The Cool Life of Eliza Anne

Yesterday, we got a bit more snow in the morning into the early afternoon, so we thought we would try out the new snowsuit that Eliza got for Christmas from Brian and Kimmie. We ended up putting a hat on her in addition to the suit because the wind kept blowing the hood off. Most of the 4 minutes that we were out there, she just sat there and stared like, "What do you want me to do?!"

Since Michael was off last night, he took over bath time. When he took her hair of out the pigtails, she had a baby Ace Ventura thing going on. She is going to love all these pictures when she gets older! ;)

This morning she woke up a bit fussy, but with enough distractions stays pretty happy. Aside from standing up, feeding yourself is the coolest thing in the world according to Eliza.

Coming in 3rd this morning is "Catch the Fishy" and in 4th is jumping!

Being a cute baby is an exciting job!

Eliza's First Fishies

Several days ago, we got the tank ready for our new fish. We decided to get some fish after Eliza had such a good time looking at Mindy and Clarence's little turtles. We have had turtles before and they are a lot of work, so goldfish it was. 

Today, Eliza and I went to get the little fishies. The orange one Eliza named Ulluh-uluh and the one with the brain-like thing she named Arhh-arg. Here her say the name in the video below.

Happy Puffs

 

Today is one of those days that I wish I did not live in Nebraska. Since the windchill has been in the -20s, Eliza and I stayed in the house most of the day. We ventured out once to have lunch with a friend, but ran from the car to the building. The weather in LA sure is looking nice...

In other news, Eliza has been showing much more interest in feeding herself, so we are finally trying the puff cereals. One of our friends call them "happy puffs", so I called them that, too. Eliza was super happy about them once she figured out that she could eat them! She is used to me taking stuff out of her mouth (that she finds around the house), so the fact that she got to put stuff in her mouth, that it tasted good, and that I clapped when she did it made the whole experience thoroughly enjoyable!

Playground

Since Michael had to go back to work tonight, he tried to sleep in, but wasn't very successful. It is hard for him to switch between nights and days. He woke up about 11, so we had a date with dad! When we donated blood last week, we got a buy 1- get 1 meal at Raisin' Canes so we used that. Afterword, we had a few errands to run, one of which being at the mall.

Bundled up in her stroller

Before we left, we stopped by the play area to see if there was anything Eliza could play on. They have little mushrooms that she could stand up by and the floor was super squishy, which she seemed to enjoy. I was slightly nervous though because there were bigger kids running around and rough-housing too close to her, in my opinion.

So, Michael and I moved her to one of the portholes. She thought that was great, especially when she saw me on the other side. She is such a little ham! After a little while, she got bored with the porthole, so we bundled back up and went home.

As I wrote before, if she isn't standing up, she isn't happy these days. This afternoon, she was standing up at the couch and tried to fall to a sitting position, but she got stuck on the ottoman. She looked up at me really confused. "Well, this isn't how it is supposed to work," is what her face read when she looked up at me.

It is so neat to watch her right now because you can definitely see the wheels turning when she is working. Each time her little pinchers get after something, her face has a particular look of concentration. Her personality is getter more fun, too. She likes to laugh, likes people and likes to do things for herself. Sometimes when I try to help, she gets mad. I don't know where she got that from!

Standing Around

1/3/2014

In the past week, it seems that if she isn't standing up on something, then she isn't happy. Crawling is no longer the cool thing to do. Sitting and playing with toys is also not cool. You are only awesome if you are standing up playing with a "toy" that you see mom and dad playing with. Some of these favorite items include the remote, cell phones, game controllers and folded laundry.

Thankfully for Eliza (and my heart) she is beginning to learn how to fall. Before it was standing and then laying. Now, she is able to fall on her bottom and not really hurt herself. There are some exceptions to this. For instance, the swivel chair. 

Her favorite toy to play with in the swivel chairs right now is the cat. Thankfully, the cat has been pretty patient so far and not greeted her cute little baby hands with a paw full of claws. It the above picture, she is going for dad's socks that were just folded. The bad thing about the swivel chairs swivel. She doesn't understand that every time, it is going to end badly. So I have to hold the chair while she's standing on it, or move her. Which brings about the the next newly developed problem.

Standing in the kitchen 'helping' mom clean

She has developed a temper!! I don't know where she got it from... must be from Michael ;) When you move her to a different place and she wasn't ready to be moved, she throws a fit. Same thing with taking something away from her (like a little piece of something on the floor) or telling her no ends in the same results. We are going to have to be consistent and assertive quick, or we could have a real problem. I don't want a diva baby!

