Santa, baby...

Eliza sits on Santa's lap.

"Now, what do you want this year, Eliza?"

"Well, snow books, some play dough, and new pajamas!"

They would never go for this with the real Santa; they both cry.

Run, run, as fast as you can, Gingerbread Boys!

We eat

Gingerbread Boys

like you fer

Breakfast.

Eeeyeee, hee-hee! I'm gonna eat you.
The little fox licks her lips



Awwh, Eliza! Give the poor boys a chance! Look at that head, eaten right off.



Eliza surveys her creation



Josiah's the first customer of the day! He decides to take the drive-through, and orders a dozen gingerbread boys.





Eliza hurriedly fills the bed of his yellow dump truck with her gorgeous creations,



and Josiah hauls them off to work! (Wheels spinning)


As she watches her brother drive off, Eliza spies another potential customer. "Let me recommend my blue frosting," Eliza advertises.



After a days work...

Beautiful.

Thanksgiving

Eliza's sitting in anticipation in front of the beautiful food.

Licking her lips!

Singing and Reading

(October): Eliza sings. I found this out early September when she sings “Ginko Ginko” little “star, how I” wonder what you “are; up…Ginko Ginko … are” In August I found out she can read “Are you my ‘muh-er?’” she asks it over and over, and says, “NORT!” at the snort. So cute. 9/28 She was saying the baby bird jumped and jumped and jumped, while jumping at the same time on her bed. About June she started reading Go dog go, or at least saying the title. She reads lots of books now, like hop on pop she’s been reading for a month or so. “Hop Pop, Up pup cup, all ball” she’ll say all the words that go together, and “owie” for pat sitting on a cactus. She loves her hospital book and library book called “Friends” with pictures of people with slings or casts. 9/20 she reads “swish swish eight fish swimming past the hook, swish swish wise fish”… and “waddle waddle waddle” for her counting book. She’s really repeating everything we say, and I can’t keep up with her words, because if she doesn’t know it, she learns it. As a sidenote, Ben put her cast on one of her dolls one night he was with her. She brought it out and showed it to me, and I was amazed because I thought she had done that.

She sang "Happy Birthday to You" while reading Sheep in a Shop by Nancy Shaw early October (cute book). She also sings I Am a Child of God at FHE, loves ring around the roseys, sings wheels on the bus, goodbye friends (that's real funny. Its a calm song at first, and she goes wild in the end).

(Present): I've tried to sing Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam to her, but it didn't seem to familiar to her. Tonight she wanted me to sing it, and she sings it sun "Beep!" which makes total sense, since we all jump at the "beam" part, but its pretty funny.Eliza studies the title of her story “fire station” and asks and tells what sound each letter makes. She says the “R”, tells me what sound “O” makes, the S, T, and N. Then, as she opens her book, she studies the pictures: the planes overhead, all the details. Daddy has trained her well. Its all his doing. Every night at brushing teeth he has her repeat her ABCs, and he bought stuffed alphabet letters in varying colors for her to play with and quiz with. She quizzes me sometimes, and enjoys them. She'll also tell Ben what letters are on his sweatshirts or tee-shirts, and started reading my Super Saturday signs, "Hhh, Hhh...Sss,Sss, RRR..." on "the stockings were hung..."

Eliza talks in motherese to Josiah. "Cute, are." (Imagine that in a cooing voice over and over. She was saying that one day.) Today she told me, "Watch your fingers," as I was cutting grapefruit, and some other fun words we've liked are: Josiah, boy, why, Ben, Erin (she always calls us by our first names (its crazy) and calls Josiah "boy," and Ben "mamadada" sometimes), window, leaves, Desmond, pillow, friend, other way, wash hands, funny, cut it up.

Halloween Carnival

So, I thought this carnival we went to at Pioneer Center was fun. Lucky for us it was a block away to walk! It was a little rainy and cold, but we made it. They had 40+ booths manned with sorority sisters or others in the community. We saw some people we knew there, and it was pretty crowded, but I wish I would have invited more. It was fun. They had:

A cake walk
Slinky the clown (yeah! our good neighbor Don that paints and that we watch fireworks with), tying balloon shapes
Police with glow-ring necklaces, helium balloons
pick the pumpkin (with the dot)
Plinko
shoot the 5' hoop
score the goal
bean bag toss
go fish over the sheet
go fish with the sticky-hand (paper pond, paper fish on the floor)
pin the nose on the pumpkin
get the prize out the hole in the board
bob for rubber ducks?
bowling
Wheel of (Halloween) Fortune
horseshoe toss
shoot the ball through the 1' hoop
raffles
miniature golf
witches with a pot, (I'm not sure what the game was... we just passed it by), and a few more I cannot recall

The kids would just go from one station to another within a few seconds and get a little token candy at each one. Eliza got to carry around the cute candy basket that the moms had given me and the other volunteers at PS. They also had a dinner, aparently, for extra $, and ice cream dessert, and there was a room for face painting, and lots of decorations suspended from the ceiling or stuck to the wall, balloons, and lots and lots of CUTE costumes, by the kids (chickens, ladybugs), sorority sisters (Indians, little mermaids), and parents (princess Leah, or serious Mohawk-man)

From Movies

Recycling Day

Eliza watches on as brother Josiah does the chores in his truck: pick up neighborhood reusable items and sort them into divided bins

Crash! There goes the glass bottles. Today is recycling day. We love recycling for two reasons, 1) that we get rid of all our junk piled up over two weeks, and 2) a big truck with guys comes by to pick it up; we have something to get excited about and watch out our window (this and the mailman). I've been wanting to do a little photo recylcing for a while, as there's a few activities we've been doing lately that we've also done in the past. Some "traditions" if you will. Allow me to explain:

Blackberry Picking

This is our third year blackberry picking: once up near Troy, ID, and twice at Wawawai County Park. We had no idea that the park had so many picnic tables and fruit trees. This time we found a cherry tree, pear tree, apple tree, and of course blackberries. We enjoyed the picnicing area.

