Super

Saving the world one binki at a time....

Christmas Presents

Christmas presents are oh so fun. Scott did say as we walked downstairs last Sunday, and I quote "I think you are more excited then Elsi is." I am pretty sure I was, but who can blame me. With this little cutie around everything is exciting. We opened up some presents from Grandma and Grandpa and Jensen the other day because coming home for the holidays makes that possible. :) Won't she be excited when she's 5 and gets two Christmas's!
We had a lot of fun with just the paper (noted for future gifts)
Loving our lamb that Grandpa Bywater picked out...
We love the new Bumbo, and are learning to sit up quite well these days. (p.s. side note here, I am sitting in Elsi's room typing this and she is sawing logs...literally, my daughter is snoring...rough day.)
Dear Jensen,
I love the tub ducky you gave me for Christmas... it sings and dances so much better then my mom and dad.
Love,
Elsi

3 Months Old

Gosh! It seems like just yesterday..... :)

This baby is growing up so much. Three months has brought out so much of her personality, she is funny like her daddy, she is quiet like her mommy, she loves to smile at us, is very curious, continues to try and roll over, has decided she is not so much a fan of being on her belly, and she still eats like it's going out of style. Frankly, she is a beautiful little baby...
We may be partial, but we're the ones who change the poopy diapers, so we get to be.

New York City Part 2

I just wanted to finish up this post with some extra photo's and fun things that we did. We had such a great time!
Lunch in New York City - We had to change the babies and there was only a small space on the counter in the bathroom, but the automatic hand dryer was located right above said small space...try doing that with such a long little one. Needless to say Elsi's head kept turning the dryer on, imagine the expression on her face. I laughed the whole time. However, the pre-story to this is that Scott tried to change her in the men's room and had promptly walked right back out stating that he was not changing his daughter on the edge of a urinal. Picky.....
Rockefeller
Central Park- Was Gorgeous and HUGE! I never realized it was so big!

Times Square....
This was such an amazing, fun trip!

The Mouse

Back to New York in a bit, I just had an experience I needed to share. I came downstairs to get the baby her food this morning and had a visitor...
This visitor was so excited to see me it died on the spot. I had to put on my big girl pants and deal with said visitor. I firmly rebuked him for dying inside the house and told him he was no longer welcome. He took his leave via broom and dust pan.
Another image brings this full circle...
Nope you're wrong Tiger didn't eat the mouse, he just sat on it.

NYC- Post 1

We were so excited to go to New York for Thanksgiving and spend some time with Scott's sister and her cute family that we scheduled a flight out at 6 am....what were we thinking!
Elsi and Daddy are pooped...

All went well on the plane, except for I get the mother of the year award for feeding Elsi just before we took off from our layover. Good thing I had a sweater on that I am not partial to, come to think of it I don't wear anything I am partial to these days. :) Anywho, we were so excited to get to Kristin's house! We love Mr. Marcus, and he and Elsi loved to play together i.e. Marcus loved to pull her bows off her head and grab her cute hands.
Or her head, whatever was available, he wasn't picky. So, here is the low down on how we do things in the Bywater family. Nadia and Jensen are 6 months apart and are great friends, so we figure because these two are six months apart they should be great friends too. When we layed them together on the sofa Marcus was maybe a 1/4" longer the Elsi, but you add his darling tummy and he has a little more to brag about. :)

Playing together- with mom's pink toes...ya, I should pay attention. :)
Scott and I had meant Marcus once when he was a few months old, so we absolutely loved getting to know this cute little guy.
And have I mentioned how much we miss Nadia?
We love her, she is growing up so fast and is this wonderful, helpful, beautiful girl. She could only be with us until Wednesday, so we made the best of our time together.

So, we played for a few days with the Daines family, and decided to have our Thanksgiving on Wednesday so that we could do the unthinkable...head into NYC for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade with 3 Million other folks...
I am not really sure what my problem is (I just think good food overwhelms me honestly) but I only got pictures of the name plates I made for Thanksgiving, hey, don't judge, you were stuffing your face too.

So on Thursday we bundled the kiddo's and Scott up and headed downtown.
Here we are with our cute pink marshmallow waiting for the parade to start. Here is a great little story. We were standing on the sidewalk and up walked some folks to check out the parade, well, the next thing we know we look over and they are setting up ladders. That is right I said ladders. Needless to say they set their kids on the ladders and blocked everyone's view. Fantastic....
We got a tip from one of Kristin's friends to get into the M&M store and go up to the second floor for a better view.
Here we are headed up the escalator with other mobs of people...
I love the look on Mr. Bywater's face. Priceless...

Roll Over

5 in the bed and the little one said roll over, roll over....

I won't sing the rest of the song for you, but I am going to stop singing it to this little one! She is getting the hang of rolling! Help!

p.s. No, she wasn't alone in her crib with Grammy's awesome pillows, I stood there the whole time. :)

One more Halloween Photo

I pick this guy up at the train every day... he's great with the baby...

