cucumbers

Calling Elijah a picky eater is putting it very mildly. With the amount of food he eats, I am surprised he has as much energy as he does. He has always been thin and the pediatrician has always kept tabs on his weight, but never really worried about it too much. Myself, on the other hand.....well, I worry about it all of the time. When your child has never in his whole life gone near any kind of vegetable or fruit, but will devour in seconds any cracker, cookie, pretzel, brownie or cake, a mommy understandably worries about nutrition. So........when Eli actually took a liking to the cucumbers in my salad and wanted more, I wanted to cry tears of joy! My boy is growing up! :)

He likes cucumbers and eats them regularly now, which is wonderful.

But when he does eat them, the initial taste leaves him a bit mystified about what to think of the crisp, cool watery goodness.

And then he gets mad at me for taking pictures and being so excited about something so mundane as cucumber eating....but oh if he only knew how happy he truly made me. Cucumbers today......celery tomorrow?????? :)

photo shoot

Place: Springton Manor Farm, Manor House and Butterfuly House
Model: The cute-as-a-button, though underdressed for a photo shoot, Elijah Cole DeBolt
Faux Photographer: Proud Mommy, Denise DeBolt

WARNING: Photo Heavy!

ice cream

For those of you that do not know, Eli is a VERY picky eater. He will not go near anything good for him, such as fruits and vegetables. We had tried to give Eli ice cream to boost his fat and calcium content (he is in the 4th percentile in weight, so I'll try anything to fatten this kid up). But he wanted nothing to do with it. We knew he would love it once the sugary white cream hits his lips, but he cannot seem to let it get that far. So, trying to be creative, I knew that he liked cookies so if I could find ice cream packed between two cookies, it may be enough to get him to at least try it. So for the first time, he had ice cream.....an ice cream cookie sandwich to be exact.

At first, he wasn't sure what to make of it. He inspects the confectionery delight with bewilderment. Then immediately after I snapped this picture, he squeezed the cookies together and when the ice cream seeped out of the edges of the cookies, he dropped it. Luckily Mommy caught it. So after that, Mommy would hold the ice cream.

As you can see, the ill effects of a toddler holding an ice cream sandwich.....messy, but so cute!
Once Mommy was holding it, he liked it very much, as the picture above shows that was now entering a sugar coma......
As he continued to eat, he got smart. The ice cream was just something to get around in order to get to the cookie. If you look, you can see Eli trying to just eat the cookie part and bypass the ice cream.
Even so, he still ate the whole thing (ok, I had one bite!). But now I know that ice cream is something that is to be eaten outside and with help from Mommy. :)

friends

Many mornings, Eli and I talk about what plans we have for that day. I usually ask "Do you know what we are going to do today?". Recently, his guesses have been pool, see mom mom, animals, farm, but there is one guess that he always says before any of the other guessses: FRIENDS. Eli loves friends. He is just beginning to mature out of the parallel play stage and actually have fun WITH his friends instead of next to them. It is exciting to watch.

And as Eli loves friends, his Mommy and Daddy love them as well. We had the Weldons over Saturday and as always, we had a blast. As we were finished up with dinner, Angie looked over and saw Eli and Foster sitting in chairs that they had pulled up the play kitchen and they were cooking together. It was the cutest thing.






Not only did they cook together, they also ran around together, laughed at each other and saw who could dance the funniest dance.

"I didn't do it!"

A fun time had by all. Friends are ever so valuable to us. Without their love, companionship, support, kindness and strength, we are lonely and sad people. Hug your friends today!

do i have something on my face?

picasso reincarnated

This weekend, Chad was at a volleyball tournament, so it was just Eli and I on Sunday. Searching through the arsenal of activities that I house in my harried mind, I remembered finger paints that had I bought for Eli months ago, but never used. I was afraid at the time that he would eat the paint, so I wanted to wait until he was a little older before he went crazy with it. So I prepared myself with wet paper towels, cloth towels, the finger paint and paper and my trusty camera. I put Eli in a big t-shirt to act as his smock, if you will.

Eli is anxious to pepper his canvas with colored paint galore! I explained that he would be using his fingers to put paint onto the paper. He seemed like he understood that the paint would go from his fingers onto the paper.

