Monday, December 28, 2009

16 months!


Eliza is 16-months-old today!

This past month she celebrated her second Christmas, got her bangs trimmed for the first time, found out she's 30 inches tall and 26 lbs, and started saying "okay". She has a whole mouth full of teeth and isn't afraid to use 'em. She's decided that she doesn't like ham or turkey but she LOVES burgers.

Eliza has a bit of a cold right now, but she still held still for our monthly Raggedy Ann picture. Such a good girl.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

The Holiday recap and a video year in review

The holiday time has been a blast. Thanks to everyone with whom we shared our time. A special thanks goes out to our family in Western Ky for hosting us for a few days this December. We had a fantastic time and can't wait to see you guys again real soon.

We hope everyone else has had a wonderful Christmas this year. 2009 has been a rather eventful and interesting year. Here's a video wrapping up this year in Eliza's life. This year she lived in three houses, two towns, turned one, made her first visit to the zoo, Kings Island and Nashville, and learned to walk. Now she's beginning to learn to talk. Here's a trip down memory lane and then some pictures from our Christmas vacation. By the way YouTube didn't like the song we used, so we had to find a different video host. Hope this works okay.

Eliza's 2009 wrap-up from Janie Smith on Vimeo.



Cutie, huh? Can you believe how much she's changed this year?

Sadly, Eliza has caught a bit of a chest cold. She's still the best natured baby in the world and doesn't even seem as though she feels bad. It's amazing that she hasn't gotten sick sooner, with all the running around and visiting we've done this month.

We went to Mayfield and visited with family.




Then we went to Nashville to visit the science museum, the Opryland hotel, and to see Charlie Brown Christmas in ICE. Which was one of the coolest things (literally, too) I've ever seen in my life. If you haven't seen it, run, don't walk, to see this exhibit before it closes.




For our Christmas, we went to my Mom's house Christmas Eve and then spent a very lazy Christmas Day at home. Eliza got a new toy barn that makes all kinds of sounds and has lots of fun buttons to push. She also got her first set of Duplos and her first Hello Kitty doll.

Here's some video of us playing in our living room after Eliza's new toys seemingly exploded all over the place.



Hope everyone else out there had a wonderful holiday time, too.

Have a happy and healthy 2010 and stay tuned for Eliza's 16 month Raggedy Ann picture coming soon!

Monday, December 7, 2009

Summer-Winter (a picture recap) and some other tidbits


I've been terrible with keeping up the blog. I'll give you a little update on us and then show you some of the pictures I just pulled from the little camera I carry in my purse. I have some from back in the summer, even!

Thanksgiving was nice, but the next day my Mom fell ill and spent a week in the hospital in Louisville. Brian's Mom was nice enough to stay with us and keep Eliza last week. Thankfully, my mother is home and doing much better, so we'll be back in our usual routine tomorrow.

We've put up two Christmas trees this year. We initially put up an artificial tree, but it's no secret that I'm not a fan of the fake tree or colored lights. My very understanding husband let me undecorate the fake tree and put up a real one with white lights. Before and after pictures to follow below.

Next week we're heading to Western KY to visit family and we'll also head to Nashville to take in some of the holiday cheer at the Opryland Hotel. We couldn't be more thrilled.

Eliza is chatting up a storm these days. She likes to say "Oh, wow!" along with "Who/what's that?" Along with her own little alien baby language we've yet to translate. Her hair is getting much longer and really wild, but she won't let me put bows and ponytail holders in it. She has almost a full mouth of teeth and still uses them to chew almost anything she can get her hands on.

And now, a half a year's worth of quick snapshots.









Monday, November 30, 2009

A bright little picture...

This one goes out to Betty, who is hopefully continuing to get better in Louisville as we speak. Eliza's (slightly overdue) 15-month picture.

Monday, November 16, 2009

I'm a slacker!

Sorry for the lapse in posts. We've been so busy with work and the approaching holiday and we haven't had much time to update. We're hosting Thanksgiving this year and we're too excited for words.

This past weekend was a productive one. We both had to work Saturday, but Sunday we cleaned up the house and then headed out to the park. The weekend before that, we went back to the Orchard with Brian's Dad and Stepmom. We had a ton of fun on a hayride and buying apples for another pie. I also bought some pie pumpkins and tried my hand at a homemade pumpkin pie. We have pictures from both weekends and plan to post them shortly, we swear.

