Eliana's Recommended Reading List

Eliana has been super cute lately and wanting to read books all the time!  The other day at daycare, she pulled all of the balls out of the ball bin and sat in it "reading" a book to herself.  The caregivers said she was so adorable, lounging in the basket, babbling the story out loud.  When she is at home, she will often grab a book, hand it to you, then stand there waving her hands in a "pick me up" fashion.  She is telling you to pick her up and read the book.  I love that she loves to read!  Some of her favorite books lately:

Spot Goes to the Farm by Eric Hill
A great lift the flap book that includes animal sounds.  All of Eliana's favorites!

Trucks by Debbie Powell
A book as basic as it gets but with really colorful, simple pictures.  I was really surprised she liked it so much, but I think the simplicity appeals to her.  Plus it has truck sounds, and Eliana likes it when you make silly sounds.

Love, a Baby Max and Ruby Book by Rosemary Wells
A short rhyming book about the love in a family.  Also has some nice sparkle added to the illustrations.

The Busy Little Squirrel by Nancy Tafuri
I love the illustrations in the book!  Very visually appealing.  And slightly more interesting for a baby's board book.  I think Eliana likes the repetition in the book. 

Now you know what Eliana has been reading lately!  I feel like I have become quite an expert on children's stories.  A friend of mine said that she wanted to read 12 books this year (a book a month).  And I thought to myself, ha I read 12 books a day!  But I guess she probably meant a book with more than 10 pages...

First Birthday

Eliana had an ABC themed party.  I used her toy blocks.

Eliana opening her first birthday present with Uncle Ray and Grandmama

The activity for the party - making sock puppets.

Here is a sample of the new sock puppet friends Eliana has from the party.

Eliana took a late nap during her party, and woke up in a very bad mood.  She just wanted to sit in Mommy's lap and eat pizza.  Oh well, it was her party so she can cry if she wants to.

Eliana's smash cake.  I made her a Pumpkin Apple Cake as a healthier alternative to the traditional cake.  Plus, she LOVES pumpkin, so I thought it would be a good treat.  To make it, all I did was bake the cake in an 8x8 square pan, then cut out two small squares.  I stacked the small squares to make a cube to resemble an alphabet block.  I used my Aunt Rita's buttercream frosting recipe which is great for decorating! To finish, I put a big E on top for Eliana. 

The cake for the rest of us, also decorated with Aunt Rita's buttercream frosting.

Eliana was not in a good mood and did not was to smash her cake.  She mostly touched it and cried.

However, she did like to eat it when Aunt Rebecca fed it to her.  In fact, once she got started, she would cry when Aunt Becca didn't feed her fast enough.

Opening presents with Uncle Ray.

She got a glowworm!  Eliana loves this glowworm.  She is sooo cute when she cuddles it close to her.  I tell her to "Give Glowworm a kiss!" and she will lean in with her mouth WIDE open and slobber on its face.  So adorable!

A collection of all of her month photos.

Decorations for the party.  The last sign is the one her daycare friends made for her.  They signed it with their footprints!

What's with the face?

Dancing in her party dress

"Thanks for coming to my party!" Eliana says.

Since Eliana is almost 14 months old, I guess it is about time I finish the blog post about her birthday party.  Eliana had an "ABC" themed birthday party that my brother and his fiance kindly offered to host at their new place.  We had a lot of fun!  Eliana was the center of attention and loved every minute.  She didn't really get into the whole birthday thing.  She elected to let her Aunt Rebecca smash her cake for her and her Uncle Ray open her presents.  She didn't get a good nap in before the party, so she was a little moody.  Luckily she's cute, so no one really minded.  :)  It really is incredible how quickly she has grown.  Can you believe she used to fit in the crook of your arm?  Now she is like a little person with lots of personality.  I sure love this beautiful girl God has blessed us with!

Just saying Hi!

Taking a ride

See my pigtails?!

Bathtime

mmmm, I love eating the washcloth!

Christmas Part 2

Happy Family!

Eliana with her Godfather Ray

Christmas dress number 2!  I thought she looked like a sleeping angel when she took her nap.

Eliana checking out the Christmas tree with G.G.

One of my favorite pictures!

Opening presents with Grandma

 Here are the rest of the pictures from Christmas.  We had Christmas Eve dinner at David's parents' house and spent the night there.  On Christmas morning, Eliana got to wear her second Christmas dress to mass.  Then the tired girl passed out and napped through all of the present opening.  I think she was exhausted from all of the festivities!  When she finally woke up, I held her while she opened her presents, so there aren't any pictures from David's parents' house.  After that, we sped off to my Aunt Jan and Uncle Brian's house to celebrate with my dad's side of the family.  I love watching Eliana spend time with her G.G., my grandmother.  It is so sweet!
Eliana got more presents than we know what to do with for Christmas.  And then just a week later, she celebrated her first birthday!  What overwhelming generosity we were blessed with.  Happy 1st Christmas Eliana!

