Showering Babies

Aunt Vikki (Mommy's BFF Vikki) had her baby shower for baby Lily Victoria due May 9. Okay, those details are a little fuzzy, but I think they're right! Vik's BFF Melissa hosted the party at her home, her son Tanner joined us halfway through so Elle had a playmate. Tanner is our friend who is CANCER-FREE now!!! (And Melis and family will be bringing home baby brother Chase today! who was born 9 weeks early!) Anyway, Elle and I went of course, and got Vikki and Lily adorable clothes, three pair of shoes, and cloth diaper needs! Here are pics from her shower:

Melissa, Vikki, Steph (blogger) and Elle - who decided on her own to jump in the picture!:
Vikki - of "Vikki's baby shower" fame:

Elliot and Tanner playing with a truck:
Daddy Dennis ("Uncle Fuzz"):
See those cute boots, Lily? Awesome Aunt Stephie got those for you!
Elliot had an important call to take on her fake Blackberry:

The Bat Show

Yesterday, I picked up Elliot from Ronnie's house and brought her back to my school. We actually picked up a Wendy's lunch, and ate it at my school. After lunch, we went to an assembly my school was offering, showing Chinese culture, a Chinese acrobat show. Elliot was very excited to see the "bat" show like the bird show at Disney World. As the acrobats performed, she kept looking at the ceiling looking for the bats. Once she realized it was just going to be people, she got very excited by what she was watching. Between the two performances, she got to meet, talk to, and high-five the performers. I wasn't sure how much attention she was paying to the show, but she came home and told Daddy and later Nana by phone what she saw in quite a detailed account! I wish I had had a camera and could have gotten a picture of her with the acrobats, but alas, no. :)

Sledding - Great Family Fun!

We spent the day before Valentine's Day on the slopes. Or the slope. At Camp Tupper, right across the street from PopPop's boyhood home, Uncle Jamey and family, Me (Steph) and family, Nana & PopPop, and Aunt Cheryl, Angie, Uncle Mike and Nathan all went sledding. We had such a great time, despite the fact that we were freezing!!!

Robot Day

(On our way to Ronnie's house for daycare:)

Elliot: "Mommy let's make this a fun ride today."

Mommy: "Okay, Elle - what's up?"

Elliot: (in a monotone) "Let's talk like robots today."

Holidays 2009

Well, after our craziest holiday season ever, which David and I have sworn to each other will NEVER happen again, we have survived and have even begun to recover. We left Dec 23rd, right after work, to drive to Ohio - a crazy tradition that we will be keeping up - to celebrate Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with the Amrine/Pabst sides of the family. On the 26th , we all packed up, Jamey & Constance and fam headed north to Michigan, while Mom & Dad, Phil, and Dave, Elle, and I headed way south to Orlando. We arrived late afternoon on the 27th and checked out the timeshare we were staying in with Bill & Betsy. Mom & Dad agreed to go on a timeshare talk, and ended up purchasing some timeshare there at Bonnet Creek. It was truly lovely, and we look forward to spending more time there with both sides of the fam. We all headed to the Magic Kingdom on the 29th, and spent a great day together. The following morning, Phil flew off to the Air Force's bowl game - the Armed Forces Bowl, Mom & Dad relaxed around the timeshare, and the rest of us went to Animal Kingdom. We spent the following day recovering from that day and resting up for our big drive home. Dave, Elle and I and Mom & Dad started our trip home on New Years Day, driving part way together. After having breakfast then lunch together, we split off toward our homes. Dave, Elle and I continued on toward Long Island, and stopped for the night in Falls Church, VA at Diana & Bruce's house. We enjoyed our quick visit with them (they are such great hosts every time we visit!), then drove the last 6 hours to our home on Jan 2. We celebrated our "real" Christmas when we arrived home, it turns out that Santa had stopped here and left our presents while we were gone!

We finally have survived a week of work (quite a busy one at that! - Dave conducted the NMEA division I concert!) and are trying to recover sleep, catch up on housework, and find a bit of time to spend together!

Elliot sleeping on Christmas Eve:

The whole Amrine gang (I love this photo more than any other ever!)
The Jaks:
Elliot and Uncle Phil at Magic Kingdom: (and that rash on her face that just wouldn't quit in FL!)
Dumbo:
New ears:
New kitchen:
New drumset:
Mommy, Daddy, Elle, Cinderella's Castle and a full moon!:

Smartypants

Elliot is growing up so much lately, I just wanted to get in writing the things that she is doing, so that someday we can look back.

She knows her uppercase letters with about 90% accuracy.

She is learning her lowercase letters. (She was getting frustrated one night, while trying to point out letters in a book to me, that she didn't know the "other" letters.)

She can count to 20, but typically leaves out 14 and 15.

She sings many many songs like ABC's, Twinkle, Jingle Bells, Itsy Bitsy Spider and Teapot.

Right now she is way into babies. Baby dolls, diapers, feeding them, etc. Santa will surely bring her some things related to that!

She LOVES books. She reads more books than I can sometimes handle. And we read the same books for about a week or two, then we're onto something new for another week or two. She has two sets of 12 Winnie the Pooh board books that are teeny tiny that she plays with and "reads" daily. She has most memorized.

She loves to jump.

She loves playing music of any kind. (Not at all surprising!)

She can spell her first name, knows her full name and our street address. She can also tell you the name of all her family (Mommy is Stephanie, Daddy is David, Grandpa is Bill, Nana is Karen, etc.)

Gingerbread House

What Christmas would be complete without a Gingerbread House? (All of mine, by the way, this was my first!) But still, it seemed like a really fun craft to do with Elliot!