Before bed, Eli asks for a tractor story every night.  From the picture above, I guess you can tell where his passions lie right now.  The other night, he told me a tractor story – his first ever story by the way…

“Mommy, I tell you tacter tory tonight!  Once pon time, Ewi ride tacter and Daddy ride tacter.  They did fix barber wire so cows tay in.  Me-cans hewp.  Ewi did dwive fast.  Daddy did dwive fast.  Ewi put crewdwiver, hammer and naiws on wagon.  I carwied hay on wagon, too.  I do wike hewp Daddy.  De end.”

Translation:  Mommy, I’ll tell you a tractor story tonight!  Once upon a time, Eli rode a tractor and Daddy rode a tractor.  They did fix barbed wire so the cows would stay in .  Our Mexican friends helped us.  Eli did drive fast.  Daddy did drive fast.  Eli put a screwdriver, hammer and nails on the wagon.  I carried hay on the wagon, too.  I do like to help Daddy.  The end.

Two and a half year olds are so precious!  He is always making me smile.  I thought I’d take a few minutes to jot down some memorable conversations as they are ever-fading…

Steve and the big kids passed by the house with a wagon full of hay to unload.  Eli said, “Mommy, mommy, can I go hewp, too?  I not a wittle boy anymore, I a big man.”  After this, he proceeded to flex his muscles and growl.  (He got to go help.  ;o)

He hates bandaids.  A sore on his finger really needed a bandaid and some ointment.  He kept taking the bandaid off.  When I told him the sore wouldn’t heal without the bandaid and he really needed to keep it on, he looked at me just as matter of factly as possible and said, “I’ll let God heal my finger inthead.”

We have a deal right now.  He doesn’t want to take naps anymore, but he doesn’t want to give up the diapers for #2 either.  As long as he continues to poo in diapers, he has to continue taking a nap.  He’s good with the deal and so am I!

He’s my little nature walk buddy.  I guess since he’s so close to the ground, he’s really good at finding awesome nature treasures.  Anytime we take a walk, he says, “We’re going on a nature walk!”  And about every two feet I hear, “Wook, mommy!  Wook!”

He went trick-or-treating for the first time last year and loved it.  What kid doesn’t like getting a big bucket of candy, right?  I asked him last week what he wanted to be for Halloween this year and he immediately said, “You mean candy Halloween?  I like dat!”

Eli is always concerned when he sees a child or animal without its mommy.  If he’s watching a cartoon and sees only one of a certain animal for instance, he asks, “Where dat baby’th mommy?”  He never seems to worry about the daddy, though.  He just says, “The daddy probwy out checking cowth.”  Hmmm….Steve, ya think you might check cows a little too often??

At the Creation Museum, there’s a presentation where the chairs shake once in awhile for effect during the show.  After returning from the museum recently, Eli was giving his daddy a rundown of the day…”And thomebody was crawling under our chair to make it move!”

Eli looked deep into my eyes one afternoon and finally said, “If you give me your big rolling ballth (balls), I’ll give you my wittle rolling ballth.”  He was talking about exchanging eyeballs!  I found out later he’d offered the same deal to his sister!

Caleb had a loose tooth that he really wanted out.  He tied a string to his tooth and a door knob.  This scared Eli and he begged Caleb to stop.  He cried and called for us.  When we told Eli it was okay and left the room, Eli took matters into his own hands.  He grabbed a pair of safety scissors and cut the string so Caleb would have to stop!

He and his brother and daddy wrestle sometimes.  Eli’s wrestling name is Cheesy Charlie.  His daddy always starts the match by saying, “And in this corner…Cheesy Charlie” while he lifts his arm in the air.  Then the match begins.  The other day he walked up to me in the kitchen and asked me to call him Cheesy Charlie.  I did and he said, “No, you have to lift my arm up.”  So I went through the motions like his daddy does and he ran into the other room to his brother and sister and said, “Now I’m ready to fight, who wants to wrethle?”

To his sister, “Thithy, you’re my betht fwiend.”

To his mommy, whispered, “You’re beautiful.”

After seeing our wedding picture he said, “Mommy, I did thee you at your wedding.  I’m gonna have a picture at my wedding, too.”  (Who are you going to marry, Eli?)  “Mommy and Eli will get married.”  He’s the third man in my life who’s wanted to marry me at one point or another.  I don’t think Steve’s too jealous, though. 

I’ll end with one of Eli’s recent prayers…”Dear God, wank (thank) you for Bubby’s go-cart working, wank you for my thwides (slides), my big thwide and my wittle thwide.  Wank you for my mommy, my daddy, my thithy, my bubby and my Ewi (Eli).  Wank you for Jethuth (Jesus).  Wank you for God.  Amen.

]]> http://ourjourneywestward.com/2009/10/moments-with-eli/feed/ 6 http://ourjourneywestward.com/2007/10/our-field-trip-notebooks/ http://ourjourneywestward.com/2007/10/our-field-trip-notebooks/#comments Thu, 04 Oct 2007 00:29:00 +0000 Cindy http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/westward/400368/ After coming back from Michigan with 100 pictures, several brochures and tons of memories, I racked my brain for a practical way to put it all together.  Then I remembered Sheri’s blog and the notebooks she uses with her Five In A Row studies.  Perfect!

I found the 10×10″ spiral notebooks in the scrapbooking section at Walmart.  The covers are plain and colored, so they will decorate nicely when we get around to it.  Inside, there are 50 card stock, archival quality pages just the perfect size for a memories journal.

I copied several pictures from the trip in wallet size.  Then, gave the kiddos the pictures, some brochures, scissors and glue sticks, and let them have at it.  The only thing I asked was that they write some of their memories on each page.  How’s that for a secret writing lesson?

They loved this “assignment”!  We all agreed that we should try to do a page or two for each of the field trips we take this year.  What a great keepsake these will make!

I hope my children have rich stories full of wonderful memories to talk about! I hope there will be many bright and beautiful moments that stand out in their minds that they want to share with their children. Moments that they want to recreate with their children!

I won’t mind talking about the daily grind of chores and school work. I won’t mind talking about the rotten days when we all grumped around. I won’t mind talking about anything really. I’ll just be all smiles that my children and grandchildren are at my table! But I sure will be happy when the conversation turns consistently to the things that I purposely set out to do when they were children that I wanted them to remember when they grew up.

Things like a trip to the museum, a tea party, jumping on the trampoline together, mom acting like a crazy woman when they made a homerun, weekly picnics at the park during the summer, water balloon fights, snuggling on the couch with good books, making special meals together, pillow and blanket forts, hikes to the creek………………

Everything so simple, yet so important.

I hope your table will be filled with special memories!

Related Tags: making memories, homeschool

The Blessings Book

Several weeks before your child’s 13^th birthday, ask them to name 13 people whom they consider to be godly men or women. Girls would name ladies, boys would name men.

Then, contact each of those people and ask if they would write a letter to your child. The letter should include their salvation story, a short description of how being a Christian has changed them or made their life better, and advice for your child as they go into their teen and young adult years.

After all the letters come in, you put them together into a beautiful keepsake book to present to your child on their 13^th birthday. Hopefully, Mom and Dad will include letters, too. Brothers & sisters, grandparents and aunts & uncles could be asked to write letters, as well.

What a treasure for your child as they enter “the growing up” years! What a tradition to start in your family!

I hope your children receive many blessings!!

Related Tags: blessings, memories, teenagers