Elise has been practising her "animal noises" lately...She is now using her deep "growl" voice ALL the time...pretty cute!
Monday, June 18, 2012
Almost there...
Friday, June 15, 2012
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Elise's First Birthday Party
I'm sure a lot of people would think we were crazy for making a big deal of a baby's first birthday. Some would argue that no one remembers their first birthday, (or is even aware of the concept of a birthday in the first place) and it is really just about the parents anyway. Some cultures however have grand scale celebrations of their child's first year: perhaps dating back to a time when many babies didn't survive that long, so a year was really a reason to celebrate. For our little family, we have reached many major milestones: getting pregnant successfully was one thing to celebrate, making it through a healthy and relatively uneventful pregnancy was a major reason to celebrate, birthing and meeting our babe one year ago was a huge reason to celebrate, and now here we are one year later with a little human living among us, who is becoming more and more of her own little person every day. From our perspective, we have a lot of reasons to celebrate; so much to be grateful for...And let's face it: I'm on Maternity Leave, I love little projects, and we love parties...Hence: THE FIRST BIRTHDAY PARTY!!
Both Dave and I have Winter birthdays, which tends to mean indoor parties. We were so excited to have a June baby: thoughts of barbeques, pool parties, and bonfires. Sadly, June in Calgary tends to be pretty unpredictable, and pretty rainy, so our "summer" party looked very similar to our November and December parties: indoors. Luckily our house accomodates large groups pretty easily with our large open basement, and Dave was still able to BBQ in the rain. It was a great day: Elise is a party girl, and loved having friends over to share her day. Here are a few of the highlights:
Elise enjoys her birthday balloon (June 5th)
Getting ready for her party
It is so amazing to see our little girl growing up. For those of you who were able to join us for Elise's special day, thank you so much for making it so great! For those of you we missed--hope you enjoyed sharing "virtually"
Tuesday, June 05, 2012
Catching up...
Just wanted to apologize for being so behind in posting the last few months. It seems there are too many types of technology competing for my time and attention, and I was finding uploading to take forever on this site...I recently figured out that it's actually been updated and is now pretty fast (thanks Shannon Fox!) so I'm working on some backdated posts. Please keep checking back over the next few days (weeks?) for older posts. I will try to keep adding photos as I get the chance...
Happy Birthday Elise!
Happy Birthday to our sweet and silly baby girl. She makes us laugh and melts our hearts every day. Can't believe she is already a year old (but can't remember life without her!).
Sunday, June 03, 2012
Butterfield Acres
We made our first trip to Butterfield Acres on Friday: a "playdate" with my friend Michelle and her little girl Ella. Elise loves our cat Greyson, and any passing dogs we see, so I figured the "farm" would be a hit and it was!! The "petting zoo" doesn't really work when you're not quite walking yet, but Elise loved looking at and "waving" to all the animals, and especially loved the wagon ride...not sure if you can tell from the video, but she was "dancing" the whole time! 
In the playground
On the wagon
Making friends with a baby goatLittle helper
Elise has been such a good little helper in the garden. (What almost-1 year old doesn't love playing in the dirt and water?)
Friday, May 25, 2012
Monday, May 21, 2012
Family Travels
We have just returned from 2 wonderful weeks travelling through Portugal (Lisbon and the Algarves) and Amsterdam. Many people told us we were crazy to plan a trip overseas with our almost 1 year old baby. We were pleasantly surprised to find that despite these reservations, travelling with an older baby was actually an amazing experience. I realize we have lucked out with a pretty adaptable baby, and we were forced to be pretty adaptable ourselves, but overall it was wonderful and I am so glad we were able to prove the naysayers wrong! ;) Here is how we fared:
First of all, when we booked our trip over 6 months ago, we had no idea what kind of almost-toddler Elise was going to grow into by our departure date. Happily, she has become a very social, mostly happy, and mobile but NOT YET WALKING (thankfully!) baby; all of which bode well for travelling. Likewise, I hope we can report that we are fairly relaxed parents who have learned to "go with the flow" and not have too many expectations about things going a certain way.
Travelling with an older baby does require a bit more planning than travelling with an infant or an older child I'm sure, but we found the benefits outweighed the costs, and instead we had "the best of both worlds":
At 11 months, Elise is still little and young enough to be relatively "portable": she was happy to nap in her stroller or carrier, but was also old enough to have some flexibility in her eating/sleeping schedule.
Best of all, she is also old enough to really enjoy all the new experiences that travelling brings! Elise seemed to be delighted to meet new people every day (most of whom would fuss over her, earning lots of big smiles), and was so excited about everything around her: planes, trains, automobiles; pigeons (!!), dogs...but mostly people.
Don't get me wrong--I'm not saying it was "easy" to travel with an almost-one year old: we did have our share of tense meals where we were just trying to eat as quickly as possible to avoid a meltdown before bedtime...But we also learned that it was easy enough to pop Elise in the carrier when she was getting fussy, and allow her a little "cat-nap" while we finished our dinner peacefully. We tried to take our cues from the Europeans we met along the way, who seemed to have a much more relaxed view of naps and bedtimes: allowing their children to follow the "adult" schedule, and sleep in their stroller if and when they got tired. While I'm not sure if this would work all the time, for a few days while on vacation, everyone seemed much more relaxed when they weren't stressing about being back in the hotel room (and then stuck in the hotel room!) for nap/bedtime.
