mashed potatoes

A little mashed-potato face never hurts anyone. :-) Tonight at dinner she kept skipping the strawberries on her tray and only eating peas and carrots. She definitely didn't get that from her dad.

Summer Days & Playdates

Last Saturday as we were driving out to the lake we passed the "Dutton Days" Festival and decided to check it out. It was such a fun thing for kids - if Elise was a little older. They had bouncy houses, a petting zoo (with bunnies!), pony rides, elephant ears, an oldies band... we will definitely be going back next year!

Yesterday we got together with all my old friends from college. And high school... wow we are old. We had all the kids together for the first time! They were SO cute. Not great at playing with each other yet though. From left to right: Jude, Cohen, Lyza, Elise! Notice my kid is the whitest of the white. Poor thing.

New Things & My 11 Month Old!

Elise is 11 months old. I cannot believe it. She is the best little thing in the whole world. She has definitely found her voice and yells all the time. In the mall, the grocery store, and especially in the car. She also waves to everyone, and has started giving high fives! It's so cute. We've moved our bath upstairs to the big girl tub, since she would get the whole kitchen wet. I just installed her new carseat today and washed up that infant carseat and put it in the basement for now. I can't believe I almost have a 1 year old!

She loves to walk behind her little musical walker, and she loves her ball popper (thanks AG!).

Our little funny girl has started holding things in her mouth and crawling around. I'm thinking she's watching Ollie very closely...

And... some pictures from our daily baby waterboarding swimming lessons. This is the face I get every single morning. Poor Mr. Michael... he's so nice and all the babies just cry as soon as they see him.

The pictures I took make it look like total baby torture - so check out this video. We've been going for four weeks, every morning at 7:45 for 10 minutes. This is what a typical lesson looks like. Look what Elise can do!! And yes - she cries the whole time everytime. And she does these really huge coughing/burp things and has thrown up on Mr. Michael in the past. And now I sound like a horrible mother.

If you want more info on the swimming lessons you can click here.

Fathers Day 2011

On Nick's first Father's Day he decided Elise needed some company in her pool. She loved it.

Elise spent most of the day hanging out by the lake....

Trying to crawl away from us as fast as she can.... (She got over her fear of the grass.)

...and eating bark. Not so yum.

Why hello, Mini-Me.

And Happy Father's day to our Grandpas too! (I don't have a Father's day pic of Grandpa Goote - that one's coming soon...) :-) This one's of my dad and my daughter. I love them both to pieces.

Happy 1st Father's Day Daddy! We love you so much!

Walking (sort of)

Last night Elise decided to un-set the cute appetizer display my mom had set up.

She loves Auntie Aubrey.

Ferns really aren't that yummy.

A hot air balloon came so close!

Grandma should probably start buying Windex at Costco.

She walks! (sort of. but she gets SO excited.)

Five Years

Happy Anniversary Nick Goote. Life sure has changed in five years. All for the better.

my big girl

Elise got herself a little stuck today. Or so I thought. (The pictures are in order going clockwise). At first I thought she was stuck and was going to freak out. Not the case. She thought it was so fun she kept going over the chair rails and darted into the kitchen. She liked it so much she did it several times during her laps around the house today.

She's also taken a liking to Ollie. She wants to kiss him. And he's not afraid to kiss her back.

Look at all those teeth! And today she started grinding them together.... worst sound in the world. How do you get a baby to stop doing that? ::shudder::

And - question for the mommies out there: When did your baby start taking only one nap a day? Elise will take a pretty good nap late morning/early afternoon, and then has just started refusing another one. She's happy as can be too. Thoughts?

Summer Day

Today we headed out to the Lake since Auntie Lauren was in town with some of her nursing friends. It was the perfect day - sunny and 75. My dad spent the day falling in the lake fully clothed and pulling the girls on tubes. Elise and I spent the day hanging out.

Grandma got Elise a new little chair that's the perfect size for her!

What a good day for a baby.

This is the face I got when I said "Elise where's Grandma??"

Elise thought standing on the chair was way cooler than sitting.

Dinner = Amazing.

We painted her toes. Daddy hates it. I love it.

Elise didn't really like it when the bubbles hit her face... haha.

Cookie Jar

If anyone out there actually has this toy, they know it sings the two most annoying songs in the world. ["Shapes are in my cookie jar, triangle, heart and star...."] Sometimes I forget to turn it on. But Elise loves this thing. She's even started to put the cookie pieces into the little puzzle holes on the sides. Smart cookie.

"Hey are there anymore cookies in there??"

hot hot hot...

...and tomorrow will be hotter! I'm not complaining. Really.

After our first trip to the doctor besides well baby visits, we have figured out that Elise has some bad seasonal allergies. She had itchy red eyes, and was sneezing like crazy. And every time she would sneeze we'd get giant globs of snot which she would then rub all over her face because she was so itchy. It was pretty gross. But thanks to a little baby Zyrtec, she's good as new! (Oh, and she weighs 19 lbs 12 oz).

Today was in the 90s, so we spent most of it inside. This is her new favorite face. Lovely.

She was very busy today.

We got a little bored inside so we ventured out on the deck after naptime. We have a canopy set up so it's shady. I had towels set up to crawl on in the shade, but Miss Independent preferred the sunny, hot, hard wood I guess.

Apparently I have become invisible when I have my camera because no matter what I do, yell, wave in front of her to get her to look at me she will ignore. I have about a hundred pictures of the back of her head. It was very sunny outside today.

If you click this picture to enlarge it - you can see all of her top teeth! And a bunch of snot. The allergies are still there a little and she will freak out if you try to wipe her nose. You have to be quick like a ninja and even then it's iffy. Hence, the snotty nose.

And this is the CUTEST bathing suit - from my cousin Stacy! And since we were home in our own pool, we even skipped the swim diaper. Baby heaven!

Curt's Wedding

Nick's friend since they were three, Curt, got married this weekend.
The wedding was in Midland and Elise got to stay with my parents for 2 nights!
Which means we got a nice weekend away. We had a great time.

Congrats Curt & Catherine!

Awww. And they met in a dirt pile.

Bark.

Today I got a special delivery. So fun. Luckily it was dropped off just as Elise was going down for her afternoon nap, and the little angel slept for almost two hours so her Mommy could work.

After Elise woke up and we had a snack (green beans... the kid loves green beans), we went back outside and she helped me finish the bark. Mostly she just yelled and looked really cute.

Then she had a cracker and yelled some more.

She got sick of her walker so I put her in her (empty) pool on the grass. She won't tolerate the grass by itself, and I didn't have a blanket handy. The pool worked pretty good.

Then it was bath and bedtime. All in a day's work.