First Sunday of Advent

Today we got out the boxes of Christmas decorations. I've tried to keep our Christmas stuff at a minimum. We have just 3 boxes including all our christmas lights, ornaments, mugs, cds, books etc. But we still have room for a "skiing Santa" that Greg's gramma gave us a few years ago. When I got it out of the box I was curious to see how Elisa would respond to it. Not to compare my child to a dog, but in my experience dogs usually hate it. So I thought Elisa might respond with the same fear/suspicion. But she LOVED it. First Santa says, "There's a cold wind blowing in from the North Pole, I better hold onto my hat." Then he starts moving along the ground and singing. It is pretty funny. When Santa started talking Elisa smiled really big, then when he started skiing she chased him down... but she wasn't sure what to do with him then. Anyway, maybe I'll take a video one of these days. No promises!

So, like I mentioned in the title, today is the First Sunday of Advent. I love the Advent Season. I love the traditions and I love taking time to slow down and think about Christ's birth. Tonight before bed we read the Christmas story to Elisa; she listened contentedly while sucking on her toothbrush (she loves that toothbrush!)

Now that I have a baby I can't help but ponder - Jesus as a baby... what a wonder... God as a helpless infant. I can't believe that God loves us so much that he became like us. He didn't just become a full-grown man who was strong and god-like... he came as a baby. He grew up just like us. He went through the human experience with all its ups and downs. He went through puberty! He experienced grief, anger, and joy.

It says in Philippians, Christ existed in the form of God, but did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped. Instead, he emptied himself and took the form of a bond-servant and was made in the likeness of men (Philippians 2:6-7). And since he was made like us, he understands us... he's able to sympathize with our weaknesses (Hebrews 4:14-15). That's what I need... a God who can understand my weaknesses.

Thank you Lord Jesus, for coming as a baby.

"But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.' And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.'"

Happy Thanksgiving!

So another Thanksgiving away from family... this year we celebrated at our house. I cooked my first Turkey ever (it was fine, not great)... and I baked my first pecan pie (which was delicious).


We had Patrick (RD for North Hall), Comfort (RD for Mayfield), and Comfort's parents and sister over. We all had a good time together and lots of good food.

After the big meal we went out to the lobby for a few games of ping pong. Elisa even got in on the action.

Elisa also got in on the food action. She had her own mini Thanksgiving dinner. It was her first time eating turkey and cranberries... at first she wouldn't eat the turkey, but by the end she was feeding it to herself.

So overall, a very nice Thanksgiving. This year I am especially thankful for my wonderful husband and my beautiful daughter. Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Just for fun picture

Hilarity

I really don't know what she was laughing at... but she was hysterical.

Shortly after this she started crying. I guess she was just feeling emotional.

I made a purse

This is actually the 5th purse/bag I've made. It's kind of addictive. First I made one for myself... then another for myself... then one for a friend... then a friend of that friend wanted me to make them one... then this one.

This is by far the most difficult one I've attempted. I complained and lamented through the whole process to Greg. When I finished it he said he was a little surprised because he had been waiting for me to just give up and scrap it. It was supposed to be about 2 inches taller than it is... I had a couple of mistakes that necessitated a change of plans. And there were a few seams that I had to rip out and redo. Still, I think it turned out quite well.

Big News!

Elisa weighs 17lbs. 8 oz.!!!!!

She's gained 1 1/2 lbs since last month! That is such good news to Momma. I can't tell you how happy I was to hear how much she'd gained.

The other good news is that she has been eating rice for the last few days and she hasn't had any kind of bad reaction to it. (She had terrible reactions to both rice and oatmeal cereal when she first started on solids and so we've stayed away from grains - maybe I'll post more about this some day.)

So right now I'm feeling very encouraged about Elisa's weight and eating!

Elisa - 11 months

Elisa is now 11 months old. We're only a month away from the big day - her first birthday. My mom asked me the other day if Elisa was crawling.... I was like, "Mom, she's been doing that for months!" I realized that I haven't really been keeping everyone up to date on all the things Elisa can do and likes to do. So here goes.

She has taken a couple of steps on her own - but never more than one at a time. She loves walking around the house with someone holding onto her hands. She can climb stairs (we don't have any stairs in our house, but the other day I put her down in front of some stairs and she climbed up no problem as if she'd been doing it for months). We haven't worked on climbing down stairs yet. She can stand without holding onto anything for limited amounts of time. She just started waving bye bye sometimes (finally!) She signs "more" while eating. She can feed herself with her fingers and sometimes insists on feeding herself with the spoon. She is actually pretty good at getting the spoon to her mouth, but not very good at getting food onto the spoon unless I help. We are convinced that she says Daddy and Momma and sometimes we think she says duck. But it really is so hard to know. She has just discovered the joy of dropping things. Before her bath we line her bath toys up along the edge of the bathtub and she loves dropping them in one at a time and then peering over the edge at them.

Side story: This morning I had her in the bathroom with me while I was taking a shower and she kept on dropping Itty Bit (her favorite stuffed bunny) into the tub. He was soaking wet by the end... which was okay since he really needed a wash. I threw him in the wash... but he didn't fare too well... a little hole opened up at his neck/shoulder. I sewed him up ... hopefully good as new. But he definitely wasn't made to be washed.

Anyway... Elisa is also starting to get into everything and leave huge messes in her wake. She opens all the cabinets and drawers and pulls everything out of them. She takes a book off the shelf and then looks at it contemplatively before pulling the next one off. She likes reading books now... mostly she wants to try to turn the pages. When she isn't able to turn them sometimes she gets so frustrated that she starts crying. She loves eating toilet paper and if the toilet seat is up she'll splash in the water. Needless to say, we try to keep the bathroom doors closed. She loves music - she dances whenever we sing or turn on a song she likes. And this is BIG NEWS!!! She finally got her first tooth! At 10 1/2 months it finally came through. She is now working on a second. Most of all she is just a joy to us. At the end of the day Greg and I tell each other all our Leesi stories, and then laugh and go into her room and watch her sleep. I still don't understand it - but there is just such a joy that comes from parenting.

Leesi's campaign

Leesi was campaigning for president. But don't worry, she was a good sport! Besides, there's always 2012.

A visit from Grammy

Grammy came for a visit this week. She was here for a few days and we all had lots of fun together. Here we are at the airport seeing Grammy off today. Elisa was having so much fun crawling all around the airport. Here she is... laughing as she crawls around. Thanks for visiting Grammy. Come back soon.