Let's Hear It For Warm Weather!

Over the weekend, we were able to get out and about and enjoy the sun on our faces! This is the first time the weather has broken all year basically and it is always welcomed after a winter season of overcoats and overcast. As you can see here, E really likes to wear her glasses. She can wear these for hours!

Well, let me see...what's been going on....oh, yeah, our newest news is....SHE HAS TAKEN HER FIRST STEPS! It happened just the other night! We know she's been close for awhile now and so an addition to our evening routine has been to sit on the floor a few feet apart from one another and guide her "walks" back and forth between us. She can do this usually for several hours before she either loses interest or gets too tired. The really great part about this is she shows improvement every night! Well a few nights ago she took 2 steps without any help. As soon as she realized this made us giddy with excitement she did it a few more times! Since then we have been working with her (plus she practices at day care all day long, I'm sure) each night and she is really improving. We have begun to increase the distance between us and allow her to balance a bit more.

She can also stand in place for long periods of time - say 10 seconds. These truly are great times and we are really enjoying our little girl!

Now if we can all keep from catching the Swine Flu...ahem, I mean the H1N1 virus!

Don't Mess With Texas - Part II

The next leg of our trip took us to Grandma Gigi and Grandpa Jay's mountaintop hideaway. They like to call it their "rock pile". Now we know firsthand why this is...because of the seemingly endless number of terrain challenges, especially for gardeners. Gigi has 10 green thumbs though and can grow anything...even if it is out of pots! Her and Ellena went all over the grounds to inspect the spring inventory. Ellena really liked the smell of the lemon tree, which had tiny blossoms on it's branches.

All frogs and toads gather on sunny days. I am not sure why, but if you look closely you will spot an iron feline that has joined their ranks as well.

Ellena inspected the kitchen cabinets. Good news! Everything is A-OK! After some coffee and reminiscing, we went to San Antonio (or San-an-tone as the locals know it by) for some sightseeing and a bit of exercise. We ate lunch at the Legendary German Delicatessen Schilo's (Since 1917!). I highly recommend stopping in for a Reuben and a cup of split pea soup (served in a real coffee cup!). I heard the home made root beer is killer too, but I passed since it is most-likely loaded with sugar! Overall a great place to stop and rest weary feet.

Ellena liked Schilo's so much, she gave momma some kisses!

We then went down the street to a Mexican-type shopping district loaded with souvenirs, places to eat and beautiful music everywhere! We walked a lot on this day (well, not E, as she freeloaded in her stroller!) and needless to say rested very well at the end of the day.

Tune in next time when our vacation continues, and sadly concludes, in the mecca of Houston.

Don't Mess With Texas - Part I

We decided to kill two birds with one flight - take a little family vacation and get E on her first airplane ride. We were blessed to be able to get the rearmost seats on a semi-full flight to San Antonio. Before and during the flight we prayed not only for safe travel but also that the pressure inside the plane's cabin would not hurt Ellena's tiny ears (it didn't). In fact, she seemed to really enjoy the new surroundings inside the plane. Here is one way to know you have been bit by the wintertime cabin fever bug and just want to get out and go somewhere. You wake up and decide it might be a good idea to take your nine and a half month old for a three hour plane ride. Yea, if you happen to be feeling that cooped up it might be a good time to make yourself an appointment to see your doctor, or just pick up a big Slurpee from 7-11, pull the covers up to your neck and watch re-runs.

When you're pregnant (or a father-to-be), everyone just keeps giving you great advice like "Your whole LIFE is going to change". Naturally, that seems obvious, but I now understand the underlying implications. For context; in one flight we practically turned into "that family with the child". Even though Ellena was moderately good, we were still the only family with a baby, thereby making us "that family".

My advice to anyone who has never had this experience, but desires to know what it is like? Easy. It can be recreated at home! Just sit in your favorite living room chair with your child on your lap....for 3 hours! Don't let her (or him) crawl off your lap, scream, slide the window shade up and down repeatedly, destroy the coveted Sky Mall, kick the seat back, spill what little beverage you are lucky to be served, or pull the hair of the guy in front of you (who is trying to sleep, BTW).

