Another first

Elizabeth (and we) experienced another first today - her first stomach bug. Poor thing. She (and David) had a pretty rough day. I went in to get her when she woke up this morning, and she had already thrown up all over her crib. I cleaned her up and changed her clothes, then fed her. Surprisingly, she drank almost an entire bottle. So, I took her to our bed to lie with David while I changed her sheets. He woke up and I said, "I think she has a stomach bug" - right as she projectile vomited all over our bed. At that point, we *knew* she had a stomach bug!

Unfortunately, today was invoicing day for my office, which is the busiest day of the month. So, all I could do was change the crib sheets, run out to get some Pedialyte, and wish David "Good Luck!" before I had to head on to work. Fortunately, she managed to keep everything else down today and didn't seem to get too dehydrated. But, she was still really clingy and ran a temperature for most of the day, so David was worn out by the time I got home.

We think she might have gotten the evil stomach bug I had 2 weeks ago. I hope not - it lasted 4 days! Now, we're just hoping that David and Jonathan can escape it.

Days like this make me really glad that David can stay home with her. No rushing around at the last minute trying to make alternate daycare arrangements. And, even though it's hard to leave her, I know she gets the best care possible!

Her screen debut

Elizabeth made her first stage appearance tonight during our church service at Southland Christian Church. Our minister was talking on the subject of purity, specifically how, once we become Christians, we are seen by God as having the purity and innocence of a small child. To demonstrate this, he arranged for 10 babies to be on stage for a few minutes during each service, and Elizabeth was one of the ones on stage tonight.



Elizabeth loves people, bright lights, and music. So, as you can imagine, she loved being on stage and really hammed it up for the crowd. She must have seen her Daddy, Jonathan, Granddad and Granny Pat in the crowd, because she started to wave and talk to them:



Then, she noticed that Mommy was wearing one of her absolute favorite things....a WATCH! So, she spent a while trying to get that off Mommy's wrist:



But, then, she found the piece de resistance - Mommy's button on her shirt. So, she spent the rest of the time trying to get the button in her mouth, while Mommy spent that same time trying to keep her shirt buttoned:



I think she's ready for Broadway now!

Cat vs. baby

In case you haven't been able to tell yet, I'm catching up on my blogging today!

I think Scarlet now truly understands that Elizabeth is a much more significant threat to her than the dog. Lyra ignores Scarlet; Elizabeth's mission in life seems to be to touch the cat (and stick any portion of the cat in her mouth, if at all possible).

The humorous thing is that the baby and Scarlet seem to be interested in the exact same things, so they naturally gravitate toward each other. David has found that he can keep them both entertained for hours with a single cat toy:



And, now that Elizabeth can move, most of her energy is spent trying to catch Scarlet.





Scarlet is not amused:



We are struck by the similarities between the recent power struggle that has been taking place in Aunt Beth's household. Unfortunately for Scarlet, getting rid of Elizabeth is not an option. Unfortunately for Elizabeth, I'm afraid Scarlet will teach her the hard way that psycho kitties are not necessarily good playthings.

Rubik's cube

2005 marked the 25th anniversary of the Rubik's Cube. In deference to this reminder of our childhood, David and I got Jonathan a Cube for Christmas.

We are proud to announce that one of our children has actually figured out how to solve the Rubik's Cube (and, no, it does not involve taking it apart and putting it back together). We are equally proud to announce that one of our children has figured out how to drool on a Rubik's Cube. We leave it up to the reader to deduce which child has performed which feat.

However, here's a clue for you:

On the move

We made it back from San Antonio. The trip was relatively uneventful. Elizabeth traveled well, other than the fact that she refused to sleep on either of the planes and was in constant movement mode, which meant David and I were both very tired when we finally got home.

I was very glad that David was able to come with me on the trip. My office and I received several awards from my company, including the "President's Global" award, which is given to the top office in the company. (We actually shared this award with another office, because there was a tie.) I told everyone that David earned the awards just as much as I did. Everytime I work overtime, he does too!

Elizabeth is now officially crawling. She has finally figured out how to move her legs to complete the motion. Fortunately, she's not very fast....YET! We really should start thinking about babyproofing. So far, the only thing she seems inclined to bother are my cell phone and the cat, but I'm sure that will change very soon!

Here are some "action" pics of her on the move:









As you can see, her hair is getting completely out of control!

First plane trip

David and I took Elizabeth on her first plane trip yesterday. We're now in San Antonio for my company's managers meeting and will be here until Wednesday. All in all, Elizabeth did very well on the trip. Especially considering we had to make an emergency trip to the Urgent Treatment Center on Thursday night because she had another ear infection. Fortunately, we got the antibiotics just in time for it to clear up for the most part before we left.

