The Wedding

My sister, Maria, got married last weekend. It was a small, intimate and beautiful wedding. Her husband, Eliud, is from Kenya, so we had delicious Kenyan food (Elena loved it!), and we got a glimpse at some of the Kenyan wedding traditions. They gave our family gifts and presented them with a song and dance. Here we are wearing them!

We had a lot of fun getting to know Eliud's friends and family. His brother, Philiph, was the only family member who was able to come. As he put it during his toast, we are now like a zebra: half black, half white but one big family :)

Elena only took two teeny-tiny naps all day (one was unfortunately during many of the family pictures) and stayed up 2 hours past her bedtime, but she enjoyed herself immensely and didn't get cranky. Much to Elena's delight, over half of the guests at the reception held her.

Our cousins, Jake and Ben, took over 1,200 pictures. I'll put more up when we get them.

Bath Time

Big news in the Myhre household: Elena now goes to sleep on her own at night. People kept telling us we would have to let her cry it out or she would never be able to put herself to sleep, but I just couldn't do it. So the other night when she was tired and fussy, I tried just setting her in the pack-n-play, and she was asleep within about 3 minutes. No heart-wrenching screaming; just a few tired cries, a yawn, some tosses and turns, and she was asleep with her head in the corner and her butt in the air. Comfy.



The second night we tried it, she slept straight through until 5:30, which would have been great except there was quite a bit more milk waiting for her in the morning than usual. She drank and drank until she threw up all over our bed. Yummy. Mama's gonna have to cut back on the nighttime milk production :)


On a sadder note, I'm sure most of you have heard about the bus accident that took place near here. The bus was from my old shcool. I knew the families whose children were killed, but none of them very well. My heart goes out to all of those involved - I cannot even begin to imagine their loss. Oddly enough, I was praying the chaplet of divine mercy at the time of the accident. For those of you who dont' know, the chaplet is believed to bring immense graces, especially when recited at the hour of one's death. May God's grace be poured out abundantly on all those affected.

Elena's first Ash Wednesday (look closely and you can see the ashes)

And the winner is......

The best sound in the whole world: your baby's laugh.

The Eye of the Tiger

Our friend recently put her favorite Sesame Street clip up on her blog, which prompted me to see if my all time favorite TV scene (from the Cosby Show) was available online. It was - along with my 2nd favorite. TV just isn't quite what it used to be.
Here's my favorite.
And here's another.
Enjoy!

(Thanks for the idea, Joy!)

She did it!

Elena finally started to crawl a couple of days ago. Well - it's more like a slither, but she manages to get around. Seth says she looks like a salamander. Apparently he's seen some much cuter salamanders than I have. She mostly just crawls when she sees something small to put in her mouth; otherwise, she's still pretty content to roll around.

Kickball

Elena loves to kick. She kicks so much, it is difficult to keep socks on her for more than a few minutes. I learned yesterday, that if I don't put tight enough pants on her, she will also kick those off. Needless to say, I have great expectations for her future kicking career. Someday, she'll be a star in danceline or soccer....or kickboxing. At the very least, she has a chance at being better than her Mom in kickball. I know it may come as a shock to some of you who have seen my outstanding athletic ability, but I was the kid who was always picked last for the team in school (not just for kickball, but any sport involving a ball of some sort). The only thing I could consistently do well was dodge the ball. Yup, she's got the kicking thing down. Not the crawling, however....although she's making progress. She scoots herself around backwards; unfortunately, that's usually not the direction she wants to go.

She claps at the end....

Clap Happy

I'm happy to announce that Elena is finally starting to feel better and has been making great strides ever since. She can now clap and wave. She accomplished both within a span of about 30 seconds. She waved to Seth as I was bringing her up to bed, and when we said "Yay! you're waving!" she started to clap. Now she claps whenever we stop paying attention to her because she knows it will get a reaction.

She is very close to crawling; she often gets herself onto all fours, but from there she either gets bored and rolls over or does a graceful faceplant.

Last week Seth went on a business trip up to Warroad, MN, so I went to stay with a friend from high school. Mandy has a great dane and a cat, much to the delight of Elena. The giant dog (Onyx) was very curious about the tiny newcomer, and Elena just couldn't get enough of Onyx. I think she was fascinated by the fact that she could probably fit her entire body in Onyx's mouth. (For all of you worry warts reading this, we kept a very close watch on Elena and the dog any time they were in the same room). Of course, any time I tried to get a video of Elena laughing with the dog, they both suddenly seemed to lose interest, so you'll have to be content with a picture of the two.

Merry Christmas

Sometimes I can't believe how good-tempered our daughter is. Elena went to her first movie with us last week. We were leaving a reconciliation service, and one of the priests told us that the last showing of Bella was starting in Marshall in 20 minutes. I had been wanting to see that for months, and we didn't have time to get a baby sitter - so we just hopped in the car and went, hoping she would sleep through the movie. She sat through the first half of the movie, playing quietly, and then noiselessly drifted off to sleep for the second half. And that was right after 2 hours of patiently sitting with us in church, content to watch and smile at the people sitting around us. Of all the movies to bring our baby girl to, that was the by far the best. Given the content of the movie, it was twice as touching holding my daughter as I watched. The movie was inspired by a true story - it's very simple, but Seth and I were both very moved. I highly recommend it to anyone with a heart.

The next day, Elena had a fever. She got sick for the very first time just before Christmas. I had a few friends over for a mini baby shower on Christmas Eve, and the lucky guests got to spend their morning watching me suck the snot out of a screaming baby's nose. She had a very sore throat and lost her voice almost completely - it was pretty sad. I ended up bringing her into the doctor later that day. Although she was exhausted and weak that evening, she perked up for the gift opening and played with her new toys. Christmas day she was better - she had fun watching her cousins run all over the place (after sleeping in until 11:30). She is now feeling much better and her voice is coming back. Yay!


Christmas Kisses




Elena with Great-Grandma Marso



Christmas on Seth's side (I couldn't get the whole group - this is just a glimpse)