All Better

Good news since the last post: Elise is almost 100% better, we have Elise's baby blanket back, and the cookie jar has been replaced. We are enjoying our time here at Matt's parents' house, and we had a great Christmas together. All's well that ends well, I guess.

Good and Bad

the vintage cookie jar Elise broke

photo source

Today was a good day because Mike, Matt's brother, got sealed to Amber in the San Diego California temple. The sealing was the first I'd been to since my own, and it was even in the same sealing room as ours. It was really special, and I'm so happy for them. (I'll post some pictures when we get back to Arizona.)

Today was also a hard day. Elise got only short naps in the car between destinations. She was cold and tired and hungry much more of the day than I would have liked. She did great, all things considered, but weddings are just hard for babies. And I think she's sick with a little fever and a cough. And she broke a vintage cookie jar at the reception. The cookie jar belonged to Mike's new mother-in-law, who I've never spoken to before but will be spending Christmas Day with. And I lost Elise's baby blanket sometime today. Let's just say I've shed some tears more than once today.

Here's to hoping tomorrow will have fewer mishaps. And fewer tears.

Anatomy

Here's Elise with an anatomy lesson. Enjoy!

Yes, she says baby instead of belly; my sister just had a baby a few days ago, and Elise doesn't quite understand gestation.

Christmas Lion

The Christmas tree is fun. Elise spends a lot of time looking at it, admiring the ornaments and lights, and touching it. I spend a lot of time watching her look at it, replacing the ornaments, and reminding her not to touch.

Her favorite ornament is a lion. If she approaches the tree roaring, that means she wants to see her friend the lion.

Here she is getting ready to roar (just kidding).

This video was right before she bit its face.

Aaand here she is biting its face. Yeah.

(It's paper mache, so you can imagine how that went. The lion will never be quite the same.)

Ryland loves lions. (He loved them first.) And he loves growling. Here he is roaring in his lion pj's.

Me, I Want a Hula Hoop

Elise has a lot of fun with hula hoops. She's such a happy baby.

Or toddler, I guess.

We can hardly stand the wait.

Please, Christmas, don't be late!

Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! We did. Family and lots of food. We have so much to be grateful for.

Elise's turkey hand

It's not really a very good indicator of how big her hand is this year because it's so smeared, but it's pretty cute anyway.

The kids had fun cooking along with the adults.

Elise loved playing with the toy kitchen. It kept her busy playing on her own probably half an hour straight. That may be a record for her.

scooping up her mashed potatoes with her graham cracker

Yeah, she never really pauses long enough to look at a camera these days.

We had a big Thanksgiving lunch. This picture is from dinner, my second time around. Everything was so good!

Holly and I about to go Black Friday shopping

crazy turkey, biting on a Little People turkey

We sure are thankful for Daddy!

We had such a nice Thanksgiving together this year. I truly have been blessed, and this holiday was a great reminder to me.

Frying Pan, AKA: Location

Savannah loves the movie Tangled. She wants to grow her hair out like Rapunzel (until her brothers get their hair cut, and then she wants hers cut too.) She pretty much has this movie memorized.

In the movie, Rapunzel uses a frying pan as a weapon. At one point, Rapunzel holds out her frying pan and demands of Flynn Rider, "Who else knows my location?" Savannah, who is 3, doesn't know what the word location means, so from this scene she deduced that a frying pan is Rapunzel's location. And no amount of arguing will convince her otherwise.

Ryland and Savannah fighting with their "locations"

I love how serious she looks here. haha

acting out the movie

Elise thinks the "locations" are pretty fun too.

Budding Artist

Elise has just started to get interested in coloring. I think she's doing great! (Matt thinks all her scribbles look the same, but I can tell she's improving. ;) )

hard at work coloring the E I drew for her

She thinks all letters are E's.

snack break

Ta da!