Cute Things Eliza Does

The other day, I took Eliza to the park. She was going down the slide over and over and over as I talked to my friend. Then she came running over and said, "I miss the mommy," gave me a hug, and went running back to the slide. My heart melted.

She loves her baby dolls, she has started really talking to them. She tells them "It's ok baby." She will pick up a doll and say "Hey baby. Let's change your diaper, ok?" Then she wipes the baby's bottom and says "Oh you poopoo, you stink." Ha ha. (Hmmmm... I wonder if she hears this a lot.)

She calls a thermometer a temp-a-ture.

She has started saying certain things are scary (like the garage door opening/closing.) She saw something on the floor and started whimpering and saying that the "bug was scary mommy." I told her not to be scared it was just a peice of dirt. She kept repeating "Don't be scared ok. It's just a piece a durwt." She tells her babies "Don't be scared baby. It's ok" a lot.

Every morning Eliza goes with Kase to make 2 waffles: one for her and one for me. Then they bring the waffles upstairs and she and I have "breakfast in bed." She sits in my lap, unfolds the papertowel of waffles, hands me one, and eats the next one. Every single day. She is a creature of habit. On Monday, we only had 1 waffle left. So Kase brought Eliza and the 1 waffle upstairs. She unfolded the papertowel, and pulled out the 1 waffle. She looked puzzled and said "Where's mommy's waffle?" She started looking under the pillow and all over the bed for it. It was so cute.

She loves to sing and she has started making up songs that go with whatever she is doing at the time.

She is the cutest and we love her more than anything.

Easter Pictures

So I took Eliza to the UT Arboretum for a little self-done photo shoot. I really wanted to get her pictures made, but we didn't have the money right now. Plus she is not a very cooperative photo taker.

When I put her in her Easter dress, she cried. She said "I don't like it!" and tried to pull it off. She has never acted like that before. I think she didn't like it because it was poofy. I felt kind of bad, but I convinced her that she looked pretty. She agreed to wear it to the park.

We brought her basket and some easter eggs. She really loved finding the eggs that we hid. It was pretty fun. I didn't get a lot of good shots because she NEVER smiles for the camera, NEVER stops moving, and ALWAYS had a very intense look on her face. We all had fun though!

Checking out the lily pad pond.

Daddy Daughter.

Going on an egg hunt.

Checking out the park.

Fake smiling. I couldn't get her to smile, so I asked her to show me her teeth.

After our photo shoot, I put her in a more Eliza-approved dress. She wanted to find more Easter eggs. She cracked me up beause she would get right up on an egg, bend over, and stare at it.

We had a realy nice time.

A Girl and Her Dresses

So the time of me being able to pick out what Eliza wears is soon coming to an end. She will still wear pretty much anything, but recently has become picky about what shoes she wears. I love putting her in dresses. It is just so easy and they are so cute.

Here are some of my favorites recently:

Purple dress with a little white cardigan.

(She likes to steal my wallet and go through it. Dangerous.)

She actually loved this rainbow dress and didn't want to take it off. I'm ok with that because it is super cute.

Clearance dress from cracker barrel.

This cute little tulip number my mom got her. She always looks cute with her little smile.

And because I don't put many pictures of Kase on here. Here is one of us. He is a cutie pie. He also rocks because he doesn't complain when I buy lots of dresses for Eliza. :)

Just a reminder

"Oh cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,

but children grow up, as I've learned with my sorrow.

So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust, go to sleep.

I'm rocking my baby.

Babies don't keep."

--- Ruth Hulbert Hamilton

I read this today and loved it. Time seems to be flying by and my baby keeps getting bigger and bigger. She is so sweet and I want to treasure every moment with her.

So if you come to my house and it is kind of messy. Sorry. I've been doing more important things like reading stories, playing with bubbles, giving baths, and loving on my little bug.

She counted to 10 all by herself last week. I didn't know she could do that!

She says "One more time mommy, one more time." When she doesn't want to stop doing something.

She loves to have "Dance parties" in her room.

She has gotten several pairs of new summery shoes lately. When Kase picked her up yesterday, she put her foot up and said " I like my new shoes daddy."

She amazes us every day.

There is nothing else I would rather be doing.

What We've Been Up To...

So I keep thinking that one day I will blog more.

But I'm beginning to realize that it is not going to happen.

We've been sick a lot lately and that has been no fun.

In fact, I came down with an upper respiratory infection and an eye infection. So I've had to wear my glasses all week. I can't see very well. But I can see well enough to see that my girl is the cutest:



We went with a group of Eliza's daycare friends to the Barnum and Bailey's Circus. I know it was silly to take a 1.75 year old to a circus. She did like the elephants. Although she said they were scary. Overall, she behaved much better than I thought she would. We had a whole row of people/kids. The kids were able to go up and down the aisle to visit. I think her favorite part was just being with her friends. She loves them so much.

