Eli Dancing

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Mississippi Trip

Here's the story of our trip to Mississippi in April.

My sister-in-law, Jenny, had a baby on March 25, while her husband (my brother, Kellen), was deployed in Djbouti, Africa. Her mom and two brothers were able to go stay with her for a couple of weeks, but of course Mom and Dad wanted to go see the baby and help out, too. They invited the boys and me to go along.

So on Friday, April 15th, we loaded up the van and drove through the night to Gulfport, Mississippi. It was 17 hours of driving, and the trip took us 20 hours total. The boys did great, and Grandma and Grandpa and I did pretty well, too.

We stayed for almost 10 days, and we packed a lot of fun things in! I was able to take the boys to attend the church of a friend who used to be a pastor at our church. He's now leading a church in Baton Rouge. It was great to catch up with their family.

We also went to the beach, had a picnic and played on the playground at Keesler Air Force Base, played in the backyard, read LOTS of books, attended an awesome re-creation of Passion Week events at Jenny's church, dyed Easter eggs and had many hunts for them, played in the sprinkler, ate at Chick Fil-A and Applebees, went to a splash pad, and went out for ice cream.

Oh, and we just enjoyed plenty of time at Jenny's house, holding Carter and watching Cady and Micah and Eli play. Cady and Micah played well together, but also did some bickering. At one point, they were arguing about whether Carter was Cady's brother or Micah's cousin. It turned into a "No, mine!" kind of fight, until Cady pointed to Carter and said, "Did this come out of YOUR mommy's tummy?" Ha ha ha ha ha!

So, below are some pictures from the trip. Hope you enjoy them!

Eli is One!

Eli is one year old! Actually, he's more than 13 months old now, but silly Blogger has delayed my posting on his birthday. I'm really not sure that it's going to work today, but I'll take the time to write it out and just hope that the publish button works.

I love that picture (above). He's just such a happy guy!
Eli's birthday (April 9th) fell on a Saturday, so we were able to celebrate on his actual birthday. All the Browns came (Dennis and Loretta, Kayla and Travis, and Matt and Courtney), as well as my mom and dad and cousin Lauren. We had some delicious pizza and opened presents. Eli didn't do such a great job of tearing into the wrapping paper, but oh well--maybe when he's two. :)

This is the balloon that Micah picked out to give Eli. He loved it! He kept sticking out his lips and saying, "Ooooo!"
I had a hard time picking a theme for the cake and whatnot, because it's tough to tell just what a one-year-old is into. But that boy sure does love to boogie whenever he hears music, so I decided to go with a musical theme. You'll see it on the cupcakes.

He also loves sweets, so of course he gobbled his cupcake right up.
Here are the cupcakes I made. I had a good time making the toppers out of melted chocolate.
I'm so proud of my little guy! He is so much fun right now. A month after his first birthday, he's walking all over the place, saying a few words including "ball" and "book," dancing whenever he feels the rhythm in him, and still giving the best snuggles and hugs. He's a super cute, cuddly ball of energy and I can't imagine our family without him. Love you, Eli!

Apologies

This is a post to apologize for my lack of posting. In my defense, I tried (a couple of times...), but I couldn't get Blogger to work. (Anyone else having trouble with the "publish post" button not working?)

Anyway, a lot has gone on in the past month. Eli had his first birthday, we took a trip to Mississippi to meet our new nephew, we started potty training, and the list goes on. I'm going to do my best to do some detailed catch-up posts on all the big events over the next few days. If Blogger cooperates...