Our trip was more exciting than planned - we ended up getting stuck in the Memphis airport for an extra 7 hours because our flight from Lexington was delayed and we missed our connecting flight. We were supposed to get in to San Antonio at 3:30pm, and we didn't get in until 10:30pm. Talk about a long day!

There was an added bonus from the unplanned delay. We got to see Aunt Amy for a little bit, because she was flying into the Memphis airport on her way home from Atlanta. Of course, that was one of the only times all day that Elizabeth was asleep!

Here's a picture of Elizabeth playing in the Memphis airport:



And sleeping with Aunt Amy:



Jonathan spent the weekend on a church middle school retreat. They had 10,000 students in Cincinnati for the CIY "Believe" conference. We think he had a great time....his verbose description of it was "fun".

4 eyes are better than 2

Not only did Jonathan get braces this month, he also got his first pair of glasses. They are very cool-looking, plus they have the added benefit of allowing him to see the board at school.

Isn't he handsome?

Snow man

Even though we didn't get much sledding in today, Jonathan and I did manage to get a snow man made. His name is, unbelievably, Mr. Snowman.

Mommy and the giant blue marshmallow

Elizabeth isn't really sure what to do about this snow suit she is wearing. But, she does look like a giant marshmallow.

Fun in the Snow

Well the kids finally did wake up so we headed out to Stonewall Elementary hill for some sledding action. As you can see, by the time we got there, the snow had pretty much disapeared, but Jonathan was able to go down a few times. Of course, he was trying to hit the mud puddle. Hopefully before spring comes, we will get some better snow because Stonewall hill is the best.

Our snow dog

Samoyeds were originally bred as Russian sled dogs. Lyra was able to return to her roots this morning when we woke up to about 4 inches of snow on the ground. She had a great time playing in the snow. Do you see her?



If the kids ever wake up, we're going sledding!

Crawling is over-rated

Elizabeth has decided that crawling is over-rated. After all, she's too sophisticated to slither around on the floor. Tonight she decided to skip the crawling phase altogether and go straight to standing. Of course, she didn't get up there herself, but she was content to stay that way for quite a while!



Interesting sidenote: She was listening to the song "London Bridge is Falling Down." Guess that will teach Gran and her aunts to go to England without Mommy!

The Super Bowl

As nobody in our house is an NFL fan, you might be surprised to hear that our family Super Bowl party is talked about and planned for months in advance. Super Bowl Sunday is the one evening a year that Jonathan gets to plan the entire meal with no parental input or veto power. Needless to say, for the Super Bowl, the food triangle is flattened into a linear line of junk food. The menu this year consisted of mini pizzas, mozzarella sticks, lil' smokies, easy cheese (yes, the squirt kind in the can), vienna sausages, banana pudding and cream soda. David and I removed the vienna sausages and squirt cheese and added sausage rolls and Tums to our meal to complete the celebration.

No more posing

Elizabeth may not be crawling, but she's definitely not sitting still anymore. I tried to take some pictures of her today to show off her cute new "big girl" outfit (an extra 50% off the clearance price at The Children's Place outlet in Ohio....WOOHOO!). I used to put her down, get her to smile, and take the picture. Now, it's much more difficult. I had to try to somehow snap the picture as soon as I took my hand off her, before she could start grabbing at something, rolling over onto her tummy, or otherwise wriggling around. So, it looks like all of our pictures from now on will be "action" shots.

Thank goodness for digital cameras. I think I took about 16 shots to get one halfway decent one:





Doesn't she look like a big girl?

Well this is what happens when you use the glass cooktop as the counter top. I was crushing some cookies in between a sheet of wax paper when the top shattered. Fortunatley, I didn't cut myself bad, just a little prick. The brown specks are our lost forever cookies. I guess next time I will use the counter top.

When I was a kid...

...we had to walk to school...uphill both ways....in 6 feet of snow...and my braces weren't nearly this cool:



He even got to choose the color of the bands (black, of course).

Elizabeth is feeling much better. We're glad to have our happy baby back. Now, hopefully she'll remember how to sleep through the night again!

She learned the other day that if she slaps Daddy in the face, it makes a fun noise:



This led to Daddy getting beaten up by both kids:



I also have a confession to make. As Aunt Beth has alluded, Elizabeth is addicted to kitchen utensils. We have a houseful of toys, but one of her favorite things to play with is the baster. It makes a great teether!





Boo!