Another place that Eliza enjoys standing these days is in her crib. Last night, we had a hard time getting her to go to sleep like usual because she stood up and cried. We had to go in and lay her down once before she would go to sleep. Hopefully this does not become a pattern.

1/3/2014

I don't want to jinx myself, but the last three nights she has slept through the night!!! Three days ago, we started adding a little bit of rice cereal to her baby foods to thicken them up. I think that, combined with her increased mobility is a recipe from success! Now if I could just get myself in bed at a decent hour, I could get some great sleep :)

Back to Nebraksa Life

Rocking Chair from Vo and VoVo

 Now that we are back, life had calmed down and it's a bit sad. We have missed being around our people but are glad to get back to our animals and beds. Today was assigned to cleaning and putting up Christmas decorations. We drug the tree outside packed everything away.

The Christmas tree corner is now Eliza's play corner. We got so many toys over the break that they fill up a large part of our living room. It's good to be a kid.

New Years BFF Reunion 2013

 We finally got into LA at about 2am (4am our time). Nicole surprised me by coming to LA, which we thought she wasn't going to be able to do.  Needless to say, we were all tired and Eliza was still running a fever. After tending to her, we quickly went to sleep. Eliza woke up feeling much better, but you could still tell in her eyes that she wasn't 100%. The only person that wasn't there when we woke up the next morning was David, but we got him at about noon. That evening, we went to a park to play volleyball and Nicole ended up dislocating her toe, so I played resident mom and relocated it to the proper position.

 The next morning, Eliza woke up feeling better, but still had a pretty nasty cough. You can also see that she has a little bruise on her face from falling because she is getting pretty brave. She is giving me heart attacks, but I know it is part of her learning.

Bowling with a baby on my back

 On Sunday, all 9 of us went to Korea Town to this really nice bowling alley.I tried to bowl with Eliza on my back, which she thought was great, but Michael said she was shuffling around too much when I let the ball go. So, since Nicole had a bum foot and wasn't bowling anyway, she got some extra cuddle time with Eliza.

After bowling, we went to eat Korean Barbeque, which was crazy delicious. I have never eaten so much meat in one sitting before! Since filling ourselves with protein wasn't enough, we headed to Beverly Hills to fill up on sweets at the famous Sprinkles cupcakes. Since I am mostly done breastfeeding, I decided to treat myself to the most chocolatey cupcake they had!

 

 Some people got ice cream, but I wasn't ready for that much dairy! The left picture above is us standing in Beverly Hills in front of Sprinkles. The one on the right is us showing off that Eliza was wearing a cupcake outfit and should be their mascot!

Walking around the Tar Pits with Dad

 On Monday, we had to take Nicole to the airport so that she could spend NYE with her hubby. While we got it, it didn't make it any more fun to drop her off. We spent most of the day deciding what we were going to do and decided on the Tar Pits and LACMA. We didn't actually pay to go in the museum, but we did enjoy its outdoor exhibits.

Because we can't hog Eliza all the time, Mindy wore Eliza for a large part of the walk. After the Tar Pits, we went to an outdoor mall called the Grove. We mostly just walked around because we were all cheap, but had a great time.

Having 1-1 time with Uncle Mike at the Grove

 Since it was starting to get chilly, we headed back to the house to have a game night where a few of Mindy and Clarence's friends came over to play. Note to all readers, when playing Apples to Apples, sit next to Clarence (he is hillarious!).

 Tuesday morning started off wonderfully because we went and got Randy's Donuts. I haven't had donuts since way before little bug was born, so I thoroughly enjoyed my cinnamon twist and chocolate donut. Needless to say, there weren't leftovers.

 Instead of going out, we decided to have a chill day. Sarah, Mindy and I went out and ran errands while Eliza hung out with the 4 guys. We got back and she was in one piece and happy. That evening, the girls watched a movie and the guys smoked cigars and had a drink.

Sadly, Wednesday we had to leave to go back home. It was so nice to be around some of our closest friends and to see the love that they have for Eliza. Since all of our flights were roughly at the same time, we went to the airport and hung out. Sarah was in our terminal so we got to see her a bit longer.

Eliza was mostly a happy girl on our flights back, and slept when she started getting fussy. The flights were fine enough, but stepping off of the plane into 10 degrees made us want to go back to the beautiful 70s that we had been in. What a great visit :)