Elli learning to ride her bike.

We tried a couple months ago to teach Elli how to ride her bike, but she was terrified about riding with no training wheels.  So we stopped trying.  But a couple days before we decided to try again, she had a friend, Leslie, who has the same bike as her, riding without training wheels.  So Elli decided she wanted to learn. 

 

And it literally took about 10 minutes for her to be completely able to ride with no training wheels.  She was so comfortable riding her bike.  She is loving this.  She wants to ride her bike to school everyday now.

Elli only fell down about 2 or 3 times.  She got the hang of this pretty quick!!  

Oh, I love this girl! 

Baby Cash!!

My oldest sister, Lisa, had her 5th baby (ALL BOYS) on April 23rd.  My mom and I went down to the hospital at 11:30 at night to be in the room when she was having her baby and we literally missed the birth by 4 minutes.  Her husband called us about 10:30 saying it's gonna happen soon, but not to be in too big of a hurry.  So we got ready to go and in between that time, Lisa progressed FAST.

(He was born 30 minutes too early.  Caleb's birthday is April 24th)

We stopped by (basically because I was anxious to hold him again!!) to let the kids see baby Cash McKay. He is such a mix of all his older brothers.  Every time I see him, he looks like a different brother.

Caleb kept saying, "Baby, baby!" in the cutest little Caleb voice.  Tonight while we had our monthly Harper FHE dinner, Caleb was more concerned about holding the baby than he was about eating ice cream.  He threw a fit when I wouldn't let him hold Cash (Caleb has a cough) 

We love our Cash!!

Caleb turned TWO

My little boy turned 2 in April.  Who would of thought it's been 2 years since he was born.  Caleb has his moments, but he really is a sweet boy and will give us kisses on demand. He is a little lover and still cuddles with us. 

But the Sunday before his birthday, we had a little April birthday dinner for the April birthdays on the Harper side.

Elli was confused and thought she could open the presents and then keep the presents.
(Look at those tongues... so cute!!)

Caleb got a new bike.  He has been riding Elli's princess bikes and such, so I thought it was time he got his own. Can you tell he was excited??  His face says it all.

He still is trying to figure out that the pedals will make the bike go. 

We had a little party for him with just our little family.

The yummy cake.  I got Thrifty ice cream (Chocolate Malt) and made an ice cream cake.  Mmmmm, it was delish.

Caleb understood what to do!!

(So did Mark....obviously!!) 

:)

Caleb LOVES Toy Story and so I got him some Toy Story Legos.  Basically, I have been looking for an excuse to buy some of those legos because they are so stinkin' cute.  Caleb can't build them, but he would love to play with them.  So I got those so Braeden and Caleb could play with them together.  But it looks like Braeden took over.  

Some things about Caleb......

1. He FINALLY has decided to start talking.  He just hasn't been interested in it and a week before his birthday, me and him were at the grocery store and out of the blue, Caleb said, "MOMMY" in the cutest little voice.  He has never said that before.  He always said Daddy.  So that was pretty exciting for me. 

2. Caleb can climb like no other. At parks, he will climb up on play sets and I have total trust in him climbing those things while other mothers are looking at me like I'm crazy for letting him climb like that. All my kids have been monkeys like that.

3. He definitely knows what he wants.  He has a very determined personality. 

4. He gives the sweetest kisses to Mark and I and he lets us eat him up.

5. He will (most of the time) clean up a mess he made if we ask him to.

6. Will play outside all day if I let him.

7. Can entertain himself. He is very content being by himself and will even tell me to leave if he doesn't want me there.

8. He has the cutest and most contagious laugh ever. If you get him going, he can go forever and it such a cute laugh.

9. He has been able to climb out of his bed since before he was one. So it isn't very fun putting him to bed.  He gets out of his crib on a average of 5 times. We have tried Supernanny's approach at keeping him in bed and it hasn't worked, so it is something that just happens with him.

10. He will come running up to me or Mark and jump in our arms if we kneel on the floor at his level.  He really has a tender heart for his mommy and daddy.

HAPPY (late) BIRTHDAY CHUBS!!!

I went out to the outside freezer and my little buddy followed me. I grabbed some chicken and I didn't even see Caleb grab anything.

But in a short time of me being outside, Caleb had grabbed this package of cookies, climbed in his highchair and was waiting for me when I walked in the door.

(This is him saying "Please" in sign language.  He does this whenever he wants something.)

It was so cute looking at him when I got in the house. He was so certain he got what he wanted. 

Look at that smile.  He was so excited to get a cookie.  Well, I ended up giving him an Oreo instead.

Easter

We had a great Easter weekend with many Easter Egg Hunts. The Saturday before, we were at Gma & Gpa Harper's house for the Harper Family Easter festivities.  A yummy lunch, Easter story and egg hunt.  

Caleb was so funny.  He did eventually get the hang of finding an egg and then opening it up to eat the candy.  But he didn't realize that if he would just keep looking for eggs instead of stopping to eat what's inside, he would have had more candy.  Or more money.  The Easter eggs at G & G Harper's party has money in it.  I think Elli was lucky to find a $5 bill and Braeden found 2 $2 bills.  And they have lots of coins from their hunt.

I got Braeden to stop for a second and somewhat smile for a picture.

So fun!!

After everyone left, Braeden & Elli decorated Easter eggs while the sleepy animal (Caleb) took a nap. He was way too exhausted to enjoy this. Oh and I was too exhausted to go downstairs and get an old shirt for Elli to wear while we decorated, so she went shirtless.

The kids were kind enough to let us sleep in a little bit and not bug us about seeing what the Easter Bunny left.

Then we headed to Brig and Camille's crazy house.  Brig had just gotten home from the hospital from an infection in his leg from a surgery a few weeks prior. But they still wanted family to come over and celebrate Easter.  It was fun getting together and having another Easter egg hunt.

Elli had spilled some of her Easter eggs and in that bush was the GOLDEN egg. A special egg with a special prize.  Mark thought he hid that egg REALLY well. But since Elli dropped her basket, she found the GOLDEN egg!!  LUCKY!!  She got a silver dollar!!

Looking through all his treasures!!

Compare and contrast..... maybe a few trades.

The 3 little cousins that are about 4 months apart.  Carter on the left, Caleb, and Eli.  I took about 15 pictures of these guys. It was funny to watch each picture being flipped through.  It was like watching each of them reaching in their basket and opening a piece of candy to eat it. Pretty funny!!

The Easter Pageant

It has definitely been a while since we have been to the Easter Pageant.  So we took the kids one night. Elli was asking me questions the whole time about what was going on.  Then all of a sudden the questions stopped.  She had fallen asleep.  Kind of funny!!

Couldn't see the stage too well, but it's there.

Elli's photography skills...

Braeden's photography skills...