From the Way Back Machine

So these videos come to us courtesy of Aunt Mary, who unearthed them from her camera recently. They were taken on August 5, 2007, so Eliza was just shy of 10 months old. This first one shows her still in her bouncing as dancing phase.

And this one cracks me up for the "no autographs, please" kind of look (with a tiny head shake) she gives Mary when asked if she could say hi.

Don't you just want to squeeze her???

Cowgirl Eliza!

This past Wednesday was Cowboy/Cowgirl day at school. We were luckily able to borrow some costume pieces from "A Christmas Story" (Ralphie's cowboy vest and hat from one of the fantasy sequences) and thus created Cowgirl Eliza who is pink, purple, and sparkly as all cowgirls should be. And really just too cute not to share. Yee haw!!!!

Recitals and Pageants

Makes us sound like an episode of Toddlers & Tiaras, doesn't it? (I've never actually seen that show, mind you, but I think even the occasional preview sums it all up pretty well) We're not that extreme, but Eliza has had some fun in the last year performing here and there.

Last spring was her dance recital where she was a cupcake (Eliza is the third from the left, next to to the teacher).

This fall, her class ended their first unit of inquiry, Recycling, with a performance for the parents. It won't make much sense in the video...but it didn't make much sense even if you were actually there. So this video will make you feel like you were ACTUALLY THERE. Doesn't get much better than that, does it? (This was also my first run at using my iPhone for video)

This fall, we also bought a digital piano (which is not the same as a keyboard and is way cool) and Eliza started taking piano lessons. She goes once a week with another girl named Elizabeth and in December they had a little recital with the other students in Miss Rachel's school. She loved it. Lessons start up again today and apparently there will be a third little girl in her class. But probably not named Elizabeth too.

Our year ended with a Christmas pageant at a nearby church. We didn't mean to end up in the pageant - we were just looking for somewhere to go on Christmas Eve that wasn't the place we went last year. So we attended service the Sunday before Christmas just to check it out. It's a small church so as new people we were very conspicuous. The woman in charge of the pageant heard we had a five year old and asked if she'd like to be in it. I said she would love to and when asked if she would like to be an angel or a sheep, I didn't even blink. Angel. Definitely angel. So not only was she an angel, one of 12, she was the Littlest Angel, which meant her halo was different than everybody else's and she got to carry a star. Totally adorable, if I do say so myself.

Of course, all that angelic-ness can wear a girl out....

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and Happy New Year!

It's More Than Just Cornfields!

One of the pleasant surprises about moving to Indiana is that it is not, in fact, all just flat cornfields. Don't get me wrong - there are plenty of those, too, but we've gone on some fun walks and found beautiful woodsy and hilly spots! So we thought we'd share a few...

How cool is this tree??

Halfway up a "mountain," taking a rest before continuing up.

Near our house - look at the size of that tree!

Seriously - look at that thing.

Fall Recap

Good news - I'm actually posting something! Want even better news? I got an iPhone 4S! Why is this good news for Eliza fans? Because the camera on this thing is amazing, so we are taking a a lot more pictures now, which hopefully means I'll post more of them here.

But anyway, here is what we've been up to this fall. Eliza started kindergarten...can you believe it??? She's doing great, becoming very fluent in French, loves her teacher, has lots of friends. Good times all around at the International School!
She also had a birthday party at her new favorite place on earth, Interactive Academy, which is where she takes gymnastics. Aunt Mary took a bunch of great pictures from the party, so if you want to see more, click here.
She's also been playing with our dog. Did I mention we got a dog? This is Scout, who is infinitely patient. (Scout is a girl, named in honor of To Kill A Mockingbird, just like Eliza)
Close to Halloween, we went to a haunted trail where Eliza was very brave and got to eat s'mores. (Come to think of it, almost everywhere we went this fall seemed to have s'mores. Must be an Indiana thing)
Mommy is doing another play, "A Christmas Story," with the local theater here in Zionsville and Eliza came down one Saturday morning to help work on the set. She painted, held doors steady, fetched tools, and learned the difference between nails and screws. She did great!
And then there was Halloween. Eliza went as Ariel, from "The Little Mermaid." She would like you all to know that this is not her real hair. It's fake hair. Just in case you weren't sure.
Our most recent adventure was a visit from Uncle Friz. He came for work and since Aunt Leslie just started a new job, she and Cousin Jack couldn't come along. So we took lots of pictures for them.

