18 months!

Tuesday, May 25, 2010



Elizabeth is 18 months old today! Wow time flies. My baby is getting to be a big girl everyday. This hilarious picture was taken on Saturday. I love it so much. I call it her paparazzi shot (dark sunglasses and blurry).

Here's a list of her measurements, milestones and accomplishments!

Weight: 21 lbs 13 oz.
Height: 30 1/4 inches
Head Cf: 46 3/4 cm

Her words (I may be forgetting some, but these I know for sure): Mama, Dada, Dexter, Casey, Jesus, apple, baby, ball, bath, bear, bird, blanket, blocks, bubbles, bye-bye, car, cat, cow, cracker, dog, duck, egg, fan, giraffe, hi, light, milk, moon, more, mouth, mouse, rah (for lion), papa, shoes, snack, sock, star, thank-you, toes, uh oh, up, walrus, water, wow, yogurt

She can point to these body parts: hair, head, ears, nose, mouth, hands, fingers, bellybutton, toes, foot

She can sign "eat," "more," "milk," "please," and "thank-you"

She can walk really fast but she hasn't taken off running yet. Maybe soon.

She sleeps 11-12 hours at night and takes one 2-3 hour nap during the day. She sleeps with a lovey and blanket. I have two of each so she has them at both daycare and home.

She's been in the Toddler 1 room at daycare for a couple months now. She LOVES her room and is always in a happy mood. She enjoys the soft play area and playing outside (when it hasn't been so hot). Because all the children in her classroom take a nap on the floor at the same time, Elizabeth sleeps so much better now. Pretty consistent 2-hour naps. In the other rooms, she would hardly sleep in her crib for fear she was missing all the action. Needless to say she's been a lot cheerier in the evenings because she's not so sleep deprived.

From the post "Dancing for Joy. Finally a Post!" I wrote that she moved up to a convertible car seat in April. We still have her rear facing, and I plan to have her rear facing for as long as possible. But so far she's liking the cushioning and being able to look back and see us in the front seats.

She's a pretty good eater for the most part and enjoys a wide variety of foods. Some days it takes a little coaxing for her to eat her dinner (mixing her dinner with other food she loves, singing songs, making a game out of it, feeding her animals, etc.). Luckily she doesn't need too much coaxing. Hopefully as she becomes an older toddler she won't turn into a picky eater.

LIKES
Activities: Reading books and pulling all her books off the shelf; coloring; playing peek-a-boo; watching her learning DVDs; climbing on everything; pushing her baby doll in its stroller; getting into mama's purses and shoes; wearing mama's purses; trying to put on her own shoes; getting her hair blown out by mama's hairdryer, playing with chair seat buckles; pulling all the pillows off the sofa; pushing chairs; pushing our big blue exercise ball around the room; playing with her small purple bouncy ball; stacking blocks, playing with her puzzles, playing with her toy CD player; playing with her tea set; feeding her toys; looking out the window ... And getting into trouble.

Food: pasta, eggs, cheese, cottage cheese, yogurt, bananas, grapes, pears, peaches, dried apples/pears/bananas/strawberries, green beans, peas, carrots, mashed potatoes, chicken, nut butter and jelly sandwiches, pancakes, waffles, bagels, goldfish, ketchup


DISLIKES
The vacuum cleaner, the Dustbuster, the lawnmower (anything that makes loud noises, except mama's hairdryer); most fruit (I'm working on it. tips anyone? amazingly she eats more fruit at daycare); too spicy food (flavor enhanced, not hot) ... And not getting her way/being told "No."

Round 2 of travel month! Destination: Port Aransas!

The weekend after the graduation and Mother's Day, the Grohmann clan headed to the "coast" (as my mother-in-love calls it) to enjoy a nice, relaxing weekend at the "beach" (as I call it) with family and a belated birthday celebration for Casey's 23rd birthday.

Let's talk weather first. What's the worst thing to hear when you've planned to go somewhere to relax in the sunshine? RAIN! The weather forecast predicted rain all weekend. Luckily weatherman can't always predict the weather. And as Grandma Keillor says, "In Texas if you don't like the weather, wait a minute." Course we indeed got our fair share of sprinkles. On the drive down on Friday, we survived the monsoon rain in Sugarland but good thing that was the worst of it. On Saturday it rained for a good part of the morning (thank goodness for the Wii) but then it cleared up in time for swimming in the afternoon. After that, no more drops.

