Family Pictures July 2019

Time for some updated family pictures and I think our photographer Rachel Manzke did a fabulous job! She really captured some silly, cute, classic, and sweet pictures of Elsie. Our session was right near where we live in Olbrich Park near the Biergarten. Lovely slightly cloudy day near sunset. I was hoping to catch the skyline in some of the pics but with the focusing it kind of got lost. Oh well, still a great way to capture the here and now!

Rachel did such a great job getting Elsie to warm up to her and make her smile. She had a squeak toy in her pocket so when she knelt down it would squeak and make Elsie laugh. Then Rachel would run in and touch the swans on her skirt and make them "squeak", then she put a chicken on her head and shoulders, then a stuffed cow. Elsie was in love! It was so smart for Rachel to do Elsie's individual shots first while she still had an attention span. I almost started crying when she was sitting there on her own so nicely with her feet crossed and her hands on her knees. Love!

And I really wanted the photographer to get some with Elsie's favorite doll, her "baby", Libby. Those turned out so great even though that's the last thing we did. How am I going to pic just a couple to print out and frame?!

Elsie is 23 months

New things for our little Elsie:

Says "Tastes good" "dinner time" "

Loves monkey time and airplane time

Favorite songs right now: Wheels on the bus, twinkle twinkle little star and itsy bitsy spider

LOVES her bike from Mary and Sam. Rides it up and down the side walk. Refuses to let me hold her or bike. Likes her helmet but says it's tight even though it's not.

Loves all playgrounds, slides, swings, trying the monkey bars, and walking up slides

Would live outside, likes to go out without asking.

TV shows: Pinkalicious, Daniel Tiger, not so much Elmo lately

Loves playing Hide and seek and Where's Elmo (we hide Elmo around the house and plya hot-cold so she can find it).

Tries to count but doesn't really know order, but knows what numbers are, like she'll count our eyeballs "one-two-nine". Doesn't mix in other words.

Knows all her colors and most shapes.

Loves bouncing on her trampoline

Waking dad up in the morning by climbing on bed and sitting on face and cuddling.

Strong feet and loves going barefoot outside whenever possible

Sleep routine lately consists of watching ~15 min of "baby" (cocomelon Youtube channel with lots of kids songs), then get PJs on, new diaper, say good-night to whoever is not bringing her up, then go upstairs, have a bottle (still, I know...), sing a song or 20 (usually twinkle twinkle or row row row your boat), rock a little bit then put her in bed awake and we leave the room. At this point a couple things happen: (1) She is really tired and goes right to bed (~5% of time), (2) She hangs out in there for 5-15 min then screams for one of us, we go up there and rock/sing a little more, put her back in bed and ~5-15 min later she puts herself to sleep (~80% of the time), (3) she is super not interested in bed and we repeat #2 as many times as needed and she FINALLY EVENTUALLY decides to go to bed, usually takes an hour (~15% of time :( )

Loves baths, lately been sorting the foam color letters by color as she sticks them to teh wall.

Dinnertime!

Getting great vocabulary, lots of chit chat, singing and talking in sentences. Everyone comments how well she talks for her age.

Ring around the Rosie
Baby cocomelon on YouTube
Road trips way easier but lots of screen time, except when Spencer sits in the back with her and gets her to sleep right away... :\

Jumping and skipping everywhere! Good at landing jumps off of steps and she's got some hops.

Marching around in circles back!

Biking!

New baby from Grandma, up to 5 now.

Loves sticker books!!!

Favorite foods Lima beans, avocado, buns, noodles, shredded cheese, goldfish, veggie sticks,

Baby basketball, jump shots!

Elsie & Elsie & Betty HER Madison 5k

HER Madison 5k finish

My Mom stopped by our place in Madison for a great weekend of fun.

Friday night mom watched the little one while Spencer and I went house shopping, we're looking for possible income properties. Then we unloaded the giant new playground Gma E found for Little E.

Saturday was a mixed bag, us ladies did some gardening, Mom took another load of junk to the dump, went garage saling, stopped by a plant sale, had some lunch at Pizza Ranch, and then everyone went home for a quick nap. That afternoon we hung out around the house, as some t-storms came through and it was like 100 degrees with the heat advisory.