The big day out was a trip to the Children's Museum, one of our favorite places in Indiana. Even the dinosaurs can't wait to get in!

This was Uncle Friz's favorite part. He could have done this all day. As could the random kid who figured out pretty quickly that this guy is really, REALLY FUN!

Important contest at lunch...who has a bigger tongue?
We wore Eliza out pretty good.

Look out, the dinosaurs are escaping!

(Points off from the Children's Museum for decorating the dinosaurs before Thanksgiving. Boo!)



Back at home, Eliza talked Daddy and Uncle Friz into playing her new favorite game, Hedbanz. Don't ask.

So that's what we have for now. Hopefully there will be more soon (I know, I say this all the time!).

Happy Birthday, Cousin Jack!

A couple of different birthday wishes for Eliza's favorite cousin who is 6!!! Where has the time gone?

So...I posted these and for some reason the tail ends of the videos are getting cut off (and the sound is a bit out of sync - mysterious). Our apologies, especially to Jack who should know that Eliza can't wait to see him in July!


Et en francais!

Vive la Revolution!

All she needs is one of those red liberty caps!

Allons enfants de la Patrie,	Arise, children of the Fatherland,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé !	The day of glory has arrived!
Contre nous de la tyrannie,	Against us, tyranny's
L'étendard sanglant est levé, (bis)	Bloody banner is raised, (repeat)
Entendez-vous dans les campagnes	Do you hear, in the countryside,
Mugir ces féroces soldats ?	The howling of those ferocious soldiers?
Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras	They're coming right into your arms
Égorger vos fils et vos compagnes !	To slit the throats of your sons and consorts!
Aux armes, citoyens,	To arms, citizens,
Formez vos bataillons,	Form your battalions,
Marchons, marchons !	Let's march, let's march!
Qu'un sang impur	Let impure blood
Abreuve nos sillons !

New Bike!

So, for starters, I'm not sure if the video functionality on Blogger is working all that well these days. There are videos in this post, as well as the one below (from October!) - if you can't see them, try clicking on the title of the post itself and then see if the video will play. I don't know what's up.

Anyway...big day for Eliza on Sunday. She got her first big girl bike!!! Obviously the training wheels are still on - since we're still trying to master pedaling, actually balancing on the bike seems like a bit much to ask right now. But she couldn't be more thrilled and now we just need the weather to warm up so we can go out every day.

Here are a couple of stills.


A quick interview with the lucky girl...


And she's off! Or maybe not.


And she's off! For real this time.

Indoctrination

As usual, I am behind on my blog posts and I promise I'll put up some pictures soon from the fabulous 4th birthday extravaganza. In the meantime, we are all adjusting well to life in Indiana...as this video should attest. Sorry, Bears fans!

Indiana Wants Us

So, we have made it to Indiana (for those of you who don't get the title reference, here it is, in a super cheesy video)! We came down on Thursday late afternoon, after a challenging week of packing, loading, etc... (and we wouldn't have made it through without Aunt Mary, whose praises we can't sing enough!). We're still in corporate housing for the moment - scheduled to close in a couple of weeks and then move. But even though we're just in temporary housing, we've packed in a quite a lot of activities already and here they are for your amusement.

First off, this is actually back in Chicago, in the July 4th parade at her school and it just cracks me up. Hopefully you all feel the same!

