Elle and her chairs...

Elle loves sitting down on a chair. I guess it has a lot to do with her training at day care where they have their own toddler table/chairs.

Here she is sitting down on the table with her friends

At home, she loves sitting on my step stools and even her potty! We eventually had to get her her own toddler table and chairs. We have a stacking side table which we barely use so I figured, we might as well use one as Elle's "dining" table. We had to buy espresso toddler chairs at Ikea to match the side table and it looked perfect! I would have to take a photo one of these days while she eats her meal there.

Here is a video I took of her after I saw her drag a box (that came with her books) in the middle of the room, sat on it and then played with her bongo.

Since Elle loves chairs, I've been meaning to get her her own toddler chair for Christmas. I was eyeing the Anywhere Chair from Pottery Barn Kids. However, it was backordered then so I had to wait until it was finally available. Finally, last week, we have received the chair that I ordered! As  expected, Elle loved it! When she woke up the morning after we assembled the chair, we took her to her play area where the chair was. She walked up to it but before she sat, she turned around to look at us and gave us a huge smile. It's as if she knows it's her chair and she's so happy we got it for her. As soon as she sat on her chair, she got one of her books and "read" it while sitting on her chair. It was so cute. Too bad we did not catch her reaction on video.  Glad I was able to take some photos though. She loves the chair so much she doesn't even want us to sit on it lol. I tried sitting on it and she wanted me to go away lol.

My cutie pie

More photos...

Here are a few more photos taken from the birthday party that we went to yesterday.

Birthday boy Hayden and his Angry Birds-themed party!

Daddy Jarbs and Elle

Not sure what I am pointing at :)

Elle about to go down the slide. Took her forever to slide down
as she was checking out the other kids playing around us.



Video: Elle going down the slide

Today we got invited to Hayden's birthday party at Family Place to Play Fun Center in Maryland. It is like Little Gym but they have more stuff for bigger kids. They have huge slides and moon bounce. Thankfully, they have a toddler room where Elle got to play. She loved going up and down the toddler slide. She would walk up the steps by and slide down by herself. She would spread her arms out as she's sliding down and have a huge smile on her face. It was so cute! Now, Daddy Jarbs wants to get a mini indoor slide for his little princess :-).

Pretty in Pink!

Took these photos before Elle left for school today. The weather wasn't too cold today so I did not have to have her wear a whole bunch of layers. I had to take photos of her wearing this cute dress. I know it seems too fancy to wear for school but the dress is slowly getting too small for her and she has only worn it once! Might as well have her wear to school :).

And then she saw her hat and wanted to wear it inside the house!



Silly girl...

I took these photos last weekend while Elle was getting over her diarrhea. She was sick but as always, she's in good spirits. Here she is playing with Daddy Jarbs and just acting silly.

More..more..more

This past week, Elle has learned how to say "more" when she wants more food. She was eating banana the other day (which she loves) and then when she was done, she lifted the plate, handed it to me and said "maw..maw" lol. It was funny! Now, she does it all the time! On another instance, I gave her some food to eat (I think she was eating banana again) while she was sitting in her own dining table. I walked to the living room to get something and then I heard her chant "mow, mow, mow" lol.

Baby Talk!

One of Elle's favorite books these days is her Baby Talk board book. It's a lift-the-flap book with different baby phrases and matching noises. We've been reading this book to her for quite some time but a couple of days ago, she started to do the sounds (and matching facial expressions) as we lift the flaps. It's so cute!

This little baby is hiding...peekaboo! (Elle covers her eyes and says tik-a-tik-a (peekaboo)!
This little baby is hungry...yum-yum! (Elle sticks her tongue out in her effort to say yum yum)
This little baby is happy...hee hee! (Elle says ha...see (happy))
This little baby is sad...boohoo! (Elle rubs her eyes and says hoo hooo)
This little baby wants her mommy...mama! (Elle says mama)
This little baby is sleepy...night night! (Elle says nigh nigh!)

Elle's expanding vocabulary

Elle's very first word was "dada" followed by "mum" back when she was around 11 months old. When she turned 12 months old, she started saying "up" (ahh), "down" (daaaa) while raising her hands up and down. Now at 14 months, her vocabulary is ever expanding :). It's amazing to see her learn new things everyday. Her brain is like a sponge right now and she learns things very quickly. Just this past weekend, she has started recognizing the photos and say the words for "apple" (ahhh-pel), "ball", "socks" (ssssshucks), "shoes" (soooos), "dog", "cat" and "outside" (aaaw saaah). 

This was taken Saturday, the first time we taught her "apple" and "ball" and "outside".

This was taken the next day, Sunday and now she can recognize the photos herself.

Taken Monday. New word for the day: bubbles!

Trip to Ikea!

