Mark & Mandy

We have a new member of the family … Last monday was my first day back to work but it was also our first day with Bernie, Elsie’s nanny.

Elsie loves Bernie’s songs and silly voices and overall the transition has been pretty easy … except for taking the bottle. We started giving Elsie the bottle at 3 weeks without any issues. On the week before I returned to work, Elsie decided the bottle was no good. We have had limited success and will continue to try and ease her into it. Little Firecracker!

Bernie also has a new four legged friend …

Smiles, originally uploaded by markandmandy.

Dad snapped this shot with my new iPhone – Elsie clearly approves!

Smiley sitter, originally uploaded by markandmandy.

Grammie bought Elsie this outfit and it doesn’t have any pink on it (well it has some purplish flower centers).

Cricket has been extremely smitten with Elsie – she wants to sit on Elsie (hopefully not to steal her breath), lay with her or she even allows elsie to grab her hair. We have to keep a close eye on her.

Here she is snuggling up to the sleeping bean

Here she is communicating with Elsie in cat – Elsie is responding by showing Cricket how she can get both hands in her mouth

and of course, here she is trying out the swing

She is much happier with Elsie than she was when we brought home Lola!

Martha did a segment on tie dying with kids so I thought Elsie and I would take a stab at it on my last week of maternity leave (sad, sad, sad) … We purchased some white onesies and some rit fabric dye and went for it.

We just did the hot water basin style using Scarlet, Fuschia, Pink and Goldenrod.

We used rubberbands and marbles to create the little circles and rubber bands and folder for the others. I made two tanks for myself …

Here is our little hippie decked out in her new threads!

I hate going to the store … so I put it off as long as possible. With only one diaper left (after raiding my diaper bag stash) I desperately need to get to the store. I came out to my car to find this…

I might be makeing a makeshift diaper with paper towels, garbage sacks and pipe cleaners.

On Friday the Johnston/Olbrys crew arrived after three days of road tripping. They arrived in great spirits ready to meet miss Elsie Lane

Elsie is wearing her Trumpettes – from Chris and Saira – they are too cute!

We had some yummy cucumber mojitos at Josh and Amy’s and finished with Dinner at our house. Chris and Saira were here and we celebrated Roan’s first birthday (two days early) with a caterpillar cake (specially made for the birthday boy by grammie)…

On Saturday we went to High Tea at the Dunshabe tea house while we had little sandwiches and scones had some sweet potatoes – yummers! (for those of you who wonder if nicholas is really as happy as his blog shows – mr. smiley pants is even happier!)

We then went for a walk on pearl street – Martha did a bit of shopping and Niko played in the water.

the sneaky water spouts gave niko a direct hit …

Saturday night the grandparents took the kids to dinner and the kids (Josh, Amy, Scott, Jul and the Sladdens) went to Yancey’s 40th birthday party.

Mart and Jul gave Elsie and Niko matching outfits so we had a little photo shoot …

and elsie wearing her matching hat …

We already miss everyone!

Mark has been taking Lola to agility class and while Grammie was here we took her up to show off Lola’s progress. Uncle Josh came along as well. Mark leads lola through the different obsticles …

“tire”

“Jump”

“Tunnel”

“Chute”

“Jump”

“Tunnel”

Its hard work for both Lola and Mark (Mark is a great leader) … after Lola ran the course she decided to take a little cool off in the giant water bowl. Who knows we may put Lola in the purina dog chow agility contest!! She’s up and coming!

This year we celebrated a first fourth of july for both Elsie and Mark – we started out the day with a bang (and some spit up on our new outfit from Grammie).

Our neighbors put on a big to do in our local circle – putting up tents, getting a keg of beer and purchasing lots of contraband fireworks for a HUGE display.

Chris and Saira were in town for the festivities and Elsie got to meet Roan. Roan loves balls so he was pretty stoked to find a stars and stripes beach ball to kick around.

We introduced the Mora-sastry’s to Corn Hole!

Our neighborhood had a parade … we decorated our “non-motorized vehicles” and strutted our stuff

Here’s grammie showing Elsie how to wave a flag – they match perfectly.

We have Jenna the prize for the best decorations – especially with her red, white and blue top hat!

Roan is giving Elsie some advice on life …

After so much activity our little fire cracker decided to call it a night! Happy fourth of July!

On Saturday we picked up Grammie and headed to the lake by Jessica and Yancey’s (for you Montana folks, this lake is like lake elmo only clean). We brought a few beverages and enjoyed hanging out on the beach.

Grammie was happy to hold Elsie and have a

Emma in her pink suit

Sophie checks out the water …

Next is the beans turn … its too cold for miniature toes!

Elsie prefers being carried in the water

Grammie and Dad with the bean