overheard

Mom: Elise, your hair looks so pretty!
Elise: You hair not look pretty, Nonny (Mommy).

*****

Jr Primary has been really rough and crazy the last few weeks, and today my plans weren't working. I was flustered and ad-libbing when this happened.

Sis. Casaday: We've been singing a lot of Christmas songs. Why do we even care about Christmas?
Unidentified child: Presents!

*****

One of Elise's new favorite words is "actually." (It's funny and sometimes scary to see what Brian and I must say a lot based on what words and phrases she starts saying. We're not sure where she picked up "oh gosh" though.)
Elise (on potty): Need toilet paper.
Mom: Did you pee in the potty?
Elise: Um, actually, I didn't.

*****

Mom: Elise, take one more big drink before we go upstairs.

Elise: *gulp* One. *gulp* Two. *gulp* Three. *gulp* Four!

*****

Other favorite phrases are "not really" and "a little ____." For example...

Mom: Elise, did you poop?

Elise: Um, not really.

Elise (looking at plate of food): It's hot.
Dad: Is it?
Elise: Um, no, a little warm.

life with a toddler

We taught Elise about the "got your nose" game a while back, but she has started to take it a step further. It's not uncommon for her to walk up to me and say, "Mommy, I hungry. I eat you nose?" She then grabs my nose and mimes putting it in her mouth.

With that in mind, this conversation happened...
E: Mommy, I eat Au-ee [Audrey's] nose?
*grab's A's nose and "eats" it*
Me: Oh, no! Now Audrey has no nose! What is she going to do?
E: Um, get new nose?
Me (chuckling): Where is she going to get a new nose?
E: Um, store?

*****

I sat down and took a few bites of cereal one morning.
E: I eat Mommy's cereal?
*I try to give her one bite*
E: No! I want bowl!
*E grabs the bowl and drags it down the table to her seat, then eats the entire bowl*

helper

Elise has been a great helper since Audrey was born. She's so proud of being "Mama's big helper." I suspect that somehow led to this conversation:

Elise: Where Daddy go?
Mama: He went in the bathroom.
E: Daddy go pee?
M: Yeah, I think he probably is.
E: I help Daddy go pee?

Elise loves Audrey

This is not an uncommon sight in our house. Elise is very sweet to share her toys. :)

another photo dump

Since I only seem to post pictures about 6 months at a time, it must be about time for another update. :) Mostly pictures from my phone again, but I'll try to put up better (more recent) ones soon.

 11/28/14 - Family hike at Rocky Mouth Canyon while we were in UT for Thanksgiving. I was about 4 months pregnant at this point.

 12/15/14 - I can't remember for sure, but I think this was the first time I ever gave Elise her own bowl of cereal and trusted her to eat it herself. She ate like a champ!

12/24/14 - New Christmas jammies! (The picture's a bit blurry if you enlarge it, but my pants and Elise's sleeper have penguins.) 

1/9/15 - Passed out on the couch because she wouldn't sleep in her bed for her nap. I suspect it had something to do with the whole "bed rest" thing I had just started. (We may have had her mattress on the floor so she could get in and out without me lifting her). 

1/16/15 - We met the Jacksons at Disneyland. Elise LOVES Minnie. (I'm about 5.5 months pregnant in this one.)

 1/23/15 - Playing outside in her jammies and Sunday shoes.

 1/24/15 - After her first haircut (besides a bang trim I did previously)! I was so sad we had to cut off the curls, but she had a gross baby mullet.

2/2/15 - We were about a month into the bed rest at this point and needed every possible opportunity to get outside. She spent a long time throwing Mickey in, climbing in after him, handing him back to me, climbing out, and repeating the process.

2/2015 - Diana offered to take Elise to the Safari Park with her boys so I could rest like I was supposed to. (I could sing Diana's praises all day - Elise loves her and so do I!)

2/9/15 - Just playing with the tupperware - taking it all out and putting it back. I wasn't even mad because she was happy and entertained. Also, she gets some crazy hair when she sleeps, and I don't always bother to comb it. 

3/3/15 - It was an awesome day for fashion at our house. 

 3/6/15 - Thoroughly enjoying her banana milkshake.

3/8/15 - This girl LOVES shoes. More recently, she has even figured out how to tromp around in Daddy's sneakers, and she thinks it's hilarious (it is). I don't know how I got lucky enough to catch this pose either, but she's certainly struttin' her stuff. 

 3/17/15 - Finger painting! I didn't trust her with clothes on, or inside, for that matter. We got some Vitamin D instead. :) She enjoyed it for a little while then decided it was actually more fun to play with the cups and lids.

 3/25/15 - What's around her feet, you ask? Oh, just her potty seat. Don't worry, I wiped it down (she's never successfully used it anyway) but not before she put it on her head as a hat. (She also has a pajama shirt from the laundry around her neck.)

little singer

I was doing something in the kitchen the other day when Brian came in and asked if I had seen what Elise was doing. Here's the video I took:

I didn't catch it in this one, but she had been putting the little book (a coupon book we got in the mail) in the door track and acting like she was playing the piano. She'd flip pages every once in a while and continue singing and "playing." We think she's adorable. :)

pictures

Here are a bunch of pictures since I've been so terrible about updates - some older and some more recent. (Forgive the quality, a lot of them are phone pictures.)

 5/22/14 - Looking at pictures in her rocking chair. This girl LOVES reading books.

6/2014 - We went to the San Diego County Fair with some friends from our apartment complex.

6/2014 - Riding the little kiddie tractors at the fair.

 7/13/14 - We wanted a picture of her wearing this adorable dress before she outgrew it, but she passed out on the way home from church. Our Brazilian friends in Columbus brought it back for her from a trip to Brazil.

8/23/14 - I ran the Color Me Rad 5k with some friends. I think Elise was less than impressed. Brian was the only spectator on the course, and people loved it (and his sign).

8/23/14 - These lovely ladies encouraged me to train for and run this race.

 8/29/14 - Watching BYU football with friends. We're pretty sure Elise is the cutest BYU cheerleader around. Go Cougs!

 9/13/14 - Playing at the beach with Grandpa Casaday.

9/28/14 - Rockin' her awesome birthday dress/outfit from Aunt Tami.

10/18/14 - Rock, paper, scissors at our ward's Trunk or Treat.

10/27/14 - Swinging at the park. 

 10/27/14 - Riding the zebra at the park. She had ridden it for the first time a few days before and knew exactly what to do when she got on this time.

10/27/14 - Painting pumpkins for FHE. She caught on pretty quickly.

10/31/14 - My secondary Halloween costume. :) (This is how we announced the baby due in May. I was about 13 weeks here.)

11/14/14 - Our little stinker hard at work spreading hot chocolate all over the kitchen floor. Could've been much worse, I suppose.

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.