While in the past we've usually stayed at the Gulfstream Condos on Mustand Island, this time we were treating, so I decided to pick somewhere different. My ultimate choice taking price and amenities into account was the Sandpiper Condos. Twelve floors of gulfront condos offering spectacular views of the Gulf of Mexico, a heated swimming pool, a fitness room, two tennis courts, a shuffleboard, table tennis, boardwalk to the beach, DSL internet in every unit and more! (I sound like an ad for the place - where's my commission?) We stayed in unit #1103 so we were pretty high up. The view of the Gulf was spectacular, but as I'm afraid of heights, I didn't venture out onto the balcony nor did I dare walk close to the railing on the outdoor hallway leading to our unit.

Despite the early setback with the rain, we ultimately had a wonderful little vacation. Andrew and I got a good workout in at the the fitness room (no rinky dink machines - they had a PreCor elliptical). We enjoyed several dips in the pool and Andrew enjoyed playing Casey at table tennis (although he was badly beaten and Casey admitted he was only giving 10%). We all worked on our bowling games on the Wii, including mom (it's funny watching her kick up her leg after every bowl hoping that will steer the ball right). And we ate, snacked and ate some more. Elizabeth finally discovered she likes grapes and couldn't get enough. I kept telling her to give them a chance!

Here she's so excited from swimming in the pool with her floaty that she kept wanting to lay in it in the condo.


Course what's a weekend at the beach without actually going to the beach? So we had to make at least one trip out to the shore so Elizabeth could experience the sand and saltwater. She's changed so much since last year's trip to the beach. Even though her first instinct was to shove a fistful of sand into her mouth (like last year), she delighted in playing in the water and occasionally taking a spill because of the current.




Sadly the weekend went by too fast. Thankfully we decided to take off work on Monday and enjoy a 3-day weekend. It was a good feeling on Sunday knowing we had an extra day to relax. And because we left on Monday with no traffic and lines, we decided to ride the ferry across to Aransas Pass instead of going through Corpus. Elizabeth's first ferry ride! Though the ride lasted all but 3 minutes, it was neat getting to experience something different.

Round 1 of travel month! Destination: San Antonio!

Monday, May 24, 2010

Elizabeth attended her 2nd ever college graduation on May 8 in San Antonio. Chris Schraer (him and his family are long-time family friend of the Grohmanns) graduated from UTSA with a B.S. in Computer Science. Go Chris and good luck in Phoenix! The graduation ceremonies at UTSA are a well-oiled machine. Most definitely the shortest graduation ceremony EVER. 1:00 p.m. start time and we were back in our car exiting the parking lot at 2:46. No joke. Not that I'm complaining. With a toddler, the faster the better!
Elizabeth had the most fun at the after party doing cheese runs (grabbing cheese cubes of mommy's and daddy's plates, running off to play, repeat) and learning to shake hands with everyone around the room. Here she's playing with her new favorite toy - a roller coaster bead toy that was graciously set out by the hosts for her enjoyment.



The next day we celebrated Mother's Day with Mass followed by an appropriately themed lunch to Mama's Cafe, and cards, kisses and hugs. Elizabeth wore her "I love my Mommy dress" for the occasion. SO cute!

She also specially made me a beautiful card at school. On the front side she colored with crayon. On the inside her teacher helped her glue a hand giving the sign for "I love you" and she drew flowers as if the hand was holding them, and she wrote "I (heartshape) U," "Happy Mother's Day," and "Love, Elizabeth." On the backside her teached helped her glue a lovely poem entitled: "Happy Mother's Day" Means More.


"Happy Mother's Day" means more
Than have a happy day.
Within those words lie lots of things
We never get to say.

It means I love you first of all,
Then thanks for all you do.
It means you mean a lot to me,
And that I honor you.

But most of all, I guess it means
That I am thinking of
Your happiness on this, your day,
With pleasure and with love.

My heart just melted! Handmade cards from my sweet little one are the best! Even though her teacher helped with most of it, I'll always treasure it. Andrew also gave me a very sweet card and handwritten note that made me cry. He always knows what to write! Thank you for making this day very special! I love my family!