What happened?

What happened to my baby girl?



She hasn't been feeling well this week so she's been wanting to sit on me *all* the time. One time, when I was trying to read while she was trying to sit on me, I made some flippant comment about how big she's getting. Now when I ask her to sit in my lap for something and she doesn't want to she tells me, "I too big, mom."


I found a great deal on some summer clothes and found that her waist is still a 2T while her shirts now need to be 3T. I pulled out last years summer clothes to see if some of her shorts might still fit. Some are so short and yet still a bit baggy on her waist. I feel like I should start giving her cookies and ice cream anytime she asks.


I have to say I do love that she is potty trained, that she can climb into her car seat by herself, that she understands rules better, and that she talks enough that we can have little conversations. She's becoming her own person for sure. It helps me not feel so alone at home. It's so much fun to watch her grow.

Cute things Elise says

While home looking we have gathered a lot of papers with homes and their information on them. Elise calls them treasure maps.

She grabbed Ryan's face and said "listen to me, you're not listening to me."

After Ryan made her "cho wo colate nilk" she said he was the best ever, ever.

After walking through a home Elise grabbed my fingers and started dragging me somewhere. Thinking she had something in particular to see I followed. She took me on a tour of the home again. "Kitchen" with her arm gesturing."Another potty."

While getting ready I threw my hair towel on the toilet lid. Elise got it down and put it on the floor and said "aba-daba" lifted it up and said "ta-da!" She was doing a magic trick.

After a couple of toys had found their way to her big girl bed we had a talk about how when it's bedtime it's not time to play with toys. Every time it's been time to get in her big girl bed she tells me "no toys, mommy." I'm so glad she understands.

You always know when she has picked her nose because she complains about "oogers" on her fingers and she says all sweetly "no pick your nose." This she doesn't seem to understand.

We can't get her to say corn dog, sandwich or bicycle. They come out corn hot dog, samswench and bi-circle, bike circle, and bi circa circle.

She loves singing and dancing right now. She will sing popcorn popping, itsy bitsy spider, head shoulders knees and toes and do as I'm doing without prompting. Dancing she's learned from Mickey mouse. She marches, wiggles, slides to one slide and slides to the other side, kicks and claps.

Instead of yes or yeah she has taken to saying " sure can" or just "sure." The other day we asked her if had her shoes on and she replied "sure don't."

She 'thinks' while tapping her finger on her chin. She says, "let's think...I an idea!" and then proceeds to tell you what she wants (or wants you to do).

She learned from something bowing and saying thank you, thank you. She does it when she's saying thank you. She doesn't understand performing so I say, "you're welcome, welcome." Now she says it too.

Words that she picked up fast: Xylophone, Yo-yo, school bus, semi truck, sorry, love you too, ice cream. There are more. I just can't think of them all right now. She said something yesterday that made me laugh and sparked the need to start this blog and now I can't remember. Don't you hate that?

Fun with Friends

I would usually do several different posts for all of this but they all kind of fit under the theme of friends and I already have to come up with a post for my other blog so you are getting several doses in one today.

First off we have a playdate that happened in January. We made little marshmallow snowmen and then promptly ate them. I am so glad to have friends that will come over and do these weird activities with their kids and me. Sorry she's on her side. sometimes I just get done with trying to make the computer do what I want it to.

Next up we have a group date that I organized with family and friends to go support Kirby's improv show when they came up from California to perform at Thanksgiving Point. Some good inside jokes ensued. Harold the cow, steam rises, flipping someone off means you are flirting. Haven't laughed that hard in a while. Thanks for coming with us guys!

And as is usual I have a picture of all of our friends but none of Ryan and me. Sorry guys. I am otherside of the camera shy.

We are doing much better at FHE's as of late. Partly due to some friends starting a monthly craft night. At our first one we each came with enough copies of one family home evening so we went home with seven or eight different lessons. AWESOME. Thanks Ash. You got me motivated and the juices flowing for some other ideas. This was ours this last week. We talked about how families are together forever and made paper dolls of ourselves. Talked about who was in our family too. Hard concept for a two year old to grasp. Gamma is but Zac isn't? Jamie isn't but Manni (mandi) is? So we'll try again and again. No worries we still pray for all friends and family so her bases are covered.

 And because she saw me taking pictures she had to have one so we'll throw in this in. Here is what today looks like.

top ten of 2011

I like to keep track of the top 10 things that happened to our family every year. I keep a big scrapbook and each year gets a page. Kind of fun so I thought I would share.

1. Urgent Care and Emergency Room visit within ten hours of driving home from Utah because Elise had such bad croup

2. Elise plays in the snow for the first time

3. Going to Disneyland with Grandma West

4. Elise goes to nursery

5. Trip to St George trip with friends sans children. Marvelously quiet weekend that was free to play and not worry about children waking you up in the middle of the night or scheduling playtime around naps and not having to be quiet because a baby is sleeping. Thanks again Alli! And Trisha and Kirby for watching Elise!! We still owe you big time.

6. Star Wars Symphony at the Hollywood Bowl

7. Ryan getting a new job. Yay no more busy season!!!!!

8. Moving to Utah

9. Blue Whale Watching including a showing of dolphins

10. Elise learns to talk, count and sing. Our best attempt to capture her Christmas song on film are below. She can be quite shy.

What's Going On?

We've been potty training! I haven't changed a diaper in FIVE days. Although I've cleaned up a fair number of accidents I still am totally stoked. Elise has done really well and caught onto the idea pretty fast. We did a three day potty training method and that's pretty much all it took although the last day had the most accidents because I was trying to let her tell me when she needed the potty.

Yay big girl panties!

Also, just because it's fun I included this video. I just want to be able to remember her little cute voice and her curiosity one day when she's so much bigger. Ok so maybe her being potty trained feels like I've taken the last bit of babyhood she had away and now she's just so big.