Crawling is so last week...

Yup, Elianna has decided walking is where it's at. She still can't stand up on her own (which strikes me as curious) so she'll crawl over to something that she can use as a prop but then it's all walking, all the time. She's so proud of herself, too. She'll yell out, pump her little fists up and down and smile, smile smile.
She's definitely talking a lot more and some of her words are actually comprehensible...to us at least. A list: one (said in response to, "Elianna, how old are you?" and with one finger held up), teeth, water, hot....yeah, that's it. You can tell she's trying to say a lot more: quack, dog, eyes but it all sounds the same. She understands way more than I originally thought too. I'll say something and realize she's signing the word I just said, or recognize something in a book I've mentioned just a few times. Still no signing 'mama' or 'dada' but 'bath', 'eat' and 'dog' are on the most played list. It's so cool to know she's putting it all together in her little, but growing brain.

We all survived a trip with Mommy being away. I managed with the help of frequent texts with pictures and videos and Mike survived with some help from the nanny. Elianna managed because that's how she rolls. This baby is pretty dang chill; she takes what's in front of her and just deals. This is a quality which will serve you well in life, sweetpea, I'd keep it around.

What a difference a week makes.

It's true. It really seems like since her birthday, Elianna has started to come into her own as a person. She's been developing this personality (I should say showing us the personality, I think she always had it) over the last few months but now she's shown us she is a person with her own wants, needs and desires. Know how I know this? We've had our first tantrum. I'm pretty sure that on the scale of tantrums this was mild compared to what's to come but it was impressive. We were outside, not doing much (at least in my mind but she must have thought differently) and she was headed to the door anyway so I picked her up and brought her inside. At first she just cried so I realized I'd misinterpreted her inclination and brought her back outside. She immediately stopped the tears (and we're talking theoretical...there's still no water coming out of her eyes) and resumed playing. When it really was time to come in, I again, waited until she was headed indoors and finished the job. Oh. My. God. The rage was spectacular. She cried, screamed, banged her fists together (more!more!), started the hitching crying that to the untrained observer sounds like someone just kicked her puppy and she is completely and utterly bereft. About 15 minutes passed before she was relatively calm but even then she had this wounded look on her face as if someone just told her Santa Claus doesn't exist. Thank God we're raising her Jewish.

Her evolving personality isn't limited to tantrums, thankfully. She's discovered there's a whole world out there and she wants to know what EVERYTHING is. She's always pointing at something, asking what it is and she'll try and repeat it. Her words don't sound like words yet but there are subtle differences. Flower sounds a lot like Da, stars sounds like ders, dog sounds like dat....get the picture? You can tell that *she* thinks they sound different which is, I guess, the first step.
Speaking of steps...but that's for another post.

Happy Day Day, pretty girl!

Elianna's cousin coined this phrase for a birthday and it's too cute not to use. So, 372 days ago, little Miss came into our world with a bang and the cliche rings true; our lives have not been the same since. Of course, some of that has to do with a move 1200 miles up north (did yoo know it stays light until 1030 in the summer?) but most is due to her. Looking back, we really were in a fog until about 3 months ago which is just funny because I thought I was so on top of things when she was 4 months old, ha!

So her day was pretty uneventful. We were more into the day than she was. We put a pretty outfit on her, smothered her with kisses a lot and high fived each other that we made it. But the party? It was off da hook! Well, as much as a one year old's party can be with a bunch of middle aged chaperones.

Mike's mom, Marilyn aka Nammy, arrived on Wednesday and she was immediately put to work. With her help we bought dishes and silverware for the party, figuring it was really more of an adult's party that happened to have a couple kids there, shopped out the local grocery stores, decorated and cooked. Man did we cook. Here's the final menu:

Pulled pork sliders with curry mayo and green chile mayo and mustard as condiments
potato salad with smoky bleu cheese
red pepper/sour cream dip with vegies
guacamole with tortilla and pita chips
spanish tortilla, regular and with soyrizo
smoked salmon with rye bread, creme fraiche, capers and red onion
mac n cheese
chinese chicken salad
pigs in a blanket
cookies wrapped around Reese's peanut butter cups
CAKE!!!!! (which I totally forgot to get a picture of and it came out so good! )

It looked like an army was coming to store up before heading out on a week long patrol; there was so. much. food. We could probably eat the leftovers for 2 weeks if it wouldn't go bad. People seemed to like it though. We also had lemonade made from lemons from Marilyn's tree, sparkling and still water, beer and wine. I think 3 people drank wine, everyone else did the water/lemonade thing. I've never met so many people who don't drink wine as here in Spokane. Doesn't strike me as a particularly tee-totaling community but I guess it is. But I digress.

Elianna was a champion. She was a little shy but had no stranger meltdowns, even let a couple people hold her although she kept a close eye on Mike or me. She showed off a few of her steps (next post!) and waved a lot. When it was birthday song time she had this wary look on her face and then realized, ' this is for ME!' and a huge smile broke out. Our little diva.

Overall, a huge success I'd say and now we can start planning for next year. Kidding, kind of.