Mommy's helper

We had a fun day today with all my family. They came down to have dinner at my aunt Cate's house and visit with my great uncle and second cousin who were passing through town from Arizona. Eli soaked up all the attention and played his three favorite games with my parents all day....BALL....BOOM....and SEEK! My dad was kind enough to lounge around during Eli's nap so my mom and I could run to Johnson's Garden Center (our favorite place in the world) and Pier One. Mom brought me down some more transplants from her garden to fill in some places in the front. Every time she comes down or we visit we steal flowers. It rocks! We got our first grape tomatoes out of our garden. Yay! Eli is going to have tons of fresh veggies this summer. Because it has been over 100 degrees the past few days, Eli and I have been playing outside from about 6:30 a.m-8:30 every morning. We take our long walk with Rica and play ball outside all morning while it's cool, then hunker down inside all afternoon. He has been able to cool off in his baby pool, and today my parents, Will, and Brandon took him to the fountains to play while I helped my friend Tanya ice some cookies for a bridal shower this weekend. We all went to my aunt Cate's for dinner and Eli LOVED playing in the fountain in her back yard. By the time I left, he was soaked and covered in mud from head to toe. What is it with BOYS? They always find the dirtiest and most dangerous past times. It just blows me away. So much fun, though! He loves to get the title of "mommy's helper". He'll practically do anything I say as long as I ask him if he wants to be "mommy's helper". It cracks me up. If I ever see a kid's broom set, I will snag it up because he just loves helping me do big people things. Today he had a blast carrying our neighbor's newspapers from the sidewalk and putting them up on their porches. He was so proud of himself that he was "helping" the neighbors. As you can see in the video, he loves helping me "clean" daddy's guitar.

I came up with a solution that will give me peace of mind in the next year. I am getting everything together to get my substitute teaching certificate, so that if Cessna furloughs for a long chunk next year I could work a couple days a week during that time (while Brandon watched Eli) to help around here. It's the only temporary job I could think of that I could do in an emergency situation. That way I don't have a freak out ;-) I'm such a control freak...I have to have a plan in place in case of disaster :-) I have NO faith...it's rediculous.