Wednesday, March 20, 2019

R/E visit March 17, 2019

Loves Gma and Gpa!
My parents dropped by for an impromptu visit last weekend, and we all enjoyed the warmer weather with each other for St. Patrick's Day. Bonus: Little E learned how to say "grandma" and "grandpa" just in time! Sounds more like "Gee-ma" and "Gee-ma" now, :) Nothing too exciting, went for some walks, played at our house, watched a bit of her favorite "elmo" (sounds like ew (as in bet)-mo), went to the mall to walk around and eat, and everyone took an afternoon nap, plus LOTS of talk about the upcoming nuptials of Laura and Nathan (I actually hate that phrase but have so very few occasions to use it, and I've noticed upcoming always proceeds nuptials for some reason).


Bathtime on the countertop still, though not every night. Hair getting looong!

Happy Gpa Ron hug when they first arrived.

Breakfast the next day and Gpa showing her his dogs on his farm game for his phone, Hay Day.

Watching some Elmo and having a snack after an hour long walk.


My Elsies walking around the mall (it was too cold to do anything outside).

She was a huge fan of these carts, though I wasn't willing to spend the $7 to rent one.

Tacos for dinner.


Friday, March 15, 2019

Saturday, March 2, 2019

18 months old!











Wow, it feels like I just wrote one of these! This one will be short and sweet, just like Littel E! She is more and more vocal these days! Just yesterday she said her first two-word phrase "mo wa" for more water. Visited the doc a couple days ago, stats are right on track (23lb 32 in) and development off the charts. Bonus, no shots and she didn't cry the whole time. She is just the most adorable thing in the whole world, learning new things every day, more and more personality, and happy to pipe in when something isn't quite right (or throw a tantrum). I've had a couple job interviews this month, which was quite exciting, so we'll see how that pans out.

Loves
  • Feeding the cats. She's caught on that I say "here kitty kitty", but her version sounds a bit more like "lababababa". SOOOO cute!
  • Loves to spin! Spencer still sits in front of TV stand. She spins her dolls, slinky, slink around waist, and also "all fall down"s.
  • Rolling with and sometimes without our help
  • Loves baby, dressing, practice sitting, feeding, wubba, medicine, anything we do to her, she does to baby. I've bought her a stroller for baby that I think she'll love, if it ever arrives in the mail....
  • Lots of animal noises, cow dog cat bird chicken turkey, horse, duck
  • Ouch is the funny word for her as well, except when it's her
  • Phone games, she calls it "dog" when she see our phone. Recently, Spencer and I both purchased the full versions of a couple games. Yes, even Spencer!!!! I didn't think it would ever happen, but it did. Hard to take pics cuz whenever phone is out she wants to play "dog". Plays angry birds with her nose.
  • Loves going in circles around playground, march in circles, drag or push lawnmower
  • Blanket rides with Dad, where he'll drag her behind him on a blanket.
  • Loves being tossed and spun around
  • Loves hide and seek, "where's dad?"
  • Shakes it off when hurt
  • Got her a table and chairs and she loves to put her babies and stuffed animals in the chairs and sing to them
  • This is a new one, sitting on our lap to read a book or whatever she likes to be covered with a blanket. Probably a Spencer thing.
  • Loves reading and looking at dog books especially. Favorites lately are Heads & Tails (a dog picture book), This Old Man, Blue Hat Green Hat with the silly turkey, and I forget the name but there's a lift the flap book with a duck "where's my mom" that she loves.

Hates
  • Owies, got her to "shake it off" when something hurts cuz she likes to look for a reaction from us on EVERYTHING!
  • She loves going outside for walks and to see the neighborhood dogs, but it has been crazy cold and snowing.
  • when we say no more phone
  • meat, will eat anything else

New Moves
  • Baby's first poop in her potty!!!! Hells yes, that's my smart girl! Potty routine right before bathtime is paying off big! It was number 5 of the day too!
  • Baby's first jump! All the other ones before she still had her toes on the ground. Now she can consistently leave the ground and land a jump!
  • Walking on tippy toes, walking back wards
  • Singing and baby babble to herself
  • Such a great helper, and great at taking directions. I had her help me move her table and chairs this morning so I could vacuum up our Play-doh crumbs.
  • These app games really got her learning her colors, numbers, and matching. She's great at finding the match, putting the correct shape in a spot, or even picking out the correct number from a group of numbers.


Photoshoot with Wolfie this month and wolf ears (from our trip with my parents to the Great Wolf Lodge)! And that outfit was a Christmas gift from John, Ellie, Miles, and Odette. Video had lots of good stills to pick from :)
    

Saturday, February 23, 2019

Spencerism 11:17 pm 02.23.19


"LOOK AT THAT!!!!!!!!!


