John's first birthday was yesterday! We took Chipotle over to his house for a birthday lunch. Elise and John both LOVE Chipotle. Much to Mike's dismay, I had a strong aversion to it when I was pregnant and for a few months after Elise was born. Now Elise and I eat Chipotle at least once a week. Mike is very excited to join us in this habit!
This evening Elise got all dressed up for John's birthday party. She had a great time playing with John and Evie, who turned 1 in December.
Is this a "Dwight" expression or what??
Showing off the tie...
Opening his birthday present from Elise. Don't tell her, but she might be receiving one of these as well so that she and John can scoot around together this spring.
Elise continues to get better and better with her balance while she is walking and she LOVES to practice. She definitely prefers walking to cruising and crawling. She will often choose to pull up on something and then walk rather than just crawling. She can only go in a straight line to her destination (and sometimes she can't quite make it there!) We haven't had any big tumbles yet.... thankfully she's pretty good at lowering herself down. Janet came over to hang out tonight and so I took the opportunity to get a few walking pictures. I wonder what she will be doing when her daddy comes home?
Can you tell that she loves being able to walk?
Walking to mommy with Goodnight Moon as the bait...
Lowering herself down to the floor...
Not to be outdone...
Please don't learn to climb... PLEASE don't learn to climb...
... to take a good walking video. I have been trying for 2 days and it is nearly impossible! I set the camera up and then she walks in a different direction than I anticipated. This time I tried to bribe her by getting her to walk toward the camera, and it worked! In this video, she walks from the entertainment stand to the coffee table (about 7 feet, according to my volleyball net measuring skills). Elise has been attempting to walk from furniture to furniture, toys, Boss, etc. She is quite fearless and I am shocked that we haven't had any bruises yet. This is probably because I don't leave her side, haha. She's good at lowering herself down from a standing position. Once she learns not to speed up when she gets excited, she'll be good to go. Tonight when we were getting ready for bed, she would crawl over to her basket of books, pick one out, pull herself up on the ottoman, hand it to me, and then walk to me. We repeated this for about 5 different books. She is very proud of her new skill.
Elise is obsessed with the Christmas tree. She never gets tired of looking at the "gee" (and trying to take off the ornaments, etc). So, every time we leave the tree, we turn off the lights and wave 'byebye'. Today, she decided to crawl out of the office (away from the tree) of her own accord, and then thought better of it. She sat up, turned halfway around, and waved byebye to the tree. Then she kept crawling into the living room. Too cute!
Tonight she got much more adventurous with her walking. Even though she can walk, she chooses to crawl or cruise unless I am within a few feet (and she's already standing). Tonight, she walked to me almost every time she was ready to leave the furniture. She also tried walking to Boss, her Mega Bloks truck, her walker, and the coffee table. This is getting scary... I hope there are no bruises in our future! Let's just say that I am very thankful for carpet right now. She's quite good at lowering herself down from a standing position if she is walking slowly. A problem arises when she gets excited about something and goes too fast. She has the best balance when she is holding something in her hands.
Tonight she also got better at communicating her needs while eating. She gets fussy a few times during every meal, and it is either because she wants "more" (and signs or says it often if her tray is empty), wants a different type of food, wants something to drink, or is finished eating. I am trying to get her to communicate without fussing. Tonight she pointed to her cup every time she was thirsty. She looked quite pleased with herself because she knew I understood her. We are making progress!
Here are a few words that she said on camera recently. Notice how excited she gets when she remembered the Christmas tree and then was able to peer around the corner to see the 'gee'. She says it twice. In the second part of the clip, she says 'buh' for book right at the beginning. This is a pretty good representation of her excitement level when it comes to books. She LOVES to read her books and isn't content to just read it once. If I close the book when I finish reading and hand it to her, she will turn and hand it back to me if she wants me to read it again. I estimate that I read anywhere from 30-50 books per day. We don't have that nearly that many books, but she has some favorites that she loves to read, and reread, and reread, etc. She will always pick out "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" and "Goodnight Moon" out of her basket of books. She is starting to add a consonant to the end of some words, like "ball". Bath is getting close as well.
Sarah and John came over for a playdate this afternoon. It had been 2 weeks since John and Elise last saw each other and they have both learned new skills since then. It is amazing how fast they are growing. John's birthday is on Friday! Elise is trying to decide what to wear for his birthday party.
Sarah and I came up with a plan several months ago. We get together a few times a week to have a playdate AND work out. One of us runs while the other watches the babies, and then we switch. We usually eat lunch together as well. Sometimes we even get to chat or work on the baby books while both babies are napping! I am so thankful for her (and Ross and John's) friendship. We met at the Bride's Coffee at West Point during graduation week in 2004. We all went to flight school together and then came here. Sarah's husband Ross was Mike's roommate in Iraq during the first deployment. We are hoping that we will be together again at West Point in a few years. How cute would it be for John and Elise to start kindergarten together???
