Busy Saturday

We had a busy day on Saturday. We were first invited to Katie's graduation from "Scola domi Turvavillae" (I hope wrote that correctly) which is the name that they so cleverly came up with for their home school. It was a toga party due to the name of the school being in Latin. We had a great time talking with good friends and celebrating Katie's hard work. She starts at BYU in just a couple of weeks!!! I can't believe I didn't get a picture with her in it.
Here we are in our togas. Elena's toga is the Mexican flag. :)
That same day we went to our old ward's (congregation's) Christmas party at the stake center. I say "old ward" because we now attend church with the Spanish branch.
I asked Dan to take a picture of Tikiya and I holding Elena and Jaylen because he is so dang cute. Check out his corduroy blazer - very dapper! I can't believe that he is 2 months younger than Elena - he is a big boy. :) We were all happy to get to visit with so many friends. We love our ward family. The food and the company were great. We unfortunately had to leave before the children in Primary acted out the Nativity, but I heard that it was adorable.
Next we drove to another LDS church building nearby where we attended the Spanish branch's Christmas party. They had a skit about the Tres Reyes Magos (3 Kings) and then Santa came out! Elena is in this picture with her friend Caitlin - who by the way loves to sing and dance to Fergie songs. So funny! I was thrilled to get a picture of Elena with Santa at the party because pictures with our mall Santa are a $20 minimum. I'm sure that would have been a better quality photo, but this works too.
After Santa we got to watch 3 pinatas get destroyed. 1 for the kids, 1 for the youth (12-18) and one for the grown-ups. I took my turn and then it was time to go. Poor Elena went to bed 3 hours late, but we had a really great day.
This video doesn't show any of us, but I thought that the pinata song was interesting. They would sing for each person and then when the song was over, his/her turn hitting the pinata would be over.


**We are so blessed with wonderful friends and family. I love this time of year because we are able to really reflect on all of our blessings. I'm so grateful for the birth of the Savior and for his life and ministry. I am inspired by his example and gospel. Merry Christmas everyone!**

Weather, Hairdos, and Crawling

Spring is here! Well not really, but it sure has felt like it this week. We have been very lucky to have the temperature above 70 everyday since Monday. Elena has been feeling well, so we were able to go to playgroup at the park on Tuesday. She enjoyed playing on the swings and we were both happy to see some of our friends from Second Ward.


I can't believe that she finally has enough hair to pull it up like this. This was not the first time I had tried- just the first time that it has worked. I'm so used to seeing it down that I'm not sure how much I like it, but it was definitely cute enough to warrant a picture. I took it down after about 20 minutes when it was nap time.
Brag time: I went over to my friend Summer's house and she taught me how to make bows. I made this one (brown with pink argyle) and a purple one. Hopefully Summer's craftiness will continue to wear off on me because I can take all the help I can get. Now that Elena's hair is getting thicker, I'll have an excuse to make more. I know it doesn't show perfectly in the picture, but you can just ask Kaye - she's seen it and had to listen to me toot my own horn twice already. :)
The big news for this week is that Elena has started to crawl. Genuine crawling on all fours. :) As you can see in the video she still reverts back to the army crawl sometimes, but it is amazing to see her move around like such a big girl. I wasn't sure whether it would ever happen or not. She has been strictly a scooter for about 4 months.

Right now I am watching "It's a Wonderful Life" on TV. It just started which is great because the flashbacks are my favorite. I love the 12 year old George Bailey. Watching this movie is one of my Christmas traditions. I hope you all have a great weekend -- Christmas is only 11 days away!!!

