One Year Old

Elsie turned one on June 5th. I try not to gush about my kids on this blog, but for her birthday I will make an exception. Elsie has the biggest, round eyes. They are so dark and deep. She also has the best skin, soft and light brown. Sadly both of those traits come from her Dad. I'm still trying to figure out what she got from me.

Right now she is crawling everywhere and loves to climb stairs any chance she gets. She can say about 8 words, including her favorite ones- hello and dadu (doggie). She loves fruit and eating in general. She is very snuggly and gives great hugs and kisses. She is still obsessed with James.
On her birthday, we had a tiny party for her. It was a celebration of fruit (her favorite item as mentioned above). We started the festivities with a blue berry eating contest. Louis creamed everyone.
After some unpopular sticker pictures (babies tried to eat the stickers), we opened a few presents and then moved on to her strawberry cake.

She loved it.

Louis was really great throughout the day. He loved wrapping her presents, handing things to her and telling her throughout the day it was her birthday. The only jealousy came the next day, when he was disappointed to discover that his birthday (which I kept on having to tell him was later the day before) was not June 6th. Luckily he's finally forgotten about it- him asking if it was later everyday was getting a little old.

Happy Birthday Elsie!

The Graduate

If you can't tell, we're very proud of our graduate.

We're also very happy to have our Saturdays and weeknights back to normal!

Congrats James on graduating and moving on to a new job.

Just Life

The other day I was talking to a friend from that lives out of town. She commented that though reads our blog, she still has no idea how we are doing or what we are up to. My blog is mostly just pics of kids for grandparents, but in the off chance you were wondering, here is what we have been up to.

James graduates with his masters from Tufts in a month!!!!! He has been working at Tufts, but also attending part time school for over four years. For the last two years, he’s been in a program that meets every other Friday and Saturday. It hasn’t been very fun to be without him a lot of Saturdays, and then when you consider all his Sunday meetings on top of that, sometimes we go for 13 days in a row without having him during the day. He’s also really busy in the evenings trying to do homework and projects, so we’re more than glad to see the end in sight.

I’ve been working a bit since February on a project regarding private equity investing in ag land around the globe. It’s been a great project for me, a subject I’m interested in and a real education every time I sit down to work on it. However, finding time to sit down to work on it is the piece to the puzzle that doesn’t work all the time. This was my first stint working since Elsie was born, and I’m discovering working from home with two kids is much different than with one.I had to pull more than one late really late nighter, and let’s just say I’ve rediscovered my true age.

Besides the part time work, I’m discovering that I really like being a stay at home mom with the two kids. After the initial months of Louis trying to kill Elsie, they have actually started to really enjoy each other and that has helped a lot. The giggles, kisses and playing are great to see.

Elsie started crawling three weeks ago and our house is now a dangerous mess. Louis was always really cautious around stairs, beds, etc., but this girl would just pitch herself off into oblivion if we let her. It led us to install our first stair gate (ugly but less stress). She can growl and says Dada.No surprise really, since James is her favorite thing in the world. I’m not joking, if she sees him at all, she starts pointing and grunting, then screaming until she gets in his arms. She won’t come to me without a huge fit if James is holding her, and when he walks out of the room she dissolves into tears. She only wants me if she’s hungry to nurse. I feel so used….

(Elsie with her beloved Daddy)

Louis is talking like crazy now, asking us questions 24/7 and is in love with dinosaurs and animals. His days consist of gathering up her his dinos and animals in a basket or bag and pulling them up to the next level of the house to play with them. Like most toddler boys, he never stops moving and is always jumping, kicking, yelling, whacking and pushing things. He has started to be really concerned about Elsie though- he is very worried if the crawls near the stairs, and is really into sharing toys with her and trying to feed her (that ones annoying).

(Louis with his dinos and animals)

So that's the update- very exciting I'm sure. We're now looking forward to a long summer trip to Alaska, garden planting and beach time this summer.

Hawaii..... we miss you

We went to Hawaii in early January, and as usual it was a great trip. Of course, it only takes me three months to get any pictures posted, but here they are.

Louis got some time in to work on his golf swing.

We went to the beach everyday except Sunday- the weather was great.

I think this trip is where Elsie started her serious Daddy worship. She cries now every time she sees James and he doesn't pick her immediately.

This is where Elsie spent most of her time, being adored by her cousins. She loved it.

We ended many days looking like this....you can't waste anytime when your in Hawaii!

That's Elsie sleeping under some towels. We were lucky she would take her naps just about anywhere, so it didn't infringe on our precious beach time.

I'm so lucky to have a husband from Hawaii! Seriously- can you get any better than this in January? Plus, we have awesome family there we get to visit too. Now we just have to count down the days until Alaska in June.

Balance

To balance out the weirdness of the previous video, let's post a cute one of Elsie doing some baby karaoke. (Please ignore my shouting at the beginning, I was trying to understand what dinosaur video Louis was trying t0 watch).

Talented or disturbing.

A few weeks ago, we discovered Louis has already perfected his 'stupid party trick'.

It actually kind of makes me sick to watch him do it.

Awesome Parenting

I'm guessing that this might be the activity that taught Louis the phrase "I punch your face".

Nice work Dad.......

And this might be why Elsie screams almost every time she sees Louis coming.

Yeah, no one really likes an ice cream carton on their head.