Reading

Elle had a very short attention span whenever I was reading a book to her. She would rather explore the book by biting its edges, flipping and banging it. That made mama pretty fed up and gave up the reading part for quite a while.

It has been a dramatic change since we borrowed some books from the library last weekend. She's totally hooked! She would bring the books to me initiatively and want me to read to her over and over again. The sweetest of it is the part of her climbing up and sitting in my lap when the storytelling time begins. She blows me away when she starts giving kisses to the characters on the books. She would always give a muak to the baby snuggled between mama and dada on the last page of "Sam loves kisses" book and to the fish and duck in "Bear in shapes" book. She just melts me from the inside out.

Guess what's the first thing she did when she woke up this morning? Oh yeah, reading books!

Pool fun

Elle was having a ball at the pool. After warming up on the side on the pool for a while, she's all ready to get into the cold water. She was giggling as mama was pushing her around the pool. Gosh! This baby even thought pool water was yummy. After swimming, she was treated with a bbq feast. Oh! She loves satay!

Pool and BBQ. It sure feels like summertime now.

Sunday

Elle had the greatest sugar rush ever after savoring this delicious strawberry shortcake sundae. After the dessert, we took a walk in the parking lot watching people swinging their bats inside the batting cages at the Putt Putt fun store next door. Elle walked like an energizer bunny in circle as we're each holding one of her hands. She almost tangled us up by twisting our arms. It's a surprise to find a lovely gem of purple wildflowers just behind the parking lot.

As the sugar spike kicked in like a vengeance, she's acting up crazy flailing her arms, throwing punches in the air, kicking legs and screaming like a drunken sailor. It took at least half an hour for her to finally crash down and fall into sleep. We enjoyed a peaceful moment reading some magazines and having a cup of Joe at B&N while she's asleep in the stroller. Heavenly.

Happy flower, not so happy baby

The white blooms caught my eyes while I was driving to the library. I pulled over to this little neat park to get up close and personal with the blooms. Wow, they're daisy. I love their simplicity and brilliant yellow in the center.

Elle was happily plucking the flower petals for the first few minutes. After that, I kept getting this cranky and weepy faces. She just stood here refuse moving at all. Finally, mama gave in.

Early walker shoe

Elle always goes bare feet or wear socks when going out. We're pretty surprised to get comments of why baby no wear shoes a lot.

Now Elle is in the transition from crawler to early walker, so we're in the mission of looking for her 1st shoe. Oh boy! Aren't those branded baby shoes like Robeez or Bobux cost an arm and a leg?! There's no way for me to pay $30 to $50 bucks for a pair of baby shoes no matter how best it's for the baby.

I was overjoyed to find some good deals of rubber sole shoes in Target store. However, none of them fitted well and I was literally spilling sweats just to get her feet into those shoes. Well, so much for the stupid shoe design and her wriggly toes! Finally I found the Ministar's soft leather sole shoes which fit just right, stay put and most importantly she's happy to wear them. It's a good start for this early walker who walks like a drunken sailor.

Sidewalk Chalk

When I picked up Elle at the daycare today, the staff told me that she had a blast playing in the sandbox this afternoon. That explained the note of "Elle needs sunscreen!" on the daily activity sheet.

Not so sweet blood draw

Elle had lead screening this afternoon. She got a few lousy pokes on both arms before successfully drawing one full tube of blood out of it. Poor baby screamed her heart out and shivered in pain.

Prep dinner

Beachcomber

The babies were having their first beachcombing experience. It's a gorgeous hot and humid day to spend at the beach. The water was very cold when we first dipped our feet into it though. Elle and Michelle were so curious and afraid at the same time of the sand and water. It took little time for them to start enjoying themselves. Oh boy, Michelle was a riot. She kept bending over trying to grab the sand underneath the water and splashing the water with both hands and legs as if she's trying to swim already. It's funny to see her stripped down to diaper, diaper to naked butt, and finally to bare-naked. Elle was not as adventurous as Michelle. She's happy with sitting on the beach playing with her shover and bucket and not so crazy over dunking herself into the water. Thanks goodness that they're not into eating sand at all!