DO YOU SMELL THAT!?!?!?"

I woke up to Spencer talking to himself, gagging, and groaning so ferociously I couldn't go back to sleep. I walk into the laundry room to the most terrible smell you can imagine and him bent over, hands on knees, giving himself a pep talk next to a bucket containing water and a huge dead mouse.

"Come on, come on! Just do it!"

He found it stuck in the sump pump pipe and had grabbed with his bare hands unknowingly of what he grabbed.

“I thought it was part of that black lining we installed”

The next morning he told me he had washed his hands 5 times after taking care of everything and the smell still wouldn't come out.

"Of all the ways for the sump pump to fail"

I ended up sleeping in the living room.


Update 6/27/19: Forgot to add this fun fact when it happened. Turns out after he disposed of the dead mouse he “treated” himself to an ice cream sandwich to calm himself down, and then proceed to play several hours of FIFA before turning in. Within 24 hours he had the WORST stomach bug he has ever had, seriously could not keep ANYTHING down and was puking every hour, on the hour for the next 24 hours. He was so sick that I stayed home from work with Elsie and he slept all day L Guess he should wash his hands 6 times next time….He was better within a day or two, but holy shit the dead mouse got him twice as worse the second time around.


Friday, February 22, 2019

Great Wolf Lodge, Wisconsin Dells



We spent two nights at the Great Wolf Lodge, in the Wisconsin Dells with my parents and it was a total blast! It's a hotel with a huge, indoor water park with tons of big slides, little slides, a toddler area, a wave pool, and the hotel had tons of things throughout the day for the kiddos. Pretty sure Little E had a blast, and it was great to get out of the house for a bit with the terrible winter we have had so far.

We arrived Monday afternoon, and after grabbing our wolf ears we dropped our stuff off and headed to get some food. It was fun eating and catching up, talking about the wedding plans and life, but Little E wanted to run around after eating, so one of us followed her around so the others could keep chatting. There was a kids craft station in the lobby so she would run back and forth to grab something, then show us, and repeat.

Then it was time to check out the water park! Man it was awesome, there is definitely something for everyone. There are 2 baby areas with really shallow water, and one is even gated, so they can't run away. The slides were a good size for someone her age and she had a BLAST running up the stairs, down the slide and over again. Us adults braved the TORNADO water slide which was insane, and I don't want to ruin it for anyone in case we go back. I went with Spencer on his first trip and his mouth and eyes were wide open the whole time!!! We all survived :) Super great time to go, a random Tuesday in the winter as the waitress told us the place was at ~50% capacity, and we never waited to go down a slide, and there weren't a million annoying children toppling Elsie over in the water. After pizza the baby went to bed and we all played our usual Euchre.

Tuesday Elsie had me up at 6:11 am and I wanted to let Spencer sleep in, so we played a bit in our room then headed to the lobby area to get coffee/breakfast. We hung out until like 7:20 when my parents got up. Us 4 explored the entire hotel, including the arcade and the shop. My parents bought her Wolfie, the hotel's version of build-a-bear. Outfits were 19.99, so we didn't splurge on that. But she loves Wolfie! Because the water park doesn't open until 10 am, the hotel puts on a music show at the clock tower, and has other things for the kids to do while they wait. So we watched the show and did some yoga.

By 10 or so Spencer woke up and we all decided to head to the outlet mall, then eat, and then see if Little E would nap before we went to our Escape room, Pharoh's Revenge. At the outlet mall we got enticed into a Disney store, and everyone found something to buy there. Spencer told me later he would have bought the whole store if he was a millionaire :) Grandma got Little E some clothes, a robe, a towel, and a bunch of other things on top of the other clothes and shoes she had already given her the day before! I found some Disney ornaments, and Spencer got Little E a Moana nightgown. Grandpa showed little E a Minnie Mouse vacuum and I saw them playing with it across the store for like 5 minutes before he eventually came over with her, vacuum-less, and said, "I thought we were going to have to buy a vacuum!".

The Escape room was awesome! Little E ended up napping a whopping 2 hours (!!!) so grandma stayed back with her while Spencer, dad and I solved the Pharoh's Revenge wtih 13/60 minutes to spare! Definitely must do another in San Fran!

Time for another trip to the pool area, then dinner in our room and we all slept good that night! Our room was pretty far from the lobby, I bet we walked the hotel ~5 miles that day. We played some arcade games in the morning then everyone braved the snow to get home safely.

Let's go back next year with Lena!

































Thursday, February 7, 2019

Happy Birthday, Spencer!

Had some ice cream cake, dinner at home and opened presents. Nothing much but still great to be together. 

Little Elsie LOVES blowing out candles so I can't believe I made it to the end of the song. Look at that smile :) <3 o:p="">

And I love this video of them sharing some ice cream cake.