Eliana Lizbeth: February 2010

Friday, February 26, 2010

Double chins and hair loss

This is what I would like to rename my blog to. I follow Baby Bangs , a blog about the wonders of motherhood. The author has named her blog this because of what happens to some women's pelo after giving birth.

Anyway, if I decided to name my blog after my own childbearing experiences I think it would have to be, "Double chins and hair loss". I'm not kidding. When I nurse and look down at Eli, I feel a weird choking feeling. It has taken me over 12 months to realize I earned a double-chin during my pregnancy.

If anyone was to be deemed most worhty of a double-chin it would definitely be me. When I see Jesus one day I will be embarrassed if He counted all the Ben & Jerry pints I ate during my full 9 months of pregnancy.

I thought it was hilarious that I could eat more than JW! And it was. Until now. The question is, "Will my chin's twin ever go away?" I think my weight is back to normal so I dont think it's weight-related. Maybe it's lazy-butt related. I have not exercised since November so maybe if I exercised...

Then there's my massive hair loss. Thank God I was given a lot of hair to start with, so I'm not balding, but our carpet is littered with hair. It comes out if I wash, brush, run my fingers through it or breathe.

Someone suggested that it is hormonal. I have decided 'when' I stop nursing Eliana will solely be determined by 'when' I am fed up with shedding like a cat! I sure hope it is the nursing because I dont want to live the rest of my life like this because I may just end up bald-headed!

However when I look at Eli's impish face I realize that double-chins can't be all bad if she has one too! We have that much in common at this point. Oh yeah, the defiance thing too.

Here is Eliana sitting outside of Terra Toys today after some impromptu shopping. Eli's swag includes grown-up bibs and a new Hello Kitty pelo brush! That place is kiddie heaven! I think we earned a little shopping trip since all week we had contractors coming by to get our place ready to sell.

We had to leave in the pm because the paint fumes were suffocating us! So where would 2 lovely ladies spend their afternoon if given a choice (and a set of wheels)? Target, Sorrento's and Terra Toys. I went to a Target with a Starbucks but I could not bring myself to buy their coffee. Call me a snob! Besides Sorrento's has a drive-thru, coffee happy hour and free animal crackers for babies. Beat that Starbux!

The painters showed up seconds after I had put Eli down for her 2nd nap so she was tired! That's why she is so serious in the picture. Hmmm....no wonder she didn't ask to be let out at the toy store...Parents: make note, if your child is tired it just may be safe to visit a toy store...however, I will not be held responsible if it doesn't work!

Even though she was sleep deprived she still managed to kiss and hug monkeys and babies at the store, not real ones obviously.

In conclusion, tonight if you remember pray that Eliana will not be brain damaged from all the paint fumes around here and that she sleeps until 7am! She woke up at 6am today and I barely had time to read my Bible! Not that I'm complaining, she is definitely a morning baby! Happy Friday!

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Fancy Schmancy!

You may now call me Ms. Blogger Extrordinaire! As my mom always said, "El que busca, encuentra." Or as Jesus put it, "Seek and you will find."

I grew very envious of other mommies and their 3 column blogs so instead of sitting in my envy...I googled it!

Gotta love google. You may have noticed it took me a couple of days to get my blog back to legible, but not only are we legible we are now fanci-fied!

Long live shabby chic!

PS: Yes I know I look funny in that picture- but now that I have discovered editing html and other treasures, I guarantee that silly picture will not be permanent. I'm just getting warmed-up bloggers!

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Nieve!

Gotta get my boots on! And two layers of pants, two layers of shirt...

Got my puppy hat and mittens!

Let's go already!

I'm sure glad for my mittens!

Crunchy!

Yummy!

Friday, February 19, 2010

I can't stay mad at this angel face!!!

I think she may know just how charming she is...

It Happened!

I watched Eliana grow right before my very own eyes! Anyway, I think I did. I was playing with her on the rocker and somehow I witnessed her stop being my little baby. There is a whole human being inside her tiny little body. A person with flaws, hang-ups, weaknesses but also intelligence, opinions, preferences and lots of will!

This week Eliana has endured the disappointment of her first time-out(s). Since she is a year old she gets one minute either in her room or in the playpen. She has been earning her time-outs mostly due to her testing my 'NOs'. For example, she knows to know to know that she may not splash around in her humidifier and has demonstrated that she knows this because she has obeyed many times when I have asked her not to play in it.

