Lulu and her Orvis catalog pose

Lulu and her Orvis catalog pose
Originally uploaded by pamplemousse2007

My sister Porter has been visiting me in Austin, so great to have her here and perfect weather for it too.

She brought her killer-diller camera and got this great shot of Lulu at Bull Creek. It's Orvis catalog time!

We had a great time going to Hula Hut last night and following that up with a visit to "Hey Cupcake", an airstream trailer selling, well, cupcakes.

This morning, we met up with an Austin-based blogger buddy of Porter's who turned out to be great, lively, funny and warm. She and her hubby are also adopting from Ethiopia, so we made plans to go to Aster's soon.

Drove out toward Wemberley but then found out that Elsa is feeling under the weather, so turned around so Porter could fly back to San Fran tonight and be there for her little girl. Slight bummer, but we've had an excellent visit all around and I'll be back in Cali very soon.

Artichokes

 

...are so lovely, I wish I wasn't too pooped today to paint these. But they will get eaten and maybe I'll just paint from the photo. It's spring!

A dog's life

Joy of Sticks

Lulu

Your cuteness dose for the day.

Lulu on March 1, 2009

 

This is what March 1rst looks like in Austin!

Elsa at 1 and a ½

On Tuesday, Elsa turned 18 months old. Woo hoo!

Here are few milestones:

• Words! In the last month or so, we have experienced a veritable explosion of vocabulary from Miss E. Some of the recent additions to her repertoire: Elsa (”Elsha”), yeah, night-night, mama (!), down, up, please (”teeez”), help (”hup”), sippy (”fiffy”), Oma, thank you (”ta ta”), bath, mine, park, shoes (”sssssss”), uh-oh, pasta (”papa”), and back-pack (”ba pa”). Also, thanks to Sesame Street on YouTube, she can say (and now demands) “Elmo!”

• The singing extravaganza continues. She sings pretty much all day, unless she is talking. And when we are in the car, unless there is music that she likes on the radio (current faves seems to be Lenny Kravitz and Jack Johnson - go girl!), she sings. If the music is off, or if the song is not to her liking, she starts belting out her own tunes.

• Mobility is still a high point - she CAN walk, but she doesn’t. She RUNS. Everywhere. All the time. Loves the park and can climb up the stairs to the big-kid slide and slide down and run around to do it again (and again).

• Hair - finally - is something we have to deal with. Previously, it was the crazy reverse-bozo and all different lengths. We finally about 6 months ago) got a buzz cut - all very short - essentially to make it all the same length. It has now grown out enough to require some care. It is super duper curly and very dry and gets snarly if I let it just be. So I’ve been working on putting into tiny little puffs all over her head.

• She is in great health - we did suffer through 4 ear infections in 4 months last year (something I do not recommend). But, right when I was looking at having to get tubes for her ears, the tide turned and she has been [knocking wood] ear-infection-free for 2 months. Amen.

• She is still big, but her overall her shape is stretching out from her previously adorable tator-tot shape to something a bit longer and taller. She remains big, but dropping down a bit on the percentages - she’s at 75ish percentile for height and 65ish percentile for weight. The giant melon, however, is still giant - 95th percentile for head circumference.

• If at all possible, I think she’s getting even more beautiful as she moves from the top end of Babyness to the early stages of Toddlerhood. Tyra, we’ll be calling in about 17 years.
  

• She continues to have a healthy appetite, but is now much pickier about what it is that she’ll eat. The vegetable boycott continues, but at least pasta is now acceptable. Waffles, bananas, avocados, yogurt, turkey, mac & cheese, all fruit, scrambled eggs and toast are the favored foods. We have managed to avoid sugar so far.
  

• She is a really solid sleeper at night (amen)

• She clearly needs her sleep because she is in NONSTOP motion all day. I’ve had people actually ask if she just had a cookie or some sugar when she just doing her normal running around thing. It’s one of the reasons I do NOT let her have sugar because, holy crap, if the kid gets more hopped-up I’m going to need a jetpack to keep up.

• The child care situation is working really well, and I feel for fortunate for that.

• She loves our weekly Music Together class (like a mommy-and-me thingy), except when she flipping hates it - like yesterday. The reasons why remain a mystery but we’ll just keep going.
  

• She is still happy happy happy. Remarkably happy. I know this, because just about everyone who meets her does in fact remark on it.