Eliza is TWO!

This is the last Raggedy Ann picture, so we have a set. Also, here's her 2nd birthday tribute video.

21-months-old!

Sorry this is late. We've had a very, very busy week. And leave it to Eliza to get a mosquito bite on her cheek when it was time for her monthly Raggedy Ann picture. She sure is growing, and talking up a storm. She loves to sing "Old MacDonald" and can sing most of it without help. She also loves to request naps and diaper changes by name.

I can't believe she'll be two in three short months.

20-months-old (Yeah, we know, we haven't posted in a month...)

First of all, Raggedy Ann and Eliza. 20 months.

There, now that we have the business out of the way...

We've been exceptionally busy over the past couple of months. I switched jobs, Brian decided to attend the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law in the fall, and we've been trying to have as much fun as we can possibly squeeze in.

In March, Eliza had her first haircut. She was very good about it until the very end. She started to cry a bit when Brian had to hold her head still. She came out with straight bangs, so I suppose that's a victory.

Eliza is very eloquent for her age. She's even beginning to formulate sentences. She loves to demand that we pick her up, and she also loves the word "no". Luckily, I don't think she's knows what the word "no" means yet.

This April, we went to Western KY for Easter and spent some time at the farm. We got to see Grandmommy and Granddaddy and Mimi and Poppa and Gaga. Not to mention Aunt Lee and all sorts of cousins.

Later in the month, we went to Keeneland, our first Legends game of the season, and we made our first trip to Kings Island for this season.

Here's a little bit of video of her haircut, Easter egg hunting, and our trip to Kings Island. Plus, pictures from Easter and our trip to Mayfield.

We promise to try not to wait until this time next month to post again.

A year and a half of Eliza Jane Smith!

Eliza is 18-months-old today. We've come leaps and bounds in the past month. She'll now mimic pretty much any word we say (which is both a good and a bad thing - Brian and I are working on this) and she likes to mimic our actions. She's learning her letters by pointing to them as the credits roll at the end of TV shows and movies. No kidding. She names them (not always correctly)and then will look back at us for applause. The other day she was prancing around the house saying "seven, eight, nine!" in a low whisper over and over again. Just like the cliched observation everyone makes about babies - she's an information sponge.

She can walk down the stairs with a little help from the banister (and Mom) and she'll stay in the living room without the baby gate up. She's gotten very social and yells "Hi!" at everyone in the grocery store. Loudly. She now eats with a fork or spoon all on her own and has acquired a taste for pot pies. She even eats her morning cereal with milk in it like a big girl.

She sings along with TV shows and the radio. She generally picks one syllable and repeats it over and over, but it's still singing! Her new favorite TV show is Blues Clues. The very old version, with Steve. She gets all worked up when it's mail time and will always try to sing the mail song.

Today was her 18-month half birthday so we decided to get her a cupcake to eat after dinner. I think the size was a little overwhelming, so it took her a bit to dig in. We snapped a couple of pictures of her eating her cupcake, and of course we have a few more to share. Look at this big girl!

Snow Day (and 17 months!)

Eliza was 17-months-old on Thursday. Just one day after Brian's 26th birthday. We totally forgot her Raggedy Ann picture, so it didn't get taken 'til yesterday. Brian had some flash issues, so this didn't come out the greatest. Still, she's 17-months-old. Such a big girl. Eliza is attempting to talk, but outside of "Who/What's that?", "Oh Wow" and "Hey", she really doesn't have much to say. She's trying to mimic the sound of words, but nothing much yet. She still doesn't say "Mom" on a regular basis. She does, however, seem to address me by the name "Bop!".

Today we decided to enjoy the snow and take Eliza out for her first sledding adventure. Unfortunately, there were no sleds to be found for the big people. We decided to break out Squeakin' Bill Quackers and see if he'd make a good sled. It took a good incline to get him going, but once we did, Eliza had a great time. Here's a little bit of video.





We came home and warmed up with the homemade hot chocolate. Such an excellent winter Saturday. Now we're watching Kentucky play Vanderbilt and being entirely lazy.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Eliza is 10-months-old.

Our sweet, funny and genuinely cool baby girl turned 10-months-old today. She was born last summer and here we are in summer again. In two brief months from now and we'll have ourselves a kid with a full year of life experience under her belt. Here's what Eliza can do now that she couldn't do last month.

-She crawls and cruises like a champ. She can walk from one side of the room to the other as long as she has enough furniture to steady herself.