I mentioned previously that Elle loves closing doors. I can now ask her to close the door (to our room, her room, bathroom door, cabinet doors, refrigerator door, closet door) for me and she'll happily do so. We were at Ikea yesterday to look at some entertainment centers. While Daddy Jarbs was looking at the different entertainment center options, I had to keep Elle entertained. Guess what brilliant idea I had? ;-).

Ha! I took her to the kitchen section, opened all the sample cabinet doors and asked her to close them one by one. She happily obliged :). I had to open the cabinet doors several times and each time, she'd go back and forth and close each one of them :P.

Video: Elle's 1st birthday party

This is a couple of months late but here is a short video from Elle's 1st birthday party. Thanks to Carlo & Ana for putting this together :).

Baby yoga!

Elle is at the stage where she copies a lot of the things that we do. Here she is doing downward dog which she saw me doing!

More babyproofing!

Since Elle is growing and need more space for all her toys, we rearranged our living room so we can have a designated play area for her. We ordered some wood grain foam mats to lay on top of our bamboo floor. We are not big fans of the multi-colored floor mats that you normally find in kids play rooms so we chose this wood grain ones. The color of the "wood" doesn't exactly match our bamboo floor but it's good enough. I had also read that some of the floor mats that are being sold are toxic so I did a lot of research and made sure the ones we bought are lead and formamide-free. 

Here is what Elle's play area looks like now. I can tell that she loves it! She knows it's hers :).

Daddy Jarbs also installed the baby gate on top of the stairs. We got it in black so it matches the black iron bars on our staircase. I must say it looks great. Daddy Jarbs did a great job!

Elle's 1st trip to the piano bar!

We got invited to my friend Haydee's 30th birthday celebration at Bobby McKey's Dueling Piano Bar. It happened to be their Kids' Day so there were a lot of kids in the piano bar. The pianists played kids and pop songs while the adults enjoyed some adult drinks ;-). It was a lot of fun. Elle had a lot of fun too. She since LOVES music, this was her cup of tea. She would walk up the stage by herself (of course we had to trail along)and dance! lol. Here's a short video of her up on the stage while the piano man was singing Justin Bieber's song ;-). 

Mommy & Baby Sock Monkey :)

Daddy Jarbs has one too. I'll have to take our sock monkey family picture :).

14 months!

I know I haven't done the monthly check-ins for the past few months! I swear, Elle is growing up way faster than I can update my blog! She has developed so much in the past few months. It amazes us to see her learns things quickly. She is growing so fast before our very eyes!

* She loves singing! Most of the time she sounds like she's just babbling since she can't really talk yet but she's actually singing :). I'd have to catch it on video one of these days. Her favorite songs are "Wheels on the Bus" (during the part where the bubbles on the bus go pop, pop, pop, she would say "pa, pa, pa"), "Old Mac Donald" (she loves the "e-i-e-i-o" part!), "I Have Two Hands" (she would hold her hands out as soon as she hears it), ABC, Happy Birthday (claps her hands at the end of the song), Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. 

* LOVES to dance! Music makes her really happy. Once she hears a song playing, she'll start busting her dance moves. If I count "1-2-3, 1-2-3", she'll do her tap dance! haha.

* Wears 12 - 18 month clothes tops and 18 month pants.

* Her appetite has grown over the past month! She knows where we keep the food and would ask for some snack when she's hungry (she'd walk over to the kitchen and point to the pantry!). When she's done eating, she'll either shake her head no or slowly start throwing food on the floor. When I ask and do the sign language for "all done", she sticks her hands out to say she's all done and pulls her bib out. Also, once she sees her straw cup and hear the word "milk" she'll fuss and say
"wa - wa" coz she wants her milk right away! Now, we have to hide the straw cup from her or spell "m-i-l-k" so she won't understand :P.

* Loves playing with her ball shape sorter. When she gets a shape into the hole, she claps at herself lol. Her other favorite toys these days are her Little People car, teddy bears (big and small!), Zany Zoo given by Grandma Jarbs, her grand piano (she always has a big smile whenever she "plays" as if she's so proud of herself lol), toy stroller & wooden pram given by Aunt Kim (she pushes it around without the baby! Yeah, she throws the baby out! lol. She can't be a babysitter!!).

* Vocabulary: Up (aaa), down (daaa), shoes (soos), high chair (ha-shey), baby (she says this clearly!), hi (with matching wave of the hand), bye, wa-wa (she interchanges this with water or milk), teddy (deddy), da-da (daddy), mum (mommy), ta-ta (Tita/aunt).

* Shakes her head no when she does not like something.

* Likes to brush her teeth but doesn't like to be helped. She gets amused biting on mommy's finger when I am helping her brush!

* Sleeps with her little pillow and big teddy bear

* Drinks milk 4x a day and eats breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner.

