"Cheeseburger!"

So as I mentioned in my post yesterday, we had Amber and her kids, Eli and Izzy over for a gluten free dinner last night. I made an apple-cranberry stuffed pork roast, mashed sweet potatoes for Amber and me (Travis wont touch them with a ten foot poll), and a salad. For the kids we made pigs in a blanket, mac n' cheese, and salad (those kids all love their salads, as long as they have ranch, they're good!).
Amber is on a strict gluten-free diet due to Celiacs. Her husband is gone a lot for work so she doesn't make 'big meals' all that often because half of the stuff that she would make for her husband and kids, she can't eat, so why make a big dinner if it's just her kids eating it? You can't expect a 3 and 4 year old to polish off a casserole! And really, even if she could eat it, without your spouse there to help you with the leftovers, it usually just ends up going to waste. I totally get it. There have been nights that it's just been Dylan and me for dinner and usually I just end up fixing Dylan whatever I have on hand and I just snack on little stuff here and there, or eat a salad, or whatever. So anyway, since Amber found out she had to go gluten-free, she has been living pretty much on salads. I figured it would be nice to fix her a MEAL that she could actually eat and then not feel bad about having too much and possibly wasting leftovers. The food was good.

As long as she wasn't lying to me, Amber enjoyed the pork and the sweet potatoes. As did I. Travis wasn't the biggest fan, but that didn't come as a shocker to me. He's not really a fan of meat that is sweet in any sort of way and with the apple-cranberry chutney, it was definitely sweet- and a little sour. So Travis ate around the chutney and then had a salad and some mac n' cheese. Eli, Izzy, and Dylan practically polished off all of their food. I was extremely impressed. And something else I was impressed with, was the fact that Dylan actually sat there and ate without getting up. I was worried that Dylan was going to be a bad influence on these kids while they were trying to eat, because usually when we have company over (and especially when some of that company are his friends) he tends to be so busy wanting to play, that he won't sit down and eat. But he sat there. The only time he got up was when Izzy was done eating and got up. He followed her, but quickly returned to finish eating. So it turns out, their good meal time behavior and great appetites proved to be a GOOD influence for Dylan. Maybe we should have them over for dinner more often!

After dinner we sat around and talked for a while and the kids played. We caught up with them after a while in Dylan's room and they were being silly. Eli was showing us some tricks, Izzy was just having a blast with all new toys, and Dylan was trying to copy Eli's tricks.

Eli started out by showing us a few of his push up and crunch moves and then moved on to head stands. That's about the time I grabbed the camera....

Dylan kept trying to get his feet up there and got pretty close at one point, but anytime Trav would try to help him out, he would get scared and want down!

He was jumping down from his head stand position or something. Whatever he was doing, I missed the picture I was trying to get, but got a pretty good action shot instead.

Izzy wanted in on the fun....

At least for a little bit. Like I said, she was mostly just having fun with all the toys that were new to her.

Eli is such a good 'big brother' to Dylan. It's like he knows he's littler so he has to look out for him, but at the same time he plays with him, includes him, and has fun with him when they are together. I just love Eli!

That was so sweet. He took a quick break from all the fun, walked over to Amber, sat down on her lap and said, "I love you Mom". Then came some momma lovin!!! He may love his momma AND be able to say it in public, but he's still too cool for smooches!

Anyway, we had a good night. Dylan went to bed a little later than normal, but that was okay. He had fun and so did we, so that's all that mattered.
As Travis was settling Dylan down and getting him all tucked into bed, he was trying to teach Dylan his name. I very lightly heard him in there repeating, "Dylan, Gage, Ramey" (in his Dylan way) after Travis would say each of them. He did this twice before I ran for the video camera. UNFORTUNATELY he caught eye of one of the 500 toys he sleeps with in his bed and got distracted. So typical. I got 3 videos, but you can't clearly hear him saying it in any of them. On the last one though, he caught me with the camera and started saying, "CHEEEESE!" It was cute, but not what I was aiming for.

Today, Amber, her friend Katie (who was also stationed here from Alaska, (there are quite a few of us!), Amy, Hollie and all of our kids met at The Bounce Place for a little playdate. We chose Wednesday, just like last time because it is supposed to be for kids 6 and under, but apparently some of the parents didn't get that memo, or staff either. The place was busy because it's spring break and there were (much older) kids running around not paying any attention to the little ones. Oh well, what can you do. We didn't let it spoil our kids' fun, we just had to keep a close eye on them to make sure they weren't getting bullied or knocked down.

Dylan was like a crazy person in that car. Well, any of those cars you see in the picture really. He was totally hogging them and if he was getting ready to get out of the car, but saw another kid coming over to get in it, or even just looking in the direction of the car as he was thinking about getting out, he would quickly close the door and take off!

Sweet little Kaylee.....

Not a great picture, but it's the only one I got with Parker in it (Hollie's son)! It was hard keeping up with all of them! And I realized after we got done that I didn't get one single picture of Eli or Izzy. I'm telling you, they were all over the place!

Kaylee climbing up the slide

After we got done at The Bounce Place we were all pretty hungry, so we stopped at McDonald's for a quick bite to eat and a little more play time for Eli, Izzy, and Dylan....

So remember how earlier I mentioned I missed a great opportunity to get a video of Dylan repeating his name? Well, I did miss a good video of it, but he did learn another new word last night as Amber was trying to get Izzy to pose for a picture and I did happen to catch that...

CHEESEBURGERS!