Every Day with Eli: July 11

Today we gathered the family at our neighborhood pool and celebrated Caleb's 6th birthday. Though most of the past week was rainy and cool, today was sunny and hot - the perfect day for a pool party!

I loved how colorful Eli looked as he lounged on my beach towel.

Caleb requested almost all of the food:

hot dogs (and buns!) and brats

Doritos

Cheetos

watermelon

veggies

Can you guess the one item that wasn't his request? We never, never eat Doritos or Cheetos, but I feel like we have reached a place where we can have occasional exceptions. The Doritos were an exception, and also an apology to Caleb. On the 4th of July, Chris told Caleb that he could have two Doritos at the party we attended. I didn't know that, though, and I wouldn't let Caleb eat them. He had been so excited about his two chips, and I shut him down. Poor kid. So for his birthday, I got a whole bag of them for him.

He also asked for a vanilla cake with chocolate icing.

We happened to have some chocolate cupcakes in the deep freeze, so those joined our party, too.

I couldn't eat the cake or the cupcakes because both were topped with buttercream frosting.

We splashed and played, and Chris and I enjoyed having so many adults around to supervise our children for us!

I loved watching my three little duckies lined up in a row, eating their dinner. I also really loved Lily's ponytail.

My mom held Eli, and he was fascinated by her water bottle. It was pretty cute.

Max, meanwhile, was fascinated by Caleb's presents.

But back to the water bottle. This thing was a real baby-pleaser, and it was the first time I've seen Eli bring something to his mouth and chew on it. That's definitely a developmental milestone. Hooray!

Jace loves baby Eli!

After dinner, we put Eli in the water. He didn't like it at first, but soon he was grinning!

What a big boy! Practicing his sitting and splashing with Daddy!

Of course, someone had to use the floatie if Eli wasn't so Jace happily hopped in.

After more swimming, it was time for birthday cake.

Last year, Caleb asked for a Superman action figure on top of his cake. This year, he told me very specifically: "I want a yellow cake with chocolate icing, and an action figure on top. I want the action figure to be Darth Maul."

Perfect. I can do that.

Except that apparently, Darth Maul action figures are hard to come by. I looked at my Target, but didn't find any, so I called my mom and asked her to check the Toys R Us near her house. She had no luck there, but she and my dad undertook the search for Darth Maul as a personal mission. After much hunting and searching, Mom finally found one today.

Caleb definitely appreciated it.