Mother's Day at the Beach

We have been heading to the lake a lot when the weather is nice. It is SO gorgeous up here. . . . the lake and the mountain never get old. For mother's day Rob packed up our small grill, the boys and the dog and we spent the entire day at Nevada Beach. It was a perfect day. We've also been going to Fallen Leaf Lake a bunch, and it is a terrific spot. Below are some pics from our mother's day beach outing. I love living in Tahoe! Especially in the summertime.

Our beach camp site. What a beautiful place to spend the day.


The boys made some friends with some nice older boys. Max had an especially fun time with them because they taught him how to play baseball. Now that is all he wants to do - he LOVES baseball. In fact, I just bought him a t-ball set!


My handsome boy, Eli, with Sampson.

Playing on the beach.

I Can't Believe It's Been Over 2 Months Since I Last Posted and ELI TURNS ONE! :-)

No, I haven't abandoned my blog - things have just been so crazy and busy that it has been difficult to find time to maintain this blog. While I used to sit down at the end of the day and try to put down what we have been up to, now I am so pooped out after wrangling a 1 year old, a 2 year old and a three month old puppy, as well as working on my law practice, that I pretty much collapse! :-) But I am going to try to get back into the swing of things because I don't want to forget all of the neat things the boys are doing.


What has been happening over the last two months . . . . well, Eli turned one on April 30! He is such a big boy. He is now officially walking and has been for a few months (he started to really get it down between 12 and 13 months). We've been taking the boys to the beach a lot and they love it. And we got a new puppy, Sampson, who is a black lab and pointer mix. My law practice is going great and I just rented out an office space that I love. I'll post more on all of these things individually later.


For now, I am going to post some pictures from Eli's first birthday! It was a nice, mellow party. We had about 10 friends over and had a bbq. My friend Sarah (who owns a bakery) made Eli his "smash cake" and a bunch of gorgeous, gourmet cupcakes. So delicious! Eli's smash cake was awesome - and he had NO IDEA what to do with it! :-) I can't believe he is already one - time flies.



Presents!



Trying a yummy carrot-cake cupcake after the HUGE smashcake (see pic below).





Eli's smashcake. How cool is that? :-)






Max loves his little brother. Poor Eli was so pooped out during his party, it wasn't the most fun for him. Just like Christmas . . . he wanted to sleep through the whole thing! :-)

Max knows how to make us feel bad!

Today was another nice and mellow day. Rob and I took the boys for a long walk this morning, and then Eli and I went to Carson City to grocery shop, while Max and Rob went to play frisbee golf with Davis and Elias (Max's cousin). Eli and I had a lot of fun, and Rob said that Max loved playing frisbee golf with Elias and they played together the entire time. Max is a crazy kid - I don't think I've posted it yet, but Max has chipped off a large portion of one of his front teeth. I was doing laundry last week and he thought it was very fun to dive into the huge pile of clothes; well, on his last head-first dive he missed the clothes and landed face first onto the hardwood floor. It was painful to hear, and sure enough, a huge chip cracked off. I guess it's only fitting on Max - he's a crazy dude. :-)

In other news. . . this evening, Max said something that just made Rob and I feel so bad!!!! Max was in his high chair and apparently done eating and started throwing his pasta on the ground. Rob told Max to stop, and he looked at Rob, held out his hand and THREW more pasta. So, Rob lightly smacked him on his hand and said "don't throw pasta!" Max, of course, starts crying hystercially and after about a minute, tearfully says "Don't, dada!" Then Rob says, "don't what, Max?" Then Max said, "Don't hit me, dada!" This made us feel HORRIBLE! I can't believe he even knows how to put this sentence together. Well, another minute later he was back to his normal, happy self. But, geez!

Some pics from the tot spot last week.

Max just dives right in to the ball pit every time. I'm sure that soon he will be doing flips into the ball pit. :-)

Eli loves the ball pit too!

Eli Took Three Steps Today!

Today Rob and I saw Eli take his first steps! He just stood up, and took three steps toward me then tackled me with a big hug. What a big boy! Later on in the day, Rob said he saw Eli take two more steps. I think we will soon have another walker! Eli's top four middle teeth have now broken through and are about halfway in. He is just getting cuter and cuter, and bigger and bigger. Today has been a really great day. The weather has been gorgeous, so Rob took Max skiing this morning. Then, after the boys took a nap, we all took a walk to the meadow. Max and Eli had a great time. Below are a few pictures from our afternoon.


This picture turned out surprisingly well given the fact that our camera was propped up on log and we used the 10-second timer! :-)


Self-portrait of Eli and I.

This is atop a huge, fallen over tree. Max played on this tree for at least 1/2 hour. He loved it.

Eli was just playing on the ground while Max played on the tree behind him. They are too cute.

Here is a video of Max at the meadow climing big fallen trees. Adventurous boy!

The Boys Hanging Out

Here is a cute video of the boys hanging out one morning. They were both munching on some bagels and watching Max's Mighty Machine's video while I was making breakfast. I heard them laughing with each other so I had to run in with the camera. :-) Max LOVES his "truck" video, as he calls it. It's basically a video of trucks, bulldozers, and other things like that working. . . . I don't really get the appeal, but whatever makes the kids happy and allows me to cook breakfast!! :-) I love that these boys get along well. It makes me so happy knowing that they will always have each other.

