susuwatari

Okay I know I’m super biased, but OH MY GOD! My daughter is SO cute! I can’t tell you how much I love these pictures. We had these done yesterday at Tower Grove Park and it was crazy hot and humid out so I was pretty sure we’d all look like a big hot mess. HOWEVER, Michelle Ross is amazing, like always, and the pictures are wonderful. I’m sad that this is our last scheduled photo shoot with Michelle. We’ll have to have another kid soon so I can justify getting more pictures taken! (I’m joking… please don’t knit any booties for us yet.)

We finished up our photo shoot by heading over to the splash park area to cool down.

~Christina

My baby turned one!!! We had a big party for her in our backyard with lots of family and friends. Mom and Dad bought Elliott an inflatable pool that is big enough for all of us to play in together. I know we’ll love using it this summer! She liked playing in it with all her baby friends at the party!

How old is Elliott?

Wearing her Birthday outfit!

Playing in her new pool!

Eli and Evan playing in the pool.

Making her “I’m not so sure about this…” face.

Now she’s getting into it!

Eli attempts to drown Evan with splashes.

This picture captures Eli and Brody’s personalities perfectly!

Elliott had a cupcake cake from Federhofer’s Bakery that was DELISH! She also got her own matching cupcake to smash and enjoy. She thought that was pretty awesome!

Sharing cake with Uncle Dave.

Happy Birthday sweet baby! I love you so much and I can’t believe you are becoming a toddler already!

Okay, so I really want to post up pictures from Elliott’s birthday party but she woke up early from her nap so I’m just going to throw in these two videos instead.

Elliott’s birthday was on Friday and Wes took a half day to help me get the house ready for her big birthday party. That evening we decided we should take her out to dinner somewhere special for her birthday. So off to Chuck E Cheese’s we went! Here’s a video of her with the big man.

Here is a video of Elliott playing peek-a-boo. You can tell she thinks this is pretty awesome.

For Memorial Day we met up with some of our college friends and rented a little house at an RV park just south of Bloomington, IN. It was a little bit redneck but a whole lot of fun! Our friends Scott and Megan, have a little girl 3 months younger than Elliott named Natalie. It was so cute to see the babies together! I’m so excited to see them grow up together. Elliott had a great time playing with baby Natalie’s toys and testing the safety limits of the house. She quickly taught us how necessary it is to baby proof everywhere we go now!

Playtime with Natalie!

Randy keeping Elliott entertained at lunch.

Natalie and Megan at lunch.

We hiked down to the lake with the babies.

Watching Daddy swim.

Swimming with Daddy.

Natalie likes to study things very intensely. She is SOOO cute!

On Sunday we took the babies over to the state park beach.

Getting sleepy.

It was a great weekend and I hope we can meet up every summer!

Swimming is a very important skill in our family. My parents live on a lake, down in Alabama, and my dad believes strongly that everyone in our family is required to be able to water ski. I’m pretty sure he thinks Elliott will be slalom skiing by the time she’s five.

In order to get Elliott prepared for her shining future, I went ahead and enrolled her for the infant swimming class at our local YMCA. I’m not sure what I was expecting from the class, but I definitely had visions of Nirvana’s Nevermind album cover art in my head. I had been told some stories by friends who had taken the class a decade ago that the final class involved dropping their infant in the deep end and having to watch them pop back up on their own. This seemed pretty hardcore to me, but you hear about infants swimming and all that so I figured, let’s give a try.

The reality of the class was a bit disappointing. I now realize it’s challenging to the point of impossible to try to teach babies aged six to eighteen months to do anything since they are not really able to follow instructions. We basically spent 7 weeks in the pool attempting to get Elliott to kick her legs and blow bubbles. In reality, she just wiggled around randomly and drank about a gallon of pool water. The majority of our class time was spent moving in a circle and singing songs like Ring Around the Rosie, but substituting the word “splashes” for “ashes.” There was no deep end dunking so I guess they’ve tamed down the class for this new generation. Wes did try to put Elliott’s face in the water once (without the instructor’s consent) and it resulted in a lot of angry screaming. I guess that’s a skill we’ll have to work on in the future. In the end, I’m glad we did it, because it got Elliott acclimated to the idea of going to the pool and having fun in the water. It’s also the first baby class we’ve done where Wes participated. He was one of the only dads who actually got in the water and I was really proud of him for wanting to be involved.
Here are some pictures from our final day of class.

Elliott seriously loves bath night. We have a bunch of pictures and movies of Elliott in the bath and getting super pumped for the bath. Usually, Elliott will grump at us when we start stripping her down to put on PJs for the night but if she hears the water start up in the tub she flips out with joy. It’s fun to see her get so excited. She gets super giggly and crawls as fast as she can to the bathroom to pull up on the side of the tub. I’m pretty sure she’d jump right in if she could figure out how. Recently, she’s been so wiggly and active while in the bath that Wes has a hard time containing her in the tub. She wants to crawl around and explore. She is far less interested in actually getting clean. He’s been resorting to standing in the tub to keep her trapped in one spot. I hear desperate calls of “No! Don’t stand up!” and “You’re not supposed to crawl over there!” coming from the bathroom. I call this their father-daughter bonding time.

Here are some pictures from about a month ago when Elliott was content to sit in one spot in the tub. I’m sure Wes longs for these good old days.

Here are a couple of videos that I bugged Wes into putting up on YouTube recently. My kid can do tricks! Check it out! (okay… so she performs reluctantly, but she CAN do them!)

Here is a video displaying my child’s AMAZING observation skills.

I’m going to be posting a lot of pictures here to get caught up before Elliott’s big birthday on Friday! WOOT!

Elliott has been SUPER sleepy this week. I’m talking two hour naps in the morning, followed up by three or four hour naps in the afternoon, followed by 11-12 hours of bedtime sleepy. I’ve barely been taking her out this week because by the time I’ve got her dressed and fed she’s starting to yawn again. I’m not really complaining though because it’s been sort of a nice vacation for me. I’ve had time to read, play games, and work on our mountain of laundry.
I’m just starting to worry that the next time she wakes up she’ll be a foot taller and talking in complete sentences. Why does she have to grow up so fast anyway?

Here’s our video from Easter morning. Elliott’s First Easter!

Here’s a video Wes took of Elliott playing with Popper. You can see that Elliott always wins in the end.

I’m combining three different events in this post. Sorry it doesn’t really make sense all together!

Easter Sunday: Here is Elliott in her adorable dress!

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In desperation to make my child eat vegetables, I purchased some Gerber diced carrots. I figured it was worth a try. Here is how my child rewarded my efforts.
Step one, suspiciously inspect the food:

Step two, immediately regret putting in mouth. Glare at unsympathetic mother who is laughing uncontrollably:

Step three, attempt to spit out carrots while making wild distress noises:

I think I’m going to try hiding them in some spaghetti sauce next time… It’s worth it even if she doesn’t eat it, just to see her make that face.
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Yesterday, I heard banging noises and Elliott screeching and found her up on her knees, banging on the sliding glass door.

She really hates to be separated from her doggie.

Let me out!