Furlough

Yesterday, Brandon chipped out a piece of tile to try and find a match for the basement. I thought it might be a disaster trying to find the exact tile, but we totally lucked out. The "experts" found our exact tile in the first 10 minutes we were at the store! Praise God! Since it didn't take very much time, we headed to the mall so Brandon could get his hair cut. I didn't realize it until yesterday, but EVERY time Brandon takes Eli to the mall he takes him for a ride on the carousel. Great. This is something I can't do because of my motion sickness. Anyway, Eli now expects to ride it. He rode with Brandon and cried the second it stopped. We had to tell the horsies "bye bye" to get him to even leave it. I let him just walk around the mall until Brandon was done. He had a total temper tantrum melt down at the fountain. The whole issue was that he wanted to get IN the fountain. Watching it wasn't enough. Sheesh. He barely had taken a nap because of teething pain, so it wasn't a good day to be seen in public ;-) It was quite comical though. Finally today he's better. The teeth came through so fast. I can see them both easily and clearly now. Yippeee! Brandon forgot his lunch this morning, so it gave Eli and I an excuse to go visit him at work. Of course Brandon loved showing him off to everyone and all his coworkers were adoring him and trying to stuff goodies into his mouth. "Can he have a Cheetoh/Cookie/blah blah blah?" HELL NO :-) I am a health freak. Someone did manage to give him a piece of chocolate chip cookie when I wasn't looking (they'd obviously asked Brandon). He's never had chocolate before, and thought he'd died and gone to heaven. That guy was his new best friend. It was so funny! The whole company of Cessna is doing a 4 week furlough this summer. Originally, Brandon's group was going to be the only people still working. I was a litte dissapointed because I was hoping for some family time to travel, paint Eli's future room, fun family outings, and other projects. As of today his group is going to furlough too, just in a different way. They are going to furlough two people at a time, so there will still be people working and customers being helped. Brandon and I have to decide which 4 weeks of the summer he wants off, and they don't have to be in a row. I literally was jumping up and down when he told me. To me the time together and the help with Eli is worth WAY MORE than the money! He has to take one week vacation, one week unpaid, and two weeks unemployment money. Fine by me! We'll definitely go to Plano, TX once to be with Brandon's family and hit Tulsa as well. I'm really looking forward to summer!

Rain Rain go away!

Brandon stayed home from work yesterday and cleaned up the mess left over from 6 inches of rain in one night! He ripped out the carpet in the basement family room area (luckily the guest bedroom carpet was fine) and threw that and the padding away. He got all the nails etc up and got fans running on the concrete to dry everything out. Today it's dry finally. We're just going to extend the tile that's already in most of the basement out into the family room. Basements were not meant to have carpet (we knew this was inevitable when we bought the house)! I'm already missing the family room downstairs...it's a good distraction for Eli when he wants to nurse. Oh well, we have a contractor coming today to give a proposal, so hopefully we can get it taken care of soon. Eli is trying to say new things every day. This week he's started mimicking a cat's meow. If you ask him what a cat says he'll make this extremely high pitched sound with his lips pressed together. He got his 8th tooth in the past couple days. Poor guy. It is NOT fun having two teeth come in at one time. He's never had two come in together like this. He has been extremely whiny and difficult. Things have been better today. He spends a lot of time trying to chew everything in sight. The mesh feeder filled with chopped ice has been a life saver. It really is the only thing that gives him instant relief. I'm really looking forward to these two little bottom teeth finishing up their torture!

Tornadoes, Swine Flu, Flooding

I think the world might be coming to an end :-) Last night we had at least two tornadoes in Wichita. One was 12 miles west of our house!!! We have a weather radio and that thing was going off like crazy. The first time it was just a possible tornado and Brandon was making fun of all the drama. About 20 minutes after coming up from the basement there was an actual tornado. You should have seen Brandon's face when they said it was 12 miles west of downtown Wichita. He wasn't making fun of me then! Eli had fun reading books and playing in the basement all evening! Next came the flooding. We had over 5 inches of rain last night. I've never heard that hard of a rain fall for so long. It was crazy! I knew our basement was doomed. Most basements get damp, but no basement in Riverside can handle 5 inches of rain. Our carpet is soaked in the family room. Brandon is down pulling it up and throwing it away. I'm not going to deal with this again and I'm paranoid about mold. We're just going to tile and get a large carpet like rug down there. Next, is the swine flu. We have had 2 cases in Kansas. We'll see if we survive the week ;-)

Puddle loving!

