This was Elsa’s first Halloween, and she dressed as a pumpkin!
Here she is, showing off her costume at a Halloween party with her PEPS class:
While she wore the costume in good spirits, Elsa seemed relieved to ditch it after a few minutes and to scamper around in just her black Happy Halloween shirt and pants.
Happy Halloween!
Sorry it has been so long since we’ve posted pictures! Life has been extremely busy, with a new job at work and a full schedule of Elsa activities: music class, swimming, sign language, tumbling, etc. It seems like the days are just flying by.
Over the last month, Elsa has become totally mobile. She is now an expert crawler, deftly plodding wherever she wants to go. We built a giant play area for her to roam around in our living room (basically padded mats with gates around them.) Elsa can go anywhere she wants within the play area, and she likes not having to be constantly pulled away from things. (In the rest of the house, some of Elsa’s favorite things to reach for are cords, plastic bags, electronics, and drinking glasses—so you can see the benefits of having a safe play area.)
Elsa loves standing, and she tries to pull herself up wherever she can. She is fairly wobbly still, and can only stand totally unassisted (without holding on to anything) for a maximum of ten seconds, and then she needs to reach out for something to hold on to.
Here’s some video of a typical few minutes of Elsa playing. I was playing TV themes for her on the stereo, hence the unexpected soundtrack:
Elsa is also recognizing more words every week. She knows the names of many of her toys, and she can point to them and retrieve them. Here’s a short video of Elsa pointing to and then chasing after her ball:
Last week, great-grandpa Don came to Seattle with his friend Susan to visit for a few days. We had great fun with them! Here are some pictures from the visit:
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| Great Grandpa Don’s Visit |
As you can see from the video and pictures, Elsa has her two bottom-center teeth now (they came in around a month-and-a-half ago.) She currently has her first upper tooth coming in as well, right in the center.
Elsa’s growing up awfully fast! This week will be her nine-month birthday and well-baby checkup; we’ll let you know how she’s doing and how big she’s grown after the appointment.
People who don’t live in Seattle are often surprised to learn how beautiful the summers here are. This summer has been a typically great one weather-wise: sunny and clear nearly every day, with temperatures in the mid-70s/low-80s. Perfect for outings to the park with Elsa!
Below are a set of pictures which span from Elsa’s half-birthday on June 25 to this weekend. Elsa is on the verge of becoming mobile; she pantomimes crawling motions on her stomach, but she’s not quite strong enough to pull herself along yet. She grabs everything within her reach these days, and she’s especially curious about shiny objects, cords, and anything she hasn’t seen before. Elsa also likes to bang on the computer keyboard; she performed her first search today—unfortunately, it was a string of z’s, f’s and b’s and no results came back.
She’s making an increasingly wide range of sounds now as well: da-da-da, low growls, rolled r’s, and high-pitched screeching are among her current favorites.
We’ve taken Elsa to the splash park just a few blocks from our house a couple of times over the last month. She likes the water and, hopefully, she’ll be able to start swim lessons before too long!
On the fourth of July, we sat out on the deck and barbecued, and Elsa had a chance to play with (and taste) the American flag. Then, we watched people set off fireworks over Lake Sammamish before going to bed.
Lynne’s parents have been here for the last few weeks along with Great-Grandma Salva; you can see pictures of them together in the set below.
It won’t be long until Elsa’s scooting around the house; it’s time to put the childproofing effort into high gear!
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| Elsa – July 2009 |
Elsa’s half-birthday is coming up next week—six months so soon!
Several interesting things have happened since last time we wrote.
Elsa learned to sit on her own about a month ago. This has been a seriously positive development because it makes her more independent: able to reach for the toys she likes, grab things when she drops them, etc. While she does occasionally fall over, it’s usually because she’s grabbing for something too far out of her reach and she loses her balance or because she doesn’t want to sit anymore. (Many times, when she falls onto her back, she giggles, as if she’s proud of herself.)
Here are some pictures of Elsa sitting around:
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| Elsa – June 2009 |
Elsa also tried her first solid food a few weeks ago, a small piece of avocado. A very funny movie was made; I will try to post it when I get a few minutes to encode it.