Update

Elena is back to normal! Yea! On Wednesday we found out that she had an ear infection in addition to her URI (she had developed it sometime since her appointment on Monday). So, after a couple of days of amoxicillin, ibuprofen, and prescription eye drops she is doing well. There are some things that will take some time: she has a crazy sounding cough and her taste buds aren't back to normal yet, but she is happy again.
Cross your fingers that my and Dan's sore throats are just a coincidence. :)

Sick girl

Our lovely baby is sick. She woke up in the middle on the night on Friday crying and coughing. It is just the saddest thing you've ever seen. This is her first time being truly sick. About a month ago she had a runny nose and was a little cranky, but that was it. This time, she has a fever, a cough, and a snotty nose. She makes me nervous when she is so cuddly and lethargic. Sweet Elena is many things, but cuddly is not one of them.
This is a picture of her and Dan on Sunday when he came back from church. Sunday night was the saddest - she wouldn't even hold her own head up. We went to the pediatrician on Monday and found that she has an upper respiratory infection. We will go back tomorrow if she still has a fever and she'll get antibiotics. The good news is that either way she'll feel better soon.

Finally: Here is the video of Elena enjoying the piano at my parents' house Thanksgiving weekend.

Thanksgiving Weekend

Here we are at dinner. We were fortunate enough to be able to go to my parent's house and have Thanksgiving with Bethany. We sure missed having Adam, Andy, and Shiree there. The food was delicious and the pies were plentiful (there were 7). Elena loved everything! Her favorite was the mashed potatoes - she would grunt for more between bites. She had never had them before.
Here are the makers of the feast. We all helped, but they are the masters. :)
Friday, we all (minus Dan and the baby) saw "Enchanted" which was a really cute movie. Dan volunteered to stay behind and watch Elena while the rest of us went. How generous of him. :) On Saturday my dad raked up the backyard and Elena got to play in the leaves. She was reluctant to play in the big pile. I think it was intimidating, so we made her a small one.
My dad enjoyed the big pile though. It was fun to have an excuse to play in leaves. This is a picture of him mid-flip. I flipped into them too, but I didn't even try to make it over the chair. We had a really good time. I hadn't played in leaves since high school or college.
Later that day we went to the Founders' Inn. We saw a group of little girls do some amazing Irish dancing and a marionette show that was terrible. The puppeteers just stood behind the puppets wearing black. It kind of took the magic out of the whole thing. It was fun to see all of the decorated trees though. Many of the trees had themes. We weren't able to take a picture in front of this big one (it was roped off), but we posed in front of the smaller one below. The best part of Saturday was the BYU/Utah game. We had a great time watching the Cougars win it!


This video is of Elena in her own little leaf pile. Tomorrow I will post one of her playing the piano at my parents' house, but I don't have time for it to upload now. It's time to pack and get on the road to go home!

Email: 10 month update

November 20, 2007
Even though I have the website now (thedisonfamly.blogspot.com) I want to continue the tradition of emailing Elena updates once a month until she's a year old.  So here is the latest:

• She loves to stand all the time.  She will pull up on the coffee table, my leg, and on her little tent-house.  She will also open drawers and then pull up using them as her support and sometimes I'll even flip over an empty laundry basket for her.  She can't wait to stand on her own and walk.  She can only walk now if she is holding on to someone with two hands - she's not very steady yet. 
• I bought her a whole bunch of socks with tread on the soles so that she wouldn't slip and slide on the wood floors, but unfortunately, the size I got her (6-12 months) is way too big on her little feet.  They slip off every few minutes.  She barely just outgrew a size 0 shoe.  I guess she is a size 1 (3-6 months), now but it probably depends on the brand.  I recently looked for dress shoes at Target and they only come in size 2 and up. :(  For the most part, she is just wearing her socks - when she hasn't stepped out of them and pulled them off.
• It is starting to get cool here now and so she is wearing little jeans and long sleeved shirts.  She looks so grown up in her big girl clothes.  She's wearing 6-12 months in clothes, but just because I only want to buy one set of warm clothes to last until the spring.  I have to roll up all the sleeves, the waists and the pant legs, but she looks cute. :) 
• Elena loves to talk.  She babbles and shrieks and laughs often.  We are lucky to have a girl with such a happy temperment.  Dan and I have noticed that she loves to imitate certain things that we say.  "Good girl" is "guh-guh", Desitin (our diaper ointment of choice) is "De-tin", she says "Jesus" very well, etc.  It is fun to hear her try.  She is also waving consistently now.  Whenever we tell her to say bye-bye, she waves her whole arm.
• Well, after 5 months of eating solids, Elena has finally learned how to do the thing I was dreading. She now knows to reach into her mouth and pull out whatever food I just put in that she doesn't like.  For example, whenever I try to give her a snack that is anything besides Goldfish crackers, she makes a disgusted face and grabs it off of her tongue.  Before the best she could do to get food out was to blow raspberries.

