Kisses from Elsie

Remeber these two?

See how much they've grown!

Elsie loved to give her cousin Lucas kisses

Balancing Act

100th Post!

The outtakes

Apples to Apples

The first couple of licks weirded her out a little bit, but then she got into it and tried to gum it to death.

Flock of Seagulls?

First sippy cup

The last few times we have tried to give Elsie water, she hasn't liked it too much. But we were at the store the other day and decided it was time to pick up a sippy cup for Elsie. We tried it out filled with water when we got home, and she loved it! My baby's growing up...

Little helper

Elsie likes to help me with the dishes

Alan brushing her hair after a bath

Wrestling with her lion

This was just cute. :)

Cute as a bug

Here's a video of Alan's new favorite game with Elsie. Elsie seems to enjoy it too.

Alan cleaned out Elsie's walker and let her go for a spin. Well, kind of for a spin... She can't seem to get it out of reverse...

New Jammies

Pretty groovy, eh?

Pray for Poop

That's what I did last night. Elise has been in the habit of holding it in and pooping every other day. But this week, close as we could figure (we don't remember exactly) the last time she went was on Monday. So last night in our before-bed prayer I threw in a line asking that Elsie would poop. Lo and Behold, this morning (luckily, while I was in the shower) all five days of poop came out. Alan, my gallant husband, dutifully cleaned it all up.

Kind of a gross story, but I wanted to remember it. :)

Elsie loves to stand

I was going to start by blogging about our labor day... My parents spent the day with us, but my mom already posted about it on her blog, so I'll move on ahead.

Elsie loves to stand. I think she's going to learn how to walk first before she ever starts crawling.

Still working on her balance, but its getting there.

Trying out a new hairstyle... Kinda cute, but kinda just looks like an alien baby too. :)

Elsie's blessing

Alan was able to bless our beautiful baby this past Sunday. Since Elsie was only two weeks old when we left for the summer, we wanted to wait until we came home and she was a little older, and so we could be around family.

Here she is sitting in her bumbo in her dress that my mother made for her. My mom crafted the blessing dress out of my wedding dress, and it turned out beautifully.

Our happy family.

All the men that were in the circle with Alan (minus Elsie's Great Uncle Dennis). Left to right, Grandpa Ken, Great Grandpa Swenson, Dad, Elsie, Great Grandpa McBeth, Grandpa Boyd, and Uncle Kyle.

It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed a lovely picnic lunch outside afterwards.

Five months

Elsie is five months old today! Her hair is getting so long that if I don't style it it falls into her eyes. I've tried to train it to part to the side, but it still just looks like a comb over most of the time. She is super wiggly and squirmy and still loves to stand up with help. Not crawling yet, but she can defiantly move around. She has figured out how to pull her legs up under her while on her tummy, but doesn't quite have the arms going yet. So every time she tries it she ends up face planting into the ground. She tries really hard to sit up, but is still working on her balance and getting stronger stomach muscles.

Everyday I'm struck with how much I love this little girl!

Shots make my baby sleepy

Elsie went in yesterday for a check up at the doctors office. She is still just a tall skinny little chick, weight 13 lbs 10 oz (32 percentile) height 25.75 in (82 percentile). Everything checked out just fine, and she was a happy active little squirmer up until they gave her the shots. She was only supposed to get two pokes in the leg this time (as opposed to 3 last time), but something must have been wrong with the syringe because when the nurse pushed down the plunger everything squirted out onto the table. So, poor kid, she had to get another poke in the other leg to make up for it. After a few tears, she calmed down and decided she was ok. She has been more sleepy since she got her shots, taking longer naps and sleeping in longer in the morning, but I'm not complaining. The same thing happened last time she got her shots too.

Things are still a little crazy around our apartment. It still looks like a disaster zone in our living room and bedroom, but I'm happy to announce that my kitchen is clean! Elsie has kicked us out of the bedroom, so our bed is now in the living room. I wasn't too happy with this arrangement at first (even though it was my idea), but then I realized that with the bed out of the bedroom there is so much more room back there for storage! We still need to pick up a few more shelving units, but it feels like my little apartment just got a little bigger. :)