Monday, June 25, 2007

Last weekend

We're going to the pool today? Yayyy!


Where is that waiter with my sippy cup?


Not too sure about this "relaxing" hammock.


The sun wiped me out today. I slept all the way home in my comfortable new car seat. Zzzzz.

Friday, June 22, 2007

10 months old

Elsa is 10 months old today. How the time flies!

Thursday, June 21, 2007

A typical morning

Elsa is taking a nap, which gives me time to show you what we did this morning. First, we had a little breakfast. Breakfast makes her happy.


Then she decided to bite down on the spoon with her fearsome teeth and make it a game of tug-o-war. She won.


Next, we played and I chased her around the house. Sometimes she chases me.


I'm pretty sure she's going to the bathroom in this picture.


Finally, she gives me a look that says, can we be done? It's time for night-night.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Skills that no longer pay the bills

A couple days ago, a nice friend said I should post more pictures of myself with Elsa. Hmm, okay. I better go find a good picture. Hey, here’s one. Not too shabby, right? Well, the more I looked at it, the more I thought, wouldn’t it be great if I had less shine and redness? It might be nice to add some lipliner, fuller eyebrows, and take away that double chin. Hey, i’m not complaining. Like I said, I think this is a good picture. But the graphic designer in me couldn’t help but wonder how much better it *could* look. So, it might seem extreme, but I decided to have some work done. Yes... some Photoshop work.

BEFORE


AFTER

My skills are a little rusty, but this isn’t too bad for not working in 10 months. Now you’ll never know which pictures have been fixed. Mua haha! (Elsa wasn't fixed at all - you can't mess with perfection.)

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Pool party and pointing

Last week, Elsa swam in Grandma and Grandpa's pool for the first time. If it doesn't look like she's having a blast, that's because these are the first pics of her in the pool. At this point she's just taking it all in. After this point, I jumped in, so that was the end of my digital picture taking. G&G have plenty of pics on their underwater camera, so i'll post those once they get developed. Moral of the story: she loves the pool. She's definitely a water baby!


A couple weeks ago, Elsa started to point at things. A lot. She points when she wants to know what things are, or when she wants me to get her something. Sometimes I think she does it because she knows it's cute. It's definitely cuter than my post with the spider.

Pointing to her beloved tree swing.

Pointing to a cracker, one of her favorite foods.

Eeeek!

Today, as I walked out into the lovely morning sunshine toward my mailbox, one of my letters dropped onto the driveway. I swooped down quick to pick it up, and that's when I saw it.
I admit, I have a problem with spiders. Now, if I see a tiny spider (like those little jumping ones you might find on a windowsill) or even a daddy long legs, it's not an issue. But when they get to be about Quarter-sized and up, it's a definite issue. I scream, I shake, I have the creepy-crawlies for hours. The good news is, I haven't seen too many spiders for the better part of 10 years. In our old Minneapolis houses, we had 3" centipedes which were horrors themselves, but they ate all the other insects. My life for the past decade has been virtually insect-free. Huzzah!
Since we moved back to the country, however, they're back. They're huge and they're everywhere! I frequently write to my girlfriends and tell them about all the huge spiders I see around here. I'm sure they think i'm being dramatic, or that perhaps my real problem is that I just love to complain about insects (i've written many an email about the grotesque 3" centipedes).
That's why I decided to take a picture of my driveway spider. I even placed an oak leaf nearby to showoff his massive size. Could the devil himself be any more horrifying? The sucker is huge!

I have to go faint now.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Crawling

A new blog design for a new development...

Elsa started crawling today! I was so excited until I crawled around and noticed how much stuff we need to put away! Here she is in action:




Last night we went to the Rustic Inn in Stacy to celebrate Great-Grandma Vera's birthday. A good time was had by all. Gotta love the Rustic. The food is really good, and just check out that painting on the wood paneled wall. You feel like you're further north than you actually are, which is great because I can't afford the gas to Ely.

Elsa hung in there till her bedtime at 7:00. She cried all the way home so we had to sing Old MacDonald. It's the only thing that makes her stop. It happened the other weekend after we went shopping and Tim said,"Did you ever think we'd be singing Old MacDonald in tandem while driving home from a day at the Tanger outlet mall?" haha.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Fun with food

We've recently added some new foods to Elsa's diet. Some of the latest additions include: cous cous, watermelon, chick peas, pizza (flour tortilla w/ sauce and mozz), grilled cheese sandwiches, and toast with All Fruit. (No meat or eggs till she's a year old, and no sweets until...well, the longer the better.) She seems to like everything so far, but if we try to give her a vegetable after she's had pizza or grilled cheese, forget it. Of course I wised up right away and started giving her fruits and veggies before the main course.



Elsa with cous cous. The texture kinda freaked her out, but she had fun playing with it on her tray.



Going for a piece of pizza over a green bean.



She loves watermelon. I usually cut it up into cubes, but couldn't resist giving her a baby sized slice for the photo. It's definitely easier with the cubes - she kept turning the slice around and biting on the rind.

Monday, June 11, 2007

Gettin' wild

For the past two glorious months, Elsa has been taking 2 regular naps a day. The afternoon nap is hit or miss, but the morning nap is easy, long, and she wakes up very smiley and wild. Here are some photos from today that don't even begin to do her cuteness justice.





Her favorite things to do are: scratch at miniscule specks of dust on the rug (and eat them), point at things until you tell her what they are, read books, and press buttons on everything that has a button (or looks like it does). She can tell you (by pointing) the difference between a monkey and a cow, or a tiger and a giraffe. She claps hands, plays peekaboo, and does "so big". Lately she's been very active and is *this* close to crawling.

Here she is at our favorite store, Target.



This weekend the husband and I went out on a couple of dates. You wouldn't believe it from this blog, but we actually go out quite a lot. I should start blogging about us once in awhile, don't you think? We're a little lower on the totem pole these days, but some of you might be interested.
Right?
Uh...hello?