But lately she will go creeping up on the humidifier with an eye sneakily watching Mami to see what I might do. I tell her 'no' twice and then it's off to the room! She screams and kicks the whole way! And she has even come up with an all new cry that is specially reserved for these kind of moments, which some people like to call 'hissy fit'.

I wish I knew where the term 'hissy fit' even comes from so I can decide if I want to use it towards my sweet baby angel, I mean my sweet toddler angel...

It was magical to watch Eliana grow before my eyes, even if part of the magic is to witness her increasing defiance of Mami's rules. In the words of a wise preacher I know, "Eliana, there is nothing you can ever do to make me love you any less."

Blogger is not letting me upload pictures!!! I will have to put them up later, sorry Eli fans!

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Big Girl Pajamas

Happy Valentine's Day! Going to church on Valentine's Day is the best place to celebrate the holiday devoted to love ♥!

But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us

while we were still sinners. Romans 5:8

God is the only who sees how depraved and gross I am and still loves me. And if you are breathing, you too are depraved and gross.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of the God. Romans 3:23

And speaking of gross...Eliana stole a paci and a bottle out of her friends' mouths in Sunday school today!

Eli had a BIG GIRL week this week. No, she did not start walking but she did have to bid adieu to her life-long friend, the Suckie. I weaned her off over the course of 3 days and though it was a bit painful for both of us, she was a real champ about it. So, it is only reasonable that she would succumb to the temptation of Lauren's suckie in Sunday school.

The deviant part of her behavior is that Lauren was in a jumperoo, so she could not run after Eliana to retrieve her suckie.

However, I take full responsibility for her stealing a bottle from a different baby. This morning I was in such a rush to get to church early that I didn't bother to pack her a bottle :( She must have been so thirsty! I'm sorry Eli, never again!!

I got permission from Dada to give Eli a chocolate-covered strawberry for Valentine' Day, however, I've been eating so much chocolate the last few days that surely my milk is chocolate-flavored by now!

Here I am high on a chocolate high with Eli. If you look closely, you can see that Eli is even trying to eat chocolate through her nose!

Here is Mr. Froggy and Eliana's Valentine's day flowers from Dada.

And teddy from Tia Kim. Eli is probably wondering what she did to deserve this new and delicious new dessert...

Aren't her teeth beautiful?

Yesterday Eli and I got some much needed 'retail-therapy' as my friend likes to say. I finally decided it was time to stop buying her baby pajamas. Largely because they didn't have them in 12 months size.

The only big girl pajamas I found at Target were some with cookies all over them. I am super picky and I didn't want those but she seems to have outgrown her 9 month and 6-12 month pajamas overnight so I had to come home with something! After seeing them on her I think they're perfect!

Here Eli wondering why we are watching more LOTR special features.

It is time for bed when Eli starts to lay on the floor!

Here she is on her jumper showing off her big girl (non-footed) PJs.

I am very slowly accepting that Eli is now a year old and a toddler! It is sad to me but I don't have much time to grieve her babyhood because I'm too busy chasing her, being chased by her, reading to her, singing to her, dancing with her and just staring!

I feel that if I look away I am going to miss her grow. If I stare long enough I just might see it! One year ago today she was so tiny and...non-mobile. She was just a big pink marshamallow and now she is more like a little worker ant. Things to chew, people to smile at!

Eliana is growing up and there's nothing I can do to stop it. Then again, I don't really want her to stay little forever. All I can do is savor every laugh, smile, scream, word, pancake thrown on the floor, the list of Eli-isms is endless!

♥♥♥ Happy Day my Baby Valentine! ♥♥♥

Friday, February 12, 2010

Time Traveler

I was having so much fun at Eliana's party that I did not take the 300 pictures I would have normally taken. However, today I discovered that with my Flip I have the POWER to travel back in time and take all the pictures I want, frame by frame. So now you know what I did all day! Besides feed and bathe Eliana that is, with a little help from Hattie!

Using the FlipShare software I was able to view all the party videos and take snapshots from video! Amazing! Here is Eli before she touched her cake.

