Week 23

Look at me go! Week 23's post is done (close to) on time! :) Thanks a lot to the weather for that! If I wasn't home for a snow day, this post might never go up... but here it is!

Week 23 was full of adventures for Miss 'Lena. We spent the weekend in Illinois visiting my grandparents, and Jess and Mike, who flew in from CO. It was an amazing trip, that side of the family is rarely all together, and we had EVERYONE there this weekend- there were 41 people for dinner on Saturday night! Elena got held by lots of people, of course. Most of them hadn't seen her since Thanksgiving, so they were pretty amazed by how much she had changed. It's always interesting to have people see her like that because I don't notice the changes because they are so gradual. It makes me step back and look at her, and I'm always amazed by what I see. She changes so fast!

On our way to Illinois, Josh, Ruth, Elena, and I stopped in St. Louis to see Josh's cousin, Stevie, in an opera. It was Elena's first opera (and Ruth's, too, for that matter). She was amazingly well behaved, she only made a couple of noises, and those were during the intermission anyway! Everyone around her talked about what a good baby she was.

This week we also finished trying the yellow/orange vegetables. The results are in: squash is not good, carrots are ok, and sweet potatoes are YUMMY!! She tried the squash first, and she ate it, but she never really liked it. It took 3 or 4 days to finish off one jar. Then we gave her sweet potatoes at Grandma & Grandpa's house and she ate over half the jar at one time. So, obviously, she's a fan of those! She liked carrots ok, but not as much as sweet potatoes! She is really getting good at this whole eating thing. She knows when the bumbo comes out and she gets a bib that it's time to eat and she gets so excited.

We got to end Week 23 with a snow day at home! Well, sort of at home. I had a big presentation in front of the Board of Ed that didn't get canceled even though it was a snow day, so I had to go. But I didn't want to drive across town to take her to daycare, so Elena got to go with me! One of the directors who works in the same building as me was there, too, so she took care of Elena during the presentation. Elena was great, she met everyone in the building, and even the board members loved on her!

In writing this post, I've been noticing how many times I've said that Elena was great, well behaved, etc. We had a hard week for a baby. We went to an opera, we spent the weekend out of town and she got held by 40-some people, we had the Winter Bible Conference this week, too, so every evening she spent in the nursery at church for a couple of hours, and she went to a board meeting and got taken around by a total stranger for a couple of hours. And, through it all, she was awesome. We are truly blessed to have a baby who is so flexible and low-key. I'm sure there are challenges to come, and parenting isn't exactly easy now, but Elena makes everything totally worth it! I've never been happier...

Some pictures from our crazy week!

Hanging out with Aunt Ruthie and Daddy at the opera

Trying on Uncle Charlie's hat

Hanging out with cousin Gabe, who was fascinated by Elena.

Yummy, yummy sweet potatoes!

Toes are fascinating... especially on long car rides home!
This thumb has become very delicious in the last few weeks.

What a fun week! :) Hope you enjoyed! I'm sure there will be more pictures when Aunt Jess sends me the cd of her pictures from Illinois... there were lightening storms aplenty there!