Zowie, it’s been awhile!

I don’t know if anyone even checks my blog anymore!  Guess I’m off the wagon, big time.  But life has become very busy. 

Lemme start with some pics.  And we’ll see how it goes from there!

Baby girl not a baby!

My Sugar Bear turned 3

She claims she doesn’t need naps anymore…

Sweet as pie

With a lil sass, too

Chillin in the back yard

Easter Sunday, don’t know why she wanted to wear a Christmas dress?

My girl Jamie and me

And I turned 30…in Vegas

Elisabethisms continued

A few others that have stuck with me:

From a few weeks back, while Nanna was visiting, playing make believe:  E “I’m Snow White, Nanna you can be Sleeping Beauty.”  Me “Who can I be Elisabeth?”  E “You can be Shrek.”

On her upcoming turn to display the daily weather @ preschool: “I’m gonna be the Weather Girl tomorrow, and that’ll be so happy.”

On our way home from church, I’m singing “Away in a manger” to Elisabeth:  E “Mom, stop singing.”  Me “Why, don’t you like my singing voice?”  E “No, do you like my singing voice?”  Me “I love your singing voice!  Will you sing to me?”  E “No, I’ll sing later, if you are good.”

Elisabeth crawling into my bed on a Saturday morning: E “Today is not a school day or a work day?”  Me “You are right, today is a mommy day.”  E “Yeah, today is a mommy day, I’m so proud.”

From the mouths of babes

Project Cupcake

Last warm day of fall

Auntie Sam came for a visit!

Hard work and concentration

Showing off our efforts

Some Elisabethisms that I wanted to share:

About our just set up nativity:  “I wanna play with Jesus’s farm, okay?”

This morning, in my bed: E: “Mom are you wearing a pull up?” Me: No, I’m a big girl and don’t wear a pull up.  E: “But I’m a big girl and I wear a pull up to bed.” Me:  Well I’m an adult, and I don’t need one. E: “Yes, you need a big pull up for your big bottom, because I said.”

About her recently set up full size bed, prior to its delivery:  “My big girl bed will go right next to your big girl bed in your room Mommy.”

After I removed her from a breakfast diner for poor behavior, in the car:  Me “Elisabeth, you are acting like a wild animal, stop it.”  E “You mean like an elephant?”

Me “Elisabeth, you need to get dressed or I will call Santa Claus and tell him that you aren’t behaving, and he might not bring toys on Christmas morning.”  E “Tell Santa that I don’t want toys anyway.”

Reptiles, and more

Just a parade of miscellaneous end of summer photos, and a few thrown in from our recent FL vacation…

Franklin the turtle

Princess and the frog, er toad

Big lizard

Gigantic Tortoise

Not a reptile, stunning Bride! Lovely Amy…

Don Cesar Hotel

Happiest Place on Earth

Sunset

Magical Moment

Favorite Nightgown (i.e. the only thing she will sleep in)

Brief Summer Recap, in photos

How to Beat the Heat

Popsicles with the Moshe’s

Elisabeth has spent all summer in this dress

Day at the zoo

Ah!

Run, Liss, Run!

Rain boots for no good reason

Spanish Dancer and Tinkerbell

With Aunt Alex and Grandma in Leesburg

Grandma Alex’s house

Let Summer Begin!

Slumber party with Aila (till 9pm at least:)

Happy 80th Birthday Grandma!

Liss, Gma, Great Gma, Me

Liss really enjoyed the cake

Papa Love

Creek Walking

Hello, Mr. Toad

I know, I know

Yes, I’ve been a negligent blogger.  And no good reason do I have.

But, I’ll provide you with excuses to filter through:  1)SPRINGTIME!  Liss and I live in the most wonderfully active neighborhood with parks, trails, cafes, boutiques gallore…my computer time is quite limited as of late. 2) Potty training!  Yes, Elisabeth is 95% potty trained, and I’m LOVING this.  It’s so cute when she tells me she has to ‘pee’ and proceeds to pull down her shorts/pants and ‘unders’ where ever she is and then waddles to the bathroom with her underwear around her ankles.  She’s got the cutest buns ever.  3) Laziness….yes, I’ve been taking lots of pics and video and will upload a few soon to share.  It’s just that finding the cable and downloading seems like such a task right now.  4)Work- leaving the house early and getting home late, spending my few free hours of the day with Elisabeth, fully focused on her ever evolving communique skills and what not.  Then, when I finally hit the sack I’m trying to spend a few minutes reading instead of on the computer.  Just finished a great Mitch Album book “Have a little faith.”