Waiting for the circus to start:




The circus was not what I expected. There were not a lot of animals. To be honest, I thought it was kind of boring. But I loved seeing Eliza play with her friends, and the elephants were pretty cool.






Eliza and her friends. Eliza, K, P1, and P2:


We also dealt with some nasty storms on Friday. We woke Eliza up in the middle of the night so we could hide in the downstairs room. When I put her back to bed, she noticed the ligntning and asked me what it was. Right then, lightning lit up her room and she jumped and started shaking. She was so scared. She calls it "light coming" and has talked about it ever since. When I get her up in the mornings and at nap time, she points to her window and asks me if the "light coming" is all done. Poor thing.

Finally, Kase is the sweetest ever and made me homemade chocolate covered strawberries. Just because. How awesome is he?

Life is pretty sweet.

Did You Know....

that Eliza loves Taylor Swift?

When she was a little-itty-bitty-whiney-never-stop-crying-never-ever baby, we would put Taylor Swift on in the car and she would magically calm down.

It was a miracle.

So we pretty much listened to Taylor all the time. We branch out sometimes, but she usually says "No No No No No No No No" repeatedly until we put Taylor back on.

We did get her to listen to Christmas music during the holiday season, and it wasn't just Taylor's christmas album. She really liked Michael Buble's version of "Jingle Bells." (I'm not going to lie, Kase still plays it for her in the car. ha ha.)

But Taylor is her favorite. She calls her "Tay-luh"

Now that she is a bit older, she even knows a lot of the lyrics to Taylor's songs. "Meet me the the pouring rain" or I see sparks fly whenever you "Mile." Anybody? Anybody?

Ok maybe you are not such a big Taylor fan. But if you ride with us, I think you may gain a new appreciation for her.

If not, you'll have to deal with Eliza. "No no no no no."

What Green Bean?

So we're eating dinner the other night.







Eliza loves her green beans.







Kase looks over and sees this:

Can you find where Eliza's green bean went?

A Sick Day

Nothing makes you feel better than your little girl.

She knows lots of things that make you feel better

Things like lining up her animals on the bottom stair and getting her mommy to take a (blurry cell phone) picture of them.

Or putting her clothes in daddy's drawer. (I think she is taking over our room.)

Yesterday, she cracked me up so much. After a fun day at church and evening at Grandparent's house, we came home. Eliza walked into our bedroom, saw her play kitchen and said "Hi Kitchen, I miss you!" As if she hadn't seen kitchen in forever.

At nursery yesterday, one of the other kids walked up next to her and slyly began pushing her out of his way so he could play with the toy building table she was using. She looked at him, gathered her toys up, and said "Be Nice!" as she stomped away. Hilarious.

I feel much better now.

We Call Her the Bug

This week we went out of town together for training with my work. It is so nice to be back home! Eliza did not sleep so well in the hotel (this includes but is not limited to taking up the whole bed shared with her mother, burrowing her head into her mother's back during sleep, waking up screaming inconsolably really loudly, and so on) but she did have fun hanging out with her daddy while I was in class. We're glad to be home and back to our regular schedule.

we have been enjoying watching Eliza's personality come out more and more lately. She talks a lot and is really funny.

Some things I want to remember are:

- She loves her friends and always asks about them on days she doesn't go to daycare.
- She loves bananas oatmeal yogurt oranges and cheese.
- She has started calling me mommy sometimes instead of mama. It's a sweet sound.
-She loves to read. Her favorite book right now is The Very Hungry Caterpillar. She loves to say the names of the
food he eats and say he is still "hun-gee". It is the cutest thing I have ever heard.
- She loves her baby dolls and talks to them a lot. The other day she put Kase's shoes on her baby and walked her around the house saying "walking walking"

Now don't get me wrong she isn't a little angel. We have entered into our toddler tantrum phase (I hope it is a phase). This makes shopping and eating out a little difficult. Yes, we are those people with the screaming kid that you wish would just get lost. But for the most part she isn't too bad. As long as we make sure she isn't tired or too hungry we can make it through. (along with a stock of plenty of snacks, toys, and books.)

But no matter how frustrated we can get with her all she has to do is say one sweet mommy, daddy, or hun-gee and we melt. She is worth all the ruined trips to target, and that says a lot.

She makes us so happy.

Eliza 18 Months and Our Picture Fiasco

So recently it has been very hard to get pictures of Eliza. She won't stop moving and she is very tempermental. If she is hungry, tired, overexcited, or {insert any random thing here} she may have a melt down.

But alas, I chose to ignore these things and try to get her picture taken for her 18 month mark/Christmas. Let's just say it was not a pleasant experience.

