Eli's First Birthday

The last night in Mexico we celebrated Eli's birthday even though it was two days early. He was a little tired but still had fun with it.

 

At first he didn't know what we wanted him to do with this piece of cake sitting in front of him. Then I gave him a fork and he dug right in.

 

 

 

I think he ate a little but he mostly had a great time throwing it everywhere. He really likes throwing things right now. Looks like Daddy had a great time too!

 

The rest of us enjoyed an awesome fudge marble cake that Grandma made. I even got to blow out two books of matches stuck on top of my cake since my b-day was the next morning.

 

We did present time the next morning since Eli was pretty tired after the cake fun.

 

Hooray! Summer shirts from Grandma, plus shorts, swim trunks and sand trucks.

 

Next present, a fun stuffed Curious George from Mormor and shoes from Auntie Kirsten.

 

 

I am pretty sure he got some other stuff but my brain isn't working right now so we will call it good.

Mexico

We have been planning this trip to Mexico with my extended family for a year and a half. It was such a fun trip, but pretty tiring with 4 kids to take care of at the beach and traveling. We flew to Phoenix Saturday night and were so blessed to have Daniel's cousin welcome us into their home even though they had a housefull already. Thanks Jason and Debbie! Sunday we met up with the rest of the family at a Walmart in Phoenix, they had been driving since 5:00 in the morning. It was pretty cool and rained quite a bit in Phoenix that day, but by the time we reached Rocky Point it had cleared out. Both Daniel and I have been there a couple of times. The last time we went was when I was pregnant with Nora. The place actually hadn't changed as much as I was afraid it had. It helped, of course, that we went so early in the year so there were very few people around. The first day we got there we went exploring the rock pools down the beach.

 

This is Myka with the first critters that we found, tiny little sea snails that were easy to spot if you just stopped and looked.

 

Myka and Senna getting friendly with the water

 

Nora and Savannah being silly girls.

 

Kyla and Mommy

 

Spencer, Senna, Myka, Kyla, Mommy, Mormor, Kirsten, Grandpa Frank, Nora, and Savannah. There were so many creatures in these pools, but mostly hermit crabs. I decided the crabs must have a prettiest shell contest because it seemed like all the prettiest shellls were inhabited. Sometimes we found this out when they were trying to walk off our porch and back to the ocean. I am not sure how long my Dad knelt in front of that pool but he had fun watching conches, shrimp, fish, hermit crabs, etc. right in that one spot.

 

Myka was excited for the opportunity to cover herself in mud.

 

Right in front of our houses was this sand bar that appeared when the tide went out. It was a lot of fun to wade across and comb the beach. We found a lot of sand dollars out there.

 

Kyla found this dead seahorse. Isn't it awesome! O.K. more slimy and nasty but we decided to see what happened if we let it dry. It dried nicely and now she has a great souvenir.

 

Daniel found this cool conch shell that was inhabited with quite an aggressive critter. It kept reaching out with it's foot? and trying to get Daniel to let it go.

 

On Tuesday we went in town to go shopping and see the local culture. Myka went and found this hat by herself and tried it.

 

We decided that Nora looked good in blue, so she decided to try on all the blue things she could find.

 

Daniel, Eli, Kyla, Mom, LeAira, Nora, Spencer, Myka, Kirsten, Matt, Savannah, Mormor, Grandpa, and Alis (everyone else was eating ice cream). There was a nice area by the edge of the ocean that had a nice look out, boardwalk, and sculptures.

 

This shrimp riding seaman was one of the great statues. Kyla, Eli, Nora, Savannah, Myka, & Senna.

 

Another statue - Spencer, Senna, Savannah, Nora, Kyla, and Myka.

 

Our own little beach bum. Eli with his crazy hair had fun sitting on the architecture. Do you see the silhouette of a person on the edge of this picture, with the hat and glasses. That is Grandma Cynthia. We were so lucky to have her come with us on this trip. She was such an amazing help. She did all of our shopping for us the day before and helped out so much making the meals, watching kids, cleaning up, etc, etc, etc. Thanks for coming with us Grandma. I wish I had more pictures of you on the beach though! Seems like she was always scouring the beach somewhere when we took shots of everyone.