2 Months

Wow, the little miss is two months old. I cannot believe it! At her two month check up she was 24.5 inches long (95th percentile...yes, she is my child, hard to believe I know), 11 lbs 14 oz (75th percentile), and only shed a few tears when she was given her shots. She is smiling and talking to us, and we love every minute of it...well, except for when it is 2:30 a.m. We don't have many of those however, we are lucky to have a little one that sleeps for 7-8 hours every night. That is pure bliss friends, pure bliss.
Her favorite thing is a bath, especially now that she can sit in her tub and splash. She would do that all day long if I let her, she wouldn't even care if she ate...well, that may be going a little far. This little one LOVES her food. Her least favorite thing?? When she can't see anyone and is alone in a room...we are working on that. :)

Carving Pumpkins

Carving pumpkins was a special treat this year. Holidays are so much fun with children, even though she doesn't understand anything yet. We make sure that we do the little things, and maybe that is what is special about them.
Mr. Bywater planning his attack. This face is pretty normal these days. It's the "you're nuts Shelbi" face. :)
Elsi told her dad she wanted a smiling pumpkin, so that is what she got.

Happy Halloween

A Note

To Mom and Dad
From Elsi
Next time just buy a binki...forget all the other stuff.
And get rid of these bows, even if I am wearing a pink flower at church on Sunday someone will still ask you if I am a boy or a girl...

More Visitors

Aunt Cole and Miss Anja came to see us this month. We were so excited to see them, and I know that the animals enjoyed every ounce of attention they received.

Sadly, I don't have any photo's of the trip downtown. All I know is that Scott went with them to the American Girl tea party. When I asked if he had gotten enough food he promptly replied that the turkey sandwich was the only thing that wasn't pink and was the size of a quarter. :) I'll bet he had fun anyway.
Watching morning cartoons
I was in Kansas City for my first show since the baby that weekend and I was so sad I missed out on being with my family for the first few days. My mother also went home while I was gone which made my trip a little bitter sweet.
More morning cartoons. This looks very calm, however, there was a rousing round of "Head, Shoulders, Knee's and Toes" during the commercial.
One of my favorite photo's...we miss little Anja and her mommy so much. All the girls went and had a pedicure on Monday, it was so fun to be together!

Halloween

Happy Halloween from "owl" of us....

Nauvoo

We decided a few weekends to take a quick trip to Nauvoo. It is about 4 hours away from where we live, and we kept promising Grammy we would get her out of the house. The baby is a great car rider, she even got a shot that morning and was out the whole time we drove. We arrived in Nauvoo Friday night and really only had time for Dinner and a bath before bed. Elsi was done with the car and done with the rest of us and so she threw a little fit in the hotel room. I walked out of the room to go get some warm water, and all I could hear was my child screaming. :) Luckily there was no one next to us, and the fit lasted for only a few minutes and then she was asleep.
Scott and I snuck out to get some pictures of the temple at night. It was beautiful...
Grammy and Scott got up early the next morning and went to the temple, and the baby and I slept. We had a rough night before...that translates to two hours of sleep for mommy. We then went and toured the town. I kept telling my mother that it looked and felt like Orderville.
In front of the temple- this little one has been to more places in her young life then I had by the time I was 12. It makes for some fun stories.

The temple is on a hill overlooking the Mississippi river, the scenery is just beautiful. We took a wagon ride around the area and we were able to hear some history, and fun stories of the saints time in Nauvoo. We only had a few minutes to check out the houses, we have to go again that is for sure, but here is Bringham Youngs house. Some important decisions were made here after the Prophet Joseph Smith was martyred.
We tried to find Carthage...however I took us back to Nauvoo instead...:) Mommy brain. But the drive along the river that we took was beautiful, that was worth the confusion, and being lost for a bit.
We all looked like this after dinner, so we headed home. It was a great trip.

Behind

I am way behind...please forgive me as I try to catch up.

One Month Old

It is hard to believe Elsi is already one month old. We took her to the pediatrician for her check up and she weighs 9 lbs 7 oz, Eats like a bear for her age, and is 22 3/4" long. She is in the 95% for height 50% for weight.
She is still our Noodle....

Vistors

We had several visitor's the weekend that we blessed sweet Elsi. My sister came into town, and if the traffic police wouldn't have given me a ticket when I picked her up at the airport I would have hugged her for hours. I miss her sarcasm, and honesty.
She brought one of my favorite little personalities with her...
Enough seen.....This is the first thing she did when she got to our house and saw her "room" for the weekend.
We did lots of fun things together, stories were told....
And there were lots of "Mom, isn't she sooo cute." It was great.
We went to the local zoo in town and strolled through Glen Ellyn, where Mr. Bywater and I used to live.

Papa joined us on Friday night, and we were all impressed with the ease in which he made it to Chicago on his own. :) We love you Dad. Scott and I were so grateful to have him here.

We also welcomed the Grandma and Grandpa Bywater on Friday, and we are so grateful they were able to change their schedule for a visit. Sunday we blessed the little one, and it was wonderful. My Mother made a beautiful little dress for Elsi and she slept through the whole thing.