Spiderman Comforts Wounded Elliot

Elliot has been very accident prone lately. He hit the height where his head can now hit tables and counter tops, and he has not yet learned that he needs to avoid these areas. His most exciting bruise came from playgroup at the Church when he ran into a door. 

Serious goose egg action 

 Luckily, someone had brought a bin of dress ups. Elliot put on the mantle of Spiderman and was imbued with strength and courage.

It was majorly too big for him

Elliot looks so much like my baby brother Blake! Blake used to wear costumes all the time. I loved having a 6 year old Spiderman come to my orchestra concerts and sports games. 

Easter

It is so fun to have a kid who is old enough to actually participate in holiday traditions! We hit up quite a few Easter celebrations this year around. The first was a community Easter Egg Hunt at the park down the street. 

He tore things up in the toddler zone and was shocked and amazed when he realized candy was inside

Contrary to this facial expression, he ADORED his Mater tattoo. He talked to it frequently and enjoyed making his little Mater "jump" and "go fast" for a few days until it wore off. 

Wind blown streamers = perfect for making little boys giggle

He liked the Easter Bunny from a distance. But was uncertain about going up close. 

Very uncertain.

Later that week, we went to story time. Surprise, there was an Easter Bunny there too!

He was again quite dubious about whether the big bunny was safe to approach.
He was also dubious about the hat. It was taken off, ripped up, and put in the trash can right after this picture was taken. 

A couple days later we had an unofficial Ward Easter Egg Hunt/Potluck where more candy was obtained, but no pictures were taken. 

 We decided to do our Easter Day stuff after church because we have 9:00 am church, and also because we forgot to set anything up the night before. So we put out his Easter basket while he took his nap. It consisted of the Easter Egg dye kit and a few Easter eggs from the last hunt that we managed to squirrel away before he emptied them all. 

He was extremely entertained by "giving eggs bath!"

Springtime Shennanigans

Hanging out at the park

Chilling at the library. This kid loves books!

Studying Curious George for real time pizza making tips

Popping up to say hello during a morning stroll

"Eggs come from chickens. Thank you chickens! Welcome!"

Elliot goes mad with power while watering the plants

Aloha from this happy surfer dude! (at the Stake Luau)

Elliot's Friends

Elliot is blessed with a lot of great buddies.

Elliot is a devoted follower of Evee. He tried to catch her a few times when she was going down the slide, and they both ended up in the woodchips. 

The volleyball pack of kids

Bear Cousins (and Aaron's really great resting face- they were watching Moana)

Holding hands with Piper Carey

Again with following Evee around, this time at playgroup

Community Garden & Madera Canyon

We had the community garden kick-off a couple Saturdays ago. Sadly, only us and the Hays showed up out of the gardeners. We also had one of our Food Bank Sponsors and one of the gardening experts from the Green Valley community garden, who came toting neat varieties of peppers and tomatoes that grow well in the heat. We were lucky to be able to snag a few and are excited to see how they turn out! The rest of the gardeners have been trickling in, but they missed out on my donut party. 

The enthusiastic gardener

We had ground squirrels climb up the faucet and eat all our plants! We bought some clamps to keep the netting in place, and it seems to have put a stop to that. 

We were perpetually wiping dirt off his face

 After we had our spring plants in the ground, we headed up Madera Canyon for a picnic lunch with the Hays with a few extra kids that they were watching. They took care of the remaining donuts for us. 

Every kid other than cautious Colby ended up falling into the stream. 

Videos

This was the self-confidence boost of the century! He was talking to himself and said something that sounded like "Mommy young." I told him "That's right kiddo, Mommy is young and beautiful." He proceeded to sing a song about it and I caught the tail end of it on video. What a sweetheart!

Elliot absolutely lost it over a smoothie we made a few weeks ago. My favorite part is when he squeezes his eyes shut after distributing his gratitude kisses. 

This last one isn't anything spectacular, but it captures the general chaos of the weekly ward playgroup at the church. I love it. 

Mimi Honey

We were lucky to have my mom here for a week over her birthday! It featured all of the classic events: watching Elliot, eating Mexican food, trying to convince Mom that Tucson is not a boring wasteland, more admiring Elliot, and watching lots of shows.

She came bearing a Disney matching game to prep for our Disneyworld trip this summer. He loves it

The actual Birthday Day consisted of lunch at Manuels, followed by the show "Two Amigos" at the Gaslight Theater. We had a blast at the show and were suffering from facial smiling exhaustion for much of it. 

It was the first time we had left Elliot with a babysitter (other than having him play with friends). Mom was more worried about it than we were! Elliot did great with Mia and told her that "Mommy and Daddy Work," which is of course the place where we go when we are not with him. 

The next day, we went to a showing of Rusalka Live from the Met. It was a live broadcast from the opera house to movie theaters all over the place. I don't know if I am converted to being an avid opera fan, but I enjoyed the story. It was based on the original Grimm's Fairy Tales version of Little Mermaid. The one with the very unhappy ending. 

The sets and costumes were amazing

The next week, we ventured down to Tubac while Aaron was at work. We went to the Historic Presidio followed by lunch and a stroll through some of the several art galleries. I could have spent a lot more time there. There is always so much to look at!

The "touch me" table full of old objects found at the Presidio

The 1800's schoolhouse

Elliot became very attached to the dunce cap and did not want to share with Mimi

We had a few other undocumented adventures. We tapped her decorating knowledge to find replacements for our sadly deteriorating couches. We hopped around quite a bit to find a decent deal on one that meets our red color needs. We got fabric this time around, which should last longer than the blended leather of the dying couches. We also got mom set up with Thumbtack, which is a site that will hopefully allow her to find more clients for her interior design business. And of course, we had many movie nights.