Here's a sweet clip of Eleri talking on the phone in her favorite secret spot. She's talking on the phone with her grandparents at about 6:45 am.

As this is essentially Eleri's baby book, we thought we'd record some of her accomplishments. We're considering her first word to be "cheese", since that was really her first use of language to communicate. A few weeks ago, she took Sam by the finger to the fridge, pointed and said "cheese", and was very pleased when she was given a piece of colby to eat. Prior to that she had said mamamama and dadadada to vaguely the right people and was proficient with the sign for "light" but didn't say the word. After the great cheese communication, however, the words are starting to take off. As of today she can say: mama, dada, hi, hot, light, cheese, juice, shoes, fish, james, tia/tio. she learned the sign for "ball" this week too. Tomorrow James comes back from the great white north, and Eleri will get to meet Yusuke and Sayaka. Then this weekend, off to the first yurt trip for two nights up in Chama, NM. Photos to come..... Here's some recent ones.

Eleri is here, though you can't see her in the pulk. Sam and Susan are racing at Enchanted Forest in Red River, altitude 10K ft. we had a great weekend of skiing and enjoying the heated pool at the eisenhut.

We're so proud of Eleri...she's a fabulously dedicated athlete.

Here's a tense moment, in which Eleri believes she will never get to play with her new toy that Mama can't unleash from the packaging. Eventually it was freed and ended up being great fun.

Baby's first apres ski, lovin the hot cocoa big time

On christmas eve, walking around with 2 new pajamas from Grandma Anne, and her favorite spoon in her mouth

Finally, Christmas morning! Checking out the stocking goodies with James' help

Fancy Christmas elfling looking for the cat to play with

In a new dress made by her auntie Susan, she models two purses

Testing out Samuel's new chin up bar. Eleri set the house record with 21 pullups! All in all a very fun Christmas.

Here's some photos from the summer from Lily:

Sorry about the lack of posts in November -- as you are about to see, it was a very fun-filled month. We started out with a great visit by Pete, Dina and Dan and another fantastic Chris Smither concert. In addition, lots of little house projects and christmas decorating. Then came Thanksgiving and a bustling houseful of guests including: Wally, Dennis and Joe from Chicago; Becky, Wes and Renee from Denver; and Rina, Rob, Lucydog and Tom who were also visiting John Corson here in ABQ. Then, a very relaxing and fun trip to South Carolina to see Eleri's Grandpa and Nana, Hans and Sandy and meet all the cousins. And, on top of all that, Lily has had her final day as Eleri's supernanny. She and Ricardo are moving to Iowa City, where Ricardo has a new job at the University of Iowa. We will all miss Lily terribly and are in the process of deciding what we want to do for childcare from now on. After the semester is finished, Susan will be nanny for a few weeks and we have some sitters lined up here and there.
Pictures in reverse chronological order...

Last night at the airport, arriving home in ABQ -- one tired but smiley baby.

Eleri trying to feed her cousin Vinson, who turns 2 on Christmas day. That is his mom Lauren, Sandy's youngest daughter.

Eleri and mommy playing at the zoo in Columbia, with Auntie Leslie looking on.

Grandpa, Nana and happy baby

Doing some laundry with a helper

Showing off the pretty necklace after a bath

Lily, Ricardo and Dan before the feeding frenzy of our sushi party. That's seafood salad in the bowl, also very tasty.

Eleri in her first plowing experience.

Playing around with the strong man (Andy) at halloween

CAPTIONS BY ELERI. MORE NARRATIVE LATER (translations in here)

Z x v XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

(I sure love to shop in Vegas for pretty things)

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
(those nada pina coladas sure are tasty)

XXXXXX (i love the pool at the flamingo)

8888 88888888888 8 (that crazy cosmo is in my backpack thingy)

BBBBBBBBBBBBB45K KJ J KJ (building giant lego structures is very serious business)

here's a taste (heehee) of the birthday party fun

Here's a few photos of the birthday party, posted by Megan on her birthday 2 days after Eleri's. We had the party on Saturday 10/6 along with a party for Cosmo and one for Samuel in the evening. Lily and Ricardo came to help celebrate along with us and Grandma Anne visiting from WI.

The birthday tiara and dress, in the beginning...

The birthday pie, lemon raspberry with whipped cream, yum! We gave her a quarter of a pie, thinking there was no way she would eat the whole thing. Boy were we wrong...

Sure feels good to smear pie on the belly

smirky
kickin' back -- note the amount of pie left on the tray...

All cleaned up and sporting some new digs. Those fancy shoes and pants came from Susan and Samuel and the top's from Grandma Anne

James teaching Eleri some chords

Here's Eleri and mommy smooching after dinner in Denver

Here's Eleri doing some shopping at Anthropologie in Denver

This picture is from the Cherry Creek in downtown Denver.

Eleri loves to walk up and down stairs and as you can see, she doesn't need to take baby steps either. She's people and she walks up stairs like people.

Here are photos from our labor day wknd trip to LA to visit our friends Tom and Vasilisa and their daughters Katya and Sasha. We had a wonderful time in spite of record heat and power outages.

Here is a classic series of dads and babies, one of whom is too impatient to stay on the couch

Mom and Eleri at the Griffith Observatory in the hills overlooking LA, at sunset

Here's Eleri and Sasha enjoying lunch together. Sasha's trying to get that last bit of banana from in between Eleri's fingers

2 babies at once, a real handful....

Daddy and Eleri being silly with chopsticks at the japanese restaurant for lunch.

In this short video you can see briefly Katya, who is 4, and Vasilisa walking in the background.

demonstrating the new big skill, very entertaining. Our baby girl is officially walking unasissted at 10.5 months, after striving for it for at least 3 months. From about 5-7 months she would stand at every opportunity, and from about 7 months til independence, would walk holding on to fingers and furniture. Suddenly, on the day we left for Wisconsin, she took off on her own, full of confidence.

Eleri enjoyed a generous portion of watermelon for dinner tonite. And I think she enjoyed it...