I was very proud of myself for making Eliana's birthday cake and more importantly that she loves that recipe. Of course, being the teacher I am we spent plenty of time practicing eating cake before the big day. But watching Eli delight herself in frosting does not get old for me.

It is very hard to type this post...because Eliana is standing on her tippy-toes next to the computer and keeps pressing buttons and hitting the screen. I don't blame her because it is waaaay past her bedtime but Mami is trying to work Eli! It's almost 8 o'clock and Dada is still not home. What is a good mother to do? Put on Finding Nemo and keep the girl up so she can see her Dada, that's what a good mother should do!

I'm also closely guarding the tv remote, the playstation remote and the camera. She may be teething because she has been biting everything today! Including my hand and arm.

I am so crazy about this little girl that today I prayed to God for 10 more daughters! I don't think JW thought that was very funny though. Why do I want 10 more daughters? So Eliana can have babies to play with of course!

I'm sure Eliana is wondering why she is still up and Mami keeps typing on her computer. She is outside of her jumper pulling it back and forth, back and forth, squealing like a monkey. See why I'm crazy about her? And I haven't even told you how if I laugh in the kitchen, she echoes my laughter from her bedroom?

Which reminds me that I need to start my next post...I am completely convinced that God gave me Eliana, well one of the reasons God gave me Eliana is so I can have a beautiful, shiny little mirror of my life. I am beginning to see her do things that I do! I do teach her certain things explicitly, but she is picking other things up that I wasn't aware I was teaching her! Yikes!

Which just reminds me, why I committed for 8 weeks to be an early(er) riser.

Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak. Mark 14:38

And what exactly do I have to 'watch and pray' for exactly? Well I don't have the ability or energy to type out all the things I need to change/improve/surrender about myself, but I understand the importance of my job.

Eliana is definitely teething! Hillary how did you know this a week ago?? I went to change her diaper and her booty never lies. For some reason Eliana's booty likes to herald the coming of new teeth with a crazy diaper rash.

This morning (yes it takes me days to finish blog postings) while giving her breakfast I spotted 2 brand new teeth on the bottom. On either side of her already existing 2 bottom teeth!

Right now Eli is having oodles of fun with a tiny lotion bottle she dug out of my purse. I never know what random items are going to fascinate her. And she is doing a weird crawl/trying to stand/spider-like maneuver that makes me wonder what was in her breakfast??

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day and I have Dada's permission to indulge our petite valentine with a chocolate from the box of chocolates he gifted me. We started to eat them/fight over them last night while we watched the randomest and often romantic, Paris Je t'aime. Who would have known a box of chocolates from Costco would taste so amazing?? I guess Costco lovers would know that! We are new converts so we are still surprised every time we find another treasure!

This concludes my randomest blog post ever! Happy Valentine's Day!

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Birthday Piñata!

Here is the Birthday Girl sitting pretty for pictures.

Here is Abuela showing off the birthday dress. I have to admit it looks pretty good in pictures! Thanks for all the compliments, I am definitely my worst critic!

Eliana can't resist touching other people's eyeballs...especially if they are so blue and pretty! Sorry Baby Andres!

I wonder if Eli is hiding from yet another baby she made cry! Please come back next year when she has gentler manners. Eliana loves other babies but unfortunately expresses her love without restraint.

Trying to make-up with Cousin Abigail after 'loving on' her face. Poor Cousin Abi, I hope we get invited to her party after all of Eli's abuse.

This is our fabulous cake from Randalls! White cake with buttercream frosting- not for Eliana!

Here is Eliana's cake made by the Mami bakery! Thankfully Abuela gave me the perfect Tupperware for it! As you can see, Eliana knows this is her smash cake.

Here is Hattie, but Eliana is not sharing!

Her frosting only had 2 tablespoons of honey instead of sugar and I think it made a big difference in her endurance. Go honey! Eliana was in bed at 8:30pm tossing and talking! Ok, maybe too much endurance...

Eliana took to her piñata immediately!

However she also loved beating the Hello Kitty to death!

Sofia was also a piñata lover/beater. She was one of the best hitters!

Cousins! Abigail liked her treat bag...made it all worth it!

I'm sure I'll have more birthday pictures later on if I can get the grandmas/aunts/friends to share! I was having too much fun to take pictures but thanks to Aunt Benna, Erin, Tia Kim,Edson, etc. we got some great pics!! Thanks!!!