Elise- Seven months old!

I can't believe Elise is already seven months old! Time is flying by....so sad! Our little lady has been crawling for about a month now. She wants to keep up with her brothers! She loves to chat with Ethan (who speaks baby talk with her all the time), and she giggles with Drew Drew. At her six month appointment she weighed 17 pounds 3 ounces (75th percentile) and was 95th percentile in height. When people see her they always comment how petite she looks, which is so funny to me because she is a BIG girl. I think her features are more petite (she def looks more girly), so that's why they say that. She still despises baby food though, so we are struggling with that a little (she wants to nurse/feed round the clock since she won't eat baby food). She doesn't even like fruit....what's wrong with her?!? Bananas, pears, applesauce, sweet potatoes, all instantly are spit out after I give them to her. This happens with any kind of medicine as well. Once you get one scoop in, she spits it out, then clamps her mouth shut so nothing else can be put in (see below).

She LOVES cheerios I discovered (see video), but they seem to give her a big tummy ache afterwards.

She LOVES to play with her brother's toys. You can put all the baby toys in front of her, and she'll play with them for a couple minutes at most. Then she'll see a dinosaur or their book across the room, and bolt for it. The brothers are being very good about sharing their toys! Here she has discovered Drew Drew's favorite book: Bugs!

Nothing like biting a dinosaur's head! It's great for teething (she has her two bottom teeth and is working on her top two now!).


Overall she is an absolutely wonderful little girl. We feel soooooo blessed. She is growing up WAY to fast!!!!

Catch-up

***Warning....L O O O N G post***


Well it's been a little while since I last blogged! I am now so far behind that it is a little overwhelming. So I'll do a little catch-up post, and go from there. Since I last posted, I've flown to Chicago, flown to Washington DC, and had a crazy and fun Halloween weekend....just to name a little of what's been going on!

Chicago:
I brought Ethan and Elise to Chicago to surprise my dad. My mom and sister threw him a surprise 60th birthday party, and to top it off my mom flew me and my older brother in (my younger brother was too far away to fly in....Scotland!). The party was a big success (my dad had no clue), and it was a blast to hang out with my family.


Here's a link to a slideshow my sister put together for my dad....it's really, really good. If you have time (it's 15 minutes long), check it out. You'll feel like you know my dad very well after watching it:-)

It was especially fun seeing the cousins play together. Elise and Brett are 4 1/2 months apart, and they both have the same easy-going tempermant.


Washington DC:
I flew to Washington DC WITHOUT kids the following weekend!!! My cousin Amanda got married, and it was such a blast to be able to go to her wedding. My little bro Dave flew in from Scotland to shoot her wedding (he's an awesome photographer!), so it was an added bonus to be able to hang with him and his wife. My parents and older brother were there as well. None of us had a car, so we took the Metro EVERYWHERE. Let me just tell you I know that city and the train system by heart now:-) It was fun to be able to experience a little of the big-city life, considering I HAVE to drive everywhere way out in the country where I live:-) I have to admit I came home completely exhausted, but it was a fun, memory-filled weekend (sorry no pics!....took a camera break). Here's a link to my cousin's site with pictures from the wedding......you can see ALL my cousins that live out there.

Halloween:
We attended all sorts of Halloween festivities this year. The boys had a fun fall festival at their school, and our neighborhood put on a Halloween party filled with games, cake walks, treats, and a scavenger hunt. We decided to go the cheap route and recycle costumes/dress-up clothes that we already had instead of buying new ones. So Ethan changed costumes everytime he went to a new event, whereas Drew Drew was very stuck on being a T-Rex (Ethan's costume last year).

We also went to a tree farm a few miles from our house that also doubles as a pumpkin patch in the fall. The boys had fun running through the rows of trees, feeding the fish in the lake, and picking out some pumpkins. This was the first year they were actually excited about carving them. We bought a pumpkin for each of us, and let the boys decide how they wanted their pumpkins to look. Overall is was a lot of fun!


Elise sitting in the grass as the tree farm:


Ryan and I went to a crazy costume party. Again, we went the cheap route and tried to come up with costumes we could create at home. We went as the publishers clearinghouse couple. Ryan carried checks and flowers around, and I was the lady dressed in a robe, shocked to be winning money. At least I was comfy all night my robe!

The kids had a blast trick or treating. Grammy came over and went with us, along with our good friends Matt and Kristi and their two boys. Here's the buddies all posing for a picture:

The first house of the evening:

Pirate Ryan with Elise on her first Halloween:

Our family (I was dressed up as a tired mom...ha!, my mother-in-law was a mime/ref/crazy hair person?, t-rex Drew, and Pirates Ryan and Ethan)