Oma's Here! Day 2

Day 2 with mom was fun, full and active!  The day started drizzly (slightly unexpected), but we made the best of it, and did a mother/daughter/grandkid tradition of walking in the state park, well riding in the state park....well walking/riding/dragging bikes in the state park. In any case, the whole thing is a tradition! LOL. 

So we got our steps in in the morning, and we also got our steps in in the afternoon, at....

The Start

Notice the different participant on the bike...

The End...Bike being dragged with Luke walking next to Oma

Just a neat shot of the landscape

 ...AT OMA's TENNIS CAMP!!!!
The weather cleared and off we went to play tennis!  The boys loved it, Lucas tried, but quickly lost interest. He prefers to chase balls...which does work out nicely. Elijah is pretty darn good at tennis, still.  But definitely lacks some direction when it comes to hitting the ball. He wants to do it his way and his way only. What we found was he actually stands in the correct position when he holds and drops the ball himself, rather than when mom would toss him the ball.  Here is a video and some pictures.

Lucas running cones

The appropriate thing to do after Tennis is to go to the Library. What? Everyone doesn't do that? Hmmm, "everyone" are a questionable group....
Believe it or not, this was the boys' first trip to the library.  With it not opening until 12 pm on the weekends, and all the "story time" fun things that "other" mom's get to do during the week, only offered during the week at 10 am, we haven't had much of a chance to get there.
And what was the first thing Elijah did when we went to the book library? Well, played video games of course! (what is this world coming to). So I lost him to that, but the other darling child took an interest in the books...every book HAHA!

and then he found the computer too.

And that was the end of our Day 2 with mom! Hooray! more to come!

Oma's Here! Day 1

What's this first thing you do, as a 4 and 2 year old when you get in to Oma's hotel room?  Well figure out new games to play of course!  Some suggestions are: Hide and seek. Curtain Hiding. Bed Jumping. The ideas are endless.  These kids played the three that were named, two of which you can see here.  LOVE IT! It just brought back tons of memories of Katie and I in hotel rooms, and possibly Gymnastics in hotel rooms during gym meets lol! 

Curtain Hiding with Elijah

Curtain Hiding / Peek A Boo with Lucas

More curtain games

So back up just a little bit.  Mom came in on Thursday and spent the night with Katie. That morning I got up and met them at Katie's place in Berkeley and we walked to breakfast then up to the Claremont for a WONDERFUL mother/daughter spa day.  Katie took us a back way on the walk back to her apartment and down what she calls "the secret staircase". I had to stop and take a picture.

Secret Staircase

Speed forward to Friday night, and dinner at Randy's, a local mexican joint in town.  Here are some fun pics from dinner.

Oma & Eli

A Few Quick Pic's

We went to a birthday party a few weekends ago at a local park, and the birthday boys' aunt took some great pictures of the boys and shared them with me.  I had to share them with you of course, they are just too good not to share.

P.S. We gave Elijah a bike for his birthday and would you believe it? He got the hang of it VERY fast, it was a much different story with his other "vehicles" so we were very excited for him! This is him riding a day after he got it.  He's so happy!

Our Little A's fan!

Elijah's 4th Birthday -3 parties for 4 years.

Elijah @ his birthday day dinner with Best Bud Jackson

I'm sorry,  same excuse different day...week...month. Life is busy, and in the spare moments I just want to rest or snuggle, or do something other than write. But I was reminded how satisfying these blogs are to all of you, since you don't get to exactly, live this crazy life with me, every day. So let's start at the most important spot. Elijah turns 4....

What a joy Elijah has been. He is quiet (unless he is sing...and in his sleep would you know it), timid, a little shy, independent and thinks for himself. He's stubborn and easily frustrated. But most of all he is loving and kind.

Suited up in Ninja Turtle Gear Present

His 4 year marker stats are as follows:

Height: 39.5" (56%ile)
Weight: 38.9" (77%ile)

After a year of clear hearing, no ear infections, and no ear tube operations in sight, he failed his hearing test. OIY!  So at the end of this month (May) he will get his hearing tested again, to see if it was just caused from fluid in his ears due to a cold, or if we are going to have to take new measures and re-visit past recommendations that I had desperately tried to avoid.

And I almost forgot! This poor kid, got his 2 four year old shots the day before is first party and had a HUGE reaction to one of them. I was on the phone with advice right before we left. His thigh to his knee swole three times its regular size, and he limped around the whole day with an ice pack attached to his leg (I devised a holding device out of a leg warmer to hold the soft gel pack to his leg).

The Parties (3)
After all the work I did on Lucas' party, I just couldn't do it all over again for Elijah, just 6 weeks later. So I talked to him and asked if we could do a small very special birthday with Elizabeth (his cousin) and Jackson (his best bud), and he said yes to the special day.

Party 1: The Special Day with 2 friends:
Joanie (Jackson's mom) volunteered to help me with the three kids for the day. We headed off to the mall and each of the kids got to pick out a build-a-bear, stuff it, wash it, and dress it (if they could). It was the sweetest thing.  We made all them super special with a sound box that sang inside each bear: Elijah's was the TMNT theme song, Jackson's was Summer from Frozen, and Elizabeth's was Let it Go from Frozen.  Lizzie even got a smell in her bear! And Elijah was all grown up and put his last "guy" (giraffe) in the Ninja Turtle! WOW!

mmmm ice cream

We then road the carousel (Oh man! that darn thing made me so dizzy, I can't do those anymore!) - oh by the way Elijah surprised me by riding the tiger by himself without coaxing, and Liz surprised me by NOT wanting to ride any of the animals! WHAT! They switched bodies or something!
Then we went to Pizza Pirate for lunch and they played in the tiny arcade in the back, and we topped off the day with Clown Cones at Basking Robbins!
I'd say Elijah was pretty darn happy at the end of the day!

Eli a.k.a. Rafael!

Parties 2&3: were just family parties, but he was celebrated and ate cake

Luke Playing with the new toys

(I made one see below- Its a ninja turtle....I gave it my best shot) and opened LOTS of presents (like LOTS of presents...aunt lynn....). His school party fell on his actual birthday and would you know it, they instated a "no outside food" policy that Monday....so we had to make due with chocolate pudding and animal cookies from the cafeteria- oh well one less thing for me to have to do.

Thank you to all of you for the presents you sent, and brought over for Elijah (and Lucas too). You spoiled him and he really loved everything!  We are so blessed to have you all in our lives, and you made Elijah one happy  boy....now to find a place for all those toys....

Here are the rest of the pictures!

The Last Guy... 

Putting love in to the heart, that goes in to the bear

Washing up the "bears" or whatever they each made.

Liz washing her bear

MMMMMMM Ice Cream!!!!

Jackson's messy face!

Liz had a clean face, until I told her she had a clean face, then she made sure she had a dirty face... LOL!

And finally, my ninja turtle cake.