Thursday, December 20, 2007

We Wish You a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!




from Oscar's bed to yours...
**wink, wink, says Elsie.
**swish, swish, says Baby Foo.
**I'm vewwy vewwy tiyerd, says Oscar.

What Child Is This?: Opening Elaine's Christmas Present






Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Deck the halls...


He sees you when you're sleeping... He knows when you're awake...




Picking out some holiday tunes on Dad's ipod


The only bowl game Alabama and Notre Dame fans are excited about...

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Jesus is my DJ

On more than one occasion now, Elsie has wandered off and we have found her, holed up in her room, dancing to Christian rock. Elaine has the radio in her room set to such a station and Elsie knows how to turn the radio on and she loves to dance and she doesn't "rock out" to anything quite like she spins and head bangs to this music. We'll try to get some footage to confirm. Next thing you know she'll be changing the channel from Sesame Street to the 700 Club. We may have to draw the line there.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Old MacDonald: You wouldn't believe how our animal sound literacy has improved!







Jesus is my Baby Daddy
The Salty Dog was filled with many delights. We'd ride bikes down there to see the "cat kitty meow"--Elsie's multi-word name for "cat." At the beginning of our Thanksgiving break, in fact, we found "cat kitty meow" in the toy bin at the General Store so from then on we'd beeline for said bin in search of cat kitty. Elsie enjoyed the playground there, lunch there, ice cream there, beers there--well, maybe that was her parents, as well as the Salty Dog parrots and t-shirts.

With Christmas coming, though, this season held new South Beach attractions: Santa and snowmen displays, Santa himself, as well as an Elsie-sized nativity scene. Our little nugget got to try out some of her favorite barnyard calls: "hee haw," "baaa," "meow" (the "cat kitty" was napping in the manger scene), and she also got to see baby Jesus who she affectionately called "Daddy"--a highly functional term for Daddy, Mommy, and all other babies. Obviously, Grammy is proud of the religious devotion of her granddaughter.
No Santa Baby
A Day @ the Beach

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving!






Here is Elsie enjoying her first Thanksgiving dinner--the last one was pretty limited course-wise. But at this one, Elsie made the most of her time at the grown-up table. What you can see here is that she is thankful for corn pudding and winking.
Ice Scream, You Scream, We all scream for Addie!

Check out this beautiful dress Addie smocked Elsie. Addie adores Elsie and makes her so many beautiful things and plays with her and loves on her. And the feeling is mutual. In fact, "Addie" is one of Elsie's favorite words. It is the name I gave my aunt when I was little and couldn't say "Aunt Andrea" and now here Elsie is fluent in Addie and mute in the face of Mommy. Maybe I need a nickname so I can be Daddy 2 no more.
Ice, Ice, Baby


Another favorite word is Rocky--"Ocky." Elsie adores Rocky--Rocky and Oscar both. Dog words--"Ocky," "Ocar," "Doggie," "Woof Woof"--these are often her first words of the day.

And then Poppa is another favorite word. Poppa means grandfather, yes, but it really means the guy who taught me to wink. She loves winking now and ice after our week at HHI. Ice makes Elsie really really happy--ice from Poppa's gin, the best you could hope for. And when we say "Poppa" or when she sees him coming she calls out "ice-y, ice-y." Poppa will be sure to get his granddaughter some "yummy ice-y" in her stocking this Christmas, or maybe just out of his gin.
BEEBO
While Elsie is learning and trying out new words every day, she also knows more words than we realize or will even say yet. Inspired by Sandra Boynton's Belly Button Book, she has adopted the term "beebo"--hippo shorthand for belly button. She doesn't say it, but if you ask her where her beebo is, she will delight in finding it--on the other side of that big ole belly. Then, she'll sometimes want to see yours which she finds very funny, more funny than we find our big bellies.

And there are other words she knows but doesn't say. If you ask her if she wants to go get the paper, she immediately runs to the front door. And she and Oscar are both bad about the word "park"--she calls out "duckie, duckie" to indicate that she does want to go to the park and must see the duck merry-go-round post-haste--and Oscar runs to the door to spin and spin, ready to lead the way.