Eliza is, of course, thriving. Lately she's learning to get her way by squealing loudly. She's also learned to say "up" when she wants out of her high chair or she wants someone to hold her. She doesn't have any other baby family members to play with, so she's fascinated when she sees other kids. She needs some buddies and I think we're going to be working on that soon.

Pictures to come soon!

Thursday, October 29, 2009

14-months-old!

Eliza is 14-months-old (yesterday. sorry)!

First, we'd like to thank Grandmomma and Granddaddy for the nice Halloween card for Eliza. She absolutely loved looking at it.

Second, we're gearing up for Eliza's first Halloween as a trick-or-treater. We're going to dust off the ballerina duck costume from a couple of weeks ago, but a little fancier. I worked on teaching her to say "trick or treat" the other night. It sound like "tritick", so I think we'll try again tomorrow.

Tonight, however, we finally got around to carving our pumpkin. Here's a picture.



We also (a day late, sorry) took Eliza's 14-month Raggedy Ann picture. She was sleepy and grumpy and a multitude of other dwarves, but we managed to get a shot we could live with.



This month, Eliza became a full blown talker and a full blown walker. It's amazing how much this adorable little kiddo has absorbed in the past 30 days. I can't imagine what a little terror she's going to be when she learns to RUN.

An adorable terror.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Boyd Orchards and the Family Pumpkin


Today we decided to head out for some family fun at a local Orchard. They have lots of family activities, music, hay rides, and lots of beautiful fresh fruit. After our fun hay ride, Eliza helped us pick out a pumpkin.






Isn't the store adorable? While we were inside, we also picked out some delicious Empire apples. I made a pie as soon as we got home. The pie tastes delicious, but is a little on the runny side. Lesson learned. Next time I'll let the filling simmer longer. Still, we got a half gallon of apple cider that's FANTASTIC.

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Finally! The best sound...

Eliza has been a chatterbox lately. She says "Who's that?" constantly while pointing at various things (pictures, objects, etc.), Eziza, Ah-boo (we haven't figured this out yet, but she says it constantly), and "Hot". All food is "hot", no matter the temperature.

She routinely says "Hi, Dad!" to Brian, but she has not yet mastered my name. Until tonight...

I left a room and she momentarily got upset, I was in the kitchen and I heard her yell "MAMA!!!" from the living room.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Pre-Halloween lull

Nothing much is going on that's exciting. Eliza walks just like a big girl now. She's all over the house and can nearly run. She's learning to say "Who's that?" when she looks at pictures and can usually identify herself and Brian. She'll say "Dada" and "E-za" or "E-za-za". She still can't really say "Mama". She will, however, say "Hi".

As Brian said in the last post, we went to Kings Island for our second trip to Howl-o-Fest/Halloween Haunt. Here's a video of Eliza riding the Nick-O-Round in her ballerina duck costume.



The weather is unusually brisk for this time of year. We've been hanging out inside by the fireplace and enjoying each other's company. What a nice fall season this has been so far.

Monday, October 12, 2009

More Kings Island!

I swear, we should live there. We're honestly thinking about getting season passes for next year, we've been so many times.

Mom and Lee came up for a few days, so we decided to go Saturday and do both Howl-o-Fest and Halloween Haunt.

This necessitated getting Eliza a Halloween costume early, so we officially scrapped the Super Martian Robot Girl costume in favor of a duck ballerina outfit that is so adorable, it just might break your computer.

Once we got to the park, Janie, Lee and I got in what will be our last ride on Scooby Doo before Cedar Fair rebrands the entire kid section to Planet Snoopy. As is to be expected, I smoked both of them at the shooting game, because I have killer Duck Hunt skills.

After that, Janie and Mom took Eliza off for some kid stuff while Lee and I got in line for Diamondback, which is the seventh-fastest coaster in North America.

That fact, incidentally, was one that I didn't share with Lee until about halfway up the lift hill.

After a nice ride on Diamondback, we somehow convinced Mom to actually get on a coaster, which meant that Janie stayed with Eliza while the rest of us piled onto the artist formerly known as The Italian Job. Mom did surprisingly well, especially for someone with severe motion sickness and a bad back.

