A Wonderful Trip!

  We recently got back from a wonderful trip to North Carolina!  First, we saw my cousin, Christy, get married to a great guy, Dustin!  It was a beautiful wedding, and the reception was very fun, especially for the kids who loved dancing the afternoon away!  Eli looked especially cute in his little suit.

After the wedding, we drove, along with Nannie and Paw Paw, to the Outer Banks for a couple days!  We stayed just north of Nags Head in Kill Devil Hills right on the beach!  We saw some beautiful lighthouses, visited the place where the Wright Brothers took their first flight, went to Roanoke Island to see interactive exhibits of the first settlements and an old English ship, as well as interactive exhibits of life in the old times--complete with dress-up areas, enjoyed the great restaurants, and collected some beautiful sea shells!  And, of course, spending the time together as a family was priceless!  It seemed way too short, of course!  But the Weaver clan gets to look forward to a 2-week-long road trip to northern Wisconsin and Michigan in August! 

Future Gymnast???

Eli and I go to The Little Gym together every Thursday morning.  For those of you who do not know what the Little Gym is, it's a 45-minute long "class" where they do group activities for part of the time, and play on mats and other gymnastics equipment (down-sized for toddlers) for the rest of the time.  Eli LOVES going and he's gotten really good at using the equipment!  On Thursday mornings when we get ready to go, he says "GYM!!!"  I'm posting a few pictures on here of him "performing" at the gym.  They may be a little fuzzy because they were taken with my cell phone, but you'll get the idea, anyway...  :)

My Little Clown

Eli is certainly becoming a more active and show-off-y little guy!  As he grows older (I cannot believe we're closing in on 2!), he gets funnier every day.  And he loves to make people laugh.  But, of course, like all toddlers, he likes to do his own thing, too.  He has finally figured out "no," so when I say "let's do ..." he loves to say "no."  Of course at the moment it's pretty cute, but I'm sure the cuteness will wear off really quick.  Another favorite is "again??"  That's pretty cute, too, until he gets upset when the "again" can't happen.  ;)  So, here are a couple pictures of Eli being a VERY cute and funny little guy.  (Yeah--in the third picture, he's wearing Hannah's shoes.  LOL)  I'm also including a silly one of Hannah, as well as a really great picture of Hannah and Eli reading a Dr. Seuss book with Gabah. 

The Games Kids Play

I've really enjoyed seeing the differences between what Hannah liked(s) playing with and what Eli enjoys playing with.  There are some things, of course, that they both enjoy.  But there are some things that Eli loves that Hannah never touched, and toys that Hannah loved that he'll never touch!  One of the things Eli loves to play with is a hammering toy from the 60s.  All you do is hammer the six pegs, then flip it over and hammer them again.  And again.  And again.  He LOVES it!  Hannah's favorite things to do are almost always pretend play/dolls and some art. 

Meteorite!

On April 15th, I was sitting downstairs and saw out my window an incredibly bright flash of light followed by an intense fireball falling towards the ground.  It was really scary at the time, but it turns out that it was actually a meteor!  It was very fascinating, and I feel so fortunate to have been able to witness it!  A few people in western Wisconsin were able to find seven pieces of the meteorite (one even still has grass on it!) and loaned them to the UW Geology Museum, so they had them on display during the week, and, of course, we HAD to go see them!  It was so cool to see these tiny "rocks" and know that they are what I saw fall through the sky as a giant fireball!  Awesome. 

The Band Concert

On Thursday night, Hannah, Mom, and I went to the UW Band Concert for the 3rd year in a row (I think...?)  Eli stayed home with a babysitter and had lots of fun, too.  It was a wonderful concert, although a little long--over 3 hours!  One of the highlights was a steel drum player who was amazing!  He could play incredibly fast--it was really great to listen to!  And, of course, the band played all the favorites, too.  It was the 100th Anniversary of "On Wisconsin," so we heard that song A LOT, and in many different forms.  Near the end of the concert, Bucky was leaving and Hannah got to give him a high five, so that was a real highlight for her!  A great time was had by all!

Toothless!

This post and the next are going to be out of order because of not having uploaded some pictures yet, but I just had to go ahead and post about Hannah's big news!  She has finally lost her first tooth!  It was a pretty long and painful process, but she was SO brave in the end.  She went through a couple days where she wouldn't eat because it hurt too badly, and the tooth would bleed, so she was getting pretty hungry!!  She was pretty much living off of smoothies and juice!  So, yesterday afternoon, I was telling her about how Gabah used to pull my teeth out when I was little and how much better I felt afterwards and how I could eat then and how it only hurt for a second...  and finally she agreed to do it.  There were A LOT of tears while Gabah tried to get a good grip (which was hard since Hannah didn't want to hold still!) but persistence prevailed, and Hannah got her first visit from the Tooth Fairy last night!!  (She also got to go to dinner last night and eat her first real meal in a couple days!  And boy did she ever eat!!)