Spontaneity and Kabobs

I have always considered myself more of a spontaneous person and really thrive when I make last minute plans and just go with it. As my family will confirm, I am not a planner and when it comes to planning out our vacations and all the little details, it falls on Carl's shoulders. I really can step up to the plate when needed, but I come from a family of last minute planners and procrastinators so old habits die really hard for me.

Also I noticed Erik and I are the same personality when it comes to getting out of the house. He becomes a much happier person and full of love when he leaves and goes to new places. Its exactly how I feel and remember feeling as a child, full of life when I am going through new experiences. When we stay at home for too many days in a row, two to be exactly, he gets grumpy and hard to control. So some of my friends say I go out too much, I think it is the best solution for my little family and we make it work. We just have to leave the house everyday even if it is just to go grocery shopping or stop at the park.

It is an interesting idea to examine. When it comes to my favorite group of mommy friends I bet they would say I am the planner and organizer because when no one steps up I realized I do need to plan if I want to make things happen. So often with them, I realize I am planning weeks and days in advance that the spontaneity is all gone. So these last few days feel great.

It all started with last Friday. The girls and I needed a night out and on Thursday figured out when were all free and willing to go on Friday night and made it happen. Had drinks as Castaways and great conversation. A perfect night and a great end to a stressful week of being home sick with the boys.

Now that we were finally free of illness I wanted to get out and go around town this week. Originally I had planned weeks ago a beach day with Christine this Monday, but it was a high of 68 in Huntington so I tried to switch days and cancelled on Monday. Well no luck and it looked like Christine and I just couldn't make our schedules match up yet again. Then it dawned on me Monday morning as Christine and I are frantically searching for new days that will work, why don't I just come today. We don't have to hang at the beach we'll just walk to the pier and have lunch. Its about being with friends and getting our boys to bond anyway.

So we ate at Ruby's which was definitely an experience with three boys and two moms. Enzo and Elliot sat right next to each other in high chairs and Enzo tried to feed Elliot. I had to put a stop to that since Elliot was just over his cold and I wasn't sure how or if he was still contagious. It is interesting to watch Elliot eat next to another child. I think he consumed three times more than Enzo and him and Enzo have the exact same build and weight!!! At birth they were the exact same birth weight.

Sorry no pictures of the pier or our walk. The only calm point was lunch ironically. At least I got something to show for our fun, but exhausting day together.

Then yesterday I was emailing my friend Monique about something or talking to her on Facebook. I can't remember exactly. She invited me that afternoon to a concert at Descanso Gardens with Rhythm Child. I had no idea who they were, but the description included the words drum circle and concert so I was sold.

I have to admit after hanging out at home all day I was dragging myself out of the house and forcing my lazy butt to go. It was hot and I just didn't feel like making the effort to put together a picnic dinner and have the kids until 7 by myself when Carl would be home at 5:45 and I would have extra help. I am so glad I didn't listen to my lazy self and went. This band was so fantastic and I will definitely be going again and again to see them. They play at the Americana all the time. Also it was so fun to hang out with Mo and the boys. Although Liam and Erik have their moments it looks like Elliot and Aiden are going to be best buds and get along really well.

Erik found my phone at the end of the concert and started playing games. He is completely obsessed with games on my phone right now which is not really a good thing. Apparently Liam loves them too and was watching with great interest at what Erik was doing. Erik of course got mad and tried to get Liam to stop watching, after I told he that Liam could watch or the phone goes away he relaxed a little and there was blissful game playing.

So tonight for dinner I made kabobs. I have never made kabobs for the boys and the only reason I thought of it is because I had some fajita beef left over and needed something to do with it and didn't want to make yet another stir fry. So kabob night. (Along with my lack of planning abilities comes lack of planning for dinners, I never know what I am going to make until I get home right at 4 pm)

So when we took these kabobs off the grill Erik was absolutely thrilled and excited. I had no idea they would have that affect on him, food is not something he gets excited about unless it involves sugar. When I tried to take the meat off and serve it to him he got mad and insisted on eating it off the stick. His favorite was the the pineapple of course.

Calling Grandpa

Today I went into the office to download the swingset pictures when Elliot started being too cute, I had to stop and pick up my camera again. He went for the phone like he always does, but this time he shocked me with this phrase "Hello Grandpa." That's right he was trying to call and talk to his Grandpa! He pretended for about 5 minutes to call and talk to his Grandpa and kept saying Grandpa over and over.