-She can drink an entire bottle on her own without having to have me recline her to finish it.

-She just started taking baths in the big tub.

-She will eat almost any baby food we give her, and she's starting to try more grown-up food. This month she tried watermelon and iced tea for the first time.

-She's babbling up a storm and says DADADADADADADADA constantly. She's beginning to realize that it actually means Daddy.

-Her top left tooth is poking through. Good thing we just started brushing with her brand new Hello Kitty toothbrush.

-She tries really hard to wave, but sometimes it's a delayed reaction. Someone will wave at her and she'll wave 5 minutes later. She also randomly waves during the day or waves at the TV or computer screens.

Last night we went to the drive-in again and took a few pictures. As much as we love watching a movie under the stars, the movie we saw was terrible. Eliza sat and watched the whole movie like a big girl. She even sat still and ate puffs out of my hand most of the time. So big.

Here are a few pictures of Eliza's first bath in the big tub, our trip to the movies and, of course, this month's Raggedy Ann picture.

Eliza stands up!

I didn't witness it, since I was at work, but I got a call this morning that Eliza successfully pulled herself up on her baby pen to better watch educational programming.

Janie said the biggest problem was that she couldn't find a way to sit back down.

Tomorrow is Janie's heart cath, so I'm taking advantage of having to work Saturday to have tomorrow off to be there.

Nine months!

If it's the 28th, it must be Raggedy Ann time!

This month, Eliza learned how to crawl with her belly up, pulled up to standing, started eating more adult food, babbles constantly, including "dada" and "mama," took her first vacation (more on that later) and went swimming for the first time.

It's hard to believe I have a 9-month-old baby. She shouldn't be this old. For that matter, I shouldn't be this old.

She's the best thing to ever happen to us, though.

Vacation and the beginnings of cruising

This weekend we took a little break and headed down to the Smoky mountains with Brian's Mom and his sister Lee. We had some fun and Eliza got to swim for the first time.



Eliza was attempting to pull herself up in her pack n play all weekend, so I wasn't surprised at all when serious attempts to stand were made when we got home. We put her behind her baby gate to play for a bit, and within 15 minutes she was trying to stand up. She used her boppy for leverage, stood up, realized she didn't know how and pitched face forward onto some blocks. She had a block-shaped mark on her forehead for the rest of the night. This learning to stand/walk thing is going to be traumatic for me. I'm putting serious thought into buying her a helmet.

Then we played in the living room where we try to keep her away from dangerous furniture. She targeted the suitcase we hadn't carried upstairs yet. The first time, she crawled over, pulled herself up, and actually cruised a couple of steps. The second time she just pulled herself up, grabbed a shirt and fell. We did manage to catch her second attempt on video, though.



She's growing up so fast. She'll be 9 months on Thursday. Can you guys believe it?

Eliza Crawled (like, a real crawl)

At 7 months, Eliza did this really awkward crawl that looked like an army crawl/slide on her face. Today, she crawled nice and proper. In an attempt to get it on video, I set up a camera on the floor on the opposite side of her room and tempted her with toys. This video was originally 12 minutes long, but here are the last two minutes when she finally makes her away across the room to grab a toy she couldn't resist. There wasn't a lot of distance for her to crawl, but she does it for sure.




Also, Eliza learned to wave "bye-bye" yesterday. She waved to my Mom as we were leaving her apartment. Brian claims she'd done it before, but I hadn't seen it. Yesterday is the date entered in the official baby book.

Hooray for milestones. Let's hope these don't fall out of her head like the last set.

Tonight we're going to dinner with Brian's Dad and Stepmom. We haven't seen them since Easter, so we're looking forward to it. I'm sure Eliza will be thrilled, too.

Eliza's Swing: a Tribute

From time to time, I was putting Eliza in her baby swing when I needed to work on our bedroom. Last week, while I was dealing with all the burglary nonsense, I noticed Eliza was grabbing the support bars as she was swinging back and forth. I'm all for newer developmental milestones, but since this seemed really dangerous, I decided it was time to retire the swing. She's only 3 lbs. away from the max weight limit anyway. Now the swing is living in her closet until we can figure out what to do with it.

We've had a lot of good times with Eliza's baby swing. So here, for your viewing pleasure (and an excuse for me to play around with Windows Movie Maker's goofy transition effects), Eliza's Swing: A Tribute.



