A visit from Becca

So my good friend, Becca, came to visit us this past week. We had such a great time with her! We snuggled with Leesi, shopped, ate ice cream, drank coffee, picnicked, and talked a ton! It was so good to be with Becca. She's "our people" ;-) It's so meaningful to have friends from my "old life" come and see my "new life." Now Becca has met Elisa, seen my house, and where I work. And that just means a lot to me.

My friends Jenn and Anna are also planning to come visit - Jenn in April and Anna in May. I'm so excited!

Becca is currently doing missionary care for third-culture-kids in Eastern Europe. Click here to see her amazing blog.

A note from Elisa

Yesterday I rolled over for the first time!

I was laying on my stomach, propping myself up on my elbows to look up at mom. Then, I kicked my legs, pushed with my arm and all of a sudden I was looking up at the ceiling. Mom clapped and cheered and made a big deal about it. I just stared up at her with wide eyes. I think we were both surprised by what happened.

I haven't been able to do it again yet. But, now I know that I can. And it's just a matter of time before I learn to do all sorts of great things!

Elisa's Spring Break Photos

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Fun with Grandpa

Here's a great video of my dad singing a German "horsey" song with Elisa. He used to do this with me and my brother too. I think Elisa liked it.

We're Back

We had a great time visiting friends and family. It was wonderful to see everyone and introduce Elisa to so many important people. Elisa did really well traveling. She even fell asleep DURING takeoff once. The only really hard part was when she started screaming in line for security in SeaTac. After about 10 minutes of this, one of the security people came and got me and let me skip part of the line. By this time I was pretty frazzled. But after I fed her she calmed right down and was the perfect traveler.

We didn't get home until late at night and both Elisa and I were so tired that we slept pretty much all morning. Today I'm feeling much more rested, but Elisa's sick. She has the saddest little bark cough and her nose is kind of stuffy. But she's still been really sweet. I think she's glad to be home.

Spring Break

Tomorrow we leave Arkansas to travel back to the Northwest for a week. We are really excited to see friends and family and to introduce Elisa to lots of important people. We will be in Portland for 4 days and then Tacoma for 3 days (Greg) and 6 days (Carolyn & Elisa). Hope to see some of you soon!

A Bird Mobile

I finished a bird mobile for Elisa yesterday. It was so much fun to make... though it was really hard to get it balanced. It will hang over Elisa's crib when we move her into the nursery. So far she seems to like it. I have to admit, I even like watching it move - it's like the birds are flying (well, sort of).

Let's try that again

For the last couple of days I've been feeling pretty sick with a bad cold. I think that Elisa has gotten a tinge of my cold too... she's been fussy all day.

So today I was putting together a birthday package for my mom and made this video to include in her package. Well, let's just say it didn't turn out exactly as I had planned! Watch and see...

2 Months

The other day as I sat in the waiting room at the dentist office, Martha Stewart was on. She was showing different ideas for taking and framing baby pictures. One idea that I really liked was one big frame with twelve pictures in it. It had one picture for each month of the baby's first year. Well, I decided to take pictures of Elisa each month. And here are the first two for comparison...

one month

two months

On Martha Stewart the baby was wearing the same one-year-old-size onesie in each picture. So you could really see a change in how big the baby was getting in each picture. I think that's a great idea... but I didn't do it. Kind of wish I had now. Anyway, you can still see a change in Elisa... she's looking more and more like an infant and less like a newborn!

Click here to see the Martha Stewart video including some other great ideas for kids' pictures.

Craftiness Accomplished!

Okay, so you know those things that you really want to do... but you're kind of intimidated by... so you start, but never finish? Well, today I finished one of those things. I'm so proud of myself.

You see, my mom is an excellent seamstress (she even made my wedding dress!). But she didn't pass that gene on to me. I guess I shouldn't blame it on genes; maybe I'm just lazy because I know that my mom can sew anything I need - so I don't have to!

Anyway, while she was here in December she sewed some curtains for Elisa's room. But it was up to me after she left to sew the valance to go with them. She walked me through the first steps over the phone. This last Friday I completed what she had told me to do and needed my next set of instructions in order to finish them up. But when I called, my dad informed me that my mom was gone for the weekend on a retreat (the nerve!). I was determined to finish... so I was left to my own devices to figure out how to do it. I probably didn't do it the "right" way... but I did it! And I love how they turned out. I feel like this has given me new confidence to try other sewing projects.

I love the fabric. It's very girly, but kind of funky too! The fabric designer is Jennifer Paganelli. Check out http://www.sisboom.com/girlfriendsfabric.htm to see more of her fun fabrics.