A First...

So in Eli's short life almost 21 months, he's only ever had family member's babysit him. Now that doesn't include Kim... who is practically family since these days she sees Eli more than Nico and I do.

In other words, we've never had a kid babysit Eli. Well... Saturday was a first. Nico had an out of town wedding and I was invited to a Birthday party for the girlfriend of one of the football coaches. It was only for 2 hours and he was going to be sleeping the whole time. So we figured, why not just have a kid come sit at our house and watch TV and be here just in case.


Friday night I asked Kacie if she'd do it. I had her in class (she's a freshman now) and she played volleyball for me. She lives just like 2 streets away... it worked out perfect.


She laughed, but I told her I had to take her picture and it would be on the blog because this was a monumental event in Eli's life (even if he slept right through it, which he did)

Thanks Kacie for letting me be a crazy mom!! Next time, we'll see if we can't have him still be awake!! :)

Homecoming

I'm disappointed in myself for my LACK of Homecoming pictures, so I'm just apologizing now. The football is always brought in by skydivers and this year was no exception. I wish I would have taken a picture of Eli's face when he was watching, he was in sheer amazement. It was awesome. Unfortunately, the game was not so great. But here's a fun picture of Eli, Cora and Keenan.

Near the end of the game, not too many people were left (tells you about the game too :( So no one was around to snap our picture. So here's Eli and my self portrait.

Eli made it the whole game, thanks to some popcorn and a balloon by the queen candidates. So he got a chance to see his daddy.

Better luck next week vs Bellmont!! :)

Jessica's Wedding

Jessica is a family friend of the Tigulis'. They grew up next door to each other and was like the little sister the boys never had. She got married the beginning of September in Indy (she lives in Colorado now) so we made the trek down for the big day. Here's the beautiful bride.

It was at the Indiana Historical Society, so I was in Heaven... I think I tried every door possible, but they were all locked. :( It was an elegant affair which was a bit tricky with a 20 month old, but we made it work. Here's Eli with Baba and Dedo.

A little family shot... yes I did plan our outfits :) Silly I know, but I only do it for special events :)

My 2 boys walking down the stairs...

The LOVES of my life... don't you just love that picture... just ignore the milk dripping down Eli's chin :) :)

Aunt Sahsha's Birthday

Sahsha's Birthday was Sept 11th, but because of busy schedules we didn't celebrate it until the 12th. We went to O'Charlies (where kids eat free... score :) for dinner then back to our house for some cake and ice cream!!
Eli was STARVING, so needless to say he wasn't the most pleasant child... put it to you this way both is uncles were thinking about not having children after his tirade :) Once he got some food in him though, he was great. He loved his Mac and Cheese.... can you tell???

Aunt Sahsha got lots of gift cards to go shopping with and the "mandatory" present from Eli. Eli had to help her open the present from him.

We had her favorite yellow cake and chocolate icing and I even bought fresh ice cream so the Tigulis' boys wouldn't holler about freezer burn ice cream. :) :) Eli was in heaven, he just went from aunt to uncle to mommy to dedo for cake and ice cream. He probably had total 2 pieces of cake and a whole bowl of ice cream... but it was a special day, Aunt Sahsha's Birthday!!

Hope you had a WONDERFUL BIRTHDAY!!


WE LOVE YOU!!

Bye Bye Amboy!!

Today we drove to Amboy for the last times... Andy and Andrea sold their house and are moving. Now where they are moving to is still to be determined!! :) They know it will be somewhere on the North side of Indy, but are still looking at houses. But they have to be out of their house by Friday, so we went down Sunday to help move.

We debated bringing Eli... when you bring him, someones got to watch him and therefore that person doesn't help in the moving all that much. But since they had lots of people there and almost everyone was there including Patty and Patrick we took Eli with us!!

We are so happy for Andy and Andrea and can't wait until they find a new house... Eli hopes it has a play set!! :) Love you guys!!

Family Time

Since we've been crazy busy, we thought it would be good to spend some quality family time together this long weekend. We went to one of Eli's favorite places... The Zoo!! Doesn't he look so grown up in that picture above?

Since we were with Daddy, we went on his favorite ride, the Australian Log Ride.

Here's what they were looking at...

Here's Eli and mommy on the Log Ride...

and in the play train...

Eli LOVES this Tree House. He now even knows where it is in the Rainforest Area and begs to get out of his stroller as soon as we pass the Tigers :)

Carroll vs Marion

The first home football game was Friday night vs Marion. Got to admit that I was a bit nervous... not so much for the game, but how I was going to keep a 20 month old in the bleachers for an entire game. Oh how my life had changed... there was a point in my life when I was nervous for the game!! :) :)

Thank goodness for fruit snacks, popcorn and the band. Yes, I did say the band. Our kid LOVES the band.