I could go on and on, but won’t for now.

Let’s see if I can post a quick video from my cell phone for now, more to come later.  Elisabeth is demonstrating some promising athletic abilities.  She’s swinging for the stars and mastered her somersault.  Okay, no dice…can’t figure how to get the video from my phone to this page in the right format.  I’ll set some time aside later this week.  I’ve also got some great pics from my Grandma’s 80th birthday party!!!

 

 

Close call

There are so many wonderful things about my job, especially including getting a new car every couple of years!  I’m incredibly fortunate to have a career that I love, and one that is rewarding in so many ways.  So last week I’m totally stoked about my new 2011 Avalon, leather, XM Radio, back up camera, the works, only to be rear- ended 4 days later and have it totaled!  Thankfully, we (I had just picked up Elisabeth from school) are both okay, as was the driver who hit us, and those in the two cars in front of us who had significant damage.  Classic case of young, distracted driver who crashed into our stopped car at 30-40mph!  Wow, close call.

I was very shaken up afterwards for so many reasons.  1. Elisabeth was hysterical (naturally) and it took me quite awhile to calm her down to determine that she was okay, minus a good burn on her neck from the car seat strap.  2. If I had been hurt, who could have cared for Elisabeth, immediately and then later on, too? 3.  What if her car seat hadn’t been properly installed, she could have been hurt big time. 4.  Anything can happen at anytime, and that is just scary.

Not to mention all I’d been hearing about on the news was the NYC bombing (thank God it didn’t happen) and the Gulf oil crisis, what a bummer of a week newswise, and how about the flooding in TN and KY?  Doesn’t it seem like at times the whole world is coming to and end? 

On a more positive note, we had guests last weekend.  My Bestest, Sam and her BF came down to Indy.  We had a BLAST!  I love that girl so much, she’s among my top few favorite people.  And Aki was so great with Liss, they were cracking me up.  She was totally showing off for him and flirting, very cute.  So come back and see us again SOON!   And for everyone else, we love having visitors, do drop me a line and come for a visit!  Plenty of room in our home for friends and family:)

This is her saying “Mom leave me alone”

Sassy Pants

April Showers

Sam and Aki

Splendor in the grass

Sam dancing with Liss

Wearing every piece of jewelry she owns

Glad to drive a big, safe car!

What we have been up to

 

Let’s see…

Liss is potty training- doing a fantastic job thanks to the help of M&M’s.  Will we be diaper free soon?  I hope so!

I’m wanting to get a vacation planned for Elisabeth and myself.  Let me know if you have any suggestions.  Somewhere toddler friendly, of course, preferably somewhere new to us, as well.  I’m thinking east coast or carribean (short plane rides:)  British Virgin Islands?  Nantuckett?  Martha’s Vineyard?  I’m having a hard time simply narrowing the list of destinations.  I have, however, decided not to do Disney just yet.  Another year or two. 

 

Faux Hawk

Easter Egg Hunt 101

Sam and Ella

Great Grandma hiding behind Katie, Liss and Ella

Angel

Now that’s a steak!

Diva in the making

Spring Break

Liss and I just returned from a little spring break vacay, much needed and as always too short.  We headed west to meet my Mom and Craig in Phoenix.  We stayed at a great resort, and even rented a small house, a ‘casita.’  Liss kept calling it ‘Nana’s house.’  So I’m sure she was uber impressed with Nana’s house that had a water slide, lazy river, fountains, and a golf course….she thought the whole thing was Nana’s house! 

Lazy River

Phone, shades, backpack, intertube…check, ready for the pool!

Pool side

Baby Pool

Wildlife Park

Aquarium

Last day

And minus one small 5 minute meltdown on the 4 hour flights, she was pretty well behaved, considering that reasoning with a two year old is the equivalant of fitting a round peg into a square hole.  As soon as we got off the flight (I was literally at wit’s end) she asked if we could go ride a white airplane now.   Anyhow, words cannot express the amount of fun Elisabeth had on our trip.  She’d wake up from her naps and ask with a grin “Have fun?”

Oh yeah, and by some strange string of events, I’ve turned into a total man magnet…3 dates this week.  I know what you’re thinking….I’m thinking the same thing.