In other news: I actually saw Eliza go from crawling position to sitting position THREE times today. I guess she can officially do this. So exciting. Now if she'd just get the proper crawl together, she'd be right on target with her milestones. She's showing absolutely zero interest in trying to pull up using furniture. You know what? I'm okay with that. That'll probably delay the risk of stitches. I'm okay with that, too.

Eliza is 8-months-old (yesterday)!

Sorry we didn't take a Raggedy Ann picture yesterday. For some reason, I was thinking all weekend that the 28th was Wednesday. Even if we'd remembered, we sort of had an event that caused me to forget nearly everything.

We went to the grocery store last night and while we were gone, the house was robbed. They took Brian's laptop, the Wii, all the Wii games and Brian's ipod. We're absolutely heartbroken. We're not rich people, so we won't likely be able to replace these things anytime soon. We have a pretty fair idea of who (in a general sense) did this and we're angry. All the cliches about feeling violated are absolutely true. I no longer feel safe in our little rental townhouse or with renting from Foxglove, the property management company. We're hoping that between the police and the apartment complex, someone will step up and help correct this situation. What a terrible sinking feeling.

On to better things, Eliza was 8-months-old yesterday! In the past month she has cut a tooth, spoken and forgotten two words, learned and forgotten how to crudely crawl, and she's started stage 2 baby food. She now eats 3 meals a day, with lunch reserved for new and experimental foods. She's in the process of learning how to crawl in proper hands and knees position and hopefully she'll learn to pull herself into a sitting position, too. She's working on picking up food with her thumb and index finger. So far she's managed to get 4 or 5 puffs into her mouth in this way. Mostly she just licks the puffs. She's finally drinking from her sippy cup and usually volunteers to hold it herself. She'll hold her own bottle, but she hasn't really gotten the memo that she's supposed to tilt it up to make the formula run to the top. She's mostly a very happy baby unless she's sleep or hungry. Much like her Daddy.

In other news, I got all my bloodwork back and everything looks normal. No diabetes, no high cholesterol, no thyroid problems. Next step is a tilt table test to check our my slow heart rate and gallbladder surgery. Referrals for both are coming soon.

And now, a little behind the scenes video of the Raggedy Ann photo shoot. Eliza's such a tempermental little Hollywood diva.

Eliza in her summer gear

Finally, some pictures for all the Grandparents out there in blogland.

Eliza Smith and the Curious Case of the Missing Milestones

Sometimes the unraveling of the mysteries of babyhood can be a maddening task. It's not like I'm trying to locate Carmen Sandiego here. This shouldn't be rocket surgery. Still, I can't for the life of me figure out why Eliza learns to do things and then promptly forgets.

A couple of weeks ago, Eliza made a lot of progress in one week. She was holding her bottle when she drank, was attempting to crawl all over the living room by pushing with her feet and sliding on her face, saying the word "good" the entire time she ate, and even cooing "Dadadadadada" at Brian. Now she can and will do none of these things. She gets up on all fours in a more traditional crawling position, but she never really gets anywhere. In fact, she rarely makes an attempt to get on all fours by herself anymore. She refuses to hold her bottle while she's eating, she'll only grab it when it's empty, and forget the talking. Mum's the word. Suddenly she's Silent Bob. I'm hoping her vocal ability will return just in time to make the big, eloquent, plot pivoting speech at the end of the film.

What she does do is growl. She's doing this deep, throaty growl these days and it cracks me up. Also, she finds it hilarious when you make her stuffed animals bark. Even ones that wouldn't bark in nature, like one her her 67 stuffed Easter bunnies. She can stand by herself while holding a piece of furniture. She can do that for a couple of minutes, even. She suddenly likes to protest when you take something away from her. That was a milestone she never really reached and just mastered in the past couple of days. She tried to steal the grocery list at the store last night and threw a fit when I gave it to Brian. I'm actually relieved by this because it was the one thing from waaaay back in the baby book that she skipped entirely.

I'm trying to give her a little more table food at lunch. Yesterday we had meatloaf and mashed potatoes at lunch and she was 100% uninterested. The texture of mashed potatoes was new, and she made a horrible face with every bite. We'll certainly keep trying with that one. I don't want her to pick up that particular dislike (sorry, Aunt Taquita). Today I'm going to give her some leftover pizza and let her play with it.

Sorry, Grandparents. Still no pictures. I solemnly promise to try to do better with that. Just as sooon as I locate Eliza's milestones (and possibly Waldo and Carmen Sandiego).