Just One Week

It's amazing how fast time has been flying by.

Poor Elena woke up in the middle of the night Friday throwing up next to me. It was a stomach bug that passed super quickly, but she wasn't feeling great all weekend.
She's a real trooper, though, because she still managed to have a good time. Here she is playing with her oatmeal "sandbox."
And she enjoyed a visit from my mother-in-law.She's cooking something up.She's making something for me here, too.I made a felt board for her. You can probably guess which song these pieces are for. And we made play dough. She helped. She really likes to squish it now. I have to watch her closely, since lately she holds everything up to her mouth, then looks at me to tell her not to put it in. Ahh, the testing phase . . . By the way, who would've thought that a toddler wouldn't like getting her hands dirty? I'm always encouraging her to dig right into things (like the finger paint, oatmeal, dirt, the play dough, etc.), but a lot of the time she doesn't want to. I'm glad that she's enjoying the play dough, though, even if her hands do get dirty.

She's so much fun. I've enjoyed every stage, but we really have a blast with her. She has a great sense of humor, likes to hide, and let's us know what she wants. Now when I ask her "How much does Mommy love you?" she puts her arms out to the sides. Lately she's wanted me to sing to her until she falls asleep, rather than read a book, she prefers to play with cups in the bath rather than the actual toys, and she likes to cuddle on the couch when she's getting sleepy.

18 Months

Elena Rose an 18 month old. Crazy!
This was the first time she even tried to catch a ball.
. . . and we have ourselves a little hoarder. She kept walking back and forth between the playroom and her bedroom to throw everything in her crib.A couple of weeks ago she started pointing to her diaper whenever she would go to the bathroom, and then she wanted to sit on the toilet.

And then she got her own potty.She hasn't quite figured out what it's for, but she likes it.

And I sewed her a dress! Now that it's done, our beautiful weather has gone away and it's cold, but she'll be able to wear it soon enough. Here she is trying it on over her clothes.
I also made her these little mittens. (The mitten tutorial can be found here)All is well over here. She's growing and changing so quickly, but that makes it fun at the same time. Every time I'm serving her food she says "blow," to make sure it's not hot. And every time I say "ready," she says "set . . . " I never realized before how often I say "ready." She also blows kisses all the time and tries to do the motions to "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" and "Wheels on the Bus." Whenever she gets hurt she wants an ice pack to hold on her owie. When she sees pictures of crying babies she whimpers, and when her toddler friend is upset she pats her on the back. She's super sweet.

Projects

We didn't do much for New Year's Eve. I actually didn't even realize it was New Year's and I went to the grocery store at 7 pm, just to find out it was closed. I was never one to really celebrate it, and having a toddler makes it an even smaller event--at least for us. We had a quiet night. We've been pretty busy though.

We laughed the other day because while Elena Rose was napping, I was working with my sewing machine and Jorge was in the backyard cutting wood to build something . . . makes us sound old-fashioned! We sure have been accomplishing a lot, though.

I can't lie, I love to organize things. I completely emptied and reorganized our pantry, which had been building up clutter for the last 2 years, making it impossible to find anything. Here's the before: You wouldn't believe how much had expired, and how much was unopened that we forgot about because we couldn't see it! Here's the after:And I sewed this, which is now my favorite scarfMeanwhile Jorge built the base for Elena's playhouse (a cute little wooden one that I found on Craigslist). He also cleared out the area around it, so she'll have this whole area to play house.And he built this little table to put inside of the playhouse, for her kitchen toys and whatever else she wants to play on it.Now all that's left for the playhouse is painting the base and trim of the house, and decorating around it. She needs a little landscaping, right? I'll post pictures when it's done.

I couldn't do a post without adding pictures of her. All is well!