Since then, she’s had applesauce (the first food she actually swallowed) and sweet potato, which she seems to love. For the last few months, whenever anyone eats anything in front of Elsa, she watches them intently. So it’s no surprise that she doesn’t want to be fed things, instead she grabs for the spoon and tries to feed herself. It is very funny and, of course, very messy.
Elsa is also starting to learn to stand by herself. For a few weeks, she’s been able to stand up for a moderately long time if someone is holding her hands, Very recently, she is starting to be able to stand unsupported by herself for short periods of time (a minute or less) by herself holding on to her play table.
It is going to be some time I’m sure until she’s secure enough to stand for longer periods of time, but it’s amazing to watch the pace at which babies learn things!
The last month has been an exciting one for Elsa and family.
In late April, the three of us made a trip to Ohio to commemorate the passing of Elsa’s great-grandfather Donald Harris (aka Bopy.) While this was a sad time, it was also a happy time because it gave Elsa a chance to take a her first plane ride—an ambitious cross-country journey at that!
She was mostly content on the plane, with the exception of a 90-minute stretch of our flight from Denver to Cleveland in which Elsa made it known to everyone on the plane that she was ready to land. Other passengers were mostly sympathetic.
A lot of fun time was spent with family. Elsa got to meet her great-grandmother Marilyn (Nana), for whom her middle name is in honor of. She also got to meet her cousin Amelia for the first time! Amelia is three-and-a-half months older than Elsa, so it was fun to see how much further developed she is.
Here are a few pictures of Elsa with Nana and Amelia in Ohio:
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| Elsa’s First Trip to Ohio |
Then, only a week later, Carr, Christy, and Amelia came from Ohio to Seattle to visit for a five days. They stayed with us, and we got tons of time for Elsa and Amelia to play and for all of us to hang around and see some of the city. On the last day, we went to Downtown Park in Bellevue and Amelia went on the swing for the first time!
Here are pictures from the trip (including some adorable pictures of Elsa and Amelia together):
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| Elsa and Amelia – Seattle, May 2009 |
Today, Elsa is five months old. It’s amazing how fast the time flies and how much she’s changed in that time!
Today was that awaited day that happens each year—the balmy, beautiful sunrise that proclaims that winter is finally on its way out and spring is dawning.
65 degrees and clear, bright sunlight. Perfect weather. Convertibles were out, people were boating on the lake, and our neighborhood butcher (Pleased to meet you, Meat to please you) was packed with people primed to start up their grills for the year.
We got up well before 7am (Elsa’s choice) and decided as long as we were up, we’d take a long walk around the neighborhood. We were out for more than two hours; Elsa was happy riding along in the Moby wrap, mostly asleep but sometimes looking around interestedly.
In the afternoon, we took turns playing with Elsa and running errands. Elsa has become ticklish over the last week, and so we have been having fun watching her laugh as we rub our fingers on her tummy. She also loves peek-a-boo, and that is also usually good for a laugh and gaping smile.
I also took a few pictures of me and Elsa together, trying to match facial expressions.
We grilled lamb and ate out on the top deck for dinner. By then, it had probably dropped into the mid-50s and so we dressed Elsa for the outside, hat and all. The result was a bit comical as you’ll see in the photos below.
We took the camera around all day and shot a few pictures both in and out of the house. I hope you like them!
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| Elsa – Week 15 |
Hats.
We were led to believe that babies love hats. Wherever we go, we see infants with cute little hats on, reclining docilely in their carriers, sleeping quietly.
Not Elsa. Elsa hates hats. If you put one on, she’ll squirm around until the hat is off. Pretty much the same for socks, mittens, and anything else remotely removable. This episode’s set of pictures includes a cute vignette of Elsa delighting in her flowered hat.
Also this week, we tried out Elsa’s new rubber ducky bath tub for the first time. It’s inflatable, and quacks when you touch the nose. It was pretty successful; Elsa likes warm bath water. The process of getting her out of the bath, on the other hand, is something Lynne and I haven’t fully optimized yet, and the transition out of the ducky was not seamless. Elsa is not shy about letting us know when she doesn’t like something, although she’s getting better about not always crying, but instead loudly “talking” to us to express displeasure.
We put Elsa back on her blanket recently to visualize how much bigger she’s gotten in the six weeks since we took the original blanket photo. You’ll find that photo in this set as well.
