Here are a bunch of pictures from this last week, there's no theme, I just needed to update our blog and I had accumulated a ton of cute pics of Elle that I had to share!

Playing in the puddles after the rain (Elle loves anything that involves water)

Trying to get a lick

(don't worry I didn't let her - I quickly snapped the picture than picked her up)

Splash!

We've been putting her on her little toilet about 2x a day (when we think she is about to go) and it has been working out well! We will get more serious in a couple months.



Up to trouble and looking cute!


Elle's new ride! (got it at a garage sale) She loves it!

She loves getting in and out and opening and closing the door. She also likes to push it, rather than ride around in it.

*Jonathan told her to put some gas in it...so Elle walked over to the lawn, pulled out some grass and tried putting it in the gas tank! Jonathan asked me if I told her to put grass in the gas tank... Nope! We had a good laugh, gas does sound just like grass!!!!!

One afternoon when I was getting Ellison's lunch together I had noticed she went downstairs. It had been very quiet for a few minutes so I knew I should take a look. This is what I found - She had unpacked all of our new library books and was paging through them! I was worried I was going to find something bad, what a nice surprise! (quiet usually = trouble)

a closer look

Marcy, Ellison, and I took the Metra (the train) downtown (Chicago) to visit Jonathan after he was done with work. Here are Jonathan and Elle at his office, inside the the KI showroom in the Merchandise Mart! What a beautiful building!

http://www.mmart.com/mmart/

Elle and her Grandma Marcy (who she is now calling "Marce") outside of Lincoln Park Zoo

Our family

(the camera didn't pick up the pretty lights of the city behind us)

I was trying to get a picture of her in her cute shirt, it says "good things come with sprinkles," so true!

Elle and Grammy Laurie (who she calls "baati")

She calls her Grammy and Grampy "baati and baamti" -or at least that's what it sounds like!

...and last, but not least

This is a video of Elle crawling/army crawling for the FIRST TIME at 17 months! Yes, that's right, Elle never crawled, she went from rolling, to sitting, to standing, to walking (at 9.5 months)! So it was pretty exciting for us to see her doing a new trick! Don't worry, it will be noted in the baby book as a 1st! Another proud/fun moment as a parent!

(and yes, I used my phone as bait)

Brave Girl

This was the first day Elle tried the trampoline jump into the foam pit. I usually just have her jump into the pit (where I am) like she is jumping into the pool, I thought she would be too scared to jump off the trampoline (since it's such a big drop) - boy was I wrong! She never even hesitated! In fact, she didn't even need me to be in the pit, she would just jump right in, with or with out me there to catch her!!!

-a big thanks to my friend Katie for recording Elle in action!

Future American Idol

See if you can figure out what song Elle is singing before Jonathan and I (and Elmo) sing along!


-Elle has been singing a lot of songs lately, this is the first time I was able to record her (all other times she runs up to me as soon as she sees the camera b/c she wants to see all of the pictures on it). Some of her favorite songs to sing include: "Twinkle Twinkle", the "ABC's", "Happy Birthday to you", and "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes."

I was trying to take some pictures of Elle the other day and this is what I got:

In this picture I had to keep running away from her so I could get a picture of her straight on, so here she is running after me!

...driving her car

talking on the phone

reading a bed-time story w/ her dad

She did it!

Ellison pooped in the toilet today for the first time! She didn't really initiate it, but it happened! The story goes like this...Elle was sitting next to me as I was reading her a book, all of a sudden I heard a couple little toots and then she got into a squatting position, so I said "do you have to make poop, let's go to the toilet"! She didn't really respond as she wanted to keep reading the book, but I took her to the bathroom anyway. I got her on the toilet (the regular one, we don't have a little one for her yet - since we didn't officially start training her) and told her to push the poopies in there, I really didn't think it was going to happen. However, only a few seconds later I could see it going into the toilet, and I was never so excited to see poop in my life!!! Ha! I applauded her over and over. She wanted to flush the toilet, but I told her we had to wait to show daddy. Jonathan came home a few minutes later and we celebrated again, and Elle flushed the toilet! She got one Mint Thrill M&M (if you have not tried these, you have too, they're amazing) for being such a big girl!

Our little get-away and our little sweetie

Jonathan and I took a little vacation to Door County last weekend. We stayed at a lovely little bed and breakfast called the Chanticleer Guest House, did some wine tasting at 3 different wineries, rode a tandem bike through Door Peninsula Park (9 miles), and shared some quiet, alone, time together. Ellison was in good hands with my parents in Wausau, so we were able to really relax and have a good time together.
Here are some of the sites we saw and places we went:

of course we had to go to Ellison Bay

here we are at Ellison Bluff

yes those are goats on a grass roof!
Jonathan made a new friend

I guess the goats need a little help

our friends Michael and Whitney came up from GB to go to dinner with us

Here are some shots from around our B&B

yes, there were chickens running around

...and sheep!

It was so nice to get away, but we really missed Ellison and we were so happy to return to see her.

Speaking of Elle, here she is eating a banana like a big girl!

She's been having fun closing her eyes

feeding her baby (she really pushes the bottle into her baby's face, we are working on being a little more gentle).

feeding herself!

she loves her beads

and we love her!