elise's baby dedication

this sunday, we dedicated elise to the Lord. more than anything, it was a parent dedication. it was us expressing that we desire to raise elise to know the Lord and follow His ways. and since it was done publicly, it was a call to our friends and family to hold us accountable as well as a charge to us, to seek counsel and advice from those we love and who love us so dearly, along the road of parenthood. after the service, everyone came over for lunch. enjoy the pictures!

nine month reflections

(Side note: this picture as well as the two other really good ones in this post were taken by my amazing sister. So if you ever need a good photographer, you know where to go. This is Lisey holding Mary's hand.)

elise is nine months old today. wow. a friend asked me today, "what do you think of when you think of nine months?" my responses at first were brief..."she's almost a year"..."wow, time has flown"...but as i think more on this, it has the potential to really blow my mind.



in nine months, she's learned to sit, smile, hug, laugh, sneeze and laugh at herself afterwards, eat solids, attempt to feed herself with a spoon, feed herself with her fingers (which she's just starting to really enjoy lately)...she went right to the cup and skipped the bottle completely (which i was thankful for)...

she can roll over, she can scoot backwards and is making more successful forward crawling attempts each day...

she loves to stand and see how long she can balance and she loves to hold our hands and walk across the room...she's even getting so bold as to let go of our hand every now and then (no fear!)...

with her papa, she'll stand against the side of the couch while he encourages her to take a step towards him...she hasn't done it yet, but i'll let you know when she does!...



she talks and babbles...sometimes i'm convinced she's singing with me...she likes to bang the guitar when i let her hold it, and while i'm playing, she'll grab my strumming hand or the strings, which can really alter the sound, but it's so fun to watch her mind try to figure it all out...

she cracks a huge smile when either of us brush our teeth, she takes baths in the kitchen sink because our tub is out of commission for a while (but she doesn't seem to mind one bit!)...



she recognizes the sound of josie's paws coming into the room and smiles at her every morning...she even grabs for her ears now and josie is patient as always, while elise learns "gentle with josie"



she loves, loves, loves being outside, especially when there's a wind blowing and birds flying around..."tweet tweets" as she and her daddy call them, and they love to bird watch together on the deck...



she seems to understand some things that i say now, like "look at mommy" and "diaper"...and even some of the sign language we're attempting to teach her...



she's amazing me daily, and just today i was driving and glanced at her in the rear view mirror and almost cried..."she's mine" i thought..."we have her for the rest of her life"..."she's beautiful"...



nine months...so short in the scheme of a lifetime...but in light of the fact that nine months ago, i was merely walking around with a huge belly...nine months is her lifetime as of now, and it's been wonderful so far!

pictures on my camera

in an effort to catch up on the blog, i figured i'd just share some pictures that were on my memory card from the last couple weeks. here we are during our day trip to delaware.

our little bubby - she loves being outside on the deck...

and she loves it even more when her daddy plays guitar for her

thanks to vanessa for the tip on rice cakes. elise loves them!

and here's our little book bug just this morning. no, she's not crawling yet, but working o' so hard to figure it out. she loves this book with the dog pictures in it and actually giggles at some of the pages. i love how dainty her fingers look as she "turns" the pages. after checking this book out, we practiced our "ready, set, go" game where i hold her hips while she stands and then let go to see how long she can stand on her own. she gets so proud of herself. and today after she stood for her longest time yet, she fell into my arms, i cheered "yaaaaah!" and she just hugged me and held on, while i rocked her and kept cheering. it was one of those wonderful moments you want to tuck away and remember exactly how sweet it felt.

what we've been up to

she's so stinkin cute first thing in the morning :)

doing puzzles - we're just working on picking up the pieces (and chewing on them)...we'll get to putting them back in the right spots later!

chewing on tupperware is always a winner

and of course she's enjoyed a bath in the kitchen sink. everyone has to have that experience at least once in their lifetime, right? :)

happy birthday papa