After a little walking around and some bumper cars, Janie tended to a now-fussy Eliza while we climbed on the red side of Racer (the blue side was closed.) As I love to do on wooden coasters, I made us go for the very back, and I've now done a 100 percent hands-up ride on both sides of Racer.

Mom swore off any more coasters for the rest of the night, and we decided to grab dinner at what is normally one of the best deals in the park, the Coney Mall Subway.

This time, however, the Subway was apparently staffed by people with no clue, as they asked Janie if she wanted a footlong sub even though you can't actually order one (we had to pay for two 6-inch subs at $6 a piece, which kills the good deal.)

After we ate, Lee and I tried to grab a quick ride on Invertigo, but we ended up in line for close to an hour. Very foggy from a combination of the fog machines that looked like they were spraying for mosquitoes and actual fog.

Then came what was something of a mistake, even though it was something we wanted to do: BEAST.

Riding The Beast at night is an amazing experience. Riding it, as I got to on our last trip, with the brakes pretty much off, is even more amazing, but it was still good Saturday. There's just something about tearing off into the helix in the dark that's thrilling.

What wasn't amazing, though, was the wait. The line was actually backed up to the arcade before you go up the hill to Beast Canyon, and when we finally got to Beast Canyon, the ride clock said 45 minutes. Oh, how wrong it was.

Lee and I managed to wind up onto the ramp to the ride building when the announcement came that The Beast was closing for fireworks. Janie then called to let us know that a park employee told her it was down 30 minutes because of the fireworks.

It ended up being an almost 2.5 hour wait, and by that time Eliza and Janie were freezing to death, so Lee and I hiked back to the front gate to head home.

Despite the wait on Beast (literally the longest ride wait of my life), it was still the best KI trip we've made yet, and we're already thinking about 2010.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

She's a walker!

It's official now: this child can WALK. Alone. For some distance.

Janie and I went to Kings Island for Haunt on Saturday night and left Eliza with her grandmother for the evening. We got a call letting us know that she was walking all over the house while we were there, but we wanted to see it for ourselves.

Sunday afternoon, she was walking across the living room all by herself. She's still a little ungainly with it, and she walks with her hands up like she's guarding John Stockton, but it's walking.

Up next: RUNNING. Oh yeah, it's coming.

Monday, September 28, 2009

Ezaza is 13-months-old

Eliza can say her name now. It sounds like Ezaza, but she makes a pretty solid attempt. Last night, she very clearly said "Eliza" in this throaty growl she makes. Brian looked at me and said "You did just hear her say her name, right?"

She's making small attempts to walk on her own, but she can't take more than 2 or 3 steps without losing her balance and falling down. Mostly she'll opt to sit down and crawl to her destination, but she's slowly growing more brave.

Today she's 13-months-old!

Edit: Oh, okay. By popular (and by popular, I mean my Mom) demand, we've decided to continue on with Raggedy Ann pictures. At least we'll try monthly 'til she's two.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Oh, and one more thing...

Eliza took two steps tonight. People claim she's done this before, but I just now saw it with my own eyes. She was extremely wobbly, but this is progress!

Flashback 2008

A few days ago I found my old Sprint phone and decided to see what was on it. To my surprise, I found lots of pictures from Eliza's first couple of months. I totally lucked out. I thought every picture from that era had been lost when our laptop was stolen.







She's growing up so very fast. This week we realized she's been making attempts at saying her own name. It sounds like a throaty "Za Za" at this point, but she does resond appropriately when you ask her name. She still isn't walking on her own, but last weekend she stood for a good 30 seconds on her own before she realized what she was doing, chickened out and sat down.

In other news, we've really been busy beyond all reason. We routinely stumble through the door at about 7PM, get up at 6AM and do it all over again. Eliza spends her days playing at her Grammy's house while Daddy and Mommy bring home the bacon. Luckily we've had some weekend fun lately. Last Sunday we decided to head to Cincinnati to a Bengals game. We we sitting on the very back row, but there isn't a bad seat in Paul Brown stadium. Here's a little video of the view from our seats.



This past Friday, we headed out to Christ the King Oktoberfest to see The Minus 5 put on the most rockin' show a church fundraiser has ever seen. Unfortunately, the crowd proved to be a bit much for Eliza, so she headed to Grammy's and called it an early night. We got to have a parents' night out. We got to shake hands with Peter Buck from R.E.M., too. Here's some video of Brian being too chicken to go up and say hello. I had to take the initiative and shake his hand first so Brian would go behind me. Here's a little video of Brian pondering the possibility of shaking Peter Buck's hand and chickening out.