We love this age and we are having a lot of fun with her.  I am excited that we will get to see many of you within the next month and a half since we are going to VA for Thanksgiving and UT for Christmas.  Thanks for humoring the bragging tales of a first time mom who finds so much pleasure in everything her child does.  Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

10 Months!

Elena is getting to be such a big girl! She will be 10 months old on the 17th. We are so, so, so grateful to have her in our lives. We have truly been blessed. She is a perpetually happy girl who loves to be around people and gives big sloppy "besitos" to all her loved ones (including her baby and her stuffed animals).
Don't let this picture fool you, she doesn't crawl yet, she still scoots. She'll get on her knees or even pull up and stand if she wants to, but she'll plop back down on her belly to move. She's hilarious. In this picture she is playing with a puzzle that I was able to get this week for free. Well, pretty much for free: I returned a teaching book that I bought back over a year ago and never used. I thought they would refuse to take it back, but instead I got $10 in store credit! I always get excited about a deal.
I know that I probably shouldn't give her a new toy a month before Christmas, but she hasn't had anything new in several months. I think I'll wrap it up for her in a couple weeks and stick it under the tree. :) She won't mind.
I'm really very surprised by how hard it is to not buy her things. I've always tried to be a frugal person, but there are so many fun (and educational) toys out there and don't get me started on little girls' clothes!

Pilot Mountain

We were able take a drive up to Pilot Mountain and back yesterday. It was so nice. The leaves are pretty much at their most colorful right now, so we were very lucky. Dan and I had a good time talking and looking around while Elena played contently in the back seat. I was really grateful to be able to do something as a family. We didn't go on any hikes or anything, but it was fun.
This picture was taken of cutie Elena just a few minutes before she threw up all over herself. Fortunately, we were almost home by the time she got sick. When we got to the house she played in the bath, enjoyed her dinner, and slept like a baby. I think she just got carsick. She has only ever gotten sick in the car (3 times), so I guess she inherited her mom's motion sickness. Pobrecita!
It's just one more reason for us to drive to my parent's (for Thanksgiving) while she is asleep and one more thing for me to worry about when we fly to Utah for Christmas. It's too bad she won't be able to face forward when she turns 1. That might have helped. She only weighs 15 1/2 pounds, not even close to the required 20.
Anyway: except for the ending, I think we all had a good time.

Why I Like Autumn

I love fall in the East. While it is true that it is only my third favorite season -- that is just because I hate cold weather.

The #1 reason I love fall: the leaves are gorgeous! These pictures were just taken from our porch. The lucky houses across the street have woods in their backyards. I'm glad that we still get the benefits of being close to trees even though our own property has just two small trees/seedlings. Later on today (cross your fingers that Dan will be able to come), we are going to go on a short drive up to mountains to check out the colors. Hopefully, the leaves are still as pretty up there as they are here. They tend to change a little earlier.

Reason #2: I can go on walks midday. I have the hardest time getting Elena and I both ready and fed and out the door on a walk/run before her first nap at 9 am. In the summer it was too hot to keep her outside for a long time. With the cooler weather we can still have a laid-back (aka: lazy) morning and get our exercise.

#3: the holiday season is upon us. First Thanksgiving and then Christmas. Although I am not a fan of winter, I do love Christmas.

#4: You can't hate a season with two names. :)

The Look-alike Meter

Hmmmm...something doesn't seem quite right here. Maybe they meant to say 80% rather than 8%. I saw this on Cianne's blog and thought it was worth a try. It was fun and really easy to do if any of y'all are interested. Let me know if your results make more sense than mine -- and check out the poll to the right.

One Giant Blog

I've been keeping very busy the past two weeks with Elena, the house, errands, church, play-dates, and Halloween. I know that my mom is eager for a new blog, so...this one's for you, Mom.