It was suppose to be a just Eliza photo shoot but she wouldn't let us put her down at first so we had to take a family shot. This is what we got: Not terrible but not great either. Then we were able to bribe her to get on the floor without one of us holding her. BUT she wouldn't be still. So the best shot we got was her running around. This is the best one from the whole session I think:

Did I mention that our photographer was not great with kids? She kept trying to get Eliza to smile but was just making Eliza mad. I told her to just take photos. Even if she is upset, it could still turn out to be a funny picture. That's the joy of digital pictures. You don't run out of film! But the photographer would only take them if she thought Eliza was smiling. Also, the camera's battery died TWICE during the couple of times she was happy. So the photographer had to have another person come in to try and get Eliza to smile. He actually did a great job getting her to smile, but he did not do a great job of staying out of the shot. This is the result: It would have been a great picture if she had a soccer uniform on. I am just saying.

Next up? More running around. Cute baby:And finally a smile. Although the camera is a bit out of focus. Really I think I just need their lighting and their camera and I could take better pictures. Grumble grumble. Then came the straw that broke the camera's back. They have this super cute prop where you put on a santa's sleeve and glove, and hold a fake plate with plastic cookies and plastic milk glass. so it looks like the kid is handing santa the cookies/milk. It's a cool idea except to a 1 year old. Eliza thought she was getting milk and cookies. She was determined to get those cookies off of that plate. It was very frustrating to her that she couldn't get them. Then when they took the props away she was done. She had a giant melt down. I felt kind of bad because from her perspective it was like we were offering her some cookies, and then took them away. Oh and did I mention that they had blocked the lighting lamp so the picture is really dark? Awesome.

So we were able to bribe Eliza with a few snacks and got one more half-a-smile out of her.

They had to crop out the snacks held tightly in her hands. She is still cute.

At 18 Months, Eliza:

- Sings a lot. Her current favorites are "Jingle Bells," "Ring Around the Rosey," "Patty Cake," "ABCs" and "I love to see the temple." She came home from daycare yesterday singing "Baa Baa Black Sheep." The words were a little confusing but she had the tune right.

- If she wants you to come with her she will wave you towards her and say "Mon, Mon" for Come On.

- She eats pretty good but still won't eat meat.

- She sleeps like a champ. She has me rock her a little bit while we sing. She will snuggle with me on most nights, and then she'll sit up and say "bed." Then it is time for me to put her in bed.

- First word in the morning is Daddy or Kase. Yes, she calls him Kase sometimes. She thinks the shower in our bathroom is Daddy's Bath because he is usually in there when I get her up in the mornings.

- She gives sweet kisses. Sometimes she will randomly come and kiss me and I melt.

- She loves to find things. Like if she looses her sippy cup she'll say "Cuuup, Where are you cuuup" with her hands turned palm side up.

- She loves her baby dolls or her "Babies" as she calls them.

- She also loves to read her books.

- She loves other kids. She is not good at sharing yet but she will often ask for other kids from daycare or church by their names.

- She weighs 26 lbs 1.5 oz and is 32 inches tall.

She is a very feisty, loving, and sweet girl. She makes our lives better. We so enjoy watching her learn and grow. She is such a blessing and we are so glad we have her.

The Pumpkin Patch

A couple of weeks ago, Eliza and I went to a pumpkin patch with our friends B and J. The kids were a little too young for some of the stuff but I think they had a lot of fun.


Eliza loved running around without having to hold hands. She headed straight for the pony ride. I tried to get good pictures but someone wouldn't be still long enough. Or smile. Or look at the camera. The wind kept blowing her hair everywhere. Don't judge me. Her hair usually looks a little less crazy. (Please reference hair comment above.)


Eliza really liked the bunny. She also liked the goats, but wouldn't pet them. I am OK with that. Then we walked over to the hayride and went out to the pumpkin patch.Eliza picked a big pumpkin to go with her small pumpkin at home. She tried to pick it up but it was a little heavier than her pumkin at home. We had a really fun time. J was so sweet to Eliza. He kept asking "Where Eliza go?" when she would fall behind. The last time we went somewhere with them, J gave Eliza his blanket in the car in case she got cold. He is so cute. I wish I had a better picture of them together. I guess we will have to hang out again!

My Little Pumpkin

At the begginning of October, I bought Eliza a small baby pumpkin from the farmer's market. She loves that pumpkin.

She likes to give the pumpkin kisses (don't worry I washed it first.)

The pumpkin makes her giggle.

She likes to carry the pumpkin around the house.

She likes to carry it around with her outside too.

She loves her little pumpkin.

And I love my little pumpkin.

This picture has nothing to do with this post. I just liked this outfit. Couldn't get her to be still long enough for a picture though.