Brows The Weather?

Watch who you’re furling those eyebrows at Missy! Our little Panda Bear sure does like the camera, although she still doesn’t know what the camera really IS (hence the questioned look on her face). What she DOES know is the camera is out all the time, ready to capture the action. We gave her our old point-and-shoot, which is broken and completely outdated (it resembles the dimensions of a house brick!). She has claimed it as her own and when she’s not playing with it, she keeps it in her toy basket. Currently though, she enjoys crawling around while dragging it by the wrist strap.

Pit-o-Balls

Either #1 or #2 took this footage or my new indoor ball pit, I can't remember really. What I can remember though is I LOVE playing in my balls. As you can see below, I can even get in and out of the pool by myself now!

The idea for an indoor ball pit came from friends (and coworkers) of #1, the Hayes family. They have one in their basement during the winter for their 2 children, Rohin & Veda. Its not set up right now though as they have been temporarily transferred to India for work (for 3 years!) They have a family blog too, which can be found here.

Bottom line, I love my ball pit. Thanks Roh and V!

Sliding Box Cat!

For our cat-loving friends and family...unfortunately our fuzzies don't have skills like this (that we know about!)

Grilled Cheese? Yes Please!

What you're seeing here is a grilled cheese sandwich (a personal favorite of mine) cut into cubes. Ellena ate one of these for lunch recently. The very next day she had a slice of pizza, also cut up of course. The good news here is she is beginning to enjoy so many new foods. The bad news is she has formed a new habit. She completely refuses to allow us to feed her now - even if she LIKES the food! We have begun to simply set her up in her high chair and place her lunch/snack/dinner on the tray in front of her. It is highly entertaining to watch her make a complete mess of herself (she cleans up easily), her outfit (unusually cleans up easily) and her tray and seat (both clean up easily!)

No third tooth yet, but she still has all the symptoms and was upset by her gums tonight before bed. We oragel-ed her gums and it quieted her right down. For those of you that may not know, oragel is a product made to basically numb the gums of a teething baby. We tried it when we first bought it. It definitely works and will even numb your tongue! We both thought it wore off quick, but I guess it may work longer for babies.

A Mid-Week Treat

That's right, a nice treat was waiting for me when I arrived at home today. S had picked E up from school (how we refer to day care) and we met at home about the same time. S said "quick, come here, we have a surprise for you". Well, the surprise was something we've both been waiting for and working on for a little while now - E has perfected her crawling! She's been crawling for awhile, and although she can get about rather expeditiously, it has resembled more of a wounded army man crawl. We've been hoping for the typical toddler-style crawl. Now it looks refined. Head up. Arms out. Knees underneath. And off she went! Like I said, what a treat!

Another tooth is coming in now, her third! Although we can't see anything yet, we just know because she has all of her usual teething symptoms. She gets this rough cough each time her teeth are coming in - well she did for her first two anyway and she's got it again this week. She keeps rubbing her tongue up on her upper gum, where there aren't any teeth yet. She is a bit drooly which isn't very common for her. Of course, she is chewing on everything and her usual, healthy appetite is affected as well. Now you KNOW something is wrong when Ellena doesn't want to eat!

It has been raining here all day with temps in the 50's, also a real treat. I actually had one of my windows cracked on my morning commute. I am always amazed at how acclimated we become to the changing climate here. At 50 degrees, I usually don't even bother to button my jacket!

A Welcome Weekend

Here's to the end of a really long working week. As I sit here on the sofa and look back, I can't help but feel as though this week was secretly two wrapped into one!

S jet-setted to Brazil this week for work. She was gone for 4 days total. Some might argue that's not enough time on the ground considering the flight is about 13 hours total! That's okay though, she still had enough time to eat at a REAL Brazilian steakhouse (i am jealous), try the smoothest coffee she's ever had (and bring some back - yum) and sample one of the Country's specialties; cookies and candy. She said the cookies and candies were everywhere she went. I said it sounds like Brazilians may have a sugar problem! At a dinner, she actually had something called "The heart of the palm", which is exactly what it sounds like, the inside of a palm tree! I didn't even know that was edible!

Needless to say E and I were able to spend some quality daddy-daughter time together. Speaking of "daddy", she actually said "dada" for the first time last night (on the day she turned 8 months, btw!) and it really blew me away. That and it was strange to actually hear it out loud. I mean, we knew it would come, we just didn't know when! She's been saying "momma" for at least a month, if not six weeks, so it was nice to not be called "momma" for once! Honestly I was glad E said "momma" first because S really deserves it. She really is our Superwoman.

E is also getting good at some of her favorite things, like pulling up on things like her car seat and the ottoman, crawling around at a faster pace and trying to communicate with us! We are really enjoying watching her grow. I swear we say this all the time, but every week she is more fun than the previous week.