I was lucky enough to score some free passes to the Children's Museum from my friend Summer, so we went about a week and a half ago. Most of the exhibits are definitely for older children, but we had a great time. Elena's favorite thing was definitely the chimes that were on The Three Billy Goats Gruff's bridge.

Here are some other things that she liked:

This is us in front of a mural of the city in the library room of the museum.
Halloween was a blast. This picture is of Elena and her friend Aiden at the ward party. She was actually quite comfortable in her costume - she never even tried to pull the hood off. There are no Halloween pictures of Dan and I because we didn't dress up. Maybe next year.
On Halloween night we went to a few neighbor's houses and Elena got some candy. She has really enjoyed playing with all the wrappers.
This is her favorite new hobby. She gets to pull out all my socks and it gives me time to get dressed and put on make-up. Dan says that if we mixed Cheerios and bananas in with the socks, we could probably leave her and go to amovie or something.
Yesterday at lunch she spent several minutes dropping her food off her tray and looking down each time to make sure that it fell. I thought it was adorable. Veteran moms have probably seen this so many times that it has lost its charm, but its new to me. :) I was able to video the tail-end of it.

Finally, I made this on Monday and Tuesday nights. I got the idea from Kristin H. It may not seem that impressive to you crafty people, but it is my first time making something with wood. Sure, all I had to do was paint and sand some letters, but I'm proud.

The Zoo

Shelby thought it would be a good idea to take Laurel and Elena to the zoo together before she has her baby in a couple of weeks. I had taken Elena to the zoo once before (with playgroup) when she was only 3 months old. I think she was able to appreciate it more this time. We visited the "North America" section.
She liked looking at the ducks. They were actually really cool. They would dive completely out of sight for over 5 seconds and then reappear.
These Galapagos tortoises were original inhabitants of the zoo and they are back for a visit. It is neat that they let you get so close to them. They are named Tort and Retort.
I took a close-up because this turtle looks EXACTLY like Morla, the swamp tortoise from The Neverending Story. Very cute.
Elena and I went down this leaf slide a couple of times.
We amazingly all fit into the giant, hollowed-out, and plastic squash and some nice woman offered to take a picture. I think Laurel and Elena were a little freaked out to be in there. Everything we said echoed like crazy.
This was my favorite part. The two girls really loved watching the sea lions. It was as if they were watching a tennis match: their heads were zipping back and forth.
The day culminated in a ride on the carousel. Elena was so brave. When the alligator started to move, she was a little worried, but she ended up having a really good time. Notice that both hands are tightly gripping the pole. Her little legs were actually squeezing the gator pretty tight too.
I took this picture after the ride was over. She's feeling much more relaxed now.
We had a great time. When we go back, we'll have to check out "Africa" and take Dan with us.

Pumpkins!

We took Elena to the pumpkin patch last Monday. I love that every holiday is more fun when you have a kid to share it with. Even if she is less than a year old. It just makes me so much more excited about everything: Like taking a picture sitting on a giant pumpkin.
We chose one of these medium sized pumpkins for me and Dan...
...and Elena "picked" this little one.
Every time I see her with her Dad, I am struck by how much they look alike.

At the church youth activity (ages 12-18) on Thursday they carved pumpkins. I had planned the activity, and I was nervous that someone would lose a finger or something. Luckily, everyone had a good time and no one got hurt. :)
Here are my two favorites. Hermana Gomez and her daughter made these two after doing some research online. I love the one of the right. Hopefully Dan and I will find the time to carve our pumpkin sometime this week.

Our House...

...is a very, very, very fine house. With two cats in the yard. Life used to be so hard. Now everything is easy 'cause of you.

I couldn't help myself. Once I wrote "Our House" I had to finish the chorus from the Crosby, Stills, and Nash song. Dan was able to find the time to mow the lawn this past week and I thought I would take a picture of our cute, little house for those of you who don't live in the area. We love living here and we are really grateful for our home. Many of you know the work that we put into it before we moved in. Several of you helped - thank you very much.

The tree in the front was planted less than 2 months ago. It was our five year anniversary tree. Elena and I have already spread out a blanket under it a couple of times and played or read in the little bit of shade that there is. Dan did a great job building the raised flower bed on the left (I helped) and I planted the flowers. The front and back yards are actually 100% weeds, but they are green most of the year, so they're okay with us for now. Maybe we'll try planting grass in the spring - maybe not.

Email: 9 month update

October 14, 2007

Dan took some adorable pictures yesterday of Elena's first time taking a bath in the big tub.  Up until then, she was still taking a bath in the little plastic baby tub because it was easier that way until she started to try to stand up inside it.  Anyway - I didn't want to post these naked pics on the blog, but you all had to see her cute little tush (is that how it's spelled?).  I guess I will just make this her 9 month email since she'll be 9 months on Wednesday. 

New developments:
Elena recently learned how to spit out her food.  We had been lucky for so long.  A few days ago she realized that if she tried to keep her lips sealed but breathed out that the food would exit and it would make a pretty cool sound.  I think she does it whenever I feed her baby food to encourage me to give her more table food.  She is loving everything solid.  She's been eating bananas, peaches, cooked carrots, different crackers and cereals, and cottage cheese.  I am slowly trying to get over my fear that she may choke.  She only comes close if I put too much food in front of her - she'll shove it all in.
She still scoots around the same way that she has been for the last two months, but we have highs hopes that she'll lift her rear and crawl someday soon.  She is starting to pull up on things.  Mostly onto her knees, but once she pulled up on the coffee table until she was standing. 
Elena has a new sound.  It is kind of like she is singing the Tarzan yell now that I think of it.  She decided that today during church was the premium time to perfect it.  Everyone in the Spanish branch just loves her, so I know they don't mind, but it was disruptive and we had to keep taking her out.  At least it's a happy sound.
The older she gets, the more she loves books.  She will sit and turn pages back and forth for minutes at a time.  "Minutes" may not sound like much, but normally she's very used to one-on-one time and not so keen on alone time.  Her favorite alone activity besides reading is to scoot over to one of the bookcases in the house and to pull all the books off the bottom shelf.  She's very good at it actually; she's not one to back down from challenge.  She'll try each book until she finds the weakest link that will pull out.
Elena has starting giving besitos (kisses) not just to people, but also to her books.  She'll kiss the animals and the pictures of people and then look up smiling proudly, so that we'll say, "Aww, you are so sweet."  tonight before bed, she was kissing Dan's face in an album over and over.  It was adorable!

Those are the big updates for the month I guess.  I hope that you all have a good week and stay tuned to thedisonfamily.blogspot.com to see what we are all up to.

Dan's birthday weekend

Dan turned 29 last weekend! He had a great time watching conference and playing football with the guys (in his new cleats). We were lucky enough to have Bethany here too. She is a saint! She watched Elena so that we could go to the temple Friday night (it's 90 minutes away). I had a lot of fun with her this weekend and Elena loved having her Aunt BB around. Bethany and I took her to a birthday party at "The Little Gym". It is definitely geared toward older children, but she had fun. The birthday girl was turning one and she and Elena really enjoyed the bubbles that were blown for the kids to play in on the trampoline.
Dan had a football themed birthday (he got cleats, a ball, flags, a pump for the ball, etc.)
Elena is following behind Laura. She's a very sweet and creative girl who I tutor.


This is the birthday girl (Mia) with Elena. She is Laura's little sister.

Fun with Daddy

Here are two of the games that Dan loves to play with Elena:


What Dan keeps saying is ven. It means "come" in Spanish


They've been playing this one since she was just a few weeks old. She actually used to be able to hold her balance better than she does now.

Mohawk

Elena's hair is starting to get slightly longer and thicker, so I thought I would try to pull it up on top of her head with a hair band. When that failed (miserably), I used some gel to make it into a pretty little mohawk. Unfortunately, it is kind of hard to see it in a couple of the pictures because the background was dark. We went back to her usual style the next day, but trust me: it was very cool.



I had to throw these in as well since she's so darn cute!


I have a couple of videos that I will post soon - maybe tomorrow...