Playtime Buddies

A few weekends ago Neal got to have his friend Eli stay the weekend. Eli is two years old and much more active then Neal but they had such a good time together. It was lots more fun to have a friend to play with at all times. Eli and Neal did everything together including eating, playing, reading and bathing. They both learned how to share their toys and both loved to play with Yawkey.





One evening before bed we put on a movie for Eli and all three boys sat on the couch and watched the movie together.


It was fun to get a little glimpse of what life will be like having a two year old in the house. Eli seemed to enjoy himself and must have felt right at home 'cause the whole weekend he called Tyler and I "mom" and "dad." This was cute and a little strange to have a two year old refer to me as mom. Guess I should get use to it since Neal will be at that age before long.

Neal is getting more and more mobile and crawling a lot now. His favorite thing to do is pull himself up onto his knees. He isn't really interested in standing yet but has learned to crawl quite fast if he wants something. If I leave the room for even a moment he is either headed to the puppies water dish or the dog kennel to play with the door. There are some boundaries we are setting in the house of things that he is not allowed to touch. We will see here in the next few weeks how well he catches onto these new rules.



Neal also moved into his new car seat. He seems to really like it and can still take a nap in it on long trips which is perfect. Tonight we were driving over to Tyler's office and Neal was in the back seat "talking" to Yawkey almost the whole time. The new seat allows Neal to see out the windows and what is around him more and with only him and the dog in the back seat he decided playing/talking to the dog was the best thing to do. I thought it was really cute.


I have once again started compiling some new Caribou recipes to try. With a freezer full of Caribou I am constintly on the lookout for new recipes. Last night we had Caribou tacos which were wonderful. Tacos are a staple meal in our home, since it is one of our favorites, and the ground caribou meets works great.


Hopefully I will have some new recipe stories to post in the next few weeks. On the Caribou meal list is: Caribou Chli and Pepper Steaks. We'll see how those turn out :)

Movement

Things have been changing around our house lately. Neal is now 8 months old and is going to be keeping me a lot bussier in the next few weeks.


Just a few weeks ago he learned how to get up on his hands and knees and after just two days of rocking on all fours he learned how to crawl. It is still a lot of work for him and thus he is slowly moving but it didn't take long for him to figure it out so I think that his speed will pick up quickly. I am glad that we have the baby gates installed in the house so I am as ready as possible for this little guy to get around.




The Lord has blessed us so much with such a good little guy. He is continuing to sleep through the night and is so good at taking his naps during the day. I have been dreading the whole teething phase just from hearing stories of some kids who are so uncomfortable during that time. Once again Neal has surprised me because one saturday morning a few weeks ago I saw his first tooth poking through. I didn't even know he was working on a tooth :) He had one or two restless nights which I now think must have been from the discomfort of teething but even with that he simply just needed his binky for comfort. His smile is so cute with his little tooth poking through. I think I may see tooth number two starting to come also :)


Almost all the leaves are off the trees now but the snow isn't here yet so we are continuing to go outside whenever we can. I have pulled out the warmer clothes however and make sure that we all get bundled up nice and warm before going out for a walk in cool weather. We will continue to walk outside as long as possible but once the snow hits we will have to find an indoor place to get exercise and visit with friends.


We are watching a friends 2 year old son, Eli, this weekend so we are going to have lots of activity here for the next few days. Neal loves to have others around him and he and Eli really enjoy playing together so it's gonna be fun. I think Yawkey is even going to enjoy having a new playmate for the weekend. There is sure to be some fun stories and pictures to come from this "sleepover weekend party."