New Play Kitchen and Playground photos

The kitchen below is new! It is a early Birthday/Christmas gift from Great Grandma Cox!

Elise loves it! She opens the microwave and oven doors pretending to cook or bake something.

It is fun to watch to her. The kitchen even has shelves that the little checkered curtain hides and it also has a chalkboard on the side of it. It was rather elaborate to put together, it took Jeff almost 3 hours, and he is a handyman. But, it was worth it. Thank you Grandma Cox!!

Elise at the playground down the road.

Getting ready to go down the slide! Such a big girl.

The playground has misters, which Elise loves (as you can see). She stands under them until she is literally soaked! We don't wear nice clothes to the park anymore.

Elise in the mister, again...

Here is a picture of Elise and her best friend Audrey. They are so cute together, they give each other hugs and kisses all the time!

Audrey is patting Elise on her shoulder, they are soo nice to each other.

Sesame Street Live and Storytime!!

This past Tuesday we went to Sesame Street Live on base. It was hosted by the USO and Elise loved it! She was in awe when all the characters came out, she would point and laugh. The show only lasted about 35 minutes, so it was perfect in length.

Elise stood on Jeff's lap for the entire show. It was so funny to watch her and her expressions.

Storytime is a new pasttime for Elise. It is too cute! She will line up all of her stuffed animals, then sit in her chair in front of them and read a book. They are very good listeners. :)

Elise looks as if I interrupted her in the picture below.

We'll keep you posted on any new developments. We find out this Thursday if we are having a boy or girl!!! I don't have a clue..

Ridin' the storm out!

As some you of you may know Tropical Storm Fay is making it's way to Pensacola. It sounds like it is mostly going to be a rainmaker for us, however I am not to thrilled about having to constantly watch for hurricanes on the weather channel during this season. Hurricane season is June-November and it looks like we will be here for 3 more seasons! I couldn't live here for good.

Elise and I made a trip to Indiana at the beginning of the month. She did absolutely wonderful on the plane! We read books, played with baby wipes, ate snacks and slept. I was worried she would throw a fit-she's quite good at those these days- but she didn't! She was a trooper. During our stay at home we went to the first ever annual Camp Cox for all the kiddos. Uncle Jim and Liz hosted the event with Aunt Janet as the event coordinator- :). It is soo hard for all of us to get together, so it was a good time for all the kids to get to know each other.

Elise is posing with cousin Christian, aka "grabby" in the picture below. Christian is Elise's only cousin- so far. By the way, Christian's nickname is grabby because he grabs EVERYTHING and holds on for dear life. He especially likes hair. He is behaving in the picture with Elise.

Here Elise is lounging at Great Grandma Cox's house.

Elise loves books!! She loves to look at them and point to objects and then she wants you to identify them! I'm glad she likes books, she isn't into T.V. much- yet.


Here is a picture of Elise and I at Camp Cox. We pretty much just hung out by the pool all day and visited with the rest of our family.

I can't believe we actually got a decent picture of Elise and Caroline. Caroline is 10 mths in this picture below. She is a sweetheart! Notice the T-shirts, they were courtesy of Aunt Janet and Andrea. Nice idea.

Finally, here is a picture of all the kids together. Elise is in the stroller with Caleb standing directly behind her and then Caroline is standing to the side of Elise along with Christian sitting on the floor. They did a good job posing.

Making up for lost time...

Well, needless to say it's been awhile. We haven't been up to much, it just seems as if there is never enough time in the day to complete everything you set out to accomplish. Does that make sense? We have some great news, Elise is going to be a big sister! I don't think she understands it yet. We tell her and she doesn't react much at all. I should be due the beginning of March.

Anyway, today Jeff was working on putting the upholestry in his car so Elise decided she would help. She pretty much just played around with the screwdriver- supervised of course!

Elise got a new tricycle and loves it! She doesn't know how to pedal it yet, she just scoots herself around on it. She'll learn!

Today was Audrey's 2nd birthday and it was celebrated at Gymboree (the playgym, not clothing store). Elise had a blast, the staff was very entertaining for the kids along with all the toys. Elise is sitting next to Audrey in the picture below.

