take another picture of the three boys. You can see how that turned out!



After the zoo, we took the boys to McDonald's where they gobbled up their chicken nuggets and french fries and then we went to the park next to the zoo. They have an awesome water area for kids in the middle of the park that was perfect for our three little boys to cool off and have fun.
The best part about all this is that the water park was FREE!


Yet another attempt to take a picture of our three boys...another failed attempt that is!










We stayed at the water park for about an hour, but towards the end of that hour Eli started to get really clingy. Usually when that happens it means he's super tired. Sarah and I loaded up the boys and in mere minutes of being in the car, my son had asked for his pacifier and his eyes looked like this...


After about 10 minutes of being in the car, this is what the backseat looked like...three extremely tired little boys :)





We arrived home safe and sound and made plans to have more fun together the very next day!