We can tell there's a friendship bond established between these two babies. They enjoy each other company, interacting and playing with each other. They both made sad faces at the time we bid farewell.

Memorial weekend BBQs

Elle passed out with a big round belly after two BBQs feast in a row today. She had a blast, met lots of people and a newbie - Rusty. Seeing her love-scare relationship with this little puppy is just priceless. Rusty kept jumping up on her and stole a lick or two from her.

Playhouse

Elle was having heaps of fun playing in the playhouse at the library this afternoon. She made a mess inside out, banging pots and pans, getting in and out like a busy bee. I can imagine the day of her having a pretend play tea set party is not far along.

Wibbly Wobbly Walk

Elle starts walking now! She gets lots of cheers, Ooh and Aah as she's walking wobbily towards us. The cuteness factor of wobbly baby steps is off the charts!

3rd Anniversary

The Golden Arches

Fries in one hand, apple pie in the other. Delish.

Round

Love playing with the shape sorter with a twist. She always and only picks the round shape out of the cube. That's the only shape she can always put in correctly without coaxing. She gets super excited for every success attempt. It's funny to see her getting all frustrated trying to put shapes other than round correctly into the cube. Most of the time, she just threw them away without much patience.

B & N

This mischevious one found so much fun in rocking her body back and forth in the highchair making noises. Love drinking water out of the plastic cup. At a close up of the pictures, you can see she's happy as a clam spilling the water out of the cup by shaking it.

My 12-mos-old

Holding the water inside her mouth with cheeks puffed out and then gradually let it out running down to her chin.

Showing signs of sleepiness by babbling like a drunken sailer with legs and hands throwing in the air or laying flat on the floor sucking her thumb.

Putting the cap back to the bottle when she doesn't want any more milk.

Getting all excited when seeing the medicine syringe. Love eating medicine, lip smacking for more!

Treating herself to snacks if she found any bag of chips laying around on floor, on the coffee table or shelf. She'll haul the whole bag to us asking for help when she can't get the chips out of the bag.

Love opening the bottommost drawer of her dresser, digging out stuffs from the drawer and making a messy spread all over her room. She has a thing to her swimming suit that she always pick it out from the drawer and then crawl with it. The most amazing stun I have seen is her crawling with two 1-gallon empty water jars, one in each hand.

Fascinated by the vent grille and goes crazy brushing her fingers all over it, making icky scratching noises.

Crazy over the computer tower placed on the floor. Pushing the power button on and off, flipping the door cover open and close, gazillions time a day.

Moving real fast on her hand and knees the moment she sees us at the other far side. Off she goes thump thump thump thump racing on her fours towards us and shrilling "Uhh~~ uuh~~ uuh~~".

Perfecting the classic Over-my-dead-body act: throwing herself on the floor, screaming and sobbing. If we ignore the drama she puts up for too long, she'll turn her back on and crawl away from us.

Screaming "Weeee~~~" when throwing stuffs in the air and bumping her lion push toy to the wall.

Dragging her lion push toy to the toilet.

Daycare snippets

During morning snack time, baby Anna was trying to steal a piece of corn muffin from Elle's tray, immediately Elle roared with bestial vigor at her. >o<

Picking up Elle in the evening, mama wanted to take a few snaps of Elle at the daycare. Baby Jordan burst into tear right after mama taking the 1st shot. Poor baby! She looked really sad about the camera thingy. Baby Jordan is going to be 1 year old tomorrow. Happy birthday, J!

Another

doze-off moment at the dinner table tonight. This time round, her eye lids were getting heavy and sliding shut while she was eating bread. It's hilarious that even with her eyes closed, she would pick up another bread on the tray and continued eating when she has finished the one on her hand. It's pretty impressive.

12-month checkup

Elle weighted 22.2 pounds, height measured 30.5 inches and head circumference is 46 cm. She's at 75 percentile for all three measurements.