a picture explosion

We're long overdue for posting pictures. Here's an old one I found and some from since we moved to San Diego. (I'm trying to be better about updating but have been mostly unsuccessful in my efforts for consistency thus far.)

5/18/13 - In all of our time in Columbus, we had never been to see the Santa Maria downtown. Some friends told us about the Pirates Weekend, so we went down to check out the ship and the gun battle. Elise slept the entire time, including during the gun battle (while we were on the ship). This was the best pirate-y outfit we could come up with for her.

 

9/4/13 - It seemed like all of our cute pictures of Elise were in her bathing suit for a while. What a problem. ;)

9/6/13 - Brian and Elise at the beach (Torrey Pines) the Friday before Brian started his job.

9/13 (my camera decided you have to set the date every time you turn it on now, so I don't know the date; I think it was sometime in September...) - Elise decided she loves eating paper. I have since learned I probably shouldn't let her. (Can you see the ink on her face?)

9/13/13 - We met Brian and Kate in LA and got to see the space shuttle Endeavor.

9/14/13 - I was trying to get a picture of Elise wearing the shoes Marsha (neighbor in Columbus) gave us. You can't see them that well, but they're pink and sparkly.:)

9/28/13 - We went to SeaWorld for Brian's annual work outing. This was just before she fell asleep (poor thing was exhausted).

10/4/13 - Watching BYU football with Daddy. :)

10/5/13 - Getting really close to rolling over onto her stomach. For a while, she had to have the right motivation (in this case, tags...on the changing pad...).

10/6/13 - Starting August or September, I decided to try something called baby-led weaning. Basically, you give them fry-shaped pieces of fruits and veggies to gnaw on. She apparently loved the cucumber. She generally likes whatever chunks we give her, although it went poorly one time when she actually got a piece of pear off but didn't chew it enough before swallowing. (She's starting to figure out chewing now.)

10/15/13 - We went apple picking in Julian, which inspired us to make caramel apples for FHE the next week. The apples we picked were tiny (but surprisingly delicious), so these were some I bought.

10/18/13 - I found her this way during a nap. This was one day after the pediatrician expressed some concern that she wasn't consistently rolling onto her stomach yet. (That visit is a whole different story.) It was as if Elise was saying, "Mom, don't worry, I'm perfectly normal."

10/19/13 - Our adorable little ladybug at the PQ1 Trunk or Treat. We were hoping she would have learned to crawl by then, but no such luck. The Halls (in Columbus) gave us her costume before we moved because they knew Brian had been coveting it the year before when he saw Lydia wearing it. ;)

10/19/13 - Family Halloween costumes - snail, ladybug, and lawn gnome.

10/29/13 - 7 months old! She was 18 lbs, 13 oz and 27" at her appointment about 2 weeks before.

11/1/13 - Eating an Asian pear in her walker (which we use as a high chair since I need to clean up and cover the one I bought). She loves Asian pears and sometimes screams at me if I take them away.

11/8/13 - We hiked Iron Mountain on one of Brian's Fridays off. Brian carried her the entire time in the Bjorn, and she slept most of the way up. I forgot to grab a hat for her, so we bought bandanas. It's surprisingly difficult to tie them on a baby - it kept popping up and looking like a KKK hat (I swear we're not racist!).

11/8/13 - Om nom nom. Brian's hair was pretty gross after this.

 11/8/13 - More Iron Mountain.

11/16/13 - Brian set up his hammock on our balcony and took a little nap with Elise.

so...I chopped off my hair again

I loved my last haircut for a while, but recently it was just looking nappy (how do you even spell that word?). There was something weird going on with the top layer so it waved and stuck out all the time. I've been missing my short hair for a while now and decided it was time again.

