Eléa

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Busy Toddler Fun....

The past few months Eléa has become so fun, so busy, so active, and so opinionated! She is enjoying make believe, games of chase and hide and seek, and generally running around like a mad woman. Her sense of humor is really developing, and she knows when she is being funny, and naughty, of course. She is singing a lot more now, and her repertoire at the moment consists of happy birthday (see video), twinkle twinkle, and a clean up song. She is displaying her above average imagination, as her teachers say she likes to make up her own words to the songs while singing.

She also loves to count, though can truly only go up to five (see video)... She thinks she can make it to ten, but not quite. Eléa has also finally begun making more animal sounds. She now has horse, monkey, gorilla, snake, chicken, and cow (see video).

We've really settled into our new house, and are working on planting our first vegetable garden, with Eléa's help of course. Our good friends came over to help us move some soil, and some toddlers around the backyard! Hopefully we'll have some vegetables to show for ourselves pretty soon!

Videos:

Eléa sings happy birthday to Abuela (aka: abi) - http://youtu.be/W9fuZ7D-1DU

Eléa the cow - http://youtu.be/TS0og-nX0wg

Breakfast of champions - http://youtu.be/uiOli-ahDxE

Counting to five - http://youtu.be/wOoMVUqXqyk

Eléa and Saskia loving their "ride"

Precious cargo

Around and around the backyard!

Papi and me

First time dressed up for new years.

Make believe house play with Abuela

Where to?

First bicycle

Fun with bubbles

Following in the Thompson footsteps, driving GWH

I like you too!!!

I'm helping, right?

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Bye Bye 2012, Welcome 2013!

My sincerest apologies for the ridiculously long silence since the last post. As you can imagine, we have been busy settling into life back in the USA. To recap the last three months.... Eléa did great on the flights back to Texas and seemed to make the adjustment quite smoothly. We were lucky enough to be able to stay with Luke's parents for two months in Austin while I looked for work and we found a place to live. Eléa started at an incredible daycare center where she gets to play and get messy everyday. She is really loving it there and seems to be thriving. I started work at an interfaith public policy organization, and am so happy to be working on criminal justice issues again. We bought a station wagon (super fancy) and found a lovely rental house with a gigantic backyard and a beautiful study space for Luke. We are now pretty settled into daily life and are, of course, open and eagerly hoping for visitors.

Eléa is becoming so fun and funny! She is talking up a storm and went from 1 word when we got to the USA to easily over 50 now (I've lost count). She is even putting four words together, a real change. She loves to play all kinds of games and definitely has a large,and fantastic, sense of humor. We love that she is still super affectionate, loving to cuddle and kiss. She remains fearless and will jump off of and climb anything she can find (though she has yet to attempt the crib). She has even starting "peeing in the big girl potty", though we are holding off on full scale potty training for the moment. We are super lucky to be among family and Eléa is enjoying her time with Tia, her abuelos and her grandparents, as we are also enjoying the free and generous babysitting and assistance.

Enjoy the many, many, many pictures over the past few months! Sorry they are not in chronological order....

Making friends at Sea World

Let me at it....

So excited!

Peek-a-boo!

Made it!

I love playing with water...

Yeah!!!

Christmas lunch with family and friends (welcome Sujung, Catherine, Saski, Ryan, and baby G)!

Christmas morning before the opening of the presents!

Opening fun

First trip to the Zilker Christmas tree!

Train ride with mami!

First Halloween trick or treat....Eléa's a dinosaur!

Enjoying stories with grandma

"Decorating" tia!

Our little ladybug...

Brrr.....it got cold!

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Sayonara.....almost....Japan

We will have some final pictures to post from Japan yet, but this will be our official last blog FROM Japan as we leave in one week. Eléa remains an extremely active two year old! She has chosen to still shield us from the sure to be "future" terrible tantrums, and instead taken to running to pout in a corner when she is not happy with something. Pretty cute still!

We have slowly been getting rid of furniture and other miscellaneous things we have amassed, and Eléa seems unphased for the most part (though she seemed pretty sad to see the dining room table go). We move to a friends house for the last few days and then comes the flood of changes. Luckily, she has proven pretty adaptable so we have somewhat high hopes.

I have a large herniated disc at the moment creating more "family" time than we had planned and resulting in lots more sightseeing. Enjoy the photos!

Temple hopping with Anpanman!

Chilling at Heian Jingu

More fun with Anpanman

With a little bit of help from Papi!

The face does not adequately express her love of Anpanman!

At the Botanical Gardens...

With friends in Nara...

Another of Eléa's "important" friends

Sightseeing with Papi

Eléa's stellar attempt at posing for a photo

Pretty!

Anpanman taking a rest at the Botanical Gardens

Acting as tour guide

Playing in the stream

Do I have something on my face?

Saying goodbye to friends.

Yummy

Friday, August 3, 2012

Eléa turns two!

It is amazing how much Eléa has changed even in the past few months....

She sings along, in her own way (see video), to songs.
She dances and does the hand gestures to her favorite Japanese and English songs (see videos).
She likes to play make believe, hide and seek, and chase.
She can hang on bars and swing (holding her own 30+ pounds).
Her new favorite books are Rapunzel (she pretends to call up to Rapunzel, climb the tower and wander blind through the woods), Hansel and Gretel (she is good at dropping pebbles and bread crumbs), and Rumplestilsken (where she likes to remind us how angry Rumplestilskin is that they found out his name).
She still loves swimming and all activities water related.

It has also been very hot here in Kyoto, but Eléa is showing her Texas and more tropical roots and does not seem to mind in the least. We had a great birthday party at the park for Eléa and all her buddies. Abuelitos made sure there was a piñata to destroy and, as her usual, Eléa refused to eat her cake and opted for her favorite tofu dish. We are not sure how aware she was that it was her birthday, but she did LOVE the singing and could put two fingers up to her cheeks when asked how old she was......

We know it is a bit late, but a few days after turning two Eléa also said her first intelligible word, "bye bye". I am trying to not read to much into the significance that she is asserting her independence before even saying Mami or Papi........ but, though loving to hear her talking, it made me nervous for the future teenage years.

Eléa has also begun to get a bit shy(ish)....though I really just think she is being funny. But when you ask her to say hello to someone, she now may giggle and run to our legs, peaking out with an incredible smile. She definitely knows when and how to be cute. We took a trip with some friends to Lake Biwa, which was really nice though simultaneously made us super nervous for the long plane trips to come. Eléa likes to stand, jump and move around a lot........ though I have managed to get her hooked on two episodes of Dora la Exploradora for the airplane ride home.....

Awesome videos:
Dancing along to a Japanese children's song - http://youtu.be/1wTeMKm0sxc
More dancing - http://youtu.be/DHlo0_3tuGU
Eléa's take on singing - http://youtu.be/KfhHKYYTY60
She just learned how to blow out candles - http://youtu.be/O83MOktRmJQ
First word - http://youtu.be/T7-fK7rm0xg