Josh, Ashlee and Elsie: January 2011

One year ago today Josh and I made a drive to Salt Lake to have our first face-to-face meeting with our first birth mother - little did we know, this sweet young girl (Amanda) would be the answer to our prayers and the person to bless our lives forever!! Exactly one month later our sweet baby girl was born! WOW! We truly are SOOOO happy!!! I can't say enough how thankful we are for Amanda and her selfless decision. I can't believe Elsie is already 11 months old! I love everything about this sweet baby girl! I never can decide the best way to describe all the things I love about Elsie, nor can I ever find the words to describe how cute and fun she is. I will do my best in a bulleted list. These are in no particular order.

Elsie now has 4 teeth and is currently getting 2 more teeth on the top. She slobbers more right now than she ever has, not to mention that darn runny nose!
She is doing pretty good at sleeping through the night, except when she can't breathe, or her teeth coming in bother her.
Elsie loves Josh and I, she gets so excited to see us, even if we leave the room for a minute and come back and see her again, she grins and gets so excited :)
Elsie LOVES music! Any time she hears music of any kind (on the tv, at church, in the car, in the store...you name it) she starts bouncing up and down and shakes her arms up and down (it is my favorite when she does it to the piano music at church :) ) Elsie loves the baby einstein videos with the music. She also just watched Fantasia at Loralee's house and LOVED it. It is on my list to get her that.
Elsie still loves people. Any time we are out-and-about, Elsie looks at everyone we pass and smiles at them and waits for them to smile back at her :) I love seeing her face light up as she sees people and I love seeing their faces light up as she smiles at them, especially older people. I love that Elsie is so friendly :)Elsie loves older people. I swear she recognizes any old person as a grandma and/or grandpa and grins at them until they look at her.
Elsie LOVES kids! Any time she hears a child's voice, she looks around until she can see them, usually she wants them to hold her and play with her! Usually if Elsie is taking a nap and we are on the go, she will sleep through anything - except for a child's voice! She will be sound asleep and the room will be extremely noisy, but the minute she hears a kid voice she is immediately wide awake!!
Elsie is crawling all over the place now! She doesn't have the average crawl (if there is an average) :) I call Elsie my little pirate :) She crawls with one leg straight and the other one bent. She drags her bent leg under her straight let, it is pretty cute :)
Elsie loves to be chased, scared, "growled" at, all the fun stuff :) She loves it when we hide around corners and scare her, sometimes she will even do it to us, in her own way, it is so cute!
Elsie lately has been doing the "fake cough" It is cute, she will cough, then look at us with a grin on her face :)
Elsie still screams while I get her dressed. Even if the tv is on. Most of the time the tv is a good distracter, but she still hates it. I know she hates being cold and I always put lotion on her, but she screams even more when I put her arms through the arm holes. I am curious to know what she hates so much about getting dressed. Once she is dressed she is fine :)
Elsie is so busy! She rarely ever sits still. It is a rare occasion when she will just sit and cuddle with me. The only time I really get to cuddle with her is when she is eating and she loves to cuddle up to me when I am getting her bath water ready.
Elsie loves it when people are around. If there is someone other than Josh and I at our house, or anywhere, and we do something she likes, she will look at them first. I swear she is making sure they see and that they think it is cool too :) It is super cute!
Elsie still loves her carseat! I am in trouble when we have to transition to another carseat, which should be now! I sat Elsie on a scale last week and she weighed 21 lbs. Her current carseat goes up to 22 lbs. :( Can I keep her in there forever? I am going to have to transition from getting my errands done while she sleeps, to getting them done while she is awake. I don't care if she is awake while I run my errands, she just usually sleeps because she loves her carseat. I am well aware that it is illegal to leave a sleeping child in an unattended car, so I will stay home for every nap once she has a new carseat :)
I am already beginning to forget when Elsie did things, so I don't want to forget to put anything down, but I can't think of anything else to write right now. Just know that Elsie is the light of our lives! We love getting to spend so much time with her! I can't wait to take her to the lake and to go swimming this summer! I don't love the cold weather! I bought Elsie 2 swimming suits (ok, so I bought one and my mom bought the other for Elsie for her birthday) this weekend and I can't wait to use them! I love Elsie so much and am so grateful for the way she has changed and blessed our lives! Thank you Amanda!!!

Elsie loves to play with toys.

It seems she actually makes the pieces move and talk :)

This is a doll house at my mom's house.

Outfit of the day :)

Playing with her kitchen :)

Yes she is wearing Halloween pajamas :)

Outfit of the day :)

Her face doesn't really show it here, but she really is WILD about her Daddy!

Elsie and all her toys :)

Timeout for a nap...I LOVE this sweet face!

I just want to kiss her sweet lips and cheeks :)

This is all her toys NOT cleaned up :)

Cutest BYU fan I know :)

Pretty, Pretty Princess all ready for church!

Elsie loves feeding herself now :)

She gets mad when we have to feed her.

Elsie isn't a very picky eater :)

Josh started working full time

Best looking firefighter I know!

Outfit of the day :)

Elsie is so busy, it is hard getting a good picture these days :)

Elsie loves emptying my cupboard...

...the ENTIRE cupboard :)

We decided to go check out the Dixie State College basketball team

Elsie had much more fun playing with Danielle and Macy than she did watching the game :)

Love her innocent face in this picture!

This is Elsie's "smile" she opens her mouth wide, it is super cute!

Macy enjoying herself some popcorn :)

Elsie's super curly hair right after her bath :)

I still only style it with lotion, Elsie ALWAYS smells fantastic!

I will miss these days someday

Elsie hates it when I do her hair and this is all I do to it.

I have a feeling I will have the child with messy hair when she gets older :)

Josh's first day on the job!

This isn't a very good picture of either of them, but I still love these 2!!!

Outfit of the day :)

I did manage to do a cute style while Elsie was in the tub...

...you can see how much she liked it :)

Josh hated it!
Elsie LOVES bath time!!

Love her face!

Outfit of the day :)

This was right after her nap, so her cheeks are rosy red and Oh, so kissable!

Elsie loves kiwi!

I love watching her concentrate to pick up each piece with her

thumb and pointer finger, so delicate :)

So innocent :)

LOVE HER!!!!!

Elsie still loves watching tv. :)

This sweet face has changed our lives for the better! Josh and I are the happiest, luckiest parents in the whole world!! We couldn't be more blessed!

There is always something exciting going on in NewCastle :) We went to Ryan and Melanie's so Elsie could play with the kids. Jake doesn't love Elsie yet - give him time :) I got some pretty good pictures representing his current love for Elsie :)
We hung out for awhile then decided to bundle up and brave the cold and go for a ride. It wasn't as cold as it looked. It was bearable :) Elsie does NOT love being bundled up. I don't blame her. The Christiansen family was meant to be on the lake enjoying the sunshine, not in the snow! Regardless of my dislike for the cold weather, we did have a good time :) Thanks Ryan and Mel for the good time! :)

Check out Jake's scowl :)