Eli is 3!

Somehow I blinked and my baby turned 3.  Not such a baby anymore, sadly.  It is so fun to watch him grow, though.  

Eli's main request for his birthday was a "dark-blue Cookie Monster cake".

This was the result:

He loved it!

We were all hoping for a snow day on Eli's birthday.  It was a Monday and the conditions were favorable.  Sadly, it didn't happen.  So, it was off to school and work for all of us.  I dropped Eli off at the babysitter's house and just had to take some pictures.  Every day he is very excited to ring the "doing-bell" (doorbell) and then he kind of hides to the side of the door and makes this adorable face:

I love it--it's one of my favorite moments of the day, along with when I pick him up.  He had fun at Gracie's and had a good nap.  Then, it was dinner time (he picked chicken and stuffing).  Then he got to open his presents:

He's the perfect age for opening presents.  He was so excited and grateful for all of them and so sweet about giving hugs.  He especially loved the Darth Vader cape Nate got him from the dollar store and his new Star Wars backpack.  He was so excited to show it to Gracie the next day.

After presents, we had cake and ice cream.  He was so excited that "Becember 14th" finally came!  

He's so funny, though, because he doesn't want to be too big.  If someone says that he's getting so big he'll say, "I don't want to be so big, just a yittle big like Nate."  I've just started potty training him and he repeats this every time we cheer about what a big boy he is.  I love it.  He wants to be just like his big brother Nate.  (Update: As of two days in, potty training is going really well!  He's marked 13 boxes on his potty chart.  He stayed dry during his nap yesterday and when he went to the library today.  Still no #2's though so we'll see how that goes.)

Eli is very much the baby of the family.  He's very sweet and makes us all laugh with the things he says and his little antics.  He can also be a bit of terror and Joe and I are working hard to try not to spoil him.  It's hard.  He still manages to sneak away from the dinner table without finishing his food a lot of the time, and we're not as consistent as we should be about making sure he does his dinner job (putting silverware away) and other clean-up jobs, like we are with the other kids.  

Some of Eli's favorite things to eat are yogurt, chicken nuggets, quesadillas, and soda.  He is getting better and isn't quite as picky as he used to be.  He'll now eat salad pretty well, and potatoes, too.  He used to refuse those.  Eli loves to color, play with play dough, play on the computer, and watch other people play Wii.  That is probably his favorite thing.  Often my one-on-one time with Eli after school is spent playing Wii with him on my lap.  I've gotten to be almost as good as I was when I was a kid!  He loves Mario and frequently tells my stories about Bowser and how he's going to beat him.  One of these days maybe he'll start playing himself, but for now, he's content with watching.  He loves to read books, too, and still loves Elephant and Piggie books.  We got an awesome video of him "reading" one of the books to me.  He got pretty much every page right!  We read them a lot. :)

He can also write his name:

He often doesn't want to listen to me when I tell him the order of the letters in his name but he knows it has an "e", "l" and an "i".  

His cuddles and tight hugs are the best.

We sure love our Eli!