On another note, I am getting ready for the Austin Half Marathon on Valentine's Day. Today I did 8 very hilly miles and it felt great. I haven't run that far since the 3M Half Marathon in January 2008. I was in much, much, MUCH better running shape then. I just looked at the past results online and I actually ran the whole half at an 8:19 pace. That is about 45 seconds faster per mile than I ran today (and I felt great today!). Oh well, I don't care. Even though I'm not working outside the home, I am technically a single mom right now and I don't have the time to put into running to get back into my 2007/2008 shape. I have already checked off the half marathon block, so this one will just be for fun :)
My mom and 2 aunts are walking the half, my brother is running the half, and a few of my cousins are running the marathon. When I found this out, I had to sign up. It is one of those "everyone else is jumping off the cliff and if I don't jump I will be the lazy family member" situations. I have never before faced this particular cliff. I have absolutely no goals with this half except to finish (and thus, not be considered lazy, hehe). I actually plan to walk part of it. I don't know if I will increase my mileage before the race or not. I have an 8 mile route that I love (from my house down 3481 to Stillhouse and back... there is just something about the constant uphill and downhill that is perfect for me), so I will do that a few more times. I may try to get up to 10, but if it doesn't work out, it is totally okay.
My goal with working out is to establish a manageable AND enjoyable routine that fits into my lifestyle as a stay-at-home mom. I like to work out in the first part of the day. I run a few times a week (sometimes while Sarah or someone else watches Elise, and sometimes with the stroller) and I do a workout DVD a few times a week while Elise is napping. If the weather is nice, I like to take Elise and Boss for a walk.
Here are a few of my favorite workout DVDs. I don't have a long attention span for working out in the living room. I like these two DVDs because they are relatively short and still provide a good workout. If you are interested, click on the title to read more at amazon.com.
Pilates I used to do pilates a lot in college. I love this particular DVD because it switches very quickly between exercises. I don't like wasting time listening to explanations or waiting between moves. It does the same series of exercises in about half the time as some other pilates tapes/DVDs that I own. This no-frills DVD assumes that you know what you are doing, but it also has a Modified Basic and a Basic section that probably go slower and teach the moves. I have never looked at them. I like the Intermediate section for a short workout (13 minutes) and the Advanced version for a longer workout (less than 25 minutes). I watched the Super Advanced one and just laughed.
30-Day Shred This DVD has 3 workouts that are about 26 minutes long from warm up to cool down. This includes strength training with hand weights (I use 5 lbs), cardio, and abs. For me, this DVD falls short in the abs department (granted, I have never tried level 3), but it fits a surprising amount of strength and cardio into a small time frame. Jillian uses a lot of compound exercises (that work the upper and lower body at the same time) which are challenging. I've been using this DVD for months and haven't gotten tired of the workouts. I just switch back and forth between level 1 and level 2. They are both good workouts in different ways. One of these days I will try level 3.
I would love to hear your recommendations for workout DVDs.
Here is a short video from today. I put the random fireplace clip in the middle to show that Elise tries to get a knee up on the fireplace. I am not proud of this accomplishment.
Elise loves to play with the shape sorter on the front of her walker. She is most interested in the balls and it appears that she is more accurate with her right hand.
She loves to look at the Christmas tree. I have to keep the office door closed. I can't count the number of times that she crawled over there wanting to go in to see the "geee" (tree). Here she is waiting for me to open the door.
Come on, mom...
"Oooooh, I love the gee!"
Then she went down for a nap. After she woke up, we took a few more pictures. She was having a bad hair day. Don't worry, I washed her hair tonight so that she would be ready for her playdate with John tomorrow. She loves to look out the dining room window into the backyard.
She also loves to play under the dining room table. Thankfully, she has figured out how to get around under there without bumping her head.
Ok, I guess I will look at the camera for you.
In these pictures you can see all 7 of her teeth. The 8th one will be coming in any day now. She also said "more" several times today.
Elise was so anxious to sing "Happy Birthday" to me that she woke up 30 minutes early (at 7:30). We read some books and then headed to Starbucks for a birthday frappuccino. This might be my last one for a long time. Then, we both took a lovely morning nap. The weather was gorgeous so after lunch we headed to the park. Elise loves the swings! I know the main attraction was Elise, but the grandparents were able to use the birthday excuse for this trip, hehe. My mom came up for the afternoon and evening (I hope you feel better, Dad!) and Mike's parents came up for an hour or two as well. Thanks for entertaining the baby!
Elise has another new word. I was holding her in the kitchen and she pointed to the bananas on the counter and said "bana" or something like that. I rewarded her by cutting up some chunks of banana and while she was eating them she said it again.
Mike sent me some beautiful flowers for my birthday. I branched out a little and used the "close up" mode on my camera. It was fun to try to focus on different parts of the arrangement. Thanks, babe!