I always think it's funny when people do makeover before and after pictures and the first one looks terrible - they're not smiling, etc. I figured I could do a mug shot for the before picture so you would get that effect. ;) (No, I don't normally post terrible pictures of myself on the internet.)

tags

Elise loves tags. I can pretty much guarantee that if she grabs something to play with it and finds out it has a tag, she will end up chewing on it. (This includes the changing pad, although I try to keep her from chewing on it.)

With this in mind, I decided to make her a tag blanket. Sure, you can buy cute ones, but I figured I could make it for cheaper. I had some material left over from a blanket I made for a niece, and I got 2 yards of ribbon at Jo-Ann. This is what I came up with:

 

I thought it turned out pretty cute, even if I'm not all that great at sewing. Unfortunately, Elise has not been as excited about it as I hoped/expected. Oh well. I'll keep forcing it on her until she loves it. ;)

overheard

Brian was trying to map out a running trail the other day by looking at Google maps.

B: There's this river. There might be a trail by it. Or homeless people.

*****

Elise loves to babble now and frequently wakes me up in the morning by talking. One morning, Brian had brought her into our bedroom so I could feed her in bed, and she was happily babbling when she was done. It was mostly "ba ba, ma ma" which sometimes turned into "ba ma." At one point, she threw an "o" in front and very clearly said "O-ba-ma." I had to run and tell Brian, because clearly we have some very serious teaching to do. ;)

*****

And now, for fun, a picture of Elise napping in her car seat after church (taken 10/20/13).

_________ fries

I bought some sweet potatoes a little while back and decided to make sweet potato fries the other day. However, when I started cutting them into fries, I found that the flesh was not the orange color I'm used to. It was sort of an off-white color. I could have sworn I had bought sweet potatoes, and having no idea what they actually were, I made the fries anyway.

They ended up being pretty tasty. These are the names we came up with for them:

• may-or-may-not-be-sweet-potato fries
• I-can't-believe-they're-not-sweet-potato fries
• I-have-no-idea-what-they-are-but-they're-certainly-not-sweet-potato fries

(After doing a brief internet search just now, it appears that there may be varieties of sweet potatoes that don't have the orange flesh. Since I got them at the ethnic grocery store, I guess I'm not surprised.)

Apple Picking

Checked out some towns outside of the San Diego in Ramona and Julian, where we picked some apples, and Elise picked and ate the leaves. We also saw some camels.

housing

I meant to do a video tour of our temporary housing, but then we moved in/got settled and I was too embarrassed with all the stuff laying around. ;) I was cleaning the other day and decided to take some pictures, so these will have to suffice.

Our current apartment, provided by General Atomics, is a 2 bedroom/2 bathroom walk-up. There's a 2-car garage with a huge storage closet and a full-sized washer and dryer. The temporary housing company furnished the apartment - couch, table, tv, beds, crib, etc.
 

 

 You can see the landing/stairway that goes down to the front door and garage (on right).

 Love this kitchen! There's tons of storage space (we don't have our stuff here, but it's still nice to have).

 

 The second bedroom was furnished with 2 twin beds. The crib was originally in the master with us, but we moved it because I don't sleep well in the same room as Elise. (Note the baby on the bed - doesn't come standard with the apartment, of course. ;) I was washing the crib sheet, so she was napping on the bed.)

 

 Nice big master bedroom. Excuse the bed, I was washing the sheets.

Master bath.

Other side of the master bath. I was standing in the walk-in closet to take the picture.

After about 2 weeks (it seemed like months) of searching for a place to rent, I finally found a place that fit pretty will with our specifications. It's in the same ward that we live in now (I really like this ward, and while it wouldn't have been the end of the world to be in a different one, it's nice to be sticking around), it has a washer and dryer, it's a little closer to Brian's work, it has 2 bedrooms (not necessary, but a definite perk), it's well within our housing budget, and I think we'll manage to fit in the space (833 sq ft - we had about 1400 in our townhouse, including the basement, so hopefully we got rid of enough stuff). We've already talked to a realtor and mortgage broker, so the plan is to rent for the short term and save some money every month to put toward a down payment. I haven't seen the lease yet, but the property management company said it would be a 10 or 11 month lease so that it ends at a better time of year for the housing market. That's fine with us, since we originally wanted a 6-9 month lease but couldn't find anything cheap enough for the short term.

