Elise's first Halloween!

Elise dressed up as a Koala for her first Halloween.  It was a 12-month costume she will still probably fit into next year!  :)  We went to the La Canada Public Library with Trinity and Kiara, where they had a little Halloween party.  Elise mostly crawled around, trying to touch every light socket in the room.  We went trick-or-treating afterward along with Toby.  Elise hates having anything on her head, be it a headband, hat, or koala head!

October videos

Videos from the end of September

I am over a month behind on posting photos and videos!  So much cuteness, so many photos, so little time to sort and upload.  Here are the videos from the latter part of September.

Chilling with Mr. Bear

Climbing David

I will dominate you, snotsucker!

A tender moment at tender greens

Sweet nap

She knows exactly what to do with this thing now.

10 months!

Elise hanging out at the Parks' House

I can't seem to find the my camera connector cord, which explains the lack of posting on my end.  Sorry!  I tried finding one at Target but they didn't have any so I'll try to buy one online.  What a pain!

Bry and I were saying that in the last few weeks, it seems like Elise has really matured leaps and bounds.  She is just much more interactive and her personality is starting to emerge more.  We used to think that she was a shy introvert, but she's actually turning out to be quite rambunctious and social.  She will sit in complete strangers' laps and it seems like she no longer has stranger anxiety when people hold her.  You can tell that she still has a deep soul quality to her by the way she carefully studies peoples' faces.  That is probably one of her most unique characterstics.

She is starting to stand on her own now.  I think I will cry when she takes her first steps.  So much transpires within one year and yet somehow it goes by simultaneously so fast and yet so slow.  I'm so glad we have the Kidspace membership because being home with her for long stretches of time can get cabin-fever-y.  She wants to explore and move around so much and yet she's basically constrained to our tiny area rug.  I feel sad for her sometimes!  Well, needless to say, I'm starting to daydream about getting a house and it's driving Bryant crazy.  Haha!  It could take many years but hopefully it happens while our children are still children!

phone pic updates

 

I was all ready to upload photos and videos last night but I can't find the camera cord!  Ugh.  Well, here are 2 pics I have on my phone.  The first is on our way to Grace's birthday dinner and the second is at Jacob's first birthday at the Aquarium.  I'm so glad that Elise can nap in the carrier because it allows us some flexibility in our social lives. 

We bit the bullet today and bought a 6 month membership to Kidspace Children's Museum.  Elise LOVES it there!  Bry took her this morning and says that she's more active than other kids her age.  She just loves climbing on things and crawling to and fro.  We're so fortunate to have something like that close by because our apartment is too small for this little ball of energy to safely explore.  She is constantly getting into things! 

some quick updates

i know, we are so behind on posting photos and videos.  i have been swamped.  one day, one day.

elise's latest development is that she loves to DANCE!  if there's music, she loves to bounce and shake her head and smile.  it is too cute!  today at church, many people noticed and commented on her ability to dance throughout the worship service.  shes likes to press her musical toys over and over again so that she can dance.  i love it!

this is a few weeks old, but she likes to clap to the korean game "jjak jjak koong" and sign for "milk".  she signs for milk when she is trying to sign for other words.  we were at a friend's house today and i tried showing them how she signs for milk, and she came careening towards me and tried to pull down my shirt.  i'm so excited for her to learn other signs!

she loves reading and responds to different interactive books, like lifting flaps, turning pages, and touching different textured surfaces.  bryant reads to her every night as part of their nighttime bonding.

we are still sleep training her, albeit slowly and gently.  after some regression, we are back to having bryant put her down in the bed and then transfer her once she falls asleep.  she is not crying this way.  in a few days, he will start putting her down in the crib.  the last few nights he tried this, she screamed her head off and so he decided to scale it back a little since we had taken a break from sleep training due to scheduling issues.  ONE DAY elise will go down in her crib happily and actually sleep through the night.  one glorious day!!!

the GAP

I had decided to not do the modeling thing with Elise because it just seemed like way too much work but then her agent just contacted me and said that she wants to submit Elise for the Gap!!!!  It's not a for sure thing, but if I want a chance, then I have to start doing the paperwork now.  Ahhhh!  What to do?!!! 

Silly Elise

The funniest thing happened today that I want to document here before I forget.  Background: Elise loves knocking down towers of blocks, cups, anything.  If she sees a tower in the corner of her eye, she will start panting and crawling towards it as fast as her chubby thighs will take her.  Once she knocks it down, she is totally elated and satisfied.  It's cute.

Today, we went to Kidspace (3rd time in 1 week!) with Judy and the girls.  The baby room has a ziggarut structure that Elise likes to climb.  At the top of the ziggarut were two little kids putting a puzzle together.  Elise started to frantically climb the ziggarut; I thought she just had some extra energy.  And then the next thing I know, she totally destroys the puzzle the other kids put together.  The way she did it made it looks like she was just desperate to mess it up, lunging forward with her outstretched arm at the very end.  If I had known that, I would have preemptively stopped her, but I didn't know that her desire to destroy basically includes any neatly arranged objects.  The other kids were a little sad but I could not help but crack up at what had just taken place.

Sometimes I, too, will experience a desire to mess up something that is perfectly arranged.  I guess this is an instinctual desire that starts in infancy.  Is it our inherent fallenness?  Perhaps.

Have the entire floor to myself at zona rosa to work