Also in Chicago (Evanston, actually), but I thought it was a lovely picture.
And now here we are. On Friday, her new school (the International School of Indiana, where she is in the pre-K French immersion program) held a "picnic" for the new families. By picnic, they meant bring your own food and sit in the gym to eat it, but it was still fun!
The better part came after we ate, when everyone went outside for a photo op for the school fundraiser: grape stomping!
Apparently, the grapes were really, REALLY cold.
On Sunday, we headed to downtown Indy, which is lovely, to take in an Indianapolis Indians game (appropriately they were playing Syracuse - I didn't know who to root for!). Lots to look at.
Especially the mascot, Rowdie. As you can see, she is very shy.
New BFF's.
Then Daddy took her to the gift shop where she picked out this hat. Click on the picture to enlarge so you can really experience it in its full glory. It's special. And Dippin' Dots, of course. This after a tub of popcorn and lemonade.
Which brings us to today, the first day of school! She was a little nervous, but when we got there and she saw all the kids in uniforms like hers, she got really excited and started dancing around like crazy.
Another mascot sighting, this time the Griffin of the ISI. It's like she goes to Hogwarts! With her are future classmates Miko and Montgomery. Eliza and Miko had the same Disney princess backpack, which thrilled both of them to no end.
Standing still briefly for a pic w/Daddy-O.
And one with Mom.
On the way into the building, all the kids got to ring the bell as part of the first day ceremony.
And here is her spot at one of the tables in Monsieur Robby's class.
I will try to take more pictures as we settle in and get them posted. For now, it's off to do some laundry! Hope everyone is staying cool and having a great summer.

Ballet Recital

Yeah, yeah, this was almost two months ago. Doesn't change how cute it all is, even after all this time.


And some video from the rehearsal (the performance was exactly the same).

Mexico addendum

I realized I forgot to mention a couple of things in yesterday's post...

First, definitely check the Facebook photos. In addition to more dolphin pics, you can see more shots of Ixtapa, our fabulous cooking class, AND me on a TRAPEZE! That's right. Trapeze.

Also, there was an earthquake while we were there. It was 12:15 AM on Wednesday morning (Wednesday was quite a day - earthquake, dolphins, and trapeze all in one day!). Eliza did not wake up, but Mac and I did since our whole room was shaking and there was definitely some noise along with the shaking. We found out the next day it was a 5.1, located about 50 miles away. No damage, but still legit and really, really scary!

Eating BBQ'd Iguana

Okay, so we didn't really eat bbq'd iguana, but we certainly saw lots of live iguanas, which pretty much guaranteed that the song, "Mexican Radio," was in my head most of the trip.

Anyway, we're back now and had a fabulous time. After a little bit of a rough start (being afraid of the water and not liking her "club"), things got great pretty quickly. Eliza conquered her fear of the ocean, as you will see, and Club Med graciously allowed her to move up from the 2-3 year old group into the 4-5, where she was much happier.

These pictures aren't exactly in chronological order, but still show a good time!

To begin with, this was the end of the week when they do a circus show. Eliza's age group, the Geckos, were the lions and tigers. Here she is at rehearsal.

With some other geckos at rehearsal.
After the rehearsals, Eliza announced she didn't want to be in the show, just to watch, and kept up this assertion right until 8:45 PM when the show actually started, at which point she began sobbing, "I want to be in the show!" They would have let her, but we opted to remind her that choices have consequences and that she could do the show next year. So she is counting the days.

Early in the week with the younger kids, Eliza was part of the Earth Day parade.
Hanging out at lunch with the Geckos. Eliza definitely enjoyed eating ice cream twice a day or so!
Highlight of the trip on Wednesday. We went swimming with dolphins! Eliza and Mac did a 20 minute kids program while I did the full 45 minute extravaganza. Pictures are here on Facebook.
Ummmm....so she liked the IDEA of the dolphin better than the actual being in the water with the dolphin...
Snack time!
Another important event of the week was getting our vacation hair. Eliza was much braver than I thought she'd be and we both enjoyed our low maintenance do's the whole week.

A lovely girl in green in all the lovely green. The lagoon behind her is actually home to a crocodile who only showed himself when we did not have the camera. Of course.
Enjoying the sunset.

Snack time for Geckos.
The Geckos also had a great Eliza size pool. Unfortunately, she would only swim in it with Daddy, not with her actual friends.

Then there was the ocean!
Undertow run!
She was also a huge fan of digging in the sand and generally making a mess. What else is vacation for?
And to take us out, here is some actual running on the beach for your enjoyment.