Eli at 5yrs old

We took Eli's pictures on a hike in Spearfish Canyon a few weeks ago. We went to so many forests for pictures this year, one might think they were all taken at the same place!
Same old story: not the best time of day, best smiles aren't in the best pictures, etc. But anyway here are some of the best ones.

A.  These are all pretty nice. I think I like the top left best.

B. I like the standing ones and wish the light was better. Eli informed me that his favorite is the bottom left. Look at it big, and you'll see why he says it's "so silly".

C. The top left is really nice in light and layout. I actually took a picture of Jonah in this very spot a few years ago. I like the hiding one, but Joseph says it looks like Eli is going...well, you know. And Eli likes the bottom left.

D. I'm not sure I like any of these that much. The light was pretty there, but they're not great.

E. At least we got a horizontal one.

F. I really like the face and pose in this top one. Silly guy. And the poses are nice in all three,even though the color seems weird.

 What do you think?

A moring walk

The other morning, Eli, River and I took a lovely morning walk around town. We saw many exciting things on our adventure. All the blocks in our town have a dirt ally right through the middle, and it was down one of these that we started  our journey. The first cool thing we saw was a smushed snake. Awesome.



Then Eli noticed all the new anthills being started all over the place. Or maybe some other exciting bug made these?



The whole town right now is covered in dandelions; Eli likes to call them wish flowers. This patch was especially resplended with color and Eli's hat helped him blend right in.




 One of our most exciting stops was to visit these two horses. While we were standing there admiring them, the owner drove up and told us we could pet the brown one, but the white might not be so amiable. I helped Eli pet it's nose, then scooted River's stroller up so she could get a closer look.
















At first she was pretty excited; reaching her had right out so she could touch the horse too. But when the animal lowered it's head and started to stick it's nose through the bars, River suddenly realized just how very big it was. At that point, she shrank back in her chair and held her hand up, saying, "Don't. Don't!" I backed her up again and she was much happier.



At one spot just after the horses, we could hear this ridiculously loud bird that was sitting in the field. I assume it was some sort of mating call, and boy was it loud!

We saw a few more interesting sights, like these weird seeds on a big tree,




then we went on to the ally behind our house and headed home. Not bad for a morning walk!

Eli the four-year-old

At the end of September..so only a month late.. we took Eli's four-year-old pictures. We found a cool fall tree by the side of the road and we had some fun! Of course, the light was weird and kind of dark, so they didn't turn out quite like I pictured.
For instance, in this first group of pictures, I thought I'd print the middle left picture, but his face is weird in color once I lightened it a bit. That bottom right one is perfectly framed, but he is standing a little silly. But that's Eli for you!

A.


































We took a few sitting ones, and it was hard to get Eli to look at the camera. But the top left picture is pretty cute!

B.























Then we walked down the road to see what we could see. Mostly because River was getting fussy and Eli was getting bored. We found a cool little area with trees and water! Eli was still having a hard time watching the camera, but he did better at holding still because we cold hear an animal. It turned out to be a rabbit in the underbrush, but Eli was sure it was a koala. He even stood really still in hopes that the koala might come out behind him and be in his picture. I wish I could've got a smiling one here.

 C. I like the bottom right and the top left. The bottom left just makes me laugh. Hehe.























 Finally we went a little further down the road to the local lake and took a few pictures there. Eli is such a ham. I love is silly smile (bottom left) and his "smoulder" on the bottom right. Cute boy.
D.

 




















E. these were also taken near the lake...we took a lot more, but he had the hardest time looking at me and/or smiling when he was supposed to. That's four years old I guess. I don't like this tree one as much just because the grass is trimmed, but he's smiling cute.

Feel free to click on the pictures to see them larger.  Which is your favorite?

Beeli Brown

On one of our living room walls we have four small frames, each between 5x5 and 4x4 in size. I like square frames, they're cool.

Each of these frames displays kids' current portraits. It seems Eli's was a bit out of date, as his picture was of his nine-month-old face, and he is now almost three years old! Aww what a cute guy.

