Christmas 2008

Elisha has been mimicking people's laughs. It's hilarious!
When giving hugs, she now sometimes adds pats.
She can very consistently climb up and down the stairs now.
Pretending to talk on the phone is another new skill. Especially now that she has her new purse from Stacy. It's so cute to see her acting like me.
She loves her baby doll from Nana for her birthday. She even makes crying noises and then goes over to check on the baby doll.
There are more and more people who she recognizes and calls by name: Mema, Saji, Charlotte (her cousin), Aunt Andrea, Eric, Jason, Heather. She likes to echo me when I say, "Micah, wake up." She even has the same inflection.

Gingerbread and Purse

Last night before house church, Mema made gingerbread people with Micah and Elisha. She watched very carefully and seriously, taking it all in. And Stacy brought Elisha a present: "my first purse". It came with play lipstick, keys, change purse, cell phone and comb. Elisha knew what to do with the phone and the comb right away. Every time she picks up her purse and carries it somewhere, she just beams. Precious!

Elisha's 1st Birthday (part 1)

On Saturday, December 13th, the Mooneys gathered to celebrate Elisha 's and Britt's birthdays at our house. Here are a few pictures. It was so much fun to have all the Mooneys hanging out at our place and Elisha had a wonderful time! I asked her later if she had fun and she energetically shook her head yes. Like good American parents, we let her dig into her cake and she really liked the icing, but only for a few mouthfuls. Then she was "all done".

Children's Museum

We went to the Children's Museum with our good friends. Elisha played really hard - climbing, sliding, taking down pieces of the stone wall and putting them back up again, smiling, squealing, playing with balls, following Micah around and generally having the time of her life.

Elisha walked up and down these stairs by herself about 15 times in a row. She could put her hands on both walls to steady herself and the steps were only about 6 inches high. She fell quite a few times, but she was determined to do it until she got it right.



She makes this wide open smile face only when she's really excited and it usually coincides with her being proud of herself.
After we wore ourselves out at the museum, we walked through Olympic Park, enjoying the unseasonably warm weather and Christmas lights, to the CNN center, where we ate dinner at Taco Mac. Elisha took a cat nap in the stroller and then happily ate and ate and ate at the restaurant. I had to finally just tell her that it was time to go. She was still eating after everyone was finished and ready to go. She fell asleep in her stroller on the way back to the car and didn't wake up until the next morning. What an adventure!

Micah and Elisha

Micah and Elisha are really sweet to one another almost all the time. It's been the prayer of my heart that they would be very close. They snuggle and kiss and miss one another when they're apart. They keep each other awake at night talking and often wake each other up in the morning. They like to sit together to watch TV, even squeezing together in the laundry basket. I was hoping to get a good picture that I could use as a Christmas picture, but was not very successful - at least not at getting the kind of picture I had hoped . . . but they had fun . . . mostly.

Discovering Elmo

At the beginning of December, we plugged in our cable (all 14 channels) for the first time since we moved into this house (September 2007). So, we've watched Sesame Street a few times this month in the mornings. Elisha has discovered Elmo. She does a lot of pointing and squealing, while watching. I'm still not so sure how I feel about having regular TV programming in our house again, except that I enjoy watching Sesame Street with the kids.