First Haircut

Yesterday Jennifer cut Elisa's hair for the first time. No huge changes took place, but it was an event. We mainly just wanted to even things up a little bit. Elisa did a great job of sitting still (most of the time) while Jennifer hacked away! There were a couple of close calls when Elisa started twisting her body while saying, "Look Momma! I twistin'!"

Elisa was pretty interested in the whole process. We will be sure to hide the scissors really well now! I held a mirror up for her so she could see what was going on. I was also able to get a few good photos too. Here are some "before", "during" and "after" pictures... and a video of some of the action.

A "before" profile picture.

Elisa is showing what she looked like from behind before the cut.

During the cut: "What are you doing back there, Momma!"

Elisa began to get a little restless about half-way through the process.

Here is the "after" shot of Elisa. I think her Momma did a great job!

VOTE for CHASE!

We have a 14 year old relative (I won't go into how far removed - but not far) that is up for the Sports Illustrated Sports Kid of the Year Award! He is an exceptional athlete, excelling in golf and basketball. He has one tournament after tournament and competition after competition while maintaining a 4.0 GPA.

I think it would be really fun for him to win this thing. All you need to do to help is click here and vote for Chase Hanna. I encourage you (as does SI) to vote multiple times. Not to brag, but I just averaged 4 votes a minute for about 32 minutes - that's around 130 votes! Just imagine what you can do!

Get out there and vote people! VOTE for CHASE!

By the way, we only have something like 2 more days to vote.

Elisa-isms

Elisa's personality has really blossomed! She is really funny and quite serious at times. She is communicating a lot these days. Here is a list of some things she is saying...

• "I need it!" She says "I need to eat", "I need a diaper", "I need juice", etc. Last week I went into her bedroom to get her up from a nap. The stench in the room told me that she needed to be changed. She looked at me and immediately said, "I need a wipe!"
• "NO! I don't!" For example: We might say, "Elisa come sit in your chair." And she will reply, "No... I don't!"
  
• "No. All better!" If we ask her, "Elisa, do you have a dirty diaper?" she will say, "No. All better!" meaning - sure there is something in there! but, I feel better about it now!
• "Wanna color!?" She always wants to color and is asking us to join in the fun.
• "Wanna play!?" This typically involves the word "dollhouse" attached to the end of the sentence. "Wanna play dollhouse, Mamma!?"
  
• "Oh! I choked!" If she coughs or sneezes she let's you know that she has "choked".
• "I wanna call Granddaddy for a minute." You can insert any of her grandparents' names in there.
• "There's a ____ right there!" Whatever Elisa sees she will point out and make sure that you know it is RIGHT THERE! For example: She recently told us that "there is a fly right there, on the other side of the street!"
  
• "I'm looking at pictures!" We have a lot of family pictures near the dining room table. Elisa likes to study them and point out who is in each picture - she knows everyone by name even though she has only seen them a couple of times!
• "Wanna see pictures of..." She loves looking at pictures of family and friends on the computer and will ask to see random people occasionally. Just now she asked to see pictures of Tiago and Garrett.
• "No way, dude!" I taught her this several months ago and now she uses it at just the right time - when it is appropriate and you don't expect it.
  
• "Yes!" She was into "NO!" for about 2 months after her 2nd birthday, but then "yes" kicked in and she uses it a lot.
• She tells us what she will dream about and what her dreams have been about - they normally have to do with "kiki cats and balloons and puppy doggies!"
• "Hi!" Of course, this isn't new, but she uses it a lot when she is nervous or doesn't know what else to say. it is her fallback phrase.
  
• "Wanna ponytail." She loves having her hair fixed.
• "Elisa's hair... so beautiful!" I don't have a comment for this one!
  
• "Wanna listen to music/songs! We love to listen to music in our house. Elisa joins in and listens to all our favorites with us - usually dancing!
• "Wanna sing A,B,Cs?" She sings the entire song - missing a couple of letters like "L, M, N & O" and she puts "I" after "V", but other than that she has it down - even the "Now I know my A,B,Cs. Next time won't you sing with me?" We are trying to film her singing, but she wants to look at the pictures on the camera every time we get it out. We will get it done and post it.
  
• "Amen!" We say our prayers each night and in the last couple of days Elisa has been doing the majority of the praying. Our prayer time sounds something like this: Daddy or Mommy- "Dear God.." Elisa- "thank you for this day... and play and eat." Then Mommy or Daddy will add something that is relevant to the day's events and say "in Jesus name..." and Elisa will close with "Amen!" It is great! I love our prayer time.

It is cool to see how she is learning and developing. She is a lot of fun and certainly keeps us entertained!

Family Picnic

Yesterday we had lunch out on the balcony that is off of our living room. Elisa was really excited about eating outside. We fixed our food and put a table cloth down on the ground. Elisa ate peanut butter and strawberry heart cookies (one peanut butter-jelly sandwich cut into the shape of a heart and another cut into the shape of a strawberry with cookie cutters) and apples. She loved it!


Within an hour of our picnic the scene changed dramatically. Dark clouds set in and we had an incredible amount of rain (it is still raining 30+ hours later!), strong winds and a little bit of hail! Hopefully, if the rain ever stops we can have another fun picnic.

This within an hour of us sitting out in the bright sunshine having our little picnic.

The New Blume!

Our teammates, Kevin and Benay Blume, had a baby boy yesterday morning. He is their 6th child! Everyone is doing great!

For more pictures and information you can visit their blog here.

Giovanni Müller Blume

Little Gardener

We planted some little flowers, trees and other plants about 2 months ago in our backyard. Elisa loves to water them. We fill up the large cup of water and she carries it to the plants and gives them a drink. It is really precious. I took some good photos (at least I think they are good) of Jennifer and Elisa watering the plants the other day that I thought I would share them with you. Enjoy!