Cuckoo

Elijah has developed quite an affection for clocks for some reason. When we're reading Goodnight Moon he has to point out the two clocks in the room (one on the mantle, one on the bedside table) on every page on which they appear. Don't even think about turning that page until he's done it either - he'll just turn it back until he points at each clock!

At Grandma Amanda's there is a cuckoo clock that Grandma got from Great Grandma and has hanging on her wall. Eli LOVES the cuckoo! He'll go and stand underneath it and point up, going "uh uh." Then we'll tell him how much time until it cuckoos again - and he'll usually come and look at it again at almost the exact amount of time that we told him. Grandpa Terry told him 20 minutes when we were there a few weeks ago and Eli went and played and then came back to the clock within a minute of it going! Then last week I told him 5 minutes and he came back at almost the exact time again! Kind of neat. Could be coincidence, or my son could just be brilliant. I'll go with brilliant . . . or maybe he's just cuckoo! :)

Ride 'Em Cowboy!

The last few times that we've gone over to Jon's Mom's house Elijah has finally been able to ride the rocking horse that Grandma has at her house. This is the rocking horse which Jon's Grandpa Don made for Jon's Mom as a first birthday gift when she turned one! The horse made it through her childhood, her two sisters, and then made it through Jon and Jeremy, with only minor repairs (a new tail, and the leather bridle is gone). It still has it's original paint job though and is so cute! Eli's not quite tall enough to reach the rockers on each side of the horse and get it going really fast yet, but I'm sure that he will be soon! He still loves riding it! Giddy up!

Cider Mill

Elijah, myself, Grandma Amanda, and Great Aunt Cheryl visited the cider mill near Grandma's house last month, and I never posted anything about it because I was too busy. But I found a pocket of time and thought I'd post about it now!

Eli and I were visiting Grandma so we could see Great Aunt Cheryl and Jon's Grandma following Jon's Grandma's back surgery (following all that?) and we went to the Franklin Cider Mill - Jon's favorite cider mill. It was a picture perfect fall day, and a great day for cider and donuts (well, any day is a good day for donuts, but you know what I mean!).

On our way up to the cider mill . . .

Elijah is quite the active toddler now, so we had to keep a close eye on him, but he sure had fun seeing all the new things at the mill. There is a stream with oodles of ducks and he really enjoyed watching them - and then trying to get them. Watch out duckies!

Come on Grandma, let me at 'em!

They also had big bins with decorative pumpkins, thoughtfully displayed at Elijah's height.

And then some BIG pumpkins too, which Grandma and I couldn't believe the prices on! I think I need to start growing pumpkins if they are going to sell for that much!

The mill is set on a bit of a hill, so Eli had to go up and down it over and over of course - keeping Mom on her toes. Jon and I have always enjoyed going to several cider mills, several times each, during the fall, but this trip ended up being the only one for us (Jon didn't even get to one this year!) since October was so busy. Hopefully next year we'll go to more. I'm not sure they'll be able to top the beautiful weather we had this year though - it really was just a spectacular fall day!

Great Aunt Cheryl, Grandma Amanda, and Elijah!

Adventures in Play-Doh

The tiny containers of Play-Doh that were marketed to pass out at Halloween were on clearance at our grocery store last week, so I picked some up to see if Eli would like playing with it. He didn't like the Play-Doh but liked the containers! Take a look at what he thought . . .

Hey, this stuff looks like fun!

Let's see what it does. I'll just give it a little poke . . .
Yuck, Mom! Have you touched this stuff before? It's gross!
Maybe I can use it to hold my crayons at least . . .

Hmm, these containers are kind of fun though.

Look Mom, I found my tongue!

Oops, I still had Play-Doh on my hand. Play-Doh tastes icky!

Don't worry, even though the Play-Doh was a bust I'm still having fun!

Ribbit

I couldn't resist - here are some more pictures of Eli in his frog outfit. :)

Playing on my slide and posing for Mom!
Why are my fingers all covered up?

Come on Mom! You've got to have your shoes on to go outside!