Elise,caught red handed...

Elise keeps us on our toes that is for sure. Today while I was cleaning she found a small Polly doll toy that she obviously knew she wasn't supposed to have or she wouldn't have found this hiding spot between the bookcase and wall to admire it. When I found her she actually hid the toy in her sleeve so fast that she pulled her shirt up with it. My camera just happened to be close by so I snapped a quick picture. Sneaky girl, she loves to look at all Emma's Polly doll stuff but she sometimes just can resist the urge of putting them in her mouth. So we don't allow her to play with them unsupervised. But every now and then Emma leaves a small Polly purse or shoe out and Elise always finds them. She is so sneaky. :)

Lazy Days...

 Elise napping...

 Ethan playing a little Donkey Kong on the Wii with Mario...

Emma playing with her dolls in my dining room...

January brings some crazy cold temps in Iowa. Today when we went to church it was 5 degrees. You would think after living here going on 5 years I would get used to it, but I haven't. We stay at home a lot playing games, watching movies, and just hanging out with each other. Come March we will start to venture out and do outdoor activities again so until then we will be having a lot of lazy days.

Mario and I made a pizza recipe with all fresh ingredients. The crust turned out pretty good but the pizza sauce needs some tweaking still. We really enjoy cooking together these days. We really don't ever  eat  out anymore. We find it is more fun trying out all kinds of recipes in the comfort of our kitchen. We made a chili recipe a few weeks ago that was delicious.

My Mom and I

My mom was 34 years old in this picture. That is exactly how old I am now. I look at her and she looks so young to me yet when I look at pictures of myself now I always think WOW I am looking old. How ironic. Since being an only child my mom and I were best friends. I loved to hang out with her. Mario likes to remind me how I used to cancel dates with him when we were in high school because I didn't want her to go grocery shopping by herself.

This week will be 12 years since I heard her voice say Amy Kathleen. Nobody calls me that anymore but she always did. My name was going to be Amber she told me once, but she decided I looked more like an Amy when I was born. Funny. This is the way I remember her now at this age. She was the happiest at this point in her life. She lost her battle to cancer at the young age of 46.

I thought I would list 12 things that remind me of her. So here it is:


1. Her smile, she had an amazing smile that was contagious.

2. Her whistle. She would stand in the kitchen washing dishes by hand whistling the whole time all kinds of tunes. I tried to learn but I'm not a very good whistler.

3. Beach Boys she had a lot of their records, yes I said records. This was the early 80's.

4. The TV series MASH we used to watch the reruns of it together at night. She liked it.

5. Bicycle, she loved to bike ride with my dad. We would ride to Woodland Park in my hometown every Sat. afternoon. I always went too. I now have her old bike.

6. Hamburger Helper, she actually loved it!

7. JC Penny catalog, we would get the catalog in the mail the big one and go through it together every year.

8. Washing the windows on the outside of our house, I always liked to help her.

9. House plants, she had them in every room of our house. She loved to have plants.

10. Baking cut out sugar cookies, I looked forward to this every Christmas. We would play all of her old Christmas records and bake and decorate cookies. I now have all her records.

11. The way she tucked me in at night and gave me a kiss when I was a kid.

12. How much she loved my dad.

My dad didn't think we needed any more cats but my mom had a talk with him and some how he had a change of heart. I also remember her helping me name the cat, we decided on Frisky. I was almost 8 years old here the same age as Ethan.

Elise Claire at 14 months...

expression after she saw her new puzzle that makes sounds...

The big present Ethan got from his grandma and grandpa!

Elise I think was more excited about the Zhu Zhu's than Emma...

Elise had to be right there in the middle of the action...

Elise doing her new puzzle, she is really good at puzzles. This is cool because it makes sounds...

Climbing onto sofa...

she is very dramatic about most everything...

And loves Emma's Zhu Zhu pets.

opening presents...

Well Elise is quite the adventurous baby girl. She expresses herself in many ways these days. Last week I had given her a little bowl with lid of crackers because she loves to walk around the house with it. And when she ate them all she came to me poking my leg with her finger to get my attention saying "mor, mor" for more holding her bowl up until I gave her more of the crackers. She will now say "yay" and clap when she gets excited or is proud of her accomplishment.

For example today I stepped into our office to get a book and came back to her standing on our dining room table clapping and saying, "yay." To say she is a climber is an understatement. The girl never stops moving. Our dining room chairs now stay pushed away from the table. Today I turned on Sesame Street for a few minutes and put her in Ethan's old comfy red chair that is just her size and I kid you not she sat there eating her snack gabbing at Elmo having a grand time UNTIL I walked out of the room for a minute and came back to her standing on our sofa clapping with her beautiful smile just so proud of herself. And she has no patience at all. The other night I was feeding her and I stopped to help Ethan and she called "momma, momma, momma" and I guess I didn't make it back fast enough for her because she started feeding herself but with her FORK! She doesn't like to be dirty. If her hands are sticky from something she cries and holds them up to me for me to clean them. And she knows our schedule. She gets her bath in the mornings so right after she wakes up she goes straight for our tub and points to it. Then we load the dishwasher together and she MUST help me or she cries. Then we get beds made which she finds very amusing. And she LOVES to have her hair and teeth brushed. She hates socks I mean the second I put them on she is pulling them right off. She knows how to say, "bye bye"and will get her shoes and hat if you tell her lets go bye bye.:)

She will give the best hugs now with a firm squeeze and a pat on your back with a kiss. If you raise your voice at her for example when I caught her standing on our dining room table it scared me so I quickly grabbed her and said "no" very firm and she knew I was not happy so she cried. She is a very smart girl, she knows when she has been naughty. Like when she turns the Wii off on Ethan when he is just about to defeat a level on his game. She pushes the button and looks over her shoulder at Ethan and then takes him her favorite book for him to read. I think she honestly just wants his attention and knows when she turns it off she GETS it. But Ethan is good about it, he just screams ELISE and then she smiles at him and holds her book out to him and he just says, "ok I'll read your book to you." She has us all wrapped around her finger. She is definitely the BABY in the house.

She takes 1 nap usually but always around 1:00. She is FINALLY sleeping through the night that just happened recently. She walks like a she's been doing it forever and loves to dance to music. But of all our kids she is a daddy's girl. When Mario comes home she screams with excitement and just hugs all over him gabbing away about her day sometimes I'll hear momma and then a bunch of sounds and then points at me. She is quite the sweetie. I'll post more pictures of Ethan and Emma at Christmas soon!