Easter 2017

I am happy to report that our Easter celebration this year was blissfully drama free! You may recall that we have an unfortunate track record for infamous Easters, to include 2013 when Iyla visited an emergency doctor, 2015 when she split open her chin, and 2016 when BC came down with a virus and missed the celebration entirely.

So this year we mixed things up and went to celebrate with my parents in Houston, and thankfully all went well!

We started things off on Easter morning here in Austin with baskets of goodies for the girls. Eloise definitely got the short end of the stick basket wise, as there really isn't much that kiddo needs (or would notice an absence of!) Iyla, however, scored big time from the Easter Bunny, and was over the moon to dive into her basket.

 "This is it?"

Then we packed up and drove to Houston. Both girls did great on the ride, all things considered. Eloise napped 45 minutes and was generally in good spirits, save for the last 30 minutes of the trip when I was throwing everything humanly possible at her to keep her entertained.

Once we arrived to Mimi and Grampy's the girls had a quick costume change and I subjected them both to a proper photo shoot. Because isn't that what holidays are really about? ; )

Then Eloise dove into some new toys:

Was feasted on by Papa:

And was even willing to share her loot with Grampy:

I then tried to get some photos of Mimi and Grampy with the girls. Iyla wanted NOTHING to do with it, as in her mind she had just complied with the earlier photo shoot and it was now time to PLAY! As far as Eloise went, she was mostly interested in checking out Mimi and Grampy and their various facial features:

 A mouth!

 A nose!

A few more shots courtesy of Grampy:

Happy Easter everyone!

First Tooth for Eloise!

I am totally astonished.

Yesterday (April 9th) when I was getting Eloise dressed for her day, I noticed that she had a brand new little tooth poking through her bottom right gum! I must say I did NOT expect to see any teeth this early, given Iyla's first tooth (an upper one!) came in at FIFTEEN months old.

But lo and behold, there it 'tis. Eloise Jane has gotten her very first tooth at 8.5 months old, and I'm sure there are many more to quickly follow.

Thankfully she seemed to weather the eruption with the same panache as Iyla always did, as there wasn't any excessive discomfort or pain I could see associated with the tooth breaking through. Now Eloise HAS been biting down and chewing on things a lot, but she's been doing that since around 4 months old. The ONLY strange thing that might be correlated is that on the morning prior to said tooth making its appearance Eloise awoke uncharacteristically early at 5:30am. I waited until 6 to see if she'd go back to sleep, and when it was clear she wasn't I went in to nurse. I then tried to lay her back down to sleep again, which she also wasn't having. And this is a babe who usually sleeps until 6:45-7am, so that was definitely out of the norm.

It's just another indication as to how DIFFERENT our two girls are, and how set little sister is on catching up to her big sister in every way. Given how much Eloise LOVES food, it's no wonder she is hard wired to get in her teeth sooner. Totally Papa's genes at play there.

So exciting!

Sweet Eloise Jane, catching up to big sister one tooth at a time (tooth not pictured)

First Haircut!

On Thursday (March 30th) we took the plunge and got Iyla her first ever real haircut! We'd been building up to this for a couple of months now, talking about how a cut would help her hair be less tangled.

Here are a few shots of her long, long (gorgeous and curly!) hair:

And a cute evolution of photos demonstrating one of our biggest issues lately: Eloise pulling that LONG long hair:

So when I asked Iyla this week for the millionth time if she was ready to get her hair cut, she looked me straight in the eyes and replied:

"Mama, I've TOLD you I'm ready."

Touche. I think we know which one of us wasn't quite ready....

And so it was that I picked her up from school and let her know that TODAY WAS THE DAY! Thankfully she was super excited, posing for her 'before' photos next to my car:

It was all smiles when we arrived at the salon!

Iyla had been telling me she wanted her hair cut like her friend Sabine's, who has a very short chin length bob. She then edited her request to a shoulder length cut when I let her know we may not be able to swing doing all of her regular hairdos with a bob.

Here, the initial consult:

And yes, yes I did make the stylist dry cut a pony tail that we could keep. I love the look of anticipation on Iyla's face here!

Exclaiming: "That didn't even hurt!" Haha. She's been so sheltered. ; )

Delight at seeing her freshly shorn ponytail:

Then it was time to get her hair washed, which she later reported was her favorite part. She was chatting up the stylist, telling her all about how her Mama only washed her hair in the tub at home!

Then on to the cut....

The one thing Iyla was VERY nervous about was having her hair blow dried. She hates loud noises like that, so we opted to just skip that step and let her new locks air dry.

Here she is posing for her after shots!

This morning she declared she now had "Maggie hair" (her cousin who visited us over Thanksgiving). So cute!

We all love the new cut, and it will be SO much easier to maintain! So proud of our little girl.