He was just mesmerized!!

Here's more pictures of Eli during the half time show...

He WAS NOT mesmerized by Charlie the Charger... didn't know about him!!

Luckily Keenan and Amanda were with us too. Keenan entertained Eli too!! Here they are trying to get a picture together... yeah right!! :)

Then we busted into the popcorn.

That held us for most of the rest of the game. We did have to take a little leg stretching between the 3rd and 4th quarter. But he held on for the whole game. I was so proud of him!!

Here's a GREAT picture Uncle Jason took of Eli and his daddy!!

Oh and by the way... Carroll won 21-7.

GO CHARGERS!!!

Hurricane Gustav

I'm sure you're all aware of Hurricane Gustav. They are predicting this Level 4 Hurricane is going to hit the Gulf Coast (including New Orleans and Texas) sometime early Tuesday. I'm asking that we all pray for people in those areas, especially those in New Orleans. It's only been 3 years since Katrina... I can't even imagine.

Hurricane Gustav is also "hitting" us closer to home too. My brother left on Thursday with a team of paramedics from Fort Wayne and Evansville heading to San Antonino. They were driving straight through and as of Saturday morning they were 300 miles outside of San Antonio. The plan is to have many extra health care workers in these areas (a bunch were sent to New Orleans too) so if Gustav does ends up being a major natural disaster people with the training and the know how to help are right there ready to go to help the people who need it.

So please, take a few seconds to send up a prayer for all those all around the world (including our military men and women and those in New Orleans and San Antonio) who have given up the comforts of their homes to help people they don't even know.

Kenny- we are so proud of you and are praying for your safety. Love you lots!!

And then School Started...

Actually school started the week between Sahsha's Bachelorett Party and Jason's Bachelor Party, so it was a little nutso around here. :)

But until this weekend we had no pictures from the middle of the month until now... we had no time for pictures, we were just trying to survive with school, football, volleyball, djing, finishing the basement, church, families and everything else. I think we're getting better now... we have a schedule (usually) so that helps. We make our lives as crazy as they are, so I shouldn't complain. :) We are lucky to have all the craziness we have!! We wouldn't know what to do if it was any different!! :)

Plus we have this to come home to every night... SO WORTH IT!!

Party Time for the Upcoming Bride and Groom

The Bachelorette Party was the evening after the Tigulis' Family shower, while the Bachelor Party was the next weekend. In what has become a tradition, the Bachelor Party was at our house. It followed the BSU Fantasy Football League Draft. So we had plenty of guys here for some quality fantasy football drafting, corn hole playing, beer drinking, and bachelor party celebrating.

But that's not to say the girls didn't have a good time of their own....

We had dinner at the Trolley Bar

with lots of fun martini's,

then off to Rum Runners.

We ended the night downtown at Flashbacks, sweating our booties off dancing the night away!!

At both parties a good time was had by all!!

Tigulis Shower

The next weekend, we threw Sahsha the Tigulis Family (AKA Macedonian shower) She was a little nervous, but she did a GREAT JOB!! She met lots of new people and again, got lots of GREAT gifts.

Here she is with her mother-in-law and her mom...

Here the Tigulis wives...

And because I'm just so proud of the center pieces Andrea and I created (with the wonderful help of Laurie) I'm going to be vain and post a picture of them. Forgive me, but I think they turned out so well, I'm just going to "toot our own horns" here!! :)

Tigulis Boys

Just too good of pictures of the Tigulis Boys not to post...

Boy these guys LOVE Eli!!

CHS Volleyball Party

August 2nd was VERY busy for us... just check out the last 2 posts :) We started off the morning with the Huntertown Heritage Days Parade, then I had Sahsha's shower, then we had a Carroll Volleyball coaches dinner. While I'm no longer coaching at the High School, they never hold that against us and ALWAYS invite us to be a part... which makes me so happy!! I am so blessed that God put these people in our lives. What started out as a random job interview at Don Pablo's (I still remember that guys:) has turned into a WONDERFUL friendship!!

Now lots of us have kids... Pandy has Andrew and Bailey. Here's Andrew sharing a ball with Eli. Andrew is an awesome kid! At these get togethers, he's always the oldest, but does such a GREAT job of playing with the little ones!!

Doug and Nicole have Gabrielle... who I can't believe will be one in a few months. How cute is she!!!

And we have Eli... who LOVED Doug and Nicole's swing set

Here's Nicole trying to play bubbles with Eli... but he kept sucking in rather than blowing out. We got quite a few laughs out of that!! :)

The High School Volleyball season has already started and Carroll just had a HUGE win over Snider (that's always a big win!! :) :) Not only are these good people, they are outstanding coaches!! Keep up the good work!! Good luck this season!!