March in a Moment

March was a month of mayhem! Here is a brief recap of selected events.

 Elliott played a lot of soccer. He's the kid in red being chased by the 2 kids in blue. I believe this was when he scored his second goal of the game, but maybe it was his third. (Can you tell we're really proud of how well he's doing?)

And here he is acting a fool during a game break.

 We met some friends to ride the Cottontail Express and had a fabulous time as always.

Even the creepy Easter Bunny was there.

And finally, Elliott went fishing and ATV riding at Uncle Blake's pond. His mom was just glad that no one got a fish hook to the hand or face; however, she really wishes that she hadn't seen this photo of her baby on a 4-wheeler.

Happy Birthday Mommy!

Thank you for being a great Mommy and sharing your birthday with me. - Elliott

Divided loyalties

Elliott is so ready for 4-year-old soccer to begin in March. But he doesn't want anyone to think he has abandoned his beloved football so he wears his Bama jersey with his soccer attire. :)

Sometimes this boy amazes me

At Elliott's old school's last parent-teacher conference a couple of weeks ago, his teacher mentioned that he "understands the relationship between letters and their sounds" better than any other kid in his class. So a couple of days later we wrote down some basic words (dog, cat, etc.) and asked him what they said. He started sounding out the letters and got them right! MY KID CAN READ, Y'ALL! 

(OK, not really. But he can read a few things and I am pretty impressed by my not-even-4-year-old.)

How did we get here?

Elliott starts "big boy school" in 30 minutes. His backpack and lunchbox are standing at the ready beside the front door. Wait a minute, wasn't this picture just taken yesterday??!!

I bet you thought we weren't coming back, right?

Well, you were wrong! We have just been so busy for the past month or two that we could hardly find any time to post. Elliott had a nice Christmas and a good time with all our visitors over the holidays. After insane amounts of time and testing, he has been accepted into the early preschool program at Hoover and we are getting ready to leave Hand in Hand where he has been since he was a baby. (GASP!) To keep from stressing out too much during this time of transition, we have been spending a lot of time outside. This weekend we went to Aldridge Gardens and to the zoo. Beautiful days!

PS--I resolve to be a better blogger. :)

Working the system

Last night when Elliott was not being a good listener at bath time and I was struggling to be patient, he warned me: "Mommy, if you get upset, you will be on Santa's naughty list." Well played, son. Well played.

A Star Is Born

Elliott's Christmas program went very well. They sang Suzy Snowflake (I'd never heard of it!) and couldn't have been any cuter.

Thankful for a moment to catch our breath

We broke with Thanksgiving tradition this year and accepted an invitation to join some family at the beach. We so desperately needed some time away from the stress and chaos that has filled our lives lately, and I'm happy that we could go. The weather was nothing but blue skies all weekend!

The only ones crazy enough to get in that 65-degree water were insane people, polar bears, and toddlers.  Elliott didn't actually swim. He would run out to the water and let the waves chase him in. But he fell down a few times and got submerged! Fortunately the air temp was around 75 so he never got too chilly. BRRRR!

Singing in the rain