Priority mail

Well, Elise decided that she wanted to climb in Daddy's care package and go visit him! This box entertained her for a solid 30 minutes. You will notice that the picture is not focused (and I have about 10 in a similar pose... none of them came out well). It has gotten increasingly difficult for me to take good pictures of Elise since she is never still. This will only be a problem for a few more days... Mike and I are getting a new camera for Christmas and it should be here soon. I am so excited! I ordered a Canon Digital Rebel XSi and the Cyber Monday bonus was a free case, high speed memory card, lens cleaner, and screen protector. I patiently watched the price fall about $50 during the last few weeks of November and then made my purchase.

I took her to the doctor on Monday for 2 shots. She weighed 22.5 lbs and measured 30 inches long. She's in the 90th percentile for height and weight. She gained just over a pound in the last 2.5 weeks since I took her in when she was sick. This definitely confirms the growth spurt. She is still waking up once at night to eat, but I think this is wearing off. I need to be more consistent about giving her a breakfast of solids before her first nap. Sometimes it just isn't convenient when we go somewhere in the morning because she is only awake for 1:45 or 2 hours before her first nap. Today I went back to 5 nursing sessions in hopes that if she gets her 5th one during the day, she won't need it at night. If it works, I may just keep doing this until she turns a year old (or nurse 4 times and give her pumped milk out of a cup once), and then gradually replace a couple of feedings with cow's milk. I am not sure how long I will continue nursing. We'll see what happens.

She is learning new things every day. Waving 'hi' and 'byebye' has finally clicked for her. She's done it sporadically for the last few months, but during the last two days she's done it correctly at least 90% of the time. She even waves hi to me and Boss and sometimes says 'iiiiiiiiiiiii' or 'ba ba' while she is doing it.

She loves to repeat sounds that I make. Today I tried hard to not say the word just because I was curious if she would do it herself. I know that she understands a bunch of words (probably 20?) but I wanted to see what she would say. After she took a bath tonight, she crawled back into the bathroom three times saying 'bah' for bath. She said 'bah' several times when she was crawling toward her ball in the kitchen (the ball on the tile floor entertained her for a good 30 minutes) and said 'buhn' when she picked up her stuffed bunny. It was the first time I've heard her say the 'buhn' sound. I was really surprised about the last one because she just met the bunny yesterday. Unfortunately, she might not get to play with the bunny very often. Boss tried to sneak it outside. She also says 'puh' or 'bah' to Boss.

She has also learned to hand things to me when I ask. We started working on this a week or two ago and... get this... when she picks up one of Boss' rawhides off the floor, if I say "That is Boss' toy, can you give Boss the toy?" she will hold it out for him to come get. Then she thinks it is hilarious when he takes it away from her. She did it about 5 times today. It is SO cute. My next mission is to get it on video. This is a huge step up from her previous habit of examining and then trying to chew on the rawhides.

Changing the subject...

On the weekend before Thanksgiving, we drove down to San Marcos to watch the 5A State Volleyball Championship Game. Right before the game, we were honored as the 1999 State Champions. Volleyball was a huge part of my life in middle school and high school. In 1998, we made it to the state tournament but lost in the championship game, and in 1999 we came back and won. Here is a picture of the seniors from 1999.


And here are some pictures from last weekend. About half the team made it to San Marcos. We had a great time catching up.



We spent most of last week in Austin for Thanksgiving. Elise loved eating turkey, ham, and green beans. We had Thanksgiving on Wednesday night at my parents' house. Several of my friends from Fort Hood (including John and his family) were able to eat with us. We had a great time!


On Thursday, Bryan and I ran the Thundercloud Subs Turkey Trot downtown. It was perfect weather for the race and I felt great during all 5 of the miles. We were being silly trying to stay warm before the race...


Afterwards, Elise and I met up with Mike's extended family for lunch. Elise definitely doesn't mind being the center of attention! Then we came back to my parents' house for a quick nap before the UT/A&M football game. Here is Elise with her grandparents. By the looks of this picture, you might be surprised to know that 3 of her 4 grandparents went to UT and the other one went to Baylor.


On Friday I had lunch with 4 of my good friends from high school, Cindy, Ashley, Gretchen, and Lindsay. Somehow I totally forgot to take a picture while we were all together! We are going to make it an annual event.

That's all I've got! Maybe tomorrow I will be able to post some pictures of the supposed snow... :)