Elise is putting bugs into the "giant turtles mouth" in this picture.

The Fourth of July, not much fun for our family. Elise and I were sick with some awful GI illness. We stayed in most of the day and when it was dark Jeff let off a few small fireworks. Elise was afraid of the fireworks. We did manage to dress Elise up in a patriotic outfit.

Elise and Audrey eating pizza at a kids play center. They look soo cute!

Here are some pics of Elise at Gymboree about a month ago. She loved crawling through the tunnel. As you can see....

Jeff has turned Elise on to basketball. She loves balls and especially throwing them.

Here she is shooting some hoops.

Elise's new words are "bless you" if you cough or sneeze she will say "bless you" after it. She is saying new words everyday and becoming such a big help! She gets the baby wipes out and tries to clean the windows and then she pushes the swiffer around! I hope she keeps up the good work!

Elise the pig, playing with Tinker and family visiting!!

This past month we have had some visitors. Jeff's parents Diane and Mike stopped by and stayed a few days. Diane got Elise the "pig" towel which Elise loved! She also has a bunny towel and she thinks it is fun to become a "pig" and "bunny".

So, one afternoon I'm looking for Elise.. you know things got way to quiet.. and I couldn't find her anywhere. Finally, I heard her laughing and noticed she had climbed into the built-in shelf to lay on Tinker. She thought she was pretty clever hiding out and plus she loved it that she cornered Tinker. It wasn't long and Tinker made her get away!

Shoes!! Elise loves shoes. Aunt Janet got her a pair of dress-up shoes and of course Elise loves them! She decided she would also carry her purse and be a big girl. It is so funny to watch her in the shoes because she stomps around and make soo much noise. It is almost as if she is a tap dancer!

I told Elise if she really wanted to be a big girl she had to get rid of her pacifier.
We're slowly working on breaking the habit. :)

Below is a picture of my Aunt Janet, Elise, my Mom and I. Janet and Mom came down to visit for a couple of days this past week. Elise loved all the attention between them and Jeff's parents. She has been spoiled rotten!

Last but not least, my "sweets" and I.

Spending time with friends!

Today we went to the beach with our Navy friends Liz and Audrey. Audrey is 3 months older than Elise and they are new buds. Elise enjoyed rubbing sunscreen on Audreys back. Audrey didn't seem to mind. They were so cute playing together!

I saw dolphins about 200 ft out from the shore today. I think there was about three of them, it was pretty cool!

The girls wanted to be like each other so they were good and wore their hats to prevent premature sun damage!



Seashells! The girls had a wonderful time searching through the shells. It could have kept them busy for hours. The girls did a good job sharing.

Elise is an angel! She loved watching the seagulls, she would point at them and say, "bird". She learns new words everyday.

Earlier this morning I put Elise in her new swing that we hung from the pergola. She loved it!

It think she was in it for 1/2 hour.

Here we are last week at the base marina. VT-4 participated in the Captains Cup sailing competition, so we decided to show some support and go out and watch. I don't think they did very well...plus Jeff, Elise and I were the only fans there.

We saw lots of hermit crabs at the marina. Elise surprisingly didn't seem too interested in the water that day.

Pet Lizard, Faces and Playing in the Bug

Elise has a new pet lizard that lives outside her window in the flower box. We haven't named him/her yet, hopefully we will sometime soon. Elise loves to watch and try to get him. It's fun to watch the harmless critter!

Elise is watching the lizard whom is attached to the outside screen.

Oh Elise! You are silly! Elise loves to pull her hair above her lip then stick her pacifier in. I'll try to film it and post the footage. It is really funny to watch her.

Jeff had his bug out last week and Elise decided she wanted to play in it and pretend to drive. She didn't get very far after taking a tumble in it. All was okay, no major injuries.

We went to the doctor yesterday because Elise has had cold symptoms for 4 weeks and got some antibiotics. Elise also has a mild case of eczema in which she also received some cream for her. Elise was 22 lbs and 8 oz. she was 31.5" long at 17 1/2 mths.