elsie: 6 months

Elsie

6 months

--She sits up like a champ! No support needed for this girly.

--She took her first plane ride--to Madison to visit Gramma. She didn't seem to have any ear pressure pain, but she was too excited with everything that she didn't eat or sleep well, so she was just kind of cranky and bored.

--She loves whistling, snapping, singing, and silly noises. Well, she loves to hear them, not do them.

--She has started making a funny snorty-sniffy noise with a scrunchy noise that usually is bordering between laughter and tears.

--She usually laughs pretty good if I just shake my head really fast and make sounds.

--She loves her daddy and is always looking around for him if she knows he's home--which can be an issue when she's also trying to eat.

--As of this post, she is sleeping a million times better--aka she slept for 10 hours last night. We decided it was time to try something new, and called Aaron's sister for help. She laid out the plan to let Elsie "cry it out". It worked wonders. She only cried for 30 minutes the first time, and never that long since. We still use the white noise, but no swaddling and no pacifier. We put her down awake, with a little soft blanket, and she gets comfy and goes to sleep! 

--The sad thing, however, is that she woke up today (after night two--the 10 hour sleep) and I think she caught my cold :( You wouldn't be able to tell from the pictures above, but she's been pretty crabby and sleepy all day long.

easter comes early

on monday, when i had my intense craving for hard-boiled eggs, which turned into egg dying, i had a moment of inspiration while i was at smith's looking for egg dye. i saw easter egg baskets, fluffy grass stuff, and thought "i should make aaron an easter basket!"

with my plan in place, i went to bed last night anxious to transform into the easter bunny sometime in the night. i was actually planning on just waking up when our alarm goes off (the first time) and going out to hide chocolate eggs and such. usually aaron sleeps for another 20 minutes after the first alarm. but, i found myself waking up quite frequently in the night, anxious that i had missed my window of opportunity to go hide eggs. when i woke up at 4, i decided i would just get out of bed and get the deed done now. well, aaron actually woke up and asked where i was going. kind of a funny question. what did he expect me to say? walmart? so i said i was going to the bathroom.

i did, actually, go to the bathroom, which currently has no light because something is wrong with our electricity. so i turned the kitchen light on to brighten it up in there. that also gave me enough light to take the bowl of chocolate eggs and hide them around our tiny living room. the door to our bedroom was open, and i was quite afraid that aaron would wake up and, yet again, curiously ask me what i was doing (or be creeped out that i was sneaking around the living room). so with a few eggs hidden, i got back into bed and slept for 2 more hours.

6'o'clock strikes. the alarm goes off, and i excitedly tell aaron "i think i saw the easter bunny in our living room last night." his reply, "really?" he seemed so sincere. he confessed laster that he just thought i was being sleepy and delusional, possibly still dreaming. but after a minute, he understood what i was trying to tell him, and got up to find eggs.

these pictures were pre-putting-on-glasses. he really couldn't see anything. he walked right past the sofa and didn't even see his easter basket...

once all the candy was found (thanks to corrective vision), he finally saw his basket.

you may be wondering why i decided to do this on the thursday before easter? well, tomorrow is graduation. i will be getting into a ridiculously large gown and a funny looking cap around 7:00 in the morning. my commencement ceremony is at 8:00 a.m. then, saturday morning, at 7:25 a.m. we will be boarding a plane to cancun! we are trying to bring as little as possible--how much do you really need on an all-inclusive trip?--so i thought an easter basket sticking out of my carry-on might be a little obvious.

happy early easter!

the new age of egg dying

i have never before craved hard-boiled eggs. i guess that means it's easter time. just to prove that i have never had such a craving, i had to look up a recipe for hard-boiled eggs. aaron is currently re-laughing at that fact. anyway, after i made them, my desire changed. why not dye these eggs? i went to the store and found these because i couldn't immediately find a box that contained the tools to it the old fashioned way.

it was a little alarming how fast the ink came out of these little q-tips. so we worked quickly. well, as least i worked quickly.

aaron took his time to ponder and make a creative plan. by the time i was done, he had only used one color.

as you can see, my three eggs were finished and sitting in the carton while he was still working. and you thought i was the creative one. aaron made an american flag.

now we can welcome easter in the right way. with colored eggs. and i bought candy, too.