We've been planning our winter this morning and the holiday time is going to be fantastic this year. I'm so excited. I just hope we have enough room for the Christmas tree in our living room. But first, Halloween.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Busy times!

I spent all last week at home with Eliza as part of what corporate has obfuscatingly termed "work reduction" (read: unpaid furlough.) The upside to that was, we got to have a lot of fun. We went to the park one afternoon, we went to the store, we played games, we took naps. Fun was had by all.

Tonight, we had spaghetti for dinner, which meant Eliza got to play with her food a little.



As you can see, Eliza had some fun with it.

She did scare us a little last night by waking up at 4 a.m. screaming for no reason. That's extremely unlike her.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Let her eat cake!

We had such a fantastic time at Eliza's Teddy Bear tea party birthday. Eliza's friends came, we ate cake, drank tea, and opened presents. Here are a few pictures and video of the cake festivities.

I attempted to make Eliza a bear cake, but I had a bear malfunction in the actual baking process. Sweet Magnolia bakery in Lexington came to my rescue and the outcome couldn't have been nicer. Especially wonderful considering the fact that the order came in a mere 48 hours before the party.

There were multiple reports that Eliza took several steps on her own during the party. I didn't actually witness this, so I can't say for certain. I'll keep you posted.

After the party, a lot of our party attendees went out for dinner together. We had such a fantastic day! I'm sure there will be more pictures as they roll in.









Saturday, August 29, 2009

Eliza's first birthday video

We had a fantastic time at Eliza's birthday party. Pictures and details to follow tomorrow. However, here's the video montage of Eliza's first year in pictures that we showed during her party. Makes me cry every single time I see it.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Eliza is ONE!

Eliza is ONE!
You wouldn't believe how much she's grown over the past month.
This morning we took her very last monthly Raggedy Ann picture and her growth was just amazing.



Okay, she hasn't grown that much, but she does wear a size 5 shoe.



There we go. I can't believe my little baby is now a big girl. Over the past month she's become a more confident cruiser, but she's still not walking. She's afraid to stand up on her own, but in her more brave moments, it's obvious that she could if she'd just let go. She says "hey" and "bye", but "hey" is really the only thing she says that's easy to make out. She's absolutely mastered drinking milk and we've entirely put away the bottles. Such a very big girl she is. Tomorrow we're having a Teddy Bear Tea Party to celebrate.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

We're situated, now here's an update.

The Friday before we moved, we got an unexpected visit from my Dad, Eliza's other Grandfather. She hadn't had the chance to meet him, so we all got together for dinner. Here's a little video.



The following couple of days were a complete blur. We were rushed to get the moving completed and we were extremely short on help. Finally, Eliza wasn't very happy with seeing her stuff in a new location and decided to be extremely fussy for her first couple of days.

We spent the week trying to get the place together in time for Eliza's first birthday party this weekend. In the meantime, we attended Caylor Hicks' first birthday party on Saturday. Eliza really seemed to like being around other kids. I think she needs more baby friends.

So now we're settled and really looking forward to the coming weekend so we can celebrate our big girl's first birthday. I was working on a little tribute video for her first birthday and I couldn't help tearing up. This year has flown. It all goes so fast.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

While I have a second...

I'll update the blog!

Packing is well underway, but there's still a good way to go before we're finished (we have too much stuff!)

Eliza's pretty well got a full head of thick hair now, and so I think we're going to have to think about a first haircut soon to get it shaped up into something. She's off the bottle entirely now and drinking milk, eating regular food and starting to really show off a personality.

More details when we're not all exhausted and busy.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Big week!

This is a crazy week, so hang with us through the lack of updates.

When next you hear from us, we should be in our new townhouse!

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Eliza is 11-months-old, and this blog is ONE YEAR!




Today our sweet baby girl is 11-months-old. This blog, dedicated to our sweet baby girl, has officially been updating you on her life for one year. On July 28th of last year, our pack n' play, swing and car seat were delivered and we were in the process of getting Eliza's room in Mayfield ready for her arrival. My, what a difference a year makes.

