Just like Mommy

At Elizabeth's baby shower (which was actually about a month after she was born!), my office gave us a huge teddy bear decked out with fire investigation and engineering/construction equipment.

Here's a picture of Elizabeth with it when she was 6 weeks old:



Here's a picture of her with her bear at 10 months:



My, how she has grown! She's ready to go out with Mommy to a jobsite!

Pulling up

Elizabeth has learned a new trick. She now can pull herself up into a standing position. Of course, so far she's only done it to get closer to her daddy!

Man weekend

Jonathan and I took off for a couple of days and headed north to Dayton, OH to visit Wright Patterson Air Force base and the National Air Force Museum. http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/index.htm
If you are into planes, this is the place to go. I have to say my favorite plane to see was the B2 bomber. Maybe next time we go, we can take Neil and Jack.


We also went to Columbus and visited COSI, http://www.cosi.org/adapt.php?page=home&fl=1 which is a science and industry museum. There are lots of neat things to do. One of the more interesting parts of our trip happened when we ate supper at the Varsity Club, near Ohio State University campus. A young group of Irish tap dancers were going from place to place trying to raise money for a national event. So, we got to see some authentic Irish tap dancing which was kind of neat.

She's not a Dove anymore

Elizabeth "graduated" from the baby room in the church nursery to the crawling room. The nursery is called "Noah's Mates" and all of the rooms have a different animal designation. The babies are in the "Dove" room. What a perfect designation....the little babies are so sweet and innocent.



The crawling room is called the "Koala" room.



I'm a little nervous about the Koalas. Koalas are still cute and cuddly, but they have a mischievous side to them and are definitely not as innocent as the Doves. After all, they have claws, and their noses look kind of weird. I definitely would think twice before reaching in to pet one. Actually, though, in thinking about it, I'm *really* nervous about the next room...the room for the "walkers"...the MONKEYS. Aaack!

She was in the Koala room for the first time today. It was rather traumatic for me, since it meant my baby girl is growing up, however Elizabeth seemed to have a blast. We timed it so she went in right after her nap, and they said she played the entire time and did really well. They have a lot of fun toys in the Koala room, and they even get CHEERIOS. Wow! To top it off, they had her doll, LouLou, there, so she got to beat up on her and try to steal her paci, just like she does at home:



We've actually had to restrict her access to LouLou at home, since she gets somewhat violent when she can't get her paci from her - especially since we've recently weaned Elizabeth from her own paci, except at night. I'm afraid she doesn't exhibit any of the "nurturing" tendencies you expect to see when little girls play with dolls - unless bashing her skull open with a plastic block would count! Apparently, Elizabeth managed to subdue her murderous tendencies while she was playing with the LouLou at church, since they thought it was cute, not frightening. Little do they know!

Look at her go!

Click on the picture below to see a video of Elizabeth crawling tonight. You'll never guess what she was so eager to get to! (Poor Scarlet...)

Narcissism starts early

Yesterday, Elizabeth had a severe relapse with her stomach bug. She ran a high temperature all day and was pretty lethargic. When she was awake, she wouldn't let us put her down at all. Fortunately, Gran was more than happy to hold her while we went for David's birthday treat (read the next post for details).

Fortunately, today she made a tremendous recovery. She played a lot, ate a lot more than she had been, and was in much better spirits. So, we think she's finally getting over it.

Tonight, she fell in love with her reflection in her mirror. So much so, that she couldn't stop talking to her reflection....and kissing it! It was pretty funny. How early do you think narcissism can be diagnosed?

Birthday Treat

Yesterday I was treated to a very unique birthday present, a trip to Entree Vous (www.entreevous.com). A big thanks to Susan who suggested the trip. And a big thanks to everyone who chipped $$ toward this fun and very practical birthday present. If you have never heard of Entree Vous, basically you choose 6 or more main entrees from a menu of many choices. There are stations in a huge kitchen where the ingredients are located. At each station, you put together your dish using the menu and portions of each ingredient for that particular dish. After you are done putting your dish together, you wrap it up, store it in the fridge and move to the next dish. After about an hour, we were ready to take our 6 dinners home where, when we are ready, we can pull them out of the fridge and cook them. This will come in very very handy when we have a long day and don't feel like cooking from scratch. Here are a few pictures of our trip. As you can see I had a very helpful sous chef.

I can't wait to try our first dish, a delicate, Mediterranean style tilapia dish with lightly seasoned rice pilaf. Yummmy!

Happy birthday, sweetheart

Today is the 1st of David's 39th birthdays. So, a big hug and a smooch go out to the best husband and father in the whole world on his special day.

Our birthday plans got changed a little bit due to Little Bit's stomach bug. We were supposed to go to the Japanese restaurant, but we ended up ordering in instead. But, Elizabeth managed to wake up just in time for our mini-celebration.





She even managed to give him a little birthday grin, despite still feeling bad:

The Energizer Bunny bug

Elizabeth has caught the Energizer Bunny stomach bug....it keeps going and going and going.... Tuesday, she obviously felt pretty bad all day. She didn't eat much, ran a temperature, and slept for most of the day. However, Wednesday and Thursday, she acted like she felt pretty normal. She ate close to normal and played, only getting grumpy in the evenings, when she started throwing up again both nights.

In fact, here are some pics of her playing in the laundry basket and with her daddy (aka "horsey") on Wednesday night:





And with her brother and more kitchen utensils on Thursday:





But, today, which started at 4:30am when she woke up vomiting, the stomach bug started back up again with a vengeance. And now, it has manifested itself in a 2nd symptom. I won't gross you out with the details, but I think one of the diapers I changed tonight would definitely have qualified as toxic waste!

We sure are hoping she feels better tomorrow!