2008

2006

Note that I love this picture, and Ben hates it, so its not by his choice its here.

Lentil Festival

We got to go to the National Lentil Festival in 2005 and 2008, but never took photos. Thank goodness the Lentil Festival Committee did (but none with us) and you can see what its all about on their website by clicking on the link. Our favorite thing is standing in line to judge the six lentil recipes up for competition. I'd also like to see Ben go down the inflatable bouncy slide some day.

County Fairs

Also, we went to the Whitman County Fair, for my third time, and Eliza and Ben's second time, and of course Josiah's first. We all went our first time to the Latah County Fair this year, too.

Bishop's Orchard

We went to go press cider at Bishop's Orchard in Garfield, WA. We had a great time with friends Christal, Bryan, and Desmond. We highly recommend it to locals! It tastes so good, so much better than buying it at the store, and they have apples for 25 cents a pound. There's probably a few weeks left in the season to try it out.

Ben and Ryan 2006

Kamiak Butte

We love Kamiak, butte. I've been going since I was 3 thanks to my parents. The older photos we have I'll have to scan in, as it was before we went digital. My dad took Brian, Scott, Trent, Ben, and I up there before we were married. This year we went twice for a service project, once for Eliza's birthday, and twice for our ward camp-out.

Butch the WSU Coug mascot

2008: Eliza and the new stadium, new stadium tower

2006

2006

Southeastern Idaho

We've been and will visit places such as Nampa, Sugar City, Rexburg, Idaho Falls, Blackfoot, and Logan, in 2005, 2007, 2008, and 2009.

Last, as its almost Halloween, here's a picture of ladybuglet Eliza at 5 mos. just for kicks.

Words

banana, broken, canteloupe, Daddy, dirty, doctor, drink, hold him, hold on, home, ice, jar, kite, lights, mess, milk (this has taken forever and still sounds funny), nap, open, out, pants, picture, smiling, time, tired, where are you going?, yellow

latest words

brother, happy, honey, rice, okay (pronounced correctly), popcorn, pretty, this, yes

Picnic

We took some pizza picnic (easy prep, easy clean-up) to Krugel Park one Friday and floated some boats down the stream. We had fun with cherries and babies! I tried to get good pictures, but they turned out pretty cas', so here the are.

I'm si-nging in the car, yes, si-nging in the car...

Things Eliza Likes to Do

I jotted down some things my daughter likes to do, a little after her 2nd birthday, in hopes I'd figure out what to do with her all day. Uncle Zach's friend, Andrew, got a kick out of it. Keep in mind this is a little girl that could hardly say about 11 words.

Things Eliza likes 2 Do:
change diapers
hold/pacify Josiah/burp
vaccuum
swim
park
walks
coloring
horses/go carts
stories
puzzles
play the keyboard
visit Rada (!!!! :))
go to PS I Love You program
Bathe (self, Josiah)
dress self
sweep, mop
clean bathroom
dishes
push stroller
sweep
help with garbage
clean with a rag
bike trailer
eat strawberries
eat meals together
open fridge/cupboards/drawers
walk around in big people shoes/dress ups
go to nursery
wake Daddy/Josiah
sing action songs
FHE/treat
scriptures/prayer
go potty
water flowers
climb in bed/climb out of bed
Mr. Potato Head, play tool set
unscrew toys/measure
bake/stir
"Go"
back rubs
lotion/chapstick/combs
bubbles
play peekaboo at dinner time
pick up rocks
Exercise: push stroller, movement songs, jumping, somersaults, turn in circles, dance, trike, swim
"hold him"
read The Friend/songs

New words

Eliza repeats a lot of the words we say, but if she doesn't use it later on her own, it doesn't go on the list. New words: [you're] welcome, cracker, good, shoes, need potty, need help?, [are you] okay?, peaches, diaper change, honey, cake, cookie, batteries
Grandma helped me learn:
bike, belly button, kitchen, duck

New words

garbage, scriptures

Eliza's words part I

all done, all DONE! all done all done all done, all gone, amen (prounounced: "meymeh"), apple (prounounced "bappo"), Baby, ball, balloon, bath, beep beep, blanket, bowl, Brian, bubbles, bug, bus, bye-bye, Cheerios, cheese, church, coat, Coloring, cute, Da-da, dog, down, ear, Elizabeth, excuse me ("mimi!"), eye, flower, gloves, Go! goodbye-goodbye, Goodmorning, Goodnight, gym, hair, hat, hello, horse, hot, hurts, Jesus, juice, keys, Kix, mailman, mine, Mom, Mommy, more, no, Oh, boy! Okay, one two three, ouch, Please, potty, slide, soap, socks, sorry, spoon, stop, story, strawberry, stuck, teeth, Thank you, The mama, towel, uh-oh, up, walk, water, Wet, WHAT? whee! Where'd it go? Where'd it go? There it is! wow, yeah, yucky, yummy, yummy, yum!

Lawson Gardens, May 30th