Garage Sale Dog and Otter Pops

We had a good day today...I stopped at a garage sale at the neighbor's discovered two things. First, I got him a bunch of 2T clothes for $5 . Second, Eli would not let me leave without purchasing ANOTHER dog! Thank goodness he only cost us $1 and he doesn't poop! What a good dog!

Eli was just checking that the dog was healthy. We still haven't picked out a name...I'll let Dad name him!

Ride 'em Eli!!

Man that's one heavy puppy!

It took him several trips to get the new dog in the house.

Once we made it inside, I thought I would give my son an Otter Pop...should have known better....

This can only end badly....

Yup...it ended with nice new green spots on our precious carpet. Thanks Grandma Megan, it used to be a nice rug!!!

Camping with Eli

This weekend was spent with some of our good friends at Deadman's Lake near Harlowton. We had a good time catching up and attempted some fishing. This was our first official camping trip with Eli and he had a blast. We left very late on Friday and arrived at the Mauws ranch around 12:30. Our wakeup call came at 5:30 from little Issac. We then went to the lake and...

FIVE MINUTES later...Eli finds the one mudhole in camp!

This is where he got stuck. That was the first pair of shoes, good thing mom came prepared with 2 other pairs.

Here is Eli's little buddy, Issac Mauws. They are 11 months apart and I have a feeling that when they get older, they might act like their parents and have a little too much fun!

Here is "Uncle" Bjorn giving Eli his first pet carp.

Eli is taking his carp for a walk. He named him Squishy.

I almost thought that Eli was going to give this fish a kiss! He was just saying hi to his new friend. Notice the rubber shoes. Those came in handy when we had to wash off the mud. All in all it was a good (but tiring) weekend spent drinking beer and washing the mud off of our child.

Waterbaby

You would think that I had been one of those hippy moms that insisted on having a baby in the tub (you know, the natural way!) My son LOVES the water. I can't keep him out of it. If there is a puddle on the ground he is going to try to swim in it. So I caved and bought Eli a swimming pool. See below, that is is big enough to hold mom. It was 80 degrees out and I didn't feel like putting on a swimming suit...don't hold it against me. (Maybe I am a hippy...)

See comment above about water births...looks like I'm trying to have another in the pool!
Here is Eli lounging on his floatie toy. He's perfectly content at the moment.
We ventured out to Hungry Horse Lake on Friday. Here is Dad trying to keep Eli out of the water. He also showed his son how to skip rocks...a skill that must be taught by his father, because his mother lacks the coordination!
I'm just trying to keep Eli out of the deep water. It's like trying to herd cats with him sometimes! I wore the wrong shoes on this outing and ended up getting very wet. My wedding shoes will never be the same.
Eli insisted on going in the deep water to fetch this stick. He was pretty proud.

Here's the fun part...dragging my son kicking and screaming out of the lake!

I ended up just throwing him over my shoulder like a sack of taters. A really squirmy, wet sack of taters! I'm just going to give up trying to wear nice clothes...they either end up wet or covered in unidentifiable substances!!

Eli Changing a Tire

Okay...I'm a little out of order with the dates, but this was just too darn cute not to post. Just as I was putting Eli to bed a couple of weeks ago, Dad strolled into the house. Up popped Eli out of bed, running to see his "Da". Of course Da had a fun project that involved checking that the lugnuts were tight on his work pickup. (He wasn't sure if the guy that put his tires on went to "tire school". Old Ron White joke...couldn't help myself) So decked out in his XMas pj's Eli went outside to give Da a hand.

What a tough little bugger...I have a hard time with a tire iron. Guess I will have Eli change my tires from here on out!

Now he's got one glove on and is still being very helpful.

I love the look on his face. I think he's saying, "Da, just get out of my way and let me do this!"

Now he's pretty proud of himself that he has two gloves on. Time to work!

This was just one of those father-son moments. Eli has always liked things with tires and engines. Even as we speak, he is watching "Cars" and saying "vrrooom, vrrooom" every time Lightening McQueen goes around the track.

Eli Feeding the Horses

We spent Memorial Day weekend in Chinook on the ranch. I decided to give Eli a lesson in how to make Grandpa's horses even fatter than they already are! First, pull out some really long grass left over from Mom's jungle-mowing excursion.

Then, offer the grass to the ever eager and always hungry Little John.

Be careful not to get your fingers too close though!

Oooohhhh...we're getting braver. That's one hungry horse!!

Now feed the Horse with No Name (he shall remain nameless since he canned Grandpa earlier in the year!) Notice how Eli has gotten brave enough to put his whole arm through the fence.

Now we're making very fast laps to get grass. I don't think one blade of grass is going to do it though...these are some starving beasts!

This horse is picky...he won't even eat weeds!

Just for giggles, I took a picture from Eli's perspective. It's kind of scary.

This is the face I got when I told him the horses were full...that's just sad!!!

Catching Up with the Heils

Well, it's been a long time since we've updated our blog. Sorry we fell behind...it's been a crazy couple of months. As you can see Eli is doing very well and has pretty much recovered from his ordeal. I just spent a week away from him and so I felt obligated to spoil him today. I threw caution into the wind and let Eli have at a Dilly Bar from DQ. He enjoyed it very much (although I'm not so sure the car seat will ever be the same!) This also ended with a hose bath in the yard when we got home (Eli loved it of course!) I also bought him a swimming pool but of course it was too cold to use today. We've finally settled into the new rental house and are in the works to sell our house in Hamilton (finally!!) I love our new place...it sits on 80 wooded acres so there is plently of room for the dogs (and Eli) to run.

Here is Eli running up our driveway. We go back to Spokane on June 18th for a checkup and then we are in the clear for another 6 months and then another checkup at 1 year. All I have to do is look at the pictures we took and I get choked up. We came very close to losing Eli and it really puts things into perspective.

I will end this on a happy note...Lewy and I just celebrated our 3rd anniversary. We spent it away from each other since I was in Idaho Falls helping my aunt & uncle move. I truly am a lucky girl to have such a loving husband and a wonderful son in my life.