What a little sweetheart Elise has been. I love being with her and I'm so proud of her so much. I can't get over is how much she has changed in a year. She's gone from little baby who could barely sit up on her own to a running maniac, from bottles to feeding herself with a fork and spoon, from chubby cheeks to ribs showing and from burp cloths to having to clean up after herself (I make her pick up food she threw/dropped on the ground after she's done eating and she likes to wash her own hands and face).
Here's a little visual walk down memory lane so you can feel some of the nostalgia I have in the last week.

Well just cuz my water heater broke and we had no heat doesn't mean that we can't have fun. We were able to spend the day with my sisters family and it was a blast. Mostly really cool cuz us coming over was the favorite part of my nieces and nephews day. Here's some pics of them hanging out.

Elise took a bath after her nap and so it gave me a chance to redo her pigtails a bit better. I'm learning. My friend Alli said the key is being quick. I still need some practice I think before I'll be able to be very quick. But this time I learned two other tricks. A bink-a-bink is a must (aka binki), and wet hair makes it a bit easier. However her hair looked silly when the pigtails came out.


Hey Mommy and Daddy friends, anyone ever had kids hate milk? I'm starting to be at a loss as to how to entice her to drink. Used to be that we could get her to drink a bottle but she had teeth coming in like every day so she refused to take one anymore. I've tried chocolate milk and strawberry milk. She hates those too. I tried putting it in sippy cups where she can't tell what she's drinking and it comes straight back out of her mouth. I've tried that being the only thing I offer her to drink all day, she just cried everytime I drank anything thinking it wasn't milk too (it was milk, I was trying to be a good example). Anyone have ideas?!?
She seems to hate all dairy except cheese and sometimes tolerates yougurt so she's got to give on something, right?

Elise's mischief, my mischeif. By the time Elise goes to sleep, all kinds of mischeif has gone on. Here are some examples.

Why don't Wendy's have playplaces? Look how much she loves it.

Stealing MY blanket from me!

Dressing up without the dress part.

Pigtails! Mom tried to make her hold still, Maybe I should have started trying to do her hair earlier. She did like how pretty I told her she was. One thing is for sure, we need more practice.

In more ways than one. We (me alone really, taking pictures for Ryan to view later) are going to start looking for a home to buy in the area this week. SCARY! I don't know if we can really do it. It would be really nice if we could. We can only afford so much currently but hopefully something can be gotten in our price range and people are willing to negotiate their prices. (and HOA fees don't get too crazy)

But what I really want more space for is Elise. We went to a friends house the night before we came back to Cali and it was amazing. The kids played together so nicely. Elise only came to get me a few times and I thought she was going to cling to me like a monkey. And then I found what had her so enthralled. They had a play kitchen in the back room. I literally had to pry her away from it to leave that night. She enjoys watching me make stuff but it's usually too dangerous to let her hang out on the counter. At grandma's house there is a big counter space the can hang out on and watch us cook. She LOVES it.  I want a kitchen and I want enough space to get Elise a play kitchen.

By the way check out what this crafty mom did with $28. Jealous, party of one.

Happy birthday to Courtney, and for anyone who has heard Jim Gaffigan "beyond the pale" you might understand that Elise was only thinking "Hope it's chocolate for me..."
Elise didn't want to wait for me to feed her her piece of cake so she just dove right in.
 While Elise was playing she decided that she would have better access to her toys if she crawled into the bag we were keeping them in. I had to grab my camera and get a picture. It was jsut too cute.