Now our sweet baby girl is 11-months-old and we're planning her first birthday party. She can almost walk, she's uttered her first sentence (although she mostly just babbles), she's almost finished with bottles, she drinks milk, she can drink out of a big glass without spilling and drink out of a straw, and she's eating a lot more big people food. Right now she's starting to play with her new push toy and loves to nap at Grammy's house with her stuffed hippo.

We've come such a long way in the past year, and there's more fun and adventure to come.

Monday, July 27, 2009

We're still here.

Eliza is going to be 11-months-old tomorrow. It's completely unbelievable to me. I'm already starting to make plans for her birthday party.

She can now drink out of a regular glass without spilling all down the front of herself. This is hilarious. I had a glass of water on the floor and she just crawled up, took a couple of good sips, and set the glass back down gracefully. She is, however, still a baby, so she managed to knock it over a few minutes later as she was crawling by.

We went to the fair Friday night and she was totally unimpressed by the petting zoo. She was, however, impressed by the circus performers we saw. She danced and bounced and squealed for the duration of their show. She's growing up so quickly. And, as usual, she made friends with everyone in the crowd.



Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Eliza "Hoover" Smith

Eliza is going through a phase. She now eats anything she can off the carpet. One day I caught her stuffing random pieces of fuzz in her mouth. And in the most disgusting turn of events, she's managed to chew and nearly swallow two bugs before I caught her. My mother assured me it's good protein, I was horrified. My mother has nicknamed her "Hoover".

We're still adapting to our new schedules. My new job as an assistant manager as an apartment community is good, but busy. Eliza seems to like her time at Grammy's house and hopefully things will continue to get less hectic as times rolls on.

More to come, soon. Including pictures of our new car!

Thursday, July 16, 2009

First sentence!

Today, while out and about with Grammy, Aunt Cheryl and Aunt Margie, Eliza said "I'm sleepy."

I couldn't be more proud.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

A busy week..

I'm sorry you guys haven't heard from us in a bit. I started a new job on Monday, Eliza is staying with my Mom each day and she lives 45 minutes away. Needless to say, we've lost 3 hours of our day with this new schedule, so there's less time for blogging. I promise I'll try to do a better job with keeping you guys up to date.

Eliza is cruising around like a champ, cutting her top two teeth, and babbling up a storm. In fact, she's such a babbler that you almost have to shush her in public.

We're trying to make the switch from bottle to sippy cup and milk from formula all at the same time. She doesn't like either.

In other news, we bought a new car this past weekend. Since we opted out of daycare, we decided to assign those baby care dollars to a car payment. It had to happen. My car was in bad shape and never could have survived the drive to Lexington each day. I was sad to see it go after 9 years of service, but I'm driving Brian's Malibu now and it's serving me well.

I hope everyone out there in blogland is doing well. Pictures soon.

Monday, July 6, 2009

July 4th and Janie's Birthday at Kings Island

We had the most terrific weekend possible. We braved the overcast skies and eventual rain and headed downtown for the annual 4th of July Festival. Great food and drink we had by all. We managed to see a couple of great bands play in Phoenix Park and caught a bit of the annual waiter's race (a Lexington 4th of July tradition). After that, we went to my Mom's for my early birthday dinner, then we went with my Mom and sister downtown for fireworks. It was absolutely pouring, but my birthday begins immediately following fireworks (according to Janie's rules of living.)

Sunday morning we got up nice and early, picked up Bransen (my smart, funny, completely cool nephew), and headed north for yet another day at Kings Island. I can't say enough about how much we enjoy this place. We got a parent swap pass this time, allowing us both to ride rides while one watches the baby. I didn't ride as many things as I would have liked, but the pass allows you to bring another rider back on with you while the other parent watches the baby. Because of this, Bran got to ride Invertigo twice in a row.

We saw the WORST show in this history of shows (but hilariously so), A "Guess Your Age" booth lady guessed that I'm 44 so I won a stuffed Hippo (I'm 34, for the record, and I'm usually told I look younger), we ate some delicious blue ice cream, rode some rollercoasters, I won a stuff Mickey Mouse playing the crane game and the baby even got to go on the Scooby Doo ride. Brian and Bran rode The Beast at night and we closed the place down and stayed for fireworks. I couldn't have asked for a better birthday!

4th of July pictures






Kings Island 7/05/2009