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Thursday, June 10, 2010

Memorial Day at Lake Natoma

Negro Bar on Lake Natoma in Folsom, CA

Elise, watching the geese

Geese on the water
 
She enjoys pointing out everything to us
 
Coming ashore, and ready to be fed
 
Daddy and his intrigued little girl
 
Gosling
 
Family picnic; Elise was playing under the table
 
Papa and Elise by the water

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Elise's Eleven-Month Update!

Future blogger in the making!

Outdoors in the sunshine

 
Our little 11-month-old

She took her first unassisted steps at 10 1/2 months, but is still not quite ready to walk. She is perfectly content crawling and cruising around the house, and gets from room to room in no time flat!

Her baby talk has turned into baby chatter. Her babble and chatter is now accompanied by gestures, expressions and pointing. Elise points at everything now! Most of the time when she points, she says "cat". She is used to mom and dad pointing at the cat outside, so everything has become "cat" to her.

One of her favorite words is "mugk" she pronounces the mug portion and then adds the hard k at the end. Daddy and mommy have no idea what it means, but she sounds so cute every time she says it. She started saying it during diaper changes, but now she says it at all different times. Daddy thinks she is trying to say "yuck", but mommy thinks she may be trying to say "look". Of course, we are probably both wrong and it is just her own little word.

When Elise gets really upset, she rolls her tongue during her cry and sounds just like a mini Chewbacca. The first time she did it, daddy affectionately started calling her "baby Chewy". She does her Chewbacca cry fairly frequently now and it is absolutely hilarious.

She is starting to mimic mommy and daddy. While this is very exciting, it has made us realize we need to be extra careful about setting the right examples for her, because she picks up on everything. Daddy will often make silly movements and Elise will mimic each one. The most recent one is the head shake. Daddy shakes his head back and forth super fast and baby follows suit. It is so fun to watch.

Elise has a comfort habit of playing with her hair. Each time she gets comfy with her bottle, her hand immediately goes up toward to her ponytail and she twirls her fingers through her hair the entire time. It is so cute!

She gets into all the cabinets and drawers now. It was only last month that she started discovering them; now she likes to pull everything out and throw it on the floor. We had to baby proof and lock many of the drawers. When she tries to open a locked drawer, she get very frustrated and yells because she knows that she was once able to get it open.

She has a knack for turning off/and or destroying electronic equipment. She smacked my laptop so hard it no longer works, and she is constantly crawling under the computer desks and either shutting down our computers or disconnecting our internet.

Elise loves to be around other kids now. However, that being said, she has to be the center of attention or else she gets very frustrated. We recently had a Memorial Day BBQ, and Elise had a bunch of little playmates. She was entertained the entire time, but made sure to keep herself in the center of the room admist all the action. It was almost as if she knew to claim territory over her playroom, and that the rest of the kids were her guests. It was so funny to watch!

Every night, from about 6:00 - 7:00pm, Elise has an hour where she gets extremely goofy and playful. We call this her "happy hour". She gets overly giddy, laughs hysterically, and does her best to exhaust all her energy as fast as possible. Mom and dad love entertaining her during happy hour because every little thing we do brings huge smiles and laughs! She also has the most infectious little laugh, it's like music to our ears.

Elise and the rest of the kiddos playing together

Playing in the grass

Little friends - Maya and Elise

 
Passed out, bottle in hand...haha :)

Friday, May 28, 2010

Sunday afternoon walk by the Folsom wetlands

Mommy and Elise spent the day with grandma & gramps

One of the wetlands on our walk 
 
A duck enjoying the water

Thistle flower
 
Elise by the water

Bullfrog

She had a wonderful day out

 Ivy

Elise was captivated by this leaf

Beautiful wetland preserve

 Elise, by the cottonwood covered ground

The white, feathery cottonwood seeds 

Feels a bit like Christmas in May :)
 
The huge cottonwood tree painting the ground white

Lovely view

 Butterfly

Butterfly closeup

Pierce family tile at the park
 
Play area art
 
 Having fun on the swing!

Friday, May 21, 2010

Mother's Day Weekend - Lake Tahoe

Enjoying our first Mother's Day together

Beautiful Lake Tahoe and the snow-capped mountains

Daddy and Elise walking by the lake

Family shot

 
Tallac Estate by Lake Tahoe

Elise, touching snow for the first time

She tried her best to catch the seagull :)

Grandpa and Elise

Great view from Harrahs

On mom's side, Elise is the fifth generation first-born girl!
  
Smiling for the camera

View of the mountains

Staring intently at mommy's frozen yogurt!

 
Our spectacular dinner view