Elise is 23 months old!  It’s hard to believe we’re rapidly approaching another birthday.  We’ve been pleasantly suprised with how well she is doing with manners, especially please, thank you (usually “thanks thank you”) and sorry or excuse me when she steps on the dogs or they’re in her way.  She is also very thoughtful, taking good care of her babies and changing their diapers, comforting bunny (”bunny sad, bunny crying”), and sharing her food especially with us. We are amazed at her imagination and memory.  We’re talking more about baby sister, and Elise says she is “sleeping” right now in mommy’s tummy.  She came up with that one all by herself.  It has been hot this month, so we’ve enjoyed time at the water park and at the pool.

Elise is 22 months old!  This last month was really busy with visits to both families. Elise enjoyed all the people, and now likes to look at pictures and remember who’s who.  She’s still very entertaining with her rapidly expanding vocabulary and puts up to 4 or 5 words together now.  She also loves to sing Jesus Loves Me and is getting quite good with the words.  Her favorite coping mechanism when she’s sad, hurt, or insecure is “read books.”

Elise is 21 months old!  This month we had the fun of VBS, and Elise got to spend a few days alone with Daddy while I went to a conference in Atlanta.  They had fun at the zoo, library, park, eating lunch out, and playing in the sprinkler, but she was worn out by the time I got home.  She still loves the park, reading, feeding her bunny and babies, seeing the horse statues around town, eating meals on the porch, and watermelon. 

Elise is 20 months old!  We spend our time at home playing, outside playing, at the playground, watering the plants, cooking in her kitchen, and starting to color with crayons.  Her vocabulary is still exploding, and she’s starting to put words together like “wash hands” and “phone ringing”.  You can just see her little brain ticking away and she processes new words and information.  She loves to look at the pictures in her Bible, especially the babies and snakes - where’d that come from?!  And her latest stalling technique at bedtime is “more pray”.  It’s hard to turn that down!  We are already surprised by what she remembers and her budding imagination.  She’s definitely a toddler and will let you know (loudly) when she’s not getting something she wants.  But she’s still a sweet girl!

We took our first family trip to the Memphis Zoo on Friday.  It was lots of fun!  Elise talks now about the “big animals” we saw at the zoo.