At first, it went well. The paint went from paper plate, to his fingers, to the paper. Everything was going swimmingly......until....

....Eli must have heard that paint acts as an effective moisturizer!

After informing Eli once again, the step by step process of finger painting, he seemed to understand and we were back on track.

But he did look extra cute with smears of vibrant color brightening his already cheery little face.

Bird's eye view....literally.....a friendly bird tapped me on the shoulder, offered to take my camera, fly over Eli and take a picture for me. What a friendly bird he was. :) Look at those finger strokes.....strokes of artistic genius if you ask me!

In the end, during the bath I had to give Eli after this foray into artistry, I removed paint from his nostrils, hair and ear canals successfully. All in all, it was a good day! :)

friday fun

Scary, right??? :)

Today's post is filled with fun pictures from recent weeks. Have a great weekend!

Sunflower growth a few weeks ago:

Sunflowers today!

Trying to kiss a bendy leaf......

Wildlife in the backyard....there were three of them, but the other one went into the tall grass. Maybe they are a family.

Morning drumming.....I feel bad for our neighbors.

Lazy leaf, loafing lightly on light liquid

Eli gets creative in his basketball shooting.

Tired at the dinner table.

Have a great Friday and enjoy the weather!

making due

I love this weather we have been having over the last few days. The coolness in the air, in the wind, in the morning, just so comfortable. I like to get outside with Eli as much as possible because as we witnessed last week, the heat and humidity is utterly unbearable.

Earlier in the week, I was on my way home from running errands with Eli. When there are days that I have to run many errands, I feel bad for Eli who has to follow me the whole time. On our way home, I was thinking of things we could do outside together. We only have a picnic table outside and bringing the basketball net and numerous balls outside was getting boring. If you know our family, you would know that my choosing not to work forced us to give up many creature comforts and with the gas and food prices rising, things have been tighter than usual. So as I felt the pull towards Toys R Us, I resisted! :)

As I was driving home, I decided to go through in my mind what we had in our garage, which by the way has never housed either of our cars. It is a storage unit/work out room/trash bag receptacle. As I ran through my mind the different kinds of things I could take out and clean off for Eli to play with, I thought of a blow up pool that we bought expressly for the beach last year. We used it one day. So when I got home, we dug it out of our garage, blew it up and realized it was much smaller than we had originally thought. But Elijah made due and loved it. It doesn't take much to entertain a child.

"Fill'er up, Daddy!"

"I proclaim this Elijah's Waterworld!"

In response to "Where is Mommy?" because that is the only way I can get him to look at the camera.

My little chemist, mixing away.

Love of Daddy and son.......

special bond

Touring farms is such a great experience for children. Elijah loves Springton Manor Farm in particular. I like it too and it helps that it is FREE. In fact, we are going there this morning. If you have never been, I suggest you take the trip. It is a small farm, but so nice and serene. There is a walking trail, a pond and just acres of green lush farmland.

The last time we went was on Friday. We met up with a friend of mine from high school. Her son is two weeks younger than Eli so it was just perfect for them to meet. I dressed Eli up in his overalls to really master the farm feel. :)


Of course there had to be the normal greeting of hugs all around.....just adorable!

As you walk in along the stone path, the goats await your children's excited smiles. There are several of them and they love to have little hands patting their soft fur. As you can see, Eli is all about petting the goats.

As you continue down the path, you enter the barn where the animals sleep. They are also corralled into the barn if it is raining or too hot. On this day, most of the animals were outside, but there were rabbits and Eli looked intently on, watching them not move. :)

The path then takes you to the pasture where a horse and donkey await you. Eli was always afraid of the horse and never wanted to touch it. Then, some other kids touring the farm began to pull grass out of the ground and feed it the horse. When Eli witnessed this, he was awestruck. He tried to pull the grass out, but was unsuccessful so I helped him out. Then he held the 3 grass blades he could hold into in the air for the horse to eat. When the horse came near his hand and gently nibbled the grass out of his hand Eli pulled away and squealed in delight! I thought he may be scared, but the giant smile on his face and loud, high pitched laughter told a different story.

He kept feeding the horse more and more and each time was more enchanting than the first. What a gentle and patient horse. Doesn't Eli look like a mini farmer feeding his horse? What a bond they share. I am going to try to take video of their times together today.