18 Months Old on Christmas!!!

My mom came up a few days before Christmas.  The photos from this post are from my mom.  Our camera was accidentally left at her house on Christmas, so we'll be getting it this weekend when Trisha gets married.  It feels very weird to me to not have a camera for a few days.

 It is so nice when family comes to visit us.  We love visits!  Plus this past visit included some cute clothes for Eliana, a few books (which we've now read several times), and two toothbrushes.  I'd been telling Kyle for a few weeks that I thought it was time to get a toothbrush for our wee one.  My mom didn't know that, and it was such a blessing to get them.  We're still working on Eliana actually brushing her teeth.  Initially she wouldn't even let us put it in her mouth.  For now, I'm working on her brushing her teeth while I brush mine.  It works better if she sees me brushing my teeth.  We get a little better each day.  Today I actually got to scrub the bottom teeth for at least 3 seconds.  Baby steps, baby steps.

 My mom and Trisha had fun picking out Eliana's Christmas outfit.  Pretty cute eh?  While at a moms' group the spring break before Eliana was born, I made the bow.  I remember thinking afterwards, "Now why did I pick red?  I don't know when we'll even get to use this bow."

I'm so glad that Eliana loves bath time.  She knows the sign for bath and makes a "b" sound when we sign and say bath.  She loves to play in the water.  We have apartment sized sinks, and soon she will be getting to big to bathe in them.

Eliana is going through a picky eating phase.  Or at least I hope it is a phase!!!  Things she normally likes doesn't mean she'll like them this month.  She likes berries, but she wouldn't even touch them when we ate at Troy and Aimee's on Monday.  I don't want to cater to her eating habits too much, so that means some meals are quite noisy around here as she is trying to help me understand that the "good food" is in the refrigerator.  Eliana loves crackers, but I don't give them to her too often.  I'd rather her have some fruit.  She loves cheese, and it is a saving grace as a sprinkle of cheese on top of food she has refused to eat suddenly becomes edible.  Her fine motor skills have really improved.  She is able to pick foods apart and eat just what she likes.  A few months ago she loved veggies, and now it is a real effort to get her to eat them.  I did have success with tomato earlier last week.  I hid it in her sandwich, and she ate them with no problems.

A few weeks back I posted about "Reasons I Love my Husband".  It turned out that Eliana had a double ear infection.  I thought she was teething, but new teeth haven't come through.  I hope when the teeth do come in, they'll count that week of torture as a credit for any pain she'll go through.