 

I don't think that we got the best picture of this but it was cool how they had the balls on top and then the statue of the seagulls below that were right on the horizon.

Mexico Cont.

 

Eli really enjoyed being in the sand and water. He sat out here with his shovel and bucket for a long time. Then he discoverd the water and headed down to check it out.

 

I set him right at the edge where the waves would just barely reach him. He thought it was a bit shocking but fun.

 

Building sand castles - Daniel, Nora, Savannah, Spencer, LeAira, Laina, Kai, Kami, and Temara.

 

Our castle! It had a starfish on top and tons of neat shells around.

 

Two Mommas on the beach, me wearing my purchases from town the day before- a hat, sunglasses, and wrap(I can't remember what the guy called them).

 

Myka was so excited when she realized how fun it was to write in the wet sand the tide had left. Daniel helped her write lots of names.

 

She was very proud.

 

The three sisters having their "alone" time, Thora, Alis, and Ivy. They were all wearing these white mexican dresses.

 

The sand bar in front of our houses with a flock of pelicans taking a break. This time at Rocky Point we saw a lot fewer live creatures than before, I don't know if it was early in the year or what. We only saw the dolphins one day and previously we had seen them a couple times every day. We didn't see any rock crabs or sand crabs and only one big crab that gave a big fright to Senna. It seemed like before we had to watch out for the rays when walking out into the water on the sand, this time we didn't see them at all (although we weren't in the water much). But since it was so early in the year, I think the shell gathering was even better. I don't remember finding sand dollars or starfish before and we found some of the most unique shells. The beach was just covered with them wherever you went.

 

Another picture of the sand bar, this time with Savannah, Matt, and Myka in the distance.

 

The second time we ventured out to the rock pools Myka found this live starfish. She was pretty excited about it. I was a little bit sad that it was alive so we couldn't take it home, but at least we have this cute picture to remember it by. We also found a couple dead sea cucumbers.

 

Nora is holding a shell with a critter in it. We called the shells tiger conches because they were black and white striped. Here she is holding it so you can see the conch. They were very difficult to pry off the rocks.

 

This shows how big the shell was and all the spikes.

 

I was so loving the sunsets out there. We don't see sunsets here in Michigan, pretty much ever. We kind of saw one when we were waiting at the airport. I got upset when people wanted to be inside eating when such a spectacular thing was happening outside.

 

I was trying to get someone in my sunset but it was going fast.

 

The cousins singing and dancing show! Nora emmceed, Kyla and Senna played the instruments (racket and bucket), while Savannah and Kaira danced their puppets, and Laina was just cute.

Pictures I wish I had taken-three girls digging their trench, our house inside and out, the desert and nothingness on the other side of the houses, our family on the beach, more pictures with Grandma, masked dancing men with Myka. If you have any of these pictures will you send them to me, or any others that you think I might like, thanks.

Early Easter Fun

Since the next couple of weekends are pretty busy for our two families, we decided to get together with the Ruesch's for our annual Easter fun today. I should have taken pictures of the food. It has become tradition to have homemade sushi and this year we had potstickers and edamame to go along with it. The kids also enjoyed chicken nuggets and plain rice, and since they could use chopsticks most of them tried the sushi too.

They had a lot of fun dying eggs and then it was time for the Easter egg hunt. The kids voted to have it inside, which surprised us. Maybe it was just because that is what we have ended up doing in the past. This whole week has been fabulous weather but today stayed cool and cloudy. Look What I Found!Eli loves to hang on our legs.Everyone having fun going through their eggs, sorting, trading, and for some stuffing their mouths full as quickly as they could before someone stopped them.
Eli nabbed a sucker out of somebody's bag so we decided to let him have it, until he started drooling it all over.




Hooray for such a fun day!!! I liked doing it earlier, now we have a couple of weeks to enjoy the spoils of the hunt before we have to shove it all back in boxes again.