You can see pictures of our new condo here. There used to be a video walkthrough on that site, but I guess it's been taken down since the property is no longer available.

We can move in on October 15th. We'll have our stuff delivered there. We never had it delivered to our temporary apartment because we didn't want to have to move everything, including the piano, by ourselves when we left. It's been a bit of a hassle not to have certain things since we didn't pack for 2 months, but we've done our best with what we have. I won't lie, I'm excited to have something to wear besides the 5 shirts I packed. ;)

I Have Become THAT Woman

I couldn't believe the words I heard myself say this morning.

I went up to Rancho Bernardo to drop off our security deposit (that's a story for another post), and the two people helping me at the property management company got me talking about kid-related things. Of course they thought Elise was adorable. :) Anyway, the guy (Jay) mentioned that they don't have a lot of people bring their kids in, but one time he was afraid a lady was going to have her baby right there. She was due that week and they had come in to sign their lease, but she had to stop and sit down because of contractions. Jay said he was freaking out and asked if he could get her anything - water, a chair, etc. At that point, something from my birthing class came back to me, and it slipped out my mouth before I could filter it.

I said something like this:

"You know, water is a good thing in that situation. The uterus is a muscle, so if it's dehydrated, it can become stressed and start contracting..."

Can you say awkward? Yup, that's me.

Not a picture of the baby

I lied.

O-H!

We're pretty sure Elise is the cutest little Buckeye around. :) Here's proof:

(It's not completely obvious, but her headband is scarlet and gray. Go Bucks!)

a new trick!

I hate how my voice sounds on camera. Just pay attention to Babelise. :)

She learned how to do this on Monday (8/5). She did it a few times then and a couple more the next day but has refused to do it since.

Michigan visit

Thanks, Laura, for the family portrait.


And for this.

stats

Old news. At Elise's 2 month well child appointment (more like 2.5 month), I was "complaining" to the nurse that she hates getting dressed, at least when it involves putting something over her head. (I feel like the head holes in baby clothes are never big enough.) The nurse measured her and said, "Well that explains it!" At the time, she was in the 75th percentile for height and weight and the 90th percentile for head size. No wonder.

I'm excited to see how big she's measuring when we go back in about 2 weeks. While I believe that vaccinations are a good thing, I'm not excited about the shots - it was pretty rough for her last time, and she gets the same ones this time. :\

more noises

I'm fully aware that we're biased, but we think our daughter is adorable. Here's a video to prove it. :)

 

You'd think that with 4 digital cameras in our house, at least one of them would take decent video. Not so. Sorry for the poor quality/background buzzing noise.

the light at the end of the tunnel

Brian defends his dissertation on Wednesday. I think he's been feeling like this day would never come. Well, it's finally here. We could definitely use some prayers on his/our behalf, you're inclined to do that kind of thing. :)

photo dump

I figured I could post some photos since we've been bad about updating. I'll put a little blurb about each picture.

 6/20/13 - Elise was about a week shy of 3 months old. I hadn't put her in the Bumbo before, but Brian had and said that she liked it. I just thought she looked cute. :) (And I think it's funny that it looks like the bib is about half as big as her body.)

 7/1/13 - She's started chewing on her hands all the time. This is a pretty typical pose for her.

 7/6/13 - This was her second time in Nauvoo in about as many months (I went with some of Brian's family when she was a month old - this was with my family for the Winder reunion). Cousin J was apparently ok playing on the sheep, but Elise didn't really want anything to do with it.

 7/7/13 - Still in Nauvoo. Grandma (my mom) was holding her so I could get some pictures with her cute headband and matching booties (made by Brian's mom). Unfortunately, she was moving too much to get the booties in the picture. I got a couple with cuter facial expressions, but sadly, they were all blurry.