But now it was time for a new one! I tend to like their portraits of serious faces rather than smiles; I don't know why.
When I first finished this, I thought I had him look too old, but really, it does look like him in his more serious moods.  His nose is a little wider though.
The originals of these portraits can be any size, then I just make a smaller copy on the computer so it fits in  the predestinated picture frames; but this drawing really isn't much bigger than the 5x5 for which it was destined.
I'd say the original is not quite so yellow as it looks on my screen.

life as usual



I haven't talked much about our little family in the last few months... so I am going to do so, in no logical order.

 Eli has decided he would like to join the ranks of the "Terrible Twos" before he turns three. He isn't as prolific in his exploits as Joshua was (Joshua made it a priority to empty at least one toothpaste, a shampoo, and some shaving cream at least three times a week) but he has made his mark. I caught some photos of some of his recent exploits:

 

Here he is making lunch after church by cutting up the butter, with the fridge open, while we all got dressed. Great job, buddy!

 

 

 

I wonder what happens to eggs when you throw them on the floor?

 

 

 

Last week we were bringing a cake to District Conference. An hour before we left, Eli thought he'd help out by cutting the cake. With scissors.

 

 

It's funny how he smiled for the pictures. When Joshua was two, whenever I'd catch him at something he'd just start bawling, even if I wasn't acting mad!

See? Toothpaste accident. Could happen to anyone.

 

 

 

Oh yes, in other news, this November Josh finally lost his first tooth, with the second one lost a month later. He was very thrilled with the tooth fairy's contribution to his piggy bank.

 

 

 

We also had a birthday party last month:

 

It was for the biggest boy in the house.

 

 

 

Daddy was happy with his cake, but not as happy as we were with the yummy dinner he made for St. Patrick's Day! Corned Beef and Cabbage with a mustard sauce..nom nom nom. If you 've never had this before, the meet is not pink because it's raw, it's just preserved that way before you cook it. And yes, this plate is laying on the floor mat so I could have enough light to take a good picture.

 

 

 Speaking of events in March, this month Eli and Jonah had a lovely day painting. Usually I can only get Eli to sit for any length of time painting, but this day Jonah enjoyed painting on Eli best of all.








Speaking of crafts, I'm pretty sure I totally skipped November on my blog, in which Jonah, Eli and I all made turkeys. That weekend, Elora decided she needed to make one too, so she copied mine..thus no reason to post mine.

Jonah's turkey

Eli's turkey

 

Elora's turkey that looks almost like mine.

 

 

Speaking of being creative, March afforded us some weather that lent itself to creativity. One day it snowed like crazy, so Eli, Jonah and I decided to start a snowman...it didn't get very big, but they had fun. Josh informed us that it looked like a giant slug.



The next day, it was crazy warm, which made the snow much stickier. The three of us started to build up our snowman more, but the boys got bored. Luckily when Elora came home, she was excited to help finish it. As there are no sticks around, we used some stick-like remnants from our garden to decorate the fellow. Or is it a lady? Josh didn't actually help at all, but he insisted on being in the  picture.




And for our final story...Jonah got a huge goose egg when we came out of District Conference last week. I'm not completely clear on what happened, but he was sitting in the rock border around the church and holding his forehead, so I think he somehow fell right on a rock. Ouch! the picture doesn't do it justice.
























Hmm. We did also go bowling. But that's another post.

two

We were going to do something different for Eli's two-year pictures.
Go somewhere we've never gone before.
Remember the big barrels I mentioned when we took Jonah's pictures, but we didn't go there? I had decided we would indeed go there after church on Sunday for Eli's new pictures; the sky was overcast so it wouldn't be too bright, and it was just a block from the chapel. Even though it's been done before, it would be new for us, and I was kinda excited about that.
But there was a problem.
We went to the property as planned, and I was just getting into position, telling Eli to say "cheese", when this mist of tiny of bugs rose up all around us! Smaller than gnats, these insects also plague us near our home on occasion, but I'd never seen them in such quantities. And they bite! I'm pretty sure some got in Eli's eyes right when I was taking the picture, then we made a run for it. I spent the next ten minutes trying to brush the microscopic pests out of my hair and off my clothes. It was annoying, but I was even more annoyed that we couldn't take our pictures as planned!

























Since he was already dressed how I wanted, we still took pictures that day...just in the same tried and true spots we've been for all his sibling's photos. We went to the stairs, and the rodeo grounds. Like any two-year-old, Eli had a hard time holding still for these and we didn't get many good ones:

A.