Sort of impromptu we decided to sign up and run the HER Madison 5k, a women's only race and fundraiser and it was the highlight of the weekend. The race started at 7:05 am so we had to get there early to get our stuff and get ready to run. The devil on my shoulder was really looking forward to the opportunity to wake Little Elsie up early, for the first time in her life, as we had to leave by 6:15 am. Of course, she woke up just fine on her own at 6:05 am.

It was a beautiful, sunny Sunday in the upper 70s. When we arrived, there were several hundred people mulling about the starting line, about 100 women of which were in line for the 4 portapotties. "Only a man would come up with this" (turn out, yes), it never fails that women have to wait extra long in line for the bathroom. Most people didn't end up going as the race was about to start. A local fitness instructor led everyone on a much-too-fast warm-up, like he didn't give us 3 seconds per stretch, but it was adorable watching Little Elsie stretch, jump and do some high-knees for the entertainment of all. She was certainly the youngest woman to finish the race, which really surprised me as I expected at least a couple of children and it was pretty much only her. The race itself began at Hilldale Mall and was mostly residential, not much scenery (I heard the half marathon route is beautiful and follows the water). We took the stroller, of course, but Little Elsie probably walk/ran a mile of it. Would have done more but she likes to stop and look at things, so we threw her in the stroller and Gma Elsie ran/pushed her a bunch with lots of twisty-turns and entertaining sounds to keep her happy in there. It was especially adorable when Little E would run past a couple women and they would say how fast she was or cute or "does she ever get tired?" Nope. And I ran with her across the finish line, with lots of onlookers and she was thrilled! They even gave her a medal for finishing it, so I have some cute pictures of her with her very first medal. It was so fun and I was so proud of her. I plan to do at least another 5k in October for the Halloween season.

After the race we met up with Spencer at Cafe Hollander for some brunch, then us girls went to Target before heading home. After a bottle of milk and a 10 minute car ride, Little Elsie was down for the count and proceeded to nap 2 hours :) Guess it takes a 3 mile run to get her to sleep/nap!

Loves when Gma paints her nails

Lunch at Pizza Ranch

Cars with dad (got them from Kid's Toy Sale for Kids, a garage sale)

Some pictures of the race

Let's go Gma E!

Running past another small group

Crossing the finish line! She was sooo excited and clapping and smiling.

Stopped at the photo booth.

Woop woop! Show off that medal, you earned it!

Bruchtime

Beignettime

Laura, Nathan & Lena Hog Roast

To cap off their marriage celebrations, Laura, Nathan & Lena hosted a hog roast for over a hundred family and friends. It was a beautiful, slightly cloudy day, in the mid-80s. In the morning Elsie and I went out with Gma E to pick some flowers, then we all headed over to the pavillion to get ready. It was great to chat with lots of family and friends over the course of the weekend, and I think everyone had a pretty great time. 

Sunday, Ron took us all out on his new pontoon, name still TBD. We first had lunch at Charlie's on Prior Lake, then tooled around for ~45 min. Then we said goodbye to Mary and Tim Maloney and headed back to Fbo for a steak fajita night. LNL joined us, which was great because we missed their Taco Night the Friday before.

Both Elsies using their own scissors to pick some daisies.

We made a bunch of necklaces for the party. Rosy cheecks because she's a bit hot.

Cousins playing together Elsie (22 months), Lena (10 months)

Dad playing some bags with Mike Devney, Bob Delisha, and Myron.

Family pictures, Lena totally hammed it up :)

Dad playing "monkey" with Litte E. 

Family picture

Sam and Mary got both nieces bestowed on them for their family picture.

Girls picture

Laura also playing with Little E, which she LOVED!

Grandparents shot

Gma E

Tim Maloney with his Ohio State Volleyball shirt on, he wanted a picture of the grandgirls and this shirt because his son, Luke, coaches here. Next day he wore his VCU shirt because another son, Patrick, coaches there.

Got some fun photobooth shots

Aunt Mary and Uncle Sam got Elsie her birthday gift a little early so she could use it over the summer, how awesome! 

Cousin bathtime!

Gma E loves that we taught Little E to put one leg up when she was like 9 months old, so she told her to put both legs up. It's easy when you're young and flexible!

Gpa Ron let her drive the boat for a bit, though she seemed to care a bit more about seeing birds and other sights.