Elliotisms

The other day, Elliot and I were eating Ramen for lunch. I told him that when I was a little girl, I used to eat Ramen too. Here's our conversation:

Elliot: "When you were little, I used to feed YOU noodles!"

Me: "No Elliot, you weren't born yet."

Elliot: "Where was I?"

Me: *trying to have a nice teaching moment* "In heaven with Heavenly Father. You were just a spirit and didn't have a body yet. I made a body for you in my belly, and when you were born your spirit went into your body!"

Elliot: *Processes this for a while* "Is my spirit in my pee?"

I was very proud of Elliot when out of the blue he informed me "Idea rhymes with quesadilla!" However, he undermined himself a few hours later by telling me "Alligator rhymes with crocodile"

Elliot has hit the very cute stage where he wants to pick flowers for me. And build towers for me. And draw pictures for me. Every time he does it, he tells me "I got you this because I love you!" and my heart melts every time. 

Aaron had the song "Yesterday" by the Beatles stuck when Annabelle was born. He sang it to her a lot, and it became her preferred lullaby. That song has magical calming powers on our little lady. We sing it so often that Elliot has picked up on the lyrics. It is pretty funny hearing a 3 year old going around singing "All my troubles seemed so far away" and "there's a shadow hanging over me."

We have been doing family home evening for the past few months. Elliot LOVES it. We got one of those illustrated Children's Bibles. We read a story or two, then sing "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam" (hopefully we will branch out to other songs eventually), and then wrap it up with a game. Elliot is passionate about all three of these activities, so he will actually quiver with excitement sometimes when we say it is time. It is pretty easy to cater to the needs of one child. Anyway, a few weeks ago we hit the story of the Tower of Babel. He really latched onto the story, but clearly missed the point. The other day he was playing with his legos and he said "I am building this tower to heaven! Jesus is squished!"

We have been watching all of Star Wars in 20 minute increments while eating dinner every night. When Darth Maul was chopped in half and falling down that hole, Elliot said "They got that bad guy into the jail!"

We were eating dinner at a friend's house. Elliot was at the kids table. They all started singing the ABC song when Elliot came up with a great joke. He started blurting out "MOM" to replace random letters. "H I J K L M N O MOM!!!!" All the other kids kept trying to correct him while Elliot laughed his head off. 

At preschool:
"Does anyone know what a veternarian is?"
Elliot with 100% confidence: "It is a kind of snake!"

A prayer - Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for the food we will eat at playgroup tomorrow. Please bless that we will have granola bars. Please bless that we will have fun playing in the wood chips and that mommy and daddy will not throw the wood chips. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
He has also had a prayer that detailed all the features of our new minivan. 

Thanks for keeping us laughing, buster bubbs. 

Easter

We had quite the lineup of Easter activities this year! A new one was an egg hunt lunch. We brought things like carrots, pbj squares, goldfish, grapes, raisens, etc and hid them in eggs then put them around the park. Then we led a parade of toddlers from pile to pile where they got to pick up one of each lunch item. Elliot chowed down. We should hide his lunch everyday- he would eat a lot more!

Barely restrained toddler hoard

go!

Elliot collected all orange eggs

Annabelle bonding with Derek Heyen

Great shot of her bald spot + mullet combo. I believe the correct term is "skullet"

Bishop brought his camera and snapped some high quality shots of Annie

On Friday, we went to an Easter potluck/egg hunt- this time with actual candy in the eggs!

Blocking traffic while we crossed from the potluck area to the egg hunting area. It was reminiscent of the children of Israel crossing the Red Sea. Minus the drowned Egyptians. 

Elliot with his loot and sister

We're one of those "always picture perfect" families

Easter Sunday coincided with General Conference this weekend. It was a pretty wild ride- President Nelson's first as prophet. They announced the transition from Home/Visiting Teaching to Ministering, and combined Elder's Quorum with High Priest's Quorum. They also announced temples in India and Russia among other places. Gerrit Gong, who was bishop of my Mclean 1 Ward when I was in early elementary school, was called to be an apostle, so that's pretty cool too!

Conference is best viewed from blanket forts

Elliot's Easter Basket contained eggs from Friday's hunt plus a pack of markers that he is still obsessed with. The candy was largely ignored. He walked by the basket without noticing it a few times. 

Annabelly at 5-6 months

Oh Annie. What a sweet baby. She has had a rough time with an ear infection and some nasty eczema/ non-stop itchy dry skin, but is still generally as happy as can be. She only really cries when she has a dirty diaper, desperately needs a nap, or if we wander out of sight for too long. She mostly just chills in her bumbo and will giggle whenever we come up and interact with her.

She still wakes up usually once a night. She's also losing her hair, which is tragic. These pictures were taken over the course of a couple months, and there is quite a bit of difference. She has a patch of long dark hair on the back of her neck with a bald spot right above it. It is wispy everywhere else. It is growing back in much lighter. 

We like this bow because it mostly covers up the bald spot on the back. Baby hair is crazy. 

We tried giving her her first solid foods! She heartily objects even after a week of giving her a little bit every day. We have tried rice cereal and mushed up banana, both diluted with pumped milk. 

"why do you torture me this way parents"

We took her swimming! She was completely expressionless the whole time, but did not cry. I count that as a success! She did kick her legs quite a bit. 

Not a fan of the whole sunlight thing

Now for a montage of all the random pictures I have of her from the past few months

Another bookworm in training?

Baby zone at weekly playgroup. Annie is in the pink pants. She certainly does not lack playmates!

Elliot makes her laugh quite a bit these days

She spends a lot of time in this bumbo. She has a flat spot on the back of her head, so the pediatrician said to keep her off her back when she is awake most of the time. She is probably going to master sitting up before rolling over. Her sitting record set earlier today was about 30 seconds. 

My two kitchen helpers

Post bath snuggles