Happy Second Birthday Elsie!

Our little baby is two years old today!! Elsie had a great birthday, starting with pancakes, continuing with lots of "Happy Birthday" singing at school, and the arrival of J-Ma and Papa Pete! We had celebration part 1 today.

I thought I wasn't supposed to be near candles? After a little coaching, Elsie started to figure out how to blow out the candles. We'll get some more practice over the weekend at Elsie's birthday party.

And then she got to enjoy her pink cupcake!!

"E, Elsie!"

"Two E, Elsies!" Followed by several rounds of jumping off of the stool!

Chicago Blizzard 2011

We had a real blizzard and real snow days for Mommy, Daddy and Elsie last week! The snow was up to Elsie's chest at the back door!

Elsie chose to celebrate the occasion by sneaking off to the mud room, removing her pajamas, and putting on boots. She then grabbed her stroller to go for a walk! You will notice the extension cords in the photo - we actually lost power the night before and had to get the generator all hooked up. Fortunately, the outage only lasted 1.5 hours...we left the extensions cords out just in case!

Time for Daddy to shovel!

Elsie and Mommy went outside to make sure Daddy was still feeling OK after a few hours of shovelling.

So much snow!!

Elsie is starting to enjoy the snow more and more as the winter carries on. She really enjoyed being at the top of the piles like this one!

Grown up toddler

Like all kids, Elsie enjoys mimicking Mommy and Daddy. Here is out grown up Elsie sitting at her new table using (safety) scissors!

Elsie has a lot of fun going on walks with her stroller. The necessary components typically include a doll or baby (and it must be securely fastened in the seat belt), her purse, and her keys. This day was really special, since she also found Mommy's gloves to wear!

"Matches"

Elsie is very excited these days about things that "match" or are "the same." For example, Mommy has the same shoes as Mrs. Bomkamp and the same coat as Ava's mom. Here, Elsie is modelling the dress and hat that Aunt Becky made - they are "THE SAME!"

"Big belly"

Cheese!

"Hat matches"

Back home!

I got a great new cookbook filled with one-dish recipes from Becky for Christmas. We tried out a few recipes before we headed back to work. Elsie and Mommy hard at work making sausage and peppers!

Fun at PHL

There is a great little kids play area right next to our gate at the Philadelphia airport. Elsie showed Aunt Candice the plane, pointing out that the plane flies up in the air. We had an uneventful trip home. Candice, on the other hand, was stuck in Philly for another few days, due to weather-related delays.

Dinner at G-G-Ma and Papa's

We had a great dinner at G-G-Ma's house. Then we played our family car game - Liverpool Rummy. We had a lot of fun...can't you tell from the picture?

Elsie played with Papa while the rest of us enjoyed the "stupidest game ever." Elsie enjoyed bringing Papa all of the little snowmen from around the family room.

By the end, Elsie had filled Papa's lap!

Pennsylvania "Blizzard"

The forecasters predicted so much snow for Philadelphia that the Eagles game was postponed. Well, we only got about 4 inches in Schwenksville. But, the sun was out and the temperatures were relatively warm, so we took Elsie out back for some sledding! Elsie started out with both Daddy and Aunt Becky, but wasn't a big fan.

Elsie took a break with Papa Pete to look at some animal tracks.

Meanwhile Aunt Becky and Daddy improved the sledding path.

Papa Pete didn't have too much luck on the sledding path, but Elsie was enjoying the snow more and more.

We capped off the day with Elsie sledding by herself down our little hill a few times!

Enjoy the sledding video!

Lounging about in the Go Bears dress

J-Ma made a great Bears dress for Elsie a while back. Uncle Pete hosted the family to watch the Bears game, so we got to show it off. Elsie enjoyed reading her new books with J-Ma and playing "train" and "getting thrown onto a bean bag" with Aunt Becky.

Elsie played her first game of hockey...air hockey. Surprisingly, she didn't break anything!

Christmas Afternoon

Elsie took a nice, early nap in preparation for the afternoon festivities with the extended family. It gave J-Ma plenty of time to loosen up Elsie's Christmas dress...I guess Elsie had been enjoying the Christmas cookies, as well.

Playing with Aunt Becky and Mr. Potato head. Then getting some assistance from Uncle Pete with her new puzzle piece flash cards!

Uncle Pete and Papa Pete had been teaching Elsie how to load the Nerf dart gun. Fortunately, she still was not strong enough to actually shoot the gun, but she loved fetching the darts and loading them back in!

Look Mom! More presents!!

Christmas Morning

Santa left many beautiful presents by the tree and filled the stockings by the toasty coal stove!

The children and grandchild waiting to come downstairs.

Wow! Santa brought Elsie an inflated jumping horse!! Elsie was sure to check it for defects before getting on.

Wee! Jump, jump, jump, jump!

A cow hat from Aunt Candice and a flower hat (complete with matching dress) from Aunt Becky!

Elsie got wooden food from Mommy and Daddy. She thought the fish was great, and just started swimming it around. We'll save the lesson about how we EAT that fish for another day... A Mr. Potato head from J-Ma and Papa Pete - Elsie was so excited when she saw the same Mr. Potato head on the TV while Toy Story was playing!