bag o' clouds

The other morning Elliot walked into my bedroom (I was still lying in bed) carrying the bag of cotton balls. It's the Target brand, plastic bag with blue sky and clouds on the front. He had the sweetest expression of awe on his face, and in his voice, as he said "Mom, is this made out of clouds?".
Me: No, it looks like clouds, but it's made out of cotton.
Elliot: Clouds are cotton.
I proceeded to tell him all the things that are really made out of cotton, and said clouds just look like cotton (I didn't go into the whole "tiny particles of water" explanation of clouds...yet).
Seriously, I love this age! He was so excited for a moment, thinking he had found a bag of clouds.

funny misquote

Elliot loves Star Wars, as you probably already know. Yesterday he was playing with his older cousin, Tanner, outside. They were having a make-believe light saber duel. (Special thanks to Tanner. Not many 13 year old guys would be so kind as to play all afternoon with a 3 1/2 year old cousin.) Elliot then shouted out, in his best Darth Vader-ish voice, "Luke, you are my father!"
For those of you who haven't seen the movie and have been completely removed from all pop-culture for the last 30-some years, it's supposed to be "Luke, I am your father" (a very pivotal point in the Star Wars movies). I just think it's funny because he always gets that line switched around. :)

Good Friday?

P.S. I really am going to try to be better about blogging more.

Elliot has been very funny lately. It's amazing the kind of stuff that 3 1/2 year olds are capable of understanding, or at least trying to wrap their little heads around.
Lately, of course, the big questions revolve around Easter. It's a really tough thing for me to get my head around. Jesus died on the cross, was dead three days, rose again and ascended into heaven. The whole Trinity thing.
Elliot asks the BEST questions! It's just amazing to me. It's a bit intimidating to answer such big questions. Especially when I think some of them (theologically) are hard to understand! But we've had some great conversations lately.
The other day I was explaining Holy Week to him. I told him about Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday... I told him Good Friday is when Jesus died on the cross. He said, "that's BAD Friday". I can't tell you how many times I've thought that myself! But then I explained that it's GOOD because Jesus died on the cross so that we could all be in Heaven with Him someday! Jesus wanted to make it as easy as possible for us to get to Heaven so that we could all be there with him someday. That's how much he loves us! Wow.
Anyway, my point is that Elliot is (and maybe most 3 1/2 year olds are) really cool.
My other (admittedly, more important) point is Jesus is really cool, too!
Happy Easter everybody!
Enjoy the sunshine!

So, I am completely addicted to etsy.com lately. If you haven't been on there, you must check it out. I haven't purchased anything yet, but my wish list is steadily growing! It will be fun to get some baby/new mom stuff to get ready for baby girl. Especially because I will feel good about supporting creative people and their crafts! Well, maybe especially because the stuff is so darn cute, but supporting artists is a definite bonus! Do any of you sell on etsy? Let me know so I can check out your page and add you to my favorites!

Christmas fun

So, Elliot's favorite thing this year is to covertly take the little christmas lights off of the tree. We bought a prelit fake tree a few years back. It seemed a great idea at the time. With (then) three cats and a baby on the way, it seemed like it would be much better to have a fake tree than a real tree. No needles to pick up, no water to spill, no need to go buy a tree every year... Well, the first year it was beautiful. Prelit really seemed the way to go. There were way more lights than we could ever cram on there, and not a single bare spot. Each year a few more bulbs would burn out. Last year we bought some weird tool that detects where the "duds" are so that you can replace them and get the whole strand working again. We never counted on a mischievous 3 year old though. He pulls those little bulbs out every chance he gets. Goodness knows where they end up. I found one inside the couch the other day (by accident, I was looking for something else...don't ask what). I see little empty bulb sockets all over the place now. Most are at about 2.5 - 3 feet off the ground. This is no mere coincidence. So, now the only prelit portion of our tree that is still lit is a a lonely little patch at the top of the tree. The rest is meekly lit by some new LED lights that I bought this year. Guess I'll have to go get a few more strands...

Meet Darth Elliot

Here is Elliot's hilarious halloween costume from this year. Man, he loves that mask thing. Shout out to the Lahr family for letting us borrow it! I think I'm about ready to hand it back over. Elliot's already talking about next "weeks" (he means next year) halloween costume. So far he has said he was going to be Chewie (Chewbacca) and an elf. We shall see. I'm glad that it's almost a whole year before our next halloween. Bring on Thanksgiving and Christmas BABY!

I don't ever think of blogging!

I don't ever stop to think about blogging. I don't even know what to write.
That's something that I need to work on I guess.
Although, Becky, you are the only person "following" my blog. So I guess I could just fill it full of personal notes to you!
Did you tape Oprah for me today?
Do you and Maia want to get together to play sometime soon?
Elliot would love that.
How about a game night? It feels like it's been a long time! I need some Blokus in my life. Or we could play something else (I was SO on fire last time...).
I had better finish up with my work so that I can go home to my family.
YAWN!
I'm tired!