Eliza is UNO!

Such a big girl now!

 There awesome cupcakes were made by Kimmie and they were delicious!! No party is complete without some food :)

 After some trial and error, I found a cupcake that Eliza could have. It is made by Cherrybrook Kitchens and actually tastes good. She seemed to enjoy it. I just used a regular white frosting from the grocery store that didn't have any dairy or soy.

My WILD girl is amazing! I am a lucky momma :)

Happy Birthday!

 The three of us survived a whole year together! This morning, when Michael and I went to get Bug from her bed, we threw balloons in with her. Besides thinking we were absolutely nuts, she thought it was great! We had to get her out of there when she started trying to chew on the balloons.

After a nice, relaxing breakfast with the 3 of us, we got everything ready around the house for family to come in. That evening, Vo, Vovo and Aunt Lydia showed up just in time for dinner. After a lively dinner and bath time, Vo read Eliza a bedtime story in Portuguese. Overall it was a great day!

What a wonderful year it has been!

First Steps

Until about two weeks ago, Eliza would not walk when we held her hands. She would cruise around objects by herself and walk along a wall, but if he grabbed her hands and tried to walk with her, she would sit down. Finally, she started walking along with us if we stood behind her and held under her arms. Now the last few days, she has been toying with the idea of steps by herself. Three days ago, she did one or two steps, but I think they were mostly falling.

Well, today, she still is wobbly, but she is walking short distances! She gets too excited and ends up losing her balance. It is all downhill now!

A Morning with Eliza

Teething

I always go into Eliza's room and get her out of bed the same way. When I hear her talking through the monitor, I reluctantly get out of bed, put on my glasses, put on a happy 'mom' face and start the day. I walk in, turn off her white noise machine, open her blinds and say "Good morning, Love Bug!" Based on her reaction to that statement, I can usually tell how the day is going to go. This morning, she rolled over, hopped up and started jumping on her mattress. She'd never done that one before, so I just laughed and was ready for an adventure!

I should have known right off the bat that she was going to be wired all morning. After getting out of PJs and eating breakfast, she began her mischief of the day. When I sat her down in her toy corner, she crawled full-throttle to her toy bin, and climbed inside.

 She got stuck for a minute, but after some heavy grunting was able to right herself (mostly). In a typical Eliza fashion, she started tossing all of her toys out of her toy bin. At this point, you just have to sit back and watch because there is absolutely no use trying to put them back in.

After she emptied her toy bin and tried to (unsuccessfully) crawl out, she moved on to terrorizing some other part of the house. I quietly put everything back in her bin because if she sees that it is all put back, sometimes she does round 2.

We are trying to teach her how to play with her toys. I have been sitting her on top of her horse and she can rock it, as long as I am supporting her. Apparently, she wanted to play with her horse in a different way!

This little one definitely kept me on my toes today and reminded me of how lucky I am to stay at home with her. I laughed all day at her silliness!

Undecided

Today, Eliza woke up and could not decide if she wanted to laugh, cry or a mixture of the two. During breakfast, she was going up and down very quickly. She would go from happy and talking to upset and talking to throwing a fit, then back to happy. It was bizarre! I would ask her if she was all done and she would grab for another Cheerio, so who knows.

Later in the day, after an outfit change due to a diaper malfunction, she was still confused if she was having a good time or not. I have had to take the walker downstairs now because her favorite thing today is to climb it. Once she gets up there, she can't get back down and gets very frustrated. Dear daughter...

The Box Game

Eliza has is getting close to outgrowing her car seat, so we ordered a "rocket seat" as Michael calls it. When the box came in, she immediately got in it. I think she must be part cat! I was worried about the edges cutting her, so I put some fancy duct tape on it. It also helped to spruce it up.

For the past day and a half, she has been crawling in and out, in and out and even tried to climb on top, but thankfully she wasn't quite tall enough!

One of her favorite things today is to play peek-a-boo with the box!

My little one looks so small in her new seat. She is definitely growing up too fast!

Up and Down

 My sweet girl has been all over the place today with her moods. I think that she may be cutting her top teeth finally because she has two hard lumps where teeth will be. She goes from chewing and being happy to being very uncomfortable and fussy. She really likes chewing on cold things. Hopefully this passes soon!

 One of her favorite things to do right now is climb, particularly into things. She has been trying to climb into her walker for several days. She scares the tar out of me somethings, but I let her play and stay close.

Because she isn't feeling great today, she has been a momma's girl. She has been giving wonderful cuddles today. While I don't want her to hurt, I love days where she wants to be rocked and cuddled. The picture above is one of the most heart-breaking but cute pictures I've seen of her. Poor girl, teething with be over soon.

Hurricane Eliza

 When Eliza woke up this morning, she was FULL of energy. She was ready to get moving. Apparently I took a little while longer than she like hearing her and getting out of bed, so I woke up to "AHHHHH, AHHHH". Not a cry, just a loud yell that probably translated to "GET UP!!!."

 

She seemed completely uninterested in any of her toys, so after a bit, I decided to take her to the library. The library closest to our house has a wonderful children's' section with books, toys and little rooms to play in. She had a blast!

 

When we got there, Eliza crawled straight for the rocking chairs and tried to climb in them. She loves chairs and climbing right now. I was able to distract her with a board of magnets.

While we were playing, some girls were building an epic tower out of foam blocks and Eliza kept crawling toward them. I knew that if I let her get close, she would knock over the tower the girls had spent so much time building. As soon as the girls left the library, I let her loose. I now will call her Hurricane Eliza!

Eliza's Chairs

 My dear daughter had been giving me fits yesterday and today. I have been sitting her in the rocking chair her great grandparents got her and the chair my mom got her while we are reading books. There wouldn't be a problem if she sat like she is sitting above.

Or if she was nice and calm like the above picture. The problem comes from her thinking that it is overrated to sit. She needs to push the chair across the room against something she wants to get to. For example, she will push her rocking chair against her Gutter Bookshelves, stand on it and start getting books down. (I am always very close taking pictures so that she can't get hurt)

Same thing with her pink chair. She pushed it to her crib, stood up on it and tried to get in her crib.

With as active as this girl is, we are going to have to keep her very busy to keep her out of trouble ;)

Happy , Healthy & Trouble

Happy face

 The last month or two has been amazing compared to the first little bit with Eliza's eating. Now that we have switched to the right formula and her tummy is stabilized, she eats a ton! Her weight is coming up and everything seems to be doing much better. She loves trying to feed herself and trying new things.

The look of trouble!

 She has always been a happy baby, but now that she is sleeping and eating, she is able to work on other things, like being mischievous! She is constantly on the move, getting into anything that doesn't look like a toy or crawling into or under something she shouldn't be. Watching her learn right now is really fun because you can definitely see the wheels turning.

 This cabinet usually has all of her bowls, plates, cups and baby bullet parts. As you can see, she thought that she would 'help' and take all of the stuff out. If you were to walk into my kitchen, you would see a disaster area, but I think it is fun because she is working so hard at it.

 This happy, smiling face is one that I see often. Although she does have fussy times and likes to screech, I would say the majority of the time is spent laughing and smiling.