A couple of early in the week vids

Eliana has learned how to blow bubbles in her water glass. She learned this valuable skill from her swimming lessons and has transferred her knowledge. Clever.



Eli has this new pair of glasses that she kind of tolerates. I can't get enough of her in them.

Party in the Dishwasher

Eli is totally fascinated with the dishwasher. If she's anywhere in the living room or kitchen when I open it, she comes charging in to investigate. Yesterday evening I had emptied the bottom drawer and decided to let her check things out. She played there, talking to herself, for almost twenty minutes. Her curiosity cracks me up.

Happy Birthday, Carly

More than a year ago, I started hanging out with a bunch of ladies all expecting babies around the same time.  All of our kiddos are now turning one.  Today, we got together to celebrate Carly's first birthday.  It was so cute to have all of the kids together - it was the first time since last summer!  There was only one of the original Hot Mamas missing from the group at today's festivities.  You can see from the photos that there are a lot of little girls - Marlow will have his pick of the ladies!

One of the great things that has come from this group is that there are now probably fifteen of us in a Hot Mama Group.  There is a monthly meet-up that people come to if they can.  I've met some really amazing women and find it so helpful to be around ladies who are going through the same stuff I am.  Not to mention that it's a good excuse to stay out a little late and have some cocktails!

See here for a picture taken in February of last year of all of us pre-kid and here for our gathering last summer.

The Original Preggos turned Hot Mama Crew:  Caty and Annalise, Jo and Elise, Tracy and Carly, Sara and Eliana, Kendall and Parker, Julie and Marlow, Liz and Lydia.

The babies:  Annalise, Elise, Carly, Eliana, Parker, Marlow, Lydia.

The birthday girl, Carly.

Carly and her big brother, Cooper.  He was showing her how to demolish a birthday cake!

Eli and Parker

I even got to hang out with Darcy and Hazel (and Grant, too)!  Hazel is getting so big and is going to make such a great big sister.

We are so fortunate to have such a supportive circle of friends.  Eliana will have such a fun-filled childhood!

More Easter Fun

We spent Easter at Mt Hood Meadows. The Cascade Mountains have been getting pummeled this spring- 6 feet in the last 10 days! Grammy Pam was in town to help out and babysit so off we raced to Mt Hood.

Powder! Powder! Powder! And more powder! The mountain was epic. We bumped into friends on the Shooting Star Chair and did laps until ski patrol finished avalanche bombing Lower Heather Canyon. We missed the opening by a few minutes but we still had fresh tracks down the canyon. Such good snow! Good times...

The line was stupid huge on the Heather Chair getting out of the canyon so we rode all the way down to the Hood River Meadows parking lot, lodge and chair. There was nobody on the HRM Chair so I thought it would be smart to check out Fright Trees. If the tree run was good we could lap it and not fight the crowds. Turns out Fright Trees lived up to the name. Bad times...

We made it. Sara is a trooper. We worked our way back to the lodge. After a quick snack we suited up Eli and took her outside to play in a sled. Eli really enjoyed being pulled around in the sled. More good times...

More sledding action...

Fun in the snow on Easter. Good times (mostly).

Easter

Eliana loved her Easter baskets from Nana in Maine and Grammy here. She wasn't a huge fan of the dress because it limited her high-speed crawling efforts.

Reading

Eliana loves to look at books. This book combines several of her favorite things: reading, playing peekaboo and spending time with Greg. It's a win, win, win.

Baby Loves Broccoli

It's possible that you are all getting tired of watching Eli eat. However, we continue to think it is really silly. Here she is with broccoli - her new new favorite food. This weekend she also discovered roasted red peppers.