* Eventhough she can't really talk yet, she can understand a LOT of things. She responds when I ask her to play her piano, get her ball, get her baby, burp her baby (she'll pat the baby's back), show me her kili-kili (armpits), sit down (when I am in the kitchen cooking, I normally give her something to munch on and say "upo" or sit down please. Sometimes without even me saying, she will immediately sit on her "spot" which is the round rug we have in the kitchen", wash hands, take shoes off. 

* She picks up every little thing on the floor and hands it to Mommy or Daddy Jarbs (she does this even we're in Costco!! Ugh). Good thing she doesn't put them in her mouth though. She gives it to us to throw away :).

* Likes to play with the remote control. She presses all the buttons and we can't even figure out how to get it back to it's original setting lol.

*She likes to climb up the stairs. I only let her when I am behind her. I know she'll eventually explore and get curious about it so I'd rather teach her how to properly go up than have her explore on her own and fall down.

* Loves closing doors and cabinets. She's always happy to help close bedroom/closet doors for me.

* She loved all the lights during Christmas. She'll point at the lantern or Christmas tree when you ask her where the lights are.

* She walks and runs around the place now. Sometimes, she does not even want to be carried and would rather walk on her own. 

* She grabs and holds Mommy's hand while she's sitting on her carseat. So sweet :).

* She gives Mommy and Daddy Jarbs a ton of goodnight kisses. She puckers her lips and goes back and forth between me and Daddy Jarbs to give us a kiss. She also puckers her lips whenever she wants a kiss. She did this the other day while she was sitting on the shopping cart at Costco!

* Has 11 teeth! I am not sure if a new one is coming out soon since she won't let me look inside her mouth. 

* Loves watching with the dancing ballerina in her musical jewelry box that is sitting on the side table beside the rocker. As soon as we sit on the rocker, she'll point to the jewelry box so I can open it and she can watch the ballerina. She will also wave and say hi to it lol.

* She likes her own personal space clean and uncluttered. She'll throw out stuff that's sitting on her high chair (be it food or cup), or her toys out of her bath tub. She just wants them neat :-P.

* She loves brushing her hair so I bought her her own baby brush. She also likes brushing Mommy Jarbs' hair and Daddy Jarbs' beard lol.

* She is slowly getting over her stranger anxiety. When there are new faces, she needs a few minutes to warm up but give her a few minutes, she's ready to mingle.

* She goes to bed at 8 pm (on weekends we let her stay up until 830 pm) and wake up at 7 am (she also sleeps in on weekends; this morning she woke up at 930a). She is only down to one 2-hr nap at daycare and naps on a nap mat. 

Elle's new dance move

Elle surprised us today with her new dance move! I have no idea where she learned it from. Watch the video and see how she drop it like it's hot! lol. 

Back to school!

Today is Elle's 1st day back to school after the holiday break. I was worried that the daycare drop off would not go well but surprisingly, it did! Daddy Jarbs said, she did not cry or anything and even went to her teacher with open arms! lol. For the month of December, she's been in "training" at the toddler room but starting today, she's officially a member of the big kids class!  When I picked her up later in the day, her teachers said she was good all day and didn't cry or anything! Our baby is now a big girl :(.

 Of course, Mommy Jarbs had to spy on her on the webcam :).

Happy New Year!

We had a pretty uneventful New Year's Eve. No NYE party for us but I welcomed 2012 with the two most important people in my life and there's nothing more I could ask for!

We just stayed home and had a simple dinner. We had pancit canton (Filipino noodles which I cooked for the first time), shrimp appetizer (on sale at Safeway) and chocolate molten lava cake (which I also made for the first time)!

We did not have ramekin containers so I used a muffin pan instead. 

It was yummy and not bad for a first try.

Elle got dolled up in her little black dress given by her Auntie Wandee when we were in Hawaii. She napped pretty well that day so we were able to keep her up later than usual. She loved playing with the beads and had fun dancing to the Top 40s music playing on tv.

She did not like to wear the NY hat!

Here she is dancing with Daddy Jarbs

Elle and Mum

She loves Teddy and her piano!

We tried taking our family photo with the camera timer. During the 1st shot, Daddy Jarbs and I  were pointing towards the camera and telling Elle to look at the camera. On the 2nd shot, Elle was the one pointing at the camera. Finally, we perfected it on the 3rd shot :).

I swear 2011 just flew by! It has been a great year for us. We had our ups and downs especially during the first part of the year when Daddy Jarbs and I were still adjusting to our new life as parents. As the days/months passed by, things got better, more rewarding and more fun! It has been amazing to see Elle grow before our eyes and see the world through her eyes. She's been such a blessing in our lives. She fills our days with a lot of love, laughter and happiness :). I am looking forward to what 2012 has to offer!