Day 447: Happy Memorial Day!

Happy Memorial Day, everyone!

This morning we took the kids to the duck pond for a nice long walk and some play time. Elise, Caleb, and Ingrid quacked at the ducks and woofed at the dogs-- we've been working on animal sounds with them, so it was nice to see the kids in action!

Days 444, 445, and 446

Elise practiced her balancing act for the circus on May 27th:



Dinosaur nose! May 28th:



Even superbabies need to rest sometimes. May 29th:

Days 442 and 443

I guess I was late getting Elise in bed for nap time! She grabbed her blanket and tucked herself in on the floor, May 25th:



Pretty colors in Ingrid's butterfly book make Elise happy. May 26th:

Days 439, 440, and 441

Cousin James and Elise, May 22nd:



Elise swimming away from an alligator, May 23rd:



Elise watching Radar get ready to go home after boarding her this past weekend, May 24th:

Day 438: Florida Aquarium

We took the kids to the Florida Aquarium in Tampa on May 21st. They loved it! The big fish didn't scare them at all-- they enjoyed watching all of the movement and pretty colors. Some of my family and Elliot's family joined us for the afternoon. What a great day!

Introducing Clark!

We've decided to name our son Clark. Here is his 3D ultrasound image from May 11th. Isn't he beautiful?


Elise's 3D ultrasound image: click here

Days 436 and 437

Elise loves her little brother already! May 19th:



What else does Elise love? Bath time! She DEMANDS baths now. "Bath! Bath! Bath!" And she does the baby sign language sign by rubbing her hands around on her chest. May 20th:

Day 435: Rwar!

Elise likes to read books that have animals in them. It gives her a chance to practice her animal sounds and her colors. Here she is on May 18th, reading "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?":

Day 434: Lunch Break

Elise always enjoys seeing Daddy when he comes home for lunch. As soon as she hears his key in the lock she says, "Dada?!" May 17th:

Days 431, 432, and 433

Elise loves the rides at Chuck E Cheese! May 14th:



On Sunday we went with the kids to the duck pond. Elise got her first scraped knee. She didn't cry-- not even when I dumped hand sanitizer on it. You can kind of see the scrape in this picture, although it looks much more scabbed now. May 15th:



Elise will do anything to unfold a stack of clean laundry. Including turning over a laundry basket, pushing it across a room, and using it as a ladder to reach the laundry stacked on the bed. May 16th:

Let the Belly Pictures Begin!

Time again for some pregnant belly pictures!

This picture was taken when I was about 12.5 or 13 weeks pregnant:



Elliot and I were with the kids and some of my family at a zoo in Sarasota on March 26th. I wasn't intentionally taking a belly picture, but you can tell that I'm starting to get a bit of a bump.

What a difference a couple of weeks makes! Here I am about 15 weeks pregnant on April 11th:



Compare to how looked at 14.5 weeks pregnant with Elise: click here

And then, BOOM! Baby belly explosion! I'm about 19.5 or 20 weeks pregnant on May 15th:



Compare to how I looked at 20 weeks pregnant with Elise: click here

My belly is definitely getting bigger quicker with the second pregnancy.

Days 429 and 430: Silly Faces

Not sure what she was thinking about. She looks very pensive, though. May 12th:



Here is Elise doing that fake scared face again. The picture is blurry, but it shows you how she shakes her hands and head while she makes this crazy face. May 13th:

Day 428: Elise Meets Her Little Brother!

Elise is going to have a little brother!!! We're having a boy!

We had our big, fancy ultrasound done yesterday. Dinky is healthy as can be. Due date September 30th.

Here is a picture of Elise looking at Dinky's ultrasound pictures, May 11th:

Day 427: Yogurt Facial

Elise likes to try to feed herself. Never mind that most people use a spoon to get their yogurt out of the cup. Elise will figure out a way.

And have I mentioned how silky smooth her skin is?

Days 424, 425, and 426

On May 7th, we took all of the kids to a kid's fair in town. Elise, Ingrid, and Caleb had so much fun playing in the toddler area because it was all laid out with cool toys and things to climb on and under and through. Here is Elise playing with a pop-up toy:



Mother's Day was lovely. In the morning we went to the duck pond and after a nice walk, the kids played for a while on the grass. Elise doesn't like grass or dirt much, so this picture of her sitting in a pile of damp leaves is mildly remarkable:



Lately, Elise has been making this silly face. I think she's trying to look scared. You can't tell from the picture, but her hands are shaking. I don't know where she got this from, but it's really funny. She has lots of versions of this face-- sometimes her eyes are opened really wide or her jaw is clenched shut... but the hands are always there by her face, vibrating.

Day 423: Milkmouth

Elise took a big gulp from her sippy cup and then drooled milk right before the insanely slow camera on my phone snapped this picture. Thanks, Elise... lovely picture.

Day 422: Studying

Elise is very studious now. She spends part of every day looking in her color book or her animal book or both. With her color book, she like me to ask her "...and what color is THIS?" as I turn each page. If I don't ask she says, "Mama! Mama! Mama!" until I do it the right way.

Elise likes to point to pictures in the animal book and have me tell her what the animal is. Sometimes I make the animal noise and sometimes she makes it.



Sorry, Elise, I have no idea what sound a deer makes.

Sometimes Elise can identify the animals on a given page. On the farm animals page, I might ask, "Where is the cow?" and wait for her to point to it. Lately she's been fixated on the picture of the hippo in the water animals section. This morning she was looking at a different section of animals and just to test her I asked, "Elise? Where is the hippo?" She turned the page back to the water animals and pointed at the hippo! Good job, Elise!!!

Days 419, 420, and 421

This is Elise's favorite book about colors. She looks at it obsessively. She can tell you when she's on the yellow page and the purple page. She's getting good at blue, black, and orange, too. Despite all of this intense work on color theory, she picked out the mismatched socks in the picture below and insisted on wearing them. May 2nd:



Here is Elise "washing the spider out" while we sing The Itsy Bitsy Spider, May 3rd:



Elise eating a waffle, May 4th:



This was our conversation this morning...

Me: Would you like to eat some waffle for breakfast?
Elise: Apple!
Me: We don't have apples. We have waffles. This is a waffle. Would you like some?
Elise: Apple! Apple! Apple!
Me: This is a waffle. WAAAAAH-FULLLLL.
Elise: Apple?
Me: WAAAAAH-FULLLL. Look at Mommy's mouth. Can you say WAAAAAAH-FULLLLL?
Elise: AAAAAAAAAH-PPLE. Apple! Apple!

Oh well. :)

Days 415, 416, 417, and 418

Sometimes Elise bounces herself right to sleep in her bouncy seat. April 28th:



Other times, Elise prefers to sit UNDER her bouncy seat rather than IN it. April 29th:



Elise trying to run away from me at the duck pond, April 30th:



Elise is still mastering the fine art of feeding herself. There's a big learning curve. She's still practicing the basics, such as keeping the food on the plate and remembering that the plate itself isn't food. May 1st:

Days 411, 412, 413, and 414

While the foster kids were on a family visit, we took Elise to a local Easter celebration on April 24th. Here she is with Daddy, going down a giant bouncy slide for the first time ever:



All of that Easter fun took it's toll on our sweet baby. Elise was very sick on April 25th. Fever, cough, and a generally miserable look on her face.



In an effort to redirect Elise's inclination to squish cute, fluffy animals (our cats), Daddy got Elise a "Pillow Pet." She loves it and squishes it often. April 26th:



And then there was that day that a monkey escaped from the zoo and ran right through our yard (April 27th):