I like the top two, though the left is a little blown out
(dark in the face and too light on the wood!)

All of our really good pictures so happened to be in the same place where we took Jonah's good two-year-old photos. I imagine it's greatly because he can't get off the stool where I set him (though he tried) and the light is filtered pretty good, even though the sun was going in and out of the clouds. This first group has most of my favorite pictures. Especially the top two! I have a hard time picking between them: the left one has a sweet smile and perfect lighting, the right one is his really mischievous grin.

B.



This second group turned out good too. Joseph's favorite is in this group; he likes the bottom left one the best. As for me, I think the top left is fun (he was asking me to get him down)...and the bottom right is his "model" look.

C.

























We then came down from the rodeo place, and walked over to the red shed where we took Josh's pictures last year. I figured his shirt would work well with it. we got a few cute ones, but he didn't want to stay put for very long.

D.






 

Finally, we walked under the pow wow area, where I hoped to get a few with the nice grass around him. We got one where I got him to hold still by hugging the pole, but then...



























this happened. Stinky cat! Eli was obviously done, though he did find a nice leaf that came from who knows where.



Yes, he's stepping on the cat's tail in the next to last photo.

At least Eli had fun! And didn't get scratched up like the last time he met a strange cat.

Oh, and if you were wondering, no, Eli doesn't have a bruise on his forehead- its some kind of birthmark! As far as we can tell, it appeared around his first birthday, though it took us about six months to realize it wasn't just a bruise because it never went away. Yeah, we're observant like that.

Which one do you like? 

Eli's sandals

These are Eli's cute summer sandals. At the beginning of the summer, they mirrored one another in every way: shape, color, snazziness. But recent events have caused one of these shoes to look a bit...different. Can you tell? The sandal to the left is somewhat deformed: wider, flatter, scrumblier.

 

 

 

If you look even closer, you might notice that the shoe on the right has a pleasant repeating pattern stamped into the rubber sole.

 

 

 

However, no such pattern exists in the shoe to the left, almost as if it never existed. What could have caused such a transformation? Well, let me tell you a little story.

 

 

 

Last month we took an impromptu quick car trip to Riverton, WY. Joseph has been called to several job interviews this summer, and this time we thought we might join him! Somewhere on the drive there, we lost Eli's sandal out of the car! We searched thoroughly, but it was gone, and the next day we had to go buy him some new shoes. They are pretty cool- blue with lights- but now he didn't have snappy summer sandals anymore. Poor Eli.

While Joseph went to his interview-there were three candidates, he felt he did well, he still didn't the job- we waited at a local park. It was one of those fancy ones where the whole community contributes. You know the ones, where they have a maze of rooms and structures planned by the kids who live there, then they put the names of all the businesses that contribute money. There seems to be one in most bigger towns these days, and they all look very similar.

While I waited for Joseph's return-after I had played for a while with Eli and decided it was way too hot-, I drew these girls that were sitting outside of the structure. Yes, I thought the grass and the parkinglot were more worthy of a drawing than the elaborate playground. Or something.

So hours later, we were on our way home. (Yes, I'm getting to the shoe part.) It was a beautiful day, and we were headed north on the highway between Casper, WY and Gillette, WY. As we came around a bend in the road, the setting sun filtered warmly through our car windows and I was enjoying the slow transition of the sagebrushy part of Wyoming to the grassy northeastern part that was similar to the landscape of our home.

All the sudden my lazy reverie was interrupted by Joseph shouting, "There's Eli's shoe!!" I gaped at him incredulously as we pulled over, turned the car around, and returned to the side of the road where a dirt road split off to the right. There at the entrance to the dirt road, was Eli's cute little sandal! It was a little flat, and smooshed, but it was wearable!

24 hours later, we had found the shoe. I did a drawing in the car as we continued on our journey, to commemorate the reunion of Eli's footwear (I colored it later at home):

 

 It turns out, on our way south the night before, we had stopped at that road to let the little boys go potty. Usually we wouldn't even have opened Eli's car door, but at the time his arm had been twisted in the harness of his carseat, so we had opened his side to make adjustments, at which point the shoe had fallen out.

We're so happy we found it!
Too bad he likes his new blue shoes better.