Growing and Learning

I made Cornmeal Blueberry Pancakes for breakfast this morning.  Yummy!

How to keep a kiddo entertained while you make breakfast: let her play with rice and her toy pots.  Eliana loved it!  And really, it wasn't too bad to clean up.  I scooped up all the rice I could with the spoon, and then just vacuumed the rest.  All was going well until she tried to eat the rice.  I was afraid if she ate the uncooked rice, her stomach could explode like birds at weddings. 

Big toothy smiles at breakfast make my day!

Delicious!

We have been having a lot of fun today since David had the weekend off and could be home to enjoy it with us!  I realized that I never posted Eliana's stats from her first birthday.  So way back at the beginning of the month when Eliana turned one, we saw the pediatrician for a checkup.  Eliana is still her beautiful healthy self.  She weighed in at 21lbs 4oz (60th percentile) and was 29.75in tall (75th percentile).  She has dropped some in the percentiles.  Dr. Ferguson said that she is doing some "catching-down" growth.  Eliana did a lot of her growing at first and now has slowed down some to let the other kids catch up.  I think that is pretty typical for breastfed babies.  Maybe one of these days I will finally post some pics from her first birthday.  Soon, but not today...
Eliana is so close to walking.  She cruises all over the place along the furniture.  She can stand independently and often grabs a toy, stands up, and hands it to me.  I think she could walk if she just had the confidence.  Right now she just knows that she can get places faster by crawling.  She has also been climbing the stairs!  The stairs in our house are so steep and narrow (it's an old home) so I wasn't sure if she would be able to master them.  I guess that was silly to think.  She loves it!! She practically runs up them.  Very scary for mommy.  I went upstairs for a second, and Eliana was down in the living room with David.  The next thing I know, she is already on the third step trying to come see me.  How did she move that fast?  So now we have a baby gate at the bottom of the stairs to prevent any adventurous mountain climbers from making an unplanned trip to the top. 
One of the most amazing things that Eliana has been doing lately is putting her hands together to pray before meals.  David and I always pray together before we eat, and I have been very intentional about holding my hands together and bowing my head to show Eliana that this is a special time of prayer.  She started imitating me a while ago, and now when I put her in her high chair, before I start feeding her, she puts her hands together and sits quitely.  She does that all on her own, before I even sit down to pray with her.  She sometimes reminds me to pray before meals!  What an amazing little girl that God has blessed our family with.  Truly incredible.
Quickly, about the rest of us - David is doing outpatient clinic right now.  It is his "career advancement" rotation, so he has some extra free time to be working on whatever project he would like to help his career.  David chose to work on a research project related to lung cancer.  I of course am loving the extra time David is spending at home.  It is very hard for me to leave him alone to study when he is here.  As for me, I have been taking as many naps as possible.  Eliana has started getting up at 5 and 6 in the morning so I have become a very early riser against my will.  That's our lives in a nutshell!

Uh oh

Coloring

Eliana has been really talkative lately.  She is so cute when she is looking at a book because she just babbles and babbles, making absolutely no sense but acting like she is reading the best story in the world.  She mostly says two syllable words like "mama" and "dada" although she isn't using them with meaning yet.  Examples of some of her other words:  "Ah-yah" which sounds like she is saying yes to me.  "Pur-pa" which is definitely her way of saying purple.  She says "oh-sha" and "ah-ka" and "pa-shh".  And her latest two syllable constant-vowel combination is... "shh-et".  I crack up every time she says it!  Must be those daycare kids teaching her bad words. :)  No, really, she is just testing out sounds and has no idea what that combination sounds like.  But it is totally funny!

Christmas Part 1

So now that the excitement of the holidays and Eliana's first birthday are over, I am slowly starting to get back to normal life.  I have almost sorted through all of Eliana's presents and put everything away.  Laundry is to a manageable level, and we actually have groceries in the house.  Which means I now have a little bit of time to catch up on the blog.  David and I went to Indianapolis for Christmas and spent a whirlwind four days there seeing lots of friends and family.  We did everything with everyone and ran around like crazy.  While it was great getting to see so many people and being part of so many special traditions, it was also exhausting!  I am finally now catching my breath!  So here are some pictures from Christmas.  You will have to forgive me, I took a lot of pictures since it was Eliana's first Christmas and she is so darn cute!  So these pictures are just from Christmas Eve at my parents house.  Hopefully I can post some more soon, and hopefully you don't get tired of looking at them!

Eliana playing with our friend Megan's baby, Addison who is three months younger than Eliana.

Up early on Christmas Eve to check out the tree and presents.

Eliana in her Christmas dress from Aunt Becca.  She loves making this face all of the time!

Isn't this so sweet?

With Uncle Mike and Aunt Abby

She's so tired.  Present opening is overwhelming!

Opening a gift from Uncle Michael and Aunt Melissa

Hanging out with Grandma, holding onto a Jesus action figure for comfort.

Last but not least, my dad being himself.  He got a headlamp for Christmas!