I am totally astounded all the time by Elliot's language skills. He doesn't have really clear speech, but if you tune in and listen to what he says they are actual words and sentences. This baby has been saying five word sentences for a while now. For example when we were at Carl's parents for the 4th of July and Daddy when outside to pack the car  Elliot asked me clear to my ears "Where did Dada go?" He just stuns me constantly with the words he says. There are too many to count anymore since he is such an early talker and so vocal.

Did I mention that the phone and playing with phones is Elliot's favorite toy. He absolutely loves it especially the cordless phone. Actually anything is a phone to him, the Wii remote, the monitor, whatever is shaped like one turns into a phone. I mean this nicely, he owns four phones already so we don't need anymore :)

Here is Elliot calling Grandpa.

 

 

 

The Swingset is FINALLY Here

The process of getting the swingset was a really long one for us. We didn't just decide to get one some random day. Actually I have been bugged about getting a swingset for the boys since we lived in our old house on Myers, but I didn't want to get on there because we thought we might be moving. Guess that was a right decision...

I digress. So in order to get this swingset we had to have grass or something to put it on. We opted for grass even with all the different suggestion we had from helpful people. So we had to landscape our entire yard and redo the entire sprinkler system which I posted about in the past. Then we had to wait for the grass to grow in since we opted for seed instead of sod. So here we are 1.5 months after planting that grass seed the swingset is here. We ordered it as soon as we planted the grass seed, but they were slow on the production line which was totally fine with us. We had the time to wait.

Well Erik on the other hand has no concept of time or the grass growing in and knew he was getting a swingset and knew it was coming soon, but that was about it. He has been talking about it ever since we went to the store to buy it and has been saying constantly "Grandma got me a swingset." 

Fast forward to this morning. I actually knew that the set was scheduled to arrive today, Carl even had the time blocked off on his work calendar, but we never got a confirmation phone call so I didn't think it was coming this morning and had Carl call in to see when it was coming. Well as soon as he called the crew came with the set. I guess they don't give reminder call it is just scheduled when you order it. I totally forgot he said it to me when I ordered it, good thing I was ready regardless. Thank goodness for my new calendaring system because I am actually organized now. So all morning Erik watched and waited patiently inside while they assembled this thing.

Mid way through assembly we were concerned about the positioning and need Erik's assistance to try out the slide. We have to make some modifications to our yard, but it works for now. Definitely not perfect. Then about 20 minutes after testing it out for us Erik was able to go outside and play. Unfortunately I have no pictures of Elliot. He did play on the swing for a bit, but he is sick and crabby and only wanted me to hold him so there was no way of getting pictures. I am sure he will have lots of fun with it in the future.

 

I thought for sure Erik would say his favorite new thing was the bench of his swing set. He just was having so much fun sitting there with daddy and having a snack of Elmo Crackers there. He has also been talking about this bench a lot for some reason.

When he had to stop playing and eat lunch I was asking him his new favorite activity on his swing set and got a strong answer of swings. I am totally not surprised since swings are his favorite on the playground. I just have to push him all the time which is annoying when I would rather be pulling weeds in my garden.

  

He did enjoy the slide and climbing just as much though and think he will get a lot of use out of this thing in the future.

 

Look Who Walking Now

It started almost two weeks ago. Out of the blue Elliot and I were sitting in the living room while Erik napped and he just started standing up and stepping. He stood up, took three steps and then sat on his butt. He did this about 5 times in a row, but not enough for me to witness it on film or video. I did IM Carl in excitment and we tried forever to get him to do it again, but it was just the calm before the storm.

Fast forward to last Tuesday. He just started walking. I mean on this day he took about 15 steps and did it over and over again that evening. Carl was home from work when this happened and we had so much joy watching him walk over and over and it is just gotten better from there. On Thursday he started walking across rooms, unsteadily but getting braver and braver.

Now today he is walking about half the time and crawling about half the time. By the time we leave on our vacation in a couple weeks he will definitely be walking more than crawling. Not sure if that is a good thing with all the stairs at the cabin. At least Elliot is use to stairs.

Here is my little man walking down the hall today. He is pretty sick today, but he was still in good spirits as he dashed down the hall towards his mama.