I felt like we deserved to pose for a post-flight picture once we landed.

We were met by Grandma Gigi and Grandpa Jay and they had arranged for us to go to dinner with Jay's oldest son, Jason and his family (Wife Elsa and daughter Brisa). To kill time before the dinner (Jason needed to end his workday first), we were taken to one of San Antonio's secret spots, the Chinese Tea Garden. It was a beautifully well-kept sunken oasis with fish ponds and flowers galore. We were enjoying the quiet time and the weather, but as you can see, the heat was wearing Ellena out!

At the restaurant, we had authentic Mexican fare (thank heaven!) and Ellen took right to the ladies.

The guys were highly amused with the baby talk and hugs and kisses...

I have more in store for post II, but currently there is a request to shut down for the night. Who can deny such a request...More to come!

It Is Finished...

Lord, my prayer today is that each of us would take some time to remember what Easter is all about and what celebrating Easter really means. Please grant us the patience to pause today and think about the sacrifices that you made and continue to make in our lives. Amen.

In other news, we took E to the mall because we feel that as a little child, you simply have to have your picture taken with the Easter Bunny. This particular bunny was very patient with us as for some reason E just didn't want to bust out one of her usual big (now sort of filled with teeth) smiles.

This picture seems to warrant the following caption: Take The Picture And Pick Me Back Up!

Happy Easter everyone!

What Is This - Quiz Answer

Okay, it's time to post the answer to the quiz from last week. The question was what is this thing?
Thank you to all who participated. There were many guesses - some serious and some not-so-serious (you know who you are!). The closest guess was made by one of Living with Hope's southern followers.

Congratulations Elsa! Your guess was that the easy-to-manage bundle pictured above was a computer. Technically, this was the closest guess to the actual answer.

Answer: Its a hard disk drive, circa 1956, with the memory storage comparable to 5MB of memory. In September 1956 IBM launched the 305 RAMAC, the first computer with a hard disk drive (HDD). The HDD weighed over a ton and stored 5MB of data. Pretty interesting since most computers today arrive at our doorsteps with a minimum 100MB standard, not to mention weigh much less than 2000 lbs. Gotta love technology!

How many cats do we have?

You know something...the other day we both realized we are a lot less anal parents than we ever thought we were going to be. I mean, if she likes crawling around with the cat's mouse hanging from her mouth...hmmm...well, at least she's happy!

Da Bears

I just had to post a snippet of video of E and her bear pack. She plays with this colorful bunch EVERYDAY. This is no exaggeration. She is actually getting pretty good at manipulating them too. For example, when she first got them for Christmas (Thank you Steve & Gail, BTW), she could only pick them up and drop them. But now, she bangs them about and can almost put them back into their slots.

Exclusive: Little Girl Caught Red Handed!

Aha! I knew someone was into the Red Bull supply because it was slowly and suspiciously disappearing, but I didn't know who...unto now! Gotcha little missy. What do you have to say for yourself? Oh, you don't talk yet, huh? Well we'll see about that...

Okay, so it's true, she doesn't really drink Red Bull and she doesn't talk yet either (well, legibly anyway), but she is in the pantry...A LOT. Actually miss Ellena is into EVERYTHING. We love it though. She crawls around, and she's quick too. It's like this - one moment you look at her to see if she's fine (she's checking something out in the family room) and you turn your head, look out the window (for just a sec, just-a-sec) and when you look back at her...poof...she's gone! She can be found either in the kitchen, or in the laundry room, or tormenting the cats (don't be fooled, they love the attention!). It's like, hey, are there really 2 babies here? She was just over there!

One of E's favorite games right now, besides Reverse Peekaboo (where she hides her own face and you have to pretend you can't find her until she reveals herself) is the Pull-Everything-Out-Of-Something game. It is a game she is really, really good at. Diaper bags. Purses. Boxes. Nothing is safe. This game is rivaled only by one other - the Put-Everything-Into-Something-Else game. It is really fun to watch her play this game, especially if what she is moving around doesn't exactly fit into whatever she is moving it in to. Personally, I enjoy watching her problem solve, or get annoyed, drop the items and move on to something else (she must get this from me!)