A Sweet Mess!

She was a little muddy after "helping" Daddy work on the compost bin.

What Elise Is Up To

Elise is entering this stage of talking out more of her own thoughts instead of just repeating what we say.  But there is still a lot of repeating.  This week she started saying "Oh my goo-ness" and "Oh man!"  When we were in the truck yesterday she started talking to the cars in front of us.  "Go! Go! Cars! Go!"  Hmmmm...she's heard one of her parents say that.  She'll tell us stories in detail with facial expressions to boot.  We try to understand and nod and laugh at appropriate times:)

She also has a one-eyed stick horse that is perfectly fine to play with, but she prefers getting the toilet plunger from the bathroom and riding it instead saying "Giddyup, giddyup!"  Honestly the toilet plunger is probably more her size and a bit more manageable for her to ride.

She still loves giving hugs and kisses, sometimes a bit aggressively to kids her size.  She tackled her little friend over the other day with one of her hugs.  If she gets hurt or notices any sort of injury on her body she holds out the body part and say "kiss it".  Gladly!

She's getting pretty bossy too, which means she'll fit into the role of big sister well.  Which will be a new role for her in February if all goes well with the new little one coming along.

She got her first haircut last week.  The mullet was getting a bit out of hand, although I did miss it after we trimmed it off.  We had been talking about haircuts for a few weeks from one of her favorite books.  So she knew what a haircut was and welcomed it when we pulled out the scissors.

I had a broken leg scare this past week after she tripped while running in the house.  After she fell she couldn't bear weight on her right leg without crying and it wasn't much better the next morning.  I asked several people to pray and thankfully the next day when we went for x-rays there were no signs of broken bones.  She limped for a couple of days after that, but is back to her normal full-throttle self.

Haircut  in Pictures

Feeding the Chickens

Remembering

Today we spent some time with Dane's extended family and his cousin and sister were pulling up some Elise pictures on their phones from what seems like so long ago.  There was the Itty-Bitty Elise...precious newborn.  Then there was Chunka-Munka Elise...jolly baby.  Then the Knee-Walking Elise...baby on the move.  I realized that there are a lot of pictures of Elise out there in the world that I don't even know about.  They're fun to discover.  Here is one that I especially liked.

North Carolina

This post is long overdue.  We got back from NC about a month ago.  Now that Dane has started back to work our "normal" routine is getting back into motion and I'm finally making myself sit down and do a blog post.  We had a great time as usual with a good mix of fun and work.  The pictures are mostly of all the fun and now that I look at them mostly featuring Elise's escapades.  We're missing a picture of Aunt Stephanie and pictures from our time visiting Great-Grandpa and Grandma Haas.  We also learned to make goat cheese and Dane learned some new carpentry skills to add to his repertoire. 

Elise with Grammy and Grampy

Blowing bubbles with Grammy

Fun in the sand with cousin Emmy

Emmy and Dylan

Trying to get Elise to give Uncle James a kiss

Tyler

All the cousins...and Uncle James

Spanish moss hanging in the trees

She loves sand

Girly cousins

Running down the dock

Playing with cousin Emmy

Watching the goats

Getting used to the water

We both liked the swing

Tractor time with Daddy

An NC introduction to corn on the cob.  She'd even eat it raw!

Splash Time!

I'm trying to do at least one water activity per week with Elise.  She wasn't too thrilled with our first visit of the year to a local ark with fountains, but the 8ft high columns of water and the fact that the water was cold may have had something to do with it.  (And maybe Mommy trying to force her to like it wasn't a good idea)  When I was holding her near the fountain she started crying and saying "more!"  When I asked her what she wanted more of she said "Dada!"  I decided then that maybe I was being a little too forceful and handed her over to Dane, who tends to be a bit more gentle:)

As the water has warmed up at the different water parks so has she warmed up to liking the water.  The pictures are one of our quick afternoon splash times in our neighbor's pool. 

Treehouse Construction is Complete!

Here it is!  There are still some small whimsical things to do with the tree house...add flower boxes, a mailbox, a chalkboard, decorations inside, etc.  But it can now be played in.  A stuffed animals birthday has already been celebrated inside the tree house:)