 7/8/13 - Saying hi to the oxen after the little covered wagon ride. I enjoyed the horse/wagon and carriage rides too, but the oxen and wagon ride was the perfect length of time for little kids. I highly recommend it!

 7/9/13 - Holding hands with cousin J. This was posed, but only because they had done it before (by themselves) and we wanted a picture. J loved Elise!

 7/17/13 - During the summer, our ward does something called Picnic in the Park. The RS puts together a schedule, and whoever wants to can meet at the designated park (different every week) on Wednesday morning. People can bring lunch, the kids play, the moms chat, and everyone has a good time. This one was at the Powell splash pad. Elise had never been swimming, so I wasn't sure how she would react; although she didn't like being sprayed/splashed, she did seem to like being wet. (We actually took her swimming for the first time, at OSU, on Friday 7/26.)

 7/17/13 - I can't remember why, but I needed Brian to watch Elise for a little bit. When I came back, I noticed she wasn't moving and asked if she was asleep (I couldn't tell at first). Brian didn't think so because she had been moving around a minute or two before. Apparently it was just too much fun for one day, and she passed out. (Shout out to Betsy for passing on this activity gym - she LOVES it!)

7/26/13 - Hanging out with Daddy on the banana chairs. Sure, she looks like a boy in this picture, but we still think she's adorable. :)

Dastardly Faces

Sometimes we play with the baby, but luckily the baby just plays along.

bugs

Yesterday afternoon, I had a pretty scary experience with Elise. After hearing what it was, Brian told me he's sure much worse things will happen/make us fear for our daughter's safety. Probably true, but at the time it was terrifying.

I had just put Elise in the Bumbo when I noticed something moving near her. I looked down and saw a wasp-like bug crawling on her arm. It was hard not to outwardly freak out, but I didn't want to scare the bug and make it sting her. Fortunately, it decided to fly away on its own. We didn't find it again yesterday, but I found its dead body in the living room today. I'm not sure what killed it, but I can't say I'm upset that it's dead.

I was curious about what kind of bug it actually was, so I looked up pictures today. Based on the image search, I'm guessing it was a mud dauber, which is apparently a non-aggressive type of wasp. Regardless, it was scary. And yucky. I hate bugs.

This is what it looked like. Gross, huh.

Speaking of hating bugs, we've had a lot in our house lately. :\ I think it has mostly been spiders, silverfish (yuck!), and flies. We recently got a new back door, which included the installation of a screen door since we didn't have one before. Unfortunately, the screen door wasn't installed exactly right, so it doesn't shut all the way on its own. I didn't realize that and left one day without shutting it fully, and there was some major wind that blew it open and bent the thingie that holds the door open. Since then, we have to slam the door in order to shut it all the way. I was excited to have a screen door so we could leave the door open in nice weather without letting in bugs, but we've apparently been letting them in anyway. Boo. Anyway, I think that's probably how the mud dauber got in yesterday, since we were having people over for dinner and grilling.

humor

So I'm pretty sure I must be a 9- or 10-year-old boy now. It cracks me up every time I hear Elise pass gas loudly over the baby monitor.

Also, she's better at belching than Brian is. (Although he says it insults his manhood when I say that.)

surprise!

I've wanted to donate my hair for a really long time but could never tolerate "long" (for me) hair enough to grow it out for donation. During pregnancy, I found that I could handle the long hair better and decided that I would let it grow until it was long enough. Fortunately, Pantene Beautiful Lengths accepts as little as 8 inches, so it got chopped today - I couldn't stand it anymore. ;) It's short now, and I love it! I have the feeling I'll be clipping it back to keep it out of my face, but at least it's not all frizzy and gross around my shoulders and neck. We'll see if I ever decide to donate again - I wouldn't be surprised if this is the one and only time.