Play Time

Playing together at the Rec Center. Every once in a while I take the kids here for some variety. They have a bouncy house and lots of toys every Monday and Thursday. Max also likes to dribble the basketball and try to shoot, although he mostly ends up bouncing the ball off his head when he tries to shoot. I love it!

Hanging out together while I cook Max breakfast.

Eli loves riding his bike. He will actually hold on while you push him around and won't fall off. :-) When did he get so big???

One of Max's favorite things in the entire world. . . . a nice mud puddle. :-) These kids really make me laugh every day.

Very proud of himself after doing some serious jumping and splashing.

Don't you just want to squeeze those cheeks?

After jumping around in mud puddles.

Max is a Skiing Machine

Max took Rob skiing again a few days ago and Max loved it. Everytime he got to the bottom of the mountain he yelled "again! again!" :-) We are really glad Max loves skiing. Next year he will be on a snowboard!!! Below are some pics of Max getting ready to head out.

At Grandma and Grandpa's House

Below are a few cute pictures of the boys at my parents place. Rob and I had a nice weekend away and the boys stayed with my parents. We came back Sunday afternoon and had a fun time playing with them on my parents' property. The boys are getting so big. I think Eli is saying "mama" and "dada" although it is difficult to tell if he means us! :-) He tends to yell "mama!!" when he cries and when he is happy he starts saying "dada, dada. . . " Not sure what that is all about. :-)

Poor Eli has four teeth coming in right now (his four top middle ones) and I can tell it's hurting him a bit. The last few nights he has been up a lot, upset and in pain and just wanting me to hold him. Poor pumpkin. He's not quite walking yet, although he can walk around when he is pushing a walker. He's a speedy crawler though!

Max just amazes me daily with the new things he does and says. He can say just about anything now, can sing his ABC's, and can count to 10. He also wants to do everything himself and has a very strong opinion about what he wants us to do - I'm always hearing "no, mama, THIS way!" or "no, mama, THIS one!" or "no, mama, I do it!" He is also the sweetest big brother in the entire world. Today when I put Eli down for a nap, he didn't really want to go down and started crying. Max and I were downstairs and Max yelled "oh no, baby!!" and then took off running up the stairs to go comfort Eli. What a sweetie.


Max and Rob taking a walk. Max loves being outside and would play outside all day if we would let him.

Playing in the leaves. . .

Could he be any cuter?? :-) I know I'm biased, but still!

Rob, Max and Uncle Davis. Davis's daughter, Olive, is due to be born next week. We can't wait to meet her.

Max throwing rocks in the lake. He pretty much threw every rock he could find, then moved on to the firewood!

My sweet, happy, boy. Eli is such a big boy now. He loves drinking out of a sippy cup like Max - and I have even seen him grab a normal, big person cup and drink out of that! Most of it got spilled, of course, but he did it!

Eli and Max both love dogs. We really need to get one for these boys, but the thought of training one is daunting right now. But I sure love seeing the boys play with my parents dogs, Elvis and Pressly. :-) The dogs look very similar, so Max calls them both "pessly."

I LOVE this picture.

The boys!

They both have such funny looks on their faces here. . . . I love it.

Throwing rocks again. I need to teach this boy to swim this summer. . . he has no fear of water, which is scary sometimes.

Look at these red curls!! I think it's almost time for a haircut again.

Some of my favorite pics off my IPhone

I finally got around to downloading some pictures off my phone and these are a few of my favorites.


Max loves to walk around the house in his ski boots. Crazy kid!


Look at those eyes. What a handsome fella.


Me and my boys sitting on a frozen portion of the lake. :-)

I love this smile.

At the Tot Spot!

Below are some photos of the kids playing at the Tahoe Tot Spot - Max's favorite place to go play. Seriously, every day he says "I wanna go to the Tot Spot!" I love it too because he plays so hard that he takes a nice, long nap when we get home. :-) Eli is really playing a lot more these days as well. Yesterday he was climbing through tunnels and up stairs. He also loves playing the balls. I can't believe how big these boys are getting. Max is becoming very independent as well. When I ask if I can help him with something, a lot of the time he will say "No! I do it."

Rob's been out of town the last few days at a conference in Washington DC, so I've had the boys all to myself. We've been having fun, but I have a bit of a cold (and sinus infection which hurts) so it's been a bit of a handful. The other afternoon I took the kids to this play area at the botton of Harrah's and Max loved running through the tunnels, ropes, slides etc. So much so that he threw the biggest fit ever when we left. It was great, I had Eli in his car seat carring him through the casino and Max over my shoulder throwing a fit. Good times. I just try to think of it as an arm workout. :-)


Max loves to dive into the ball pit. This kids is fearless.


Eli playing in the balls. He loves it too. . . I just need to make sure he doesn't get trampled by the bigger kids.

Max, Eli and their cousin Elias playing together. They are all too cute together.