Thursday night I went out to eat with my best friend Courtney and got gelato. It was a wonderful break! Courtney bought Brandon some hilarious bacon flavored toothpicks. We could not stop laughing; they were SO gross. Nothing like sucking on a pig to freshen your breath! Brandon took Eli swimming at Cessna. He had a blast because it's a zero entry pool, so he can walk around and play on his own. They were in playing/swimming for an hour and had turned into raisins and Eli still cried when he took him out! He's a fish! Here's some photos of another example. We were watering and a puddle formed. Eli thought he'd died and gone to heaven playing in it. He was literally trying to swim in the puddle. It was hot, so it was a perfect game to play. He got soaked and muddy from head to toe! We went with my cousins to the park and had a picnic last night. The guys road their bikes over and went riding afterwards. Eli had a great time playing with Granny and actually threw a ball back and forth with a little boy a few months older than him for a long time. After Eli went to sleep, the guys went and got us cherry limades and we hung out on the porch talking! Great night! My mom brought down a ton of perenniels and flower seeds from her garden to fill in some spots in our front yard, which is all a flower garden. I'm loving this weather!

Eli and I got to break out the shorts yesterday! It actually got like 85! Eli was watching Rica and laughing hysterically, and I realized he'd never seen her pant with her tongue out before. He seriously stood there laughing at her after our walk for a really long time. Eli is finally transitioning from two naps to one long mid day nap. I am SO excited! I hated being stuck at home all day because of naps. Before, I could only go out right at noon in between his two naps (which is rush hour and crazy everywhere), but now I have all morning to run errands and can go again after his nap if needed. I love it! We have just had a great week this week with weaning. Yesterday he only nursed morning, noon, and night. Trust me, that is an improvement. It was just like it clicked and he's finally ready. I'm so excited! Brandon took Eli to the park while I went annuals shopping. I got Wave Petunias, Red Salvia, and Cosmos. I added some zucchini and yellow squash to the garden as well. I bought Eli a little blow up pool to play in this summer and ordered a sand box. I wanted a natural looking one that would blend in with our flower gardens etc. in the back yard. This was the best looking one I could find! He's going to love the little pool. Yesterday he played with a bucket of water (and got soaked of course) for a really long time and had a blast splashing and throwing stuff in the water.

Eli's 7th tooth came in yesterday on the bottom. It seems like the bottom teeth have come in easier than the top. I'm hoping he still feels okay today. He started getting really whiny last night. Teething is tough! We went to the garden center and loaded up on more veggies. So far we have: red potatoes, white potatoes, carrots, beets, broccoli, cucumbers, sweet peppers, bell peppers, eggplant, okra, a couple strawberry bushes, and spicy peppers. I'm going to back today for the huge annuals sale and will probably pick up some squash. We have this one section we're not even using in the back, so I think it would be a good vine area. We're kind of testing to see what will do well in the area we have and then will expand on those veggies next year and cut the others out. Ah, I love gardening! Eli loves playing outside while I weed/water etc. I'm praising God we put in a sprinkler system last fall! Best money spent!

Here are some photos from our fun weekend! Eli and I took Starbucks to my friend Tanya this morning, so Eli could play with her son Seth. Eli had a lot of fun playing with all the new toys/balls. He's really cautious and quiet around other kids, but really likes being with them and playing with them. I feel FREE from stress finally. For the past few months I've been working on getting the CD completed, booking, etc. and I'm finally done with everything! Eli and I have been celebrating by just having a TON OF FUN!