One!

Our Elise is one today! Unbelievable. We had a great weekend full of celebration (my Bday was on Friday) and I am happy and tired at the end of it. This post will be short on words - I'll just cut to the pictures. I can't believe my sweet baby is one!

Here are Elise and Nora, enjoying their new beanbag chairs from Mimi:



It sure is hard to take a picture of our family where everyone looks ok. Believe it or not, this is the best one of the lot!


Vegan cupcakes for my baby!



Not quite sure what to do with this...


There you go...



She at the whole thing!



You can always tell which is the toddler table by their tell-tale cupcake eating strategy (notice only the icing is gone?)...


And, some present opening pictures...


Sharing with Grandma B...


Crawling through her new door...


Great Gma and Gpa Sikes...




Lovin' on her new phone from Beth and Marc...too cute!


My sweet Lisi: I love you more than words can possibly describe. You bring us such immense joy and pride. I can't wait to see what amazing things you do in your second year! Love, Mama

Cutes, treats and projects

I can't believe my smallest girl is going to be 1 in a week. She's becoming quite the little personality (well, not so much "becoming" as evolving b/c she's always made her presence known!). She is a lover but she already knows how to stand up for herself. She's into EVERYTHING and is getting very close to walking. I'm pretty sure she's going to be a fearless toddler - she doesn't seem very phased by gravity and definitely wants to keep up with her big sis. I love her with all my heart. Watch out world.

Here she is cooking up a mess...

And just being cute...

Getting into trouble (she loves to try to stick her hand in the VCR...yes, we still have a VCR)...

Crawling like the wind. She is fast. Seriously fast...

So far, 2011 has been a very good year for sisterly love. Maybe due somewhat to my improved mood, Nora seems to have settled into a pretty steady good-sharing, lots-of-loving big sister mode. She obviously still has her moments, but for the most part she and Elise are getting along really well. Their favorite new "game" consists of endless unintelligible Knock Knock jokes. Example:
Nora: Knock Knock
Mama: Who's there?
N: ploopabootaplatoo
M: ploopabootaplatoo who?
N: blapapoot mwababa
Laughter ensues...
Or, my favorite:
Elise: blapa bwa
Nora: Who's there?
E: mamama ba!
N: mamama ba who?
E: da
Nora cracks up laughing and Elise looks amused but confused.
Repeat dozens of times...
It warms my heart. Big time.

Here they are sharing a show on Nora's iPod...

Nothing says love like sharing your popsicle...


And, my Nora. Oh my Nora. My emotional state during a typical day with Nora jumps from absolute delight, to amazing pride, to extreme frustration, to exhaustion, to hilarity, to love love love. She is amazing.

Here she is carrying her doggie in a self-made sling (moments after this picture she had a mini-meltdown b/c she couldn't get it off)...

And, here she is setting the table for dinner. She does amazingly well - she puts down napkins, forks, spoons, and always adds a little of her own sparkle. On this night we each got a bowl with a whole apple (stickers removed) and approximately 6 raisins. Too cute.

Last but not least, I finally got Chris to agree to turning the mudroom/Sadie's room into a playroom. I should clarify that by "agree" I should say that I just did it and he didn't care enough to stop me. Hopefully he's happy with the end result.

Here it is before...

And, after...

I have more work planned, but I think it's not half bad for one afternoon's worth of work! Now we just need to find a new spot for Sadie's bed...


That's it for now! Happy MLK Day!

Resolutions

So sorry for the pitiful blog-ending to 2010! Luckily our real-life December was fun and full of gifts, family and friends. One of my resolutions for 2011 is to be better about at least getting pictures up here, even if the words need to wait a bit.

I'm just going to jump right in with some recent pictures and will go back and put up Christmas pictures later. :)

I'll have to scan in some of Nora's recent artwork. She's become quite the portrait artist with these funny smiley face people (the one above is holding a balloon). They started as just the circle with eyes, nose, mouth, hair, arms and legs and have evolved to have hands and legs, fingers and toes, eyebrows, dee dee's (belly buttons), and if they're lucky......wait for it......a nice little V for a vagina and a line clear down to the feet for a penis. Lovely.

Miss Elise is getting funnier and smarter by the second. She dances when you say "dance", waves when you say "bye bye" or "hi", claps when you say "yay", and has recently started to hit her head with her little hand to let us know she bonked her head on something. She has also done the ASL signs for 'bath' and 'all done', although she only did them each a few times. She's crawling all over the place, zooming up stairs if given the chance, and standing unassisted until she notices she's doing it at which time she falls gracefully. She gives fabulous hugs and big wet kisses (or, more frequently she just offers her cheek or forehead for you to kiss). She is an absolute joy and cracks me up regularly. She cracks Nora up too, which melts my heart.

Dress up!



Elise's first tea party - not so sure how much she's enjoying it here.


Elise and Mama all dressed up in sunny yellow (and a goofy sweat band).


And to close, nothing says Merry Christmas like enjoying a candy cane with your sister (don't worry, Elise's was still covered but she watched how Nora ate it and sucked/licked it like it was delicious).