The timing was also great for us as a family:
Dave got a chance to spend all day every day with Elise at an age when she is so fun and learning so many new things every day. If she wasn't a "Daddy's girl" already, she definitely is now! As the "primary caregiver" most days, it gave me a chance to step back a bit and allow her a little more "independence" in spending more time away from me, both with her Dad, and with other people (she spent some time in the daycare at the resort we stayed at): perfect timing as we prepare for her to start daycare when I go back to work in July.
It also gave Dave and I a chance to reconnect as a couple: after a year filled with so many changes as we adjusted to life with a baby, and learned to define our roles as parents, it was so great to be able to take a break from the busy-ness of day-to-day life to look back on this special time together. Likewise, it was so nice to have the opportunity to watch our daughter as she is transitioning from a baby to a little girl: our trip was filled with moments of both quiet reflection as our "baby" slept in our arms, as well as awe and excitement as our "big girl" explored her ever-changing surroundings.
Now that we are home, we are all tired and out-of-sorts from the time change and travel days, but feeling really connected as a couple and as a family. Definitely a successful family adventure!
ps/ As an aside: up until this point, Elise had no teeth...11 months, and 0 teeth. During our trip, we noticed a bottom tooth starting to emerge, and within a day or two, she had 4 teeth on the go (2 on top, 2 on the bottom). It seems unfair that the poor little thing is now dealing with jet-lag, changing surroundings, and now 4 teeth to top it off...But I can't help thinking if she is going to be miserable for a few days anyway, she might as well get it over with all at once!!
First of all, when we booked our trip over 6 months ago, we had no idea what kind of almost-toddler Elise was going to grow into by our departure date. Happily, she has become a very social, mostly happy, and mobile but NOT YET WALKING (thankfully!) baby; all of which bode well for travelling. Likewise, I hope we can report that we are fairly relaxed parents who have learned to "go with the flow" and not have too many expectations about things going a certain way.
Travelling with an older baby does require a bit more planning than travelling with an infant or an older child I'm sure, but we found the benefits outweighed the costs, and instead we had "the best of both worlds":
At 11 months, Elise is still little and young enough to be relatively "portable": she was happy to nap in her stroller or carrier, but was also old enough to have some flexibility in her eating/sleeping schedule.
Best of all, she is also old enough to really enjoy all the new experiences that travelling brings! Elise seemed to be delighted to meet new people every day (most of whom would fuss over her, earning lots of big smiles), and was so excited about everything around her: planes, trains, automobiles; pigeons (!!), dogs...but mostly people.
Don't get me wrong--I'm not saying it was "easy" to travel with an almost-one year old: we did have our share of tense meals where we were just trying to eat as quickly as possible to avoid a meltdown before bedtime...But we also learned that it was easy enough to pop Elise in the carrier when she was getting fussy, and allow her a little "cat-nap" while we finished our dinner peacefully. We tried to take our cues from the Europeans we met along the way, who seemed to have a much more relaxed view of naps and bedtimes: allowing their children to follow the "adult" schedule, and sleep in their stroller if and when they got tired. While I'm not sure if this would work all the time, for a few days while on vacation, everyone seemed much more relaxed when they weren't stressing about being back in the hotel room (and then stuck in the hotel room!) for nap/bedtime.
The timing was also great for us as a family:
Dave got a chance to spend all day every day with Elise at an age when she is so fun and learning so many new things every day. If she wasn't a "Daddy's girl" already, she definitely is now! As the "primary caregiver" most days, it gave me a chance to step back a bit and allow her a little more "independence" in spending more time away from me, both with her Dad, and with other people (she spent some time in the daycare at the resort we stayed at): perfect timing as we prepare for her to start daycare when I go back to work in July.
It also gave Dave and I a chance to reconnect as a couple: after a year filled with so many changes as we adjusted to life with a baby, and learned to define our roles as parents, it was so great to be able to take a break from the busy-ness of day-to-day life to look back on this special time together. Likewise, it was so nice to have the opportunity to watch our daughter as she is transitioning from a baby to a little girl: our trip was filled with moments of both quiet reflection as our "baby" slept in our arms, as well as awe and excitement as our "big girl" explored her ever-changing surroundings.
Now that we are home, we are all tired and out-of-sorts from the time change and travel days, but feeling really connected as a couple and as a family. Definitely a successful family adventure!
ps/ As an aside: up until this point, Elise had no teeth...11 months, and 0 teeth. During our trip, we noticed a bottom tooth starting to emerge, and within a day or two, she had 4 teeth on the go (2 on top, 2 on the bottom). It seems unfair that the poor little thing is now dealing with jet-lag, changing surroundings, and now 4 teeth to top it off...But I can't help thinking if she is going to be miserable for a few days anyway, she might as well get it over with all at once!!
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Algarves
The beautiful beach at our resort
Elise (and Daddy!)'s favourite place: the POOL!!
Cheesy grins...chillin in the shade
Albufeira
Elise's second favourite place: the splash park at the daycare
Such a great beach--all to ourselves!
Daddy tricks
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