Eli in February

Eli just said to me:  "Maybe we can give coats and gloves and shoes to the people who don't have homes!"  Love that little guy's thoughts sometimes!

Eli's favorite things at 4 years, 9 months:
-the color red.  if he ever has a choice, the thing he wants must be red.  sometimes, if i give him something that isn't red, he has a mini-tantrum.
-Lions. He's been big into lions for a while now.  He has a lion hat and talks about lions all the time.
-He always says his favorite letter is A and number is 1.  (Yes, I showed him a bottle of A1 sauce).
-He's on a HUGE orange/grapfruit kick right now
-He LOVES playing Super Mario Brothers.  He must be Mario (red) and I must be Luigi.  He's gotten pretty good at the game! We've made it to the final castle.  I usually play with him when Brielle goes down for her second nap.
-He picked his own pair of shoes out at The Children's Place the other day and was SO proud to show them to everyone.
-Likes reading about animals, animal showdowns, etc.  We've been reading a Predators book that he loves.   That's his favorite book right now.  He still likes watching the Wild Kratts.
-Is still big into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Raphael, the red one) and Transformers.


We've been getting tons of snowstorms this winter, and usually the kids don't get much of a chance to play in the snow except for the block walk to school and back, when they like to pick up hunks of snow and call it CHI (from lego chima).  One day last week, I took them over to the empty basketball courts so they could play, but their hands got wet quickly and Eli started whining.  We lasted about 10 minutes.  Monday was Mike's birthday and he was home, so I jumped on the opportunity and ran out to buy sleds.  We trekked (and I do mean trekked...it was not easy) over to Inwood Hill Park, pulling the boys in sleds, and got to go down a big hill!  The boys probably took about 5 runs each...some solo and some with me and Mike.  They had a lot of fun but got cold and tired quickly.  It was hard work trudging back up that hill in the snow!  It was a short trip, but we had a lot of fun!

Yesterday, the 4th, we took them bowling for the first time.  They got to use the dragon...the thing that lines up the ball for the kids... and the bumper guards...so the kids were able to get a few spares and strikes.  We went to Goodfella's pizza afterwards (great pizza place in Staten Island) and had fun eating with Lolo, Lola, Ann, Jaymin and Linamarie.

I asked Eli yesterday if he wanted to do karate or soccer and he said neither...that he wanted to play baseball.  So today, I signed him up for Inwood Little League...the 4-5 year old T-ball team.  The season starts in April and it looks like there will be one practice a week and one game every Sunday morning.  I told him about it and he is really excited.  It will be super cute to see him in his little uniform!