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| Elsa – Week 11 |
Last week, I finally went back to work, so hopefully the flow of photos and videos won’t slow down too much. We have a few things in the hopper that we’ll post when we have a few more free minutes.
It’s hard to believe Elsa is already over two months old!
It seems like just yesterday we brought her home from the hospital and started adjusting to a new member of the family. Now, two months later, it’s hard to imagine what life was like before she was here.
Some things have remained the same. Elsa was a big baby when she was born, and as of her two-month checkup, that hasn’t changed. She’s tracking in a high percentile for length, weight, and (especially) head circumference. She still has blue eyes, although they’ve changed from a dark, almost gray-blue when she was born to a brighter, lighter shade. We’ll know by mid-summer or not whether she’ll keep the blue eyes or develop brown eyes like her mother did.
Elsa’s hair, on the other hand, has gotten progressively lighter. Looking at the pictures from shortly after her birth, the change is very evident. Right now, I’d describe her hair as either light brown or dark blond. Because it’s so thin and sparse, it’s hard to really tell though.
Elsa is a very spirited baby and loves to be awake, talking and commanding social attention. She love to play, smile, and chat, but like most infants, she is also prone to over-excitement. We’ve read that two-month-old infants should be sleeping 15-18 hours per day, but Elsa rarely takes more than a few short naps through the course of the day. Happily, though, over the last couple of weeks Elsa has started to dependably wind down around 8 or 8:30pm and to sleep through 7am or so (with only one or two interspersed feedings.) She’s usually good for at least one 5- or 6-hour contiguous sleep period during the night, which is a godsend.
Here are a few pictures of Elsa wearing one of the shirts Lynne herself wore back in the early 1980s:
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| Elsa – Week 10 |
As we were preparing to give Elsa a bath a few days ago, I set her on the bed in just her diaper.
She was happy: playing, kicking, punching and smiling. It’s amazing how much bigger and more regularly interactive she’s gotten in just six-and-a-half weeks!
We’re giving her real baths now (not just sponge baths), and while Elsa seemed disinclined to like the water initially, by the end of her first bath she was enjoying herself cautiously. That is, at least, until we briefly put her head in the water…
Here are a few action shots of Elsa lounging on the bed prior to her soak:
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| On the Bed |
Elsa’s had a fun week so far this week!
We took a short outing to Phantom Lake, where we strolled her along the gravel trail. She seemed to enjoy everything except the ride home. Most babies (we hear) love riding in the car, but Elsa merely tolerates it. What she does not tolerate, however, is red lights. As soon as the car rolls to a stop, Elsa cries in protest until we start up again. Suffice it to say that we are learning which routes have fewer stops and how to slowly roll into red lights with the hope that they’ll be green before we get to the intersection!
Elsa laughed for the first time yesterday at a funny face Lynne was making. Her smiles are becoming more frequent, especially in the morning when she’s generally in her best mood of the day.
As a sort of warm-up for Valentine’s Day, we put on Elsa’s “pink hearts” outfit yesterday for the first time. She looked so cute that I had to take a few snapshots!
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| Pretty in Pink |
I’ve posted a lot of close-up pictures of Elsa, and thus it’s easy to lose sight of how small she really is.
Here’s a picture of her lying on our smallish rug in our living room:
It’s hard to believe that Elsa’s a month old now. Time really flies, especially time in which you’re getting so little sleep and so much of what you’re doing every day is brand new.
Traditionally, when babies leave the hospital, parents put them in some sort of darling “going home outfit.” We planned to do the same, a little pink-and-brown knit number that Lynne bought a few months ago.
Well, now imagine we’re in the hospital getting ready to leave. We’ve never put baby clothes on before, we’ve got this screaming infant we don’t know how to calm, and this knit outfit that fits snugly over her head and has a million snaps and intricate buttons. Suffice to say, we gave up in about 5 seconds and put on the biggest, simplest thing we could find.
A month later, we’re a bit better at putting on the baby clothes, and since Clay and Victoria were coming over to visit, we thought we’d celebrate her one-month birthday by putting on her going-home outfit, one month late.
We took some pictures of her, of course…
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| Going Home Outfit |
Elsa’s great-aunt Jannie sent us a beautiful, personalized cross stich blanket for Elsa with her name and vital statistics on it. We couldn’t resist putting her on top of it and taking a picture for posterity.
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