Thirty One

Over the weekend we celebrated Josh's 31st birthday! Since his birthday was on Sunday, he got two days of celebration. On Saturday, we took him to Hermann Park to ride the pedal boats, and this time I got to ride since there wasn't enough room when Josh's parents were here back in May. Eli really enjoyed it. He tried to steer the boat, and we had to laugh that he was standing up near the front like a captain of a ship. We liked watching the ducks with mohawks (I'm serious), and we ran into baby Jaws (okay, maybe just a really, really large catfish).

On Saturday night we took Josh to a Houston Dynamo's game. They are Houston's professional soccer team, and Josh has been wanting to go to a game for a while. We met up with our friends, Mike and Marci, and we had a really good time. Though Eli didn't pay much attention to the game, he did like the crowd. I think he liked that he could scream and be as loud as he wanted just like all the other fans. By the time the second half came around, he was pretty tired, and when he gets too tired, he's pretty fidgety. We owe a special thanks to Marci, who kept him occupied for most of the second half. Unfortunately, the Dynamos lost by one, but it was still fun and entertaining to watch. Thanks, Mike and Marci, for joining us!

On Sunday Josh opened his gifts, and we had birthday cake. I made him a chocolate cake, but since I don't eat chocolate, I made a carrot cake too so that I could join in on the fun. Don't worry, I cut both recipes in half so that we really only had one cake. We're not trying to gain too many pounds! ;-).

Overall, we had lots of fun celebrating, and I'm so grateful I have such great guys to celebrate with! Josh, I love you, and I know Eli loves you too. We hope you enjoyed your birthday.

First Haircut

Before

After

I finally did it! I cut off Eli's curly locks. Basically, it's the hair that Eli was born with in the back. It was getting too long. Josh was suggesting I put it in a ponytail, and the 2nd counselor in the bishopric accused us of trying to make our son look like a hippie. I knew it wasn't going to be easy because he can rarely hold still for anything, but I managed to cut off the most curly part. Obviously, if he grows it out, he has hair like his mommy. Now he just needs to get more hair on top.

Visiting Family

Now that we're back home and in the swing of things again, I thought I'd share how our trip to my family went. Eli and I left Josh for a week so that Grandpa and Grandma Grant could spend a little more time with their grandson since Josh couldn't take too much time off from school. We surprised Grandpa for an early Father's Day. Grandma and Monica came to pick us up from the airport in Las Vegas. We were going to surprise Grandpa at the door, but he spoiled the surprise somewhat because he came out to meet us while we were still in the car. He was still surprised, though. His jaw dropped when he saw Eli, and it was obvious my Mom did a better job at keeping it a surprise than Josh thought she would. :-)

Eli seemed to bond with Grandpa. He especially enjoyed their walks together. There are three horses in a field behind my parents' home, and Eli went with Grandpa (and sometimes Mom and Grandma) to feed them. Unfortunately, his walks are not quite the same here in Houston--definitely not as peaceful, and there are no horses nearby--so I think Eli misses them.

Eli also got in some swimming time in St. George and hopefully got over his fear of the water or cold (whatever the reason is/was for not liking it). Before we left, he cried if we tried to put him in our pool here, but Josh said that Eli was wanting to get in the pool today when they went for a walk, so maybe he got used to the water while we were there. After all, he went about four times.

After a week at my parents' home, Josh joined up with us. We were so glad to see him, and I think he was even glad to see us, though I'm sure he enjoyed the peace and quiet. :-) The Hinton Family (my mom's family) reunion happened while we were there, so that was a nice bonus. The last time I went to one was when Josh and I were dating, about five years ago. We enjoyed talking, eating, playing games, getting beat up in basketball..... ;-).

We actually ended our trip by getting to see Josh's side of the family. Tana and Chris took a little anniversary trip to Las Vegas the day before we flew back home, so they graciously let us crash their little party for a while. We spent Sunday night and Monday morning with them before going to the airport.

We even got some good news from Josh's sister Megan while we were there. She's getting married in Salt Lake on August 8th. Congratulations sister! It looks like we will finally be headed back to Salt Lake after four years away. We were beginning to wonder if we'd ever make it back there again.

Here are some pictures from the trip. Enjoy!

Life in a Month and a Half

I keep telling myself I need to update our blog, and now I'm finally getting around to it after about a month and a half of not blogging. Easter was enjoyable for all of us. Eli especially enjoyed looking for Easter eggs since he loves a good game of hide-and-seek. I know I told my mom I'd post some pictures and video, but I never did. Well, below is a picture finally, but I'm afraid the video takes a little longer to do.

Grandpa and Grandma Pratt came to visit, which was a lot of fun. We went to Hermann Park with them. We like that park a lot; there's so much to do, and it's right by the zoo. Though Eli has been to the zoo several times, he got to go with his grandparents for the first time. He also got to ride the train with them and go on a pedal boat. Eli seemed so tranquil on the boat, staring at the water, but then maybe he was trying to understand why there was a big life jacket on him. :-)

My Uncles Ken and Don came for a visit at the end of April. They were nearby doing some birding and stopped to go to church with us on Sunday, which we enjoyed. Anyway, their birding trip sparked some interest in Josh, so when his parents were here, we decided to go to High Island and see the birds for ourselves. We went down to Galveston for the first time since Hurricane Ike, and then we took the ferry over to the Bolivar Peninsula. There was definitely a lot of devastation. It's amazing what nature can do! It certainly puts God's power in perspective. Anyway, while we were on the peninsula, we stopped at Fort Travis to take a look, and I wish we had our video camera rolling because it was probably one of the funniest things to see. All I can do is describe, which doesn't do it justice. There's a field by the fort that goes out to the gulf, and Josh wanted to head out that way. He had Eli in his arms, and his dad was walking a little behind him. My mother-in-law and I took up the rear. We were talking, and all of the sudden Josh started doing a little dance while swatting the air and himself. Eli was looking at his daddy like he was crazy. Josh started running toward us, and then his dad started running. Then I found out why. It was like a crazy, nightmare movie or something. The title would be: Attack of the Mosquitoes. Huge mosquitoes were swarming around us like I've never seen before. It was unbelievable! We ran to the car, and they followed us in. We tried to put repellant on us, but that didn't do much. In fact, we later ran into more mosquitoes on High Island while we were bird watching. It wasn't quite as bad there, but we cut our sight seeing short because of them. Still, the birds were beautiful, and we got to see alligators too. Josh's poor dad, though, ended up with quite a case of mosquito bites. The rest of us fared a little better, though Josh says he's still itching from them.

Mother's Day was a nice treat. Josh gave me some sleep, which I enjoyed and will enjoy (since I have a promise for more) immensely. He also cooked me some great meals for breakfast and dinner. What a great husband! I'm grateful to be his wife, and of course, I'm grateful to be a mommy to a wonderful little boy!

Lately I've been putting away some of the things that Eli has outgrown. He's graduating from baby to toddler quite rapidly. While it's exciting, some of it does make me a little sad. Anyone else experience this? I put up his jumper and floor gym, which I should have done months ago since he hasn't used them for quite a while. I put away his infant car seat. He just graduated to a forward facing car seat since he wasn't the required 20 pounds when he turned one. I think he likes it a lot better. I have some clothes I need to put away too that I just haven't done yet. He's down to one or two nursing sessions in a 24 hour period, which is remarkable for him given the night feedings that he likes. It's definitely bittersweet. On the one hand, I'll be glad to have that autonomy again. On the other hand, I'll miss my little baby who has depended on me so much.

Well, enough with the nostalgia; here are a few pictures. There were definitely more taken, but some of them were poor